The Bible is an extraordinary book, and it is an ordinary book. It is not, of course, the only book to cross history’s stage to come with a claim to being the very Word of God. In some instances it is the extraordinary nature of the Bible that sets it apart from other claimants, in other instances it is its ordinariness.
Consider first two rather distinct books that claim to be the Word of God- the Koran, the holy book of Islam and the Book of Mormon, the holy book of the Latter-Day Saints. In both instances these faiths seek to affirm some level of respect for either the Old Testament (Islam) or both the Old and New Testaments (Latter Day Saints). In both instances the accounts of these books tell us that God sent a messenger to one man, that no one else was able to see. Mohammed and Joseph Smith wrote, or translated their messages essentially on their own, before revealing them to the known world. Both books recorded events outside the stream of history and distant from the time of the events covered. Both books contain no predictions future to the book’s writing and past to us who are its readers.
The Bible, on the other hand, was written by dozens of different authors over the space of thousands of years, living and ministering in different countries, speaking different languages. The Bible was given to men who lived among those to whom they spoke. Better still, the Bible was written by men who not only performed miracles to attest to their truthfulness, but performed miracles which could be tested by those who first received God’s Word. Remember that even Nicodemus rightly understood this, “This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:2).
Jesus Himself not only does not correct Nicodemus, but in another circumstance makes essentially the same argument. In Mark 2, in Capernaum, a paralytic is lowered through the roof in order to get to Jesus. Seeing such faith Jesus said, “Son, your sins are forgiven you” (v.5). Because we know they are the bad guys we are put out by the skepticism of the scribes. These reasoned in their hearts that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy. Only God, after all, has the authority to forgive sins. They, however, reasoned rightly. Jesus next, however, demonstrates why He has the authority to forgive sins, but doing that which only God, or a messenger sent by God, could do- But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house” (8-11). Jesus demonstrates His authority, He authenticates His message, by healing this man of his paralysis.
In addition, the Bible includes in it multiple prophecies that were fulfilled after they were given, but before today. That the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem was promised five hundred years before it happened (Micah 5:1-2). The rise and fall of the Medo-Persian empire, the coming of the Greek empire, and the coming of the Roman empire were all foretold by the prophet Daniel during the height of the Babylonian empire. Some scholars have argued that the Bible contains over three hundred prophecies that have already been fulfilled.
The Bible contains miraculous predictions of future events which have since come to pass. The Bible contains miracles, verifiable miracles in their day, that authenticate the authority of the writers of the Bible to reveal the truth of God. One miracle, however, stands above all the rest. As He predicted, three days after His brutal death by crucifixion, Jesus Christ walked out of His tomb alive. The Bible isn’t a book telling the story of how men might go and find God, but is the true story of how God came to be reconciled with men, through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of His Son.
These miracles, just like the books of the Bible which recount them, are not the work of men, but rather the Holy Spirit. The Bible alone is that book by which God the Holy Spirit determined to reveal the fullness of the godhead working in and through mere men. Not merely “a good book” but the Word of God.
Tonight we continue our look at the monumental, towering book of Romans. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.
No, of course not. Your money, my money, everyone’s money is nothing but a paper house of cards that will one day, by the lightest of zephyrs, come crashing down. How far that day is is anyone’s guess. Our money is backed by nothing. The recent hubbub over failing banks, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve has not and cannot change the fundamental nature of reality, nor the human heart.
When the Psalmist warns us not to put our trust in princes (Psalm 146) we mustn’t think ourselves immune from the problem because we have no princes. We may not have princes but we have the same propensity. When a pandemic comes, when the ground beneath the real estate market begins to tremble, when swords in eastern Europe rattle and gas prices spike, when bank stocks crater, we look to Washington to do something. We not only turn to the people who have no power to cure the problem, but to the very people that created the problem. We are fools, the blind being led by the blind who blinded us.
The last mass bank run happened early in the Great Depression. The federal government declared a bank holiday, closing the banks for a week. Supposedly this would allow cooler heads to return. The truth is that during that time the feds inventoried all privately held stores of gold. Then, they seized it all. Those who think exchanging Federal Reserve notes for gold will protect them from federal tomfoolery ought to remember that.
Banks are teetering because of mass government inflation brought on by government programs designed to alleviate the financial pain brought on by government mandated lockdowns brought on by a pandemic brought by government financed research. They are the ones in the black hats.
The One in the white hat taught us two vital things that are most needful in uncertain economic times. First, we are to ask our Father in heaven for our daily bread. We are to ask this daily, to acknowledge Him as the Lord of the Feast. He hasn’t promised us, on this side of the veil, great earthly riches. He has instead promised to be with us, commanding us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear. When we forget to ask we forget to give thanks, and forget Whom we are called to thank. When we think our tables are full because of our hard work, or the generous provision of the state, we show that we worship the creature rather than the Creator.
Second, He calls us to store up treasures in heaven, where they are immune from rust, moth, thieves or legal plunder. No, our money isn’t safe. But we are. Not because we are citizens of this nation, but because we are the children of the king above all kings. The One who has provided for us all our days will continue to do so all our days, until He calls us to feast with Him, face to face, to walk streets of gold. Our treasure is safe, because we are His treasure.
