Is the Bible Archaic - Written For Another Time?

 

Amongst the Christian community there is so much disagreement over issues of doctrine. There is controversy over what the bible is saying about issues relating to topics like salvation, when the Church Age will end, baptism and virtually any subject covered by the bible that can be debated.

So I guess my question here is “Is the bible consistent on what it says or is there a confusing lack of clarity that leads to many misconceptions?” I think we can agree that the bible is wonderful book full of spiritual revelation from no less than the Almighty God Himself. However at the same time it isn’t set out like the workshop manual for a washing machine.

Don’t misunderstand me here. Salvation is an orderly process based around hearing the gospel and understanding it. Believing that Christ Jesus bore our sins on the Cross and asking Him to forgive our sins and come into our hearts. Which by our faith and through God’s grace the Holy Spirit will then enact salvation, justification and sanctification in our hearts and minds.

However, getting saved is not the same as selecting the temperature, spin rpm and duration of the cycle on a washing machine. Turn this knob, twist that one and push the button to start the wash. No, the bible takes some reading and understanding and sharing the gospel with someone is a deeply personal interactive experience by which the message of salvation is outlined and a personal connection to Jesus Christ is enacted. Really the gospel can only be truly revealed by the Spirit of God and as Jesus said to Nicodemus in John chapter three. To enter the Kingdom of Heaven and man must be born again of the Spirit and of Water.

So what does that mean? Well the apostle Paul put it like this. Romans 6:1-4 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

So, what I’m saying here is that the bible is written in a narrative style and has to be read to carefully and deeply to understand it. The reader needs the guidance of the Holy Spirit to comprehend the spiritual nature of the information that they are seeking to understand. It is a given that the reader will need input from other Christians and at times need to acquire other texts to enable greater understanding of the doctrines and theology of the issues outlined in the bible. It is not something the natural man or the unbeliever can easily understand if they can understand it at all.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural [unbelieving] man does not accept the things [the teachings and revelations] of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness [absurd and illogical] to him; and he is incapable of understanding them, because they are spiritually discerned and appreciated, [and he is unqualified to judge spiritual matters]. AMP

There is certainly something to the idea that the topical approach to understanding the bible is beyond the unbeliever and to some extent even the Christian who has not attained the correct level of spiritual maturity and understanding. It is the type of tome that continues to reveal new learning even to the theologian who has put in a lifetime of study, work and research into every facet of biblical theology.

One way of looking at it is that the bible gives a historical perspective of creation, the fall of man into sin and then the dispensations of God’s Grace through His anointed people. For instance, the dispensations given to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, then the New Covenant through Christ Jesus in His redemptive work on the cross and finally when He returns to establish His kingdom at the end of this age.

The bible is written by men and inspired by the Holy Spirit. Much of the bible is written as narrative describing the people who love God. It tells about their lives and their interactions with God and others and explains the plight of fallen mankind. The major theme is about God’s Grace and how He has continued to reveal salvation to mankind through the nation of Israel and then the Christian Church.

The bible generally includes the truth of matters. For instance the story of Samson as a judge. It presents him as warts and all as a loose cannon but even so God used him to set Israel free from the Philistines. The story of Jonah tells the story of a rebellious petulant priest who disobeyed a specific command from God to take the gospel to the people of the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was an enemy of Israel and Jonah literally hated them. When God asked him to take the gospel of repentance to them Jonah ran away from God and God pursued him on a ship, with a whale, and delivered him to Nineveh where he preached repentance and then retired to the desert to sulk. But the bible doesn’t make it all smooth and lovely. It tells it how it is.

Non Christian folk often find the seemingly adhoc nature of the bible disconcerting. Some decry it as being like a shopping list. Really it is an historical document and an almanac of God’s truth. It can only be interpreted as the light of God’s revelation through the Holy Spirit. But it contains a lot of information and some of the events that happen in the bible might well cause the reader to question the nature of God.

I often think that it would be so much nicer if the bible outlined the things of God in an orderly manner. Like and appendix to a non fictional work for instance. However this is not how God has caused the bible to be ordered. The Old Testament contains reams of information about the lives, and interactions, of the people of God, the law and instructions from God and prophecies of the future and the coming of Messiah.

The New Testament begins with the gospels and is about the arrival of the Messiah (Jesus Christ), and then His life up until he began His ministry. Finally three years of ministry followed by His death, burial and resurrection. Then the events of His ascension into Heaven including the Great Commission of Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 & 20. After the gospels the book of the Acts of the Apostles is about the life of the Apostle Paul and the other disciples of Jesus. It describes the progress of the gospel through out the Roman empire in the first century after Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Then come the books of Paul, Hebrews, John, Peter and James and the Revelation of John. Which equates to the story of the early Church and the revelation of prophecy for the end of the Church Age culminating in the judgement and then the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

The Bible has been handily edited into books, chapters and verses in an appropriate historical order but it is by no means perfectly consistent and without perceived contradiction. For instance the four gospels each tell a different perspective of the life of Jesus and the events that happened during His ministry, crucifixion and resurrection. The same is true of theological and doctrinal issues for instance about the Coming of Messiah, the coming events of the End Times or, Predestination. In these topics and many others there has always been wide spread argument about what the Bible says and how it should be interpreted.

So can we write the bible off as being and ancient tome merely written by men and simply a work of fantasy? As the apostle Paul said “May it never be!” For a start the bible gives us so much information about the history of mankind. It tells is of the creation, the fall of man and the rescue mission the God has enacted to bring man back into a harmonious relationship with Himself through His Son Jesus Christ.

Every book in the bible is a stand alone work which brings to the table a unique story of the relationship between God and man. Yet every book brings together a continuous revelation of the love of God for mankind and the evolving work of Salvation through Grace. The bible may not be a handbook for humanity per-se but all sixty six books taken together and under the continual revelation of the Holy Spirit. It comes very close.

Of course the number of denominations we have in Christianity today is in part a testament to the diversity of ideas that can be derived from the bible about salvation, the position of the law in modern Christianity and any number of other theologies. You could blame the bible but to be honest where there are men there will be disagreements.

It could be that having faith in God is part and parcel with some degree of uncertainty about the nature of God, who Grace in Christ Jesus is for and how it works. Isaiah 6:10 “Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Perhaps the bible is not meant to be understood with out searching the scriptures in prayer and supplication to understand what it means because God wants a people who will follow Him steadfastly. Who will yearn to know Him and labour to dwell in His presence and in that vein He has made the scriptures deliberately more than a little difficult for the lay person to understand.

Is it just possible that it’s mankind that is the weak link as far as the interpreting the word of God is concerned. We know that all the books of the bible except the two books that were written by the blessed physician Luke are from the minds and hands of Israelites. God’s favoured people of the Old Testament and approved to bring the gospel to the nations after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Personally I think the scribes did a wonderful job of ordering and preserving the word of God down though the centuries and those responsible for editing and selecting the texts for the New Testament did an awesome job as well. The design and order of the Bible and the thoughtful addition of chapters and verses to assist the reader in recent centuries has been a boon for the faithful Berean.

Quite probably those who rail against the Bible and decry it as being an antiquated ancient book from simpler times when men did not understand modern science. Simply can’t truly comprehend the spiritual nature of the text they are trying to decipher.

So in conclusion shall we just say that the Bible is more than just a book. It is a highly technical spiritual masterpiece. It’s unplumbed depths are only revealed to those who have faith in Jehovah Elohim. It is the greatest seller of all time and that in itself shows the depth of man’s need to find out something more about God and the nature of salvation and eternal life. The bible is also the word of God and the sword of the Holy Spirit. In actual fact a world without its truth would be incomprehensible.