The Protestant Reformation is called the Reformation for a good reason. It is not called the First Reformation or Reformation II, as if they happen every so often. I have never been asked, when referencing the Reformation, “Of which Reformation do you speak?” Renewals? Of course. Revivals? Who could doubt it? There has been only one Reformation, precisely because they are rather hard to come by. Those of us who long for another, then, might be wise to search out that spark that started the Reformation. Where did it all begin? Was it with Martin Luther’s stirring speech at the Diet of Worms, his firm resolve to stand on the Word of God? Perhaps. Did it start earlier, in Luther’s study, as he exegeted key texts on justification? Maybe. Did it start with his fiery speech before he dropped the papal bull announcing his excommunication into the flames? One could so argue.
Most of us, however, celebrate Reformation Day on October 31, not the anniversary of any of the above but the day Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the door in Wittenberg. That hammer striking the nail ignited the spark that started it all. If we want a new reformation, and such we ought, we should look no further than the very first of those theses, which reads, “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said ‘Repent,’ He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” If we would find reformation again, we must repent of our failure to live lives of repentance. We will change the world out there when we change the church in here. We will change the church in here when our own hearts are changed. That happens only as we repent and believe the gospel.
One of the great blessings of the Reformation was the destruction of that perspective that cleaves the world in two. Rome divided the world into a spiritual and a natural realm — one good, the other at best neutral. The Reformation carried with it the notion of the priesthood of all believers and the principle that all our lives are lived coram Deo, before the face of God. The Bible became for our fathers the sourcebook for wisdom not just on how one’s soul is saved but on how to justly govern a culture, how to understand work, how to raise up godly seed. That creation-affirming spirit drove both the Pilgrims and the Puritans across the ocean to fulfill their errand in the wilderness. In more recent times, heroes of the faith such as Abraham Kuyper and Francis Schaeffer have carried the banner of reformation into broader and broader spheres. For all this blessing we must give thanks. We ought also, however, to be on our guard. In reaction against the dangers of pietism — the view that suggests that all we ought to be concerned about is our own souls and not the world around us — too many of us have dishonored the blessings of piety. Worse still, we have missed the hard truth that it is piety that drives the engine of reformation.
That piety that drives reformation, however, is Reformation piety. That is to say, we will get nowhere if we seek to change the world by our own spiritual bootstraps. Reformation piety is not a mere commitment not to dance, drink, or chew, and not to date girls that do. No reformation will ever be built on the foundation of our own spiritual ardor. Reformation piety is a piety that breathes the very air of repentance. It sets aside the camel-swallowing, gnat-strangling propensity we all have of looking at our own sins through a microscope and looking at the sins of others through a magnifying glass. We instead ought to be, as Luther was before us, haunted by our own sin long enough to cry out for the grace of God. And then we believe.
It was, in the end, faith that brought us the Reformation, and only faith will bring us another. We did not change until we learned that we cannot change ourselves. We did not enter into purity until we understood, by His grace, that only His purity would do. That Reformation faith, however, did not end with our own salvation. Neither did it leap from our own salvation to remaking the world. Instead, it moved from saving faith to sanctifying faith, from repenting to believing. Then, all heaven began to break loose.
Jesus said much the same thing. He told us to stop our fretting and worrying about this thing and that. He reminded us that this is how the unbelievers behave. We are called to faith. We are called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Repenting and believing is the very pathway into the kingdom, the very coin of the realm. It is, in turn, how we come to possess that righteousness that is His rather than our own. When we do this, and stop our incessant worrying and plotting about everything else, it turns out that everything else takes care of itself. All these things are added unto us.
The life of repentance and faith — this must needs be our only “strategy.” Repent and believe, and reformation will follow. Jesus said so. Luther said so. Here we stand. We can do no other. So help us God.
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Though they don’t feel like such when we are in the midst of them, light and momentary, Paul tells us, are our afflictions, not worthy to be compared to the eternal weight of glory (II Corinthians 4:17). CS Lewis captured this glorious wisdom as he concluded The Last Battle, the final installment of the his Narnia Chronicles-
“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
When Jesus returns He will not toss this world into the ash heap. Instead when He returns not only we, but the whole of the world will be complete. What we are to remember is that we are going back to the garden, only better. The end of the story is the fullness of the victory of Christ. The Second Adam succeeds, and we with Him. We will be raised and perfected. The whole of the world will no longer be groaning. We will become what we should have been. This is certain. Be of good cheer. He has already overcome the world. We are living in the denouement.
As we remember these truths we see today and eternity intertwined. There is no great chasm that separates one from the other, no disconnect between this day the Lord has made, and the boundless future of paradise. Time and eternity are of a piece, even as sanctification and glorification are of a piece. Which means that as we fulfill our calling to remember eternity, we fulfill our calling to redeem the time. We move through our days knowing that as we faithfully seek His glory, our labors will not be among the wood, hay and stubble that will be burned off, but will be the very jewels on the walls of the New Jerusalem. We come to discover that right now really does count forever. And ennui slouches its way to hellfire. We live with purpose, with passion, with joy. The King is coming.
When we realize that time and eternity are one, we no longer try to keep a foot in both worlds. It is wearying business indeed to live both for the here and the now as well as the there and the then. Because such is always serving two masters. We are to remember that here is there and now is then. Because here is there, every bit of work matters, and every blessing is a taste of heaven. Because now is then, He is with us even as we await His return. We work, knowing He has already overcome the world. We rest, knowing He has already overcome the world.
