The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture — J.C. Ryle

J.C. Ryle,

We must take heed to our doctrine about the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures. Let us boldly maintain, in the face of all gainsayers, that the whole of the Bible is given by inspiration of the Holy Ghost,—that all is inspired completely, not one part more than another,—and that there is an entire gulf between the Word of God and any other book in the world.—We need not be afraid of difficulties in the way of the doctrine of plenary inspiration. There may be many things about it far too high for us to comprehend: it is a miracle, and all miracles are necessarily mysterious. But if we are not to believe anything until we can entirely explain it, there are very few things indeed that we shall believe.—We need not be afraid of all the assaults that criticism brings to bear upon the Bible. From the days of the apostles the Word of the Lord has been incessantly “tried,” and has never failed to come forth as gold, uninjured, and unsullied.

We need not be afraid of the discoveries of science. Astronomers may sweep the heavens with telescopes, and geologists may dig down into the heart of the earth, and never shake the authority of the Bible: “The voice of God, and the work of God’s hands never will be found to contradict one another.”—We need not be afraid of the researches of travellers. They will never discover anything that contradicts God’s Bible. I believe that if a Layard ¹ were to go over all the earth and dig up a hundred buried Ninevehs, there would not be found a single inscription which would contradict a single fact in the Word of God.

Furthermore, we must boldly maintain that this Word of God is the only rule of faith and of practice,—that whatsoever is not written in it cannot be required of any man as needful to salvation,—and that however plausibly new doctrines may be defended, if they be not in the Word of God they cannot be worth our attention. It matters nothing who says a thing, whether he be bishop, archdeacon, dean, or presbyter. It matters nothing that the thing is well said, eloquently, attractively, forcibly, and in such a way as to turn the laugh against you. We are not to believe it except it be proved to us by Holy Scripture.

Last, but not least, we must use the Bible as if we believed it was given by inspiration. We must use it with reverence, and read it with all the tenderness with which we would read the words of an absent father. We must not expect to find in a book inspired by the Spirit of God no mysteries. We must rather remember that in nature there are many things we cannot understand; and that as it is in the book of nature, so it will always be in the book of Revelation. We should draw near to the Word of God in that spirit of piety recommended by Lord Bacon many years ago. “Remember,” he says, speaking of the book of nature, “that man is not the master of that book, but the interpreter of that book.” And as we deal with the book of nature, so we must deal with the Book of God. We must draw near to it, not to teach, but to learn,—not like the master of it but like a humble scholar, seeking to understand it.

taken from: Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion from the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman.

¹ Sir Austen Henry Layard – English archaeologist whose excavations greatly increased knowledge of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.

Truth is Not Determined by Feelings — Archibald Alexander

Alexander,

In judging of religious experience, it is all important to keep steadily in view the system of divine truth, contained in the Holy Scriptures; otherwise, our experience, as is too often the case, will degenerate into enthusiasm. Many ardent professors, seem too readily to take it for granted, that all religious feelings must be good. They therefore take no care to discriminate between the genuine and the spurious, the pure gold and the tinsel. Their only concern is about the ardour of their feelings; not considering, that if they are spurious, the more intense they are, the further will they lead them astray.

In our day, there is nothing more necessary than to distinguish carefully between true and false experiences, in religion; to “try the spirits whether they are of God.” And in making this discrimination, there is no other test but the infallible word of God; let every thought, motive, impulse and emotion, be brought to this touchstone. “To the law and the testimony; if they speak not according to these, it is because there is no light in them.”

If genuine religious experience is nothing but the impression of divine truth on the mind, by the energy of the Holy Spirit, then it is evident that a knowledge of the truth is essential to genuine piety; error never can, under any circumstances, produce the effects of truth. This is now generally acknowledged. But it is not so clearly understood by all, that any defect in our knowledge of the truth, must, just so far as the error extends, mar the symmetry of the impression produced.

The error, in this case, is of course not supposed to relate to fundamental truths, for then there can be no genuine piety; but where a true impression is made, it may be rendered very defective, for want of a knowledge of the whole system of revealed truth; or its beauty marred by the existence of some errors mingled with the truth, which may be well illustrated by returning again to the seal. Suppose that some part of the image inscribed on it has been defaced, or that some of the letters have been obliterated, it is evident, that when the impression is made on the wax, there will be a corresponding deficiency or deformity, although in the main the impress may be correct.

There is reason to believe, therefore, that all ignorance of revealed truth, or error respecting it, must be attended with a corresponding defect in the religious exercises of the person. This consideration teaches us the importance of truth, and the duty of increasing daily in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is the true and only method of growing in grace. There may be much correct theoretical knowledge, I admit, where there is no impression corresponding with it on the heart; but still, all good impressions on the heart, are from the truth, and from the truth alone.

Hence we find, that those denominations of Christians which receive the system of evangelical truth, only in part, have a defective experience; and their Christian character, as a body, is so far defective; and even where true piety exists, we often find a sad mixture of enthusiasm, self-righteousness, or superstition. . .

Let all Christians use unceasing diligence in acquiring a correct knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus; and let them pray without ceasing for the influence of the Holy Spirit, to render the truth effectual in the sanctification of the whole man, soul, body, and spirit. “SANCTIFY THEM THROUGH THY TRUTH, THY WORD IS TRUTH,” was a prayer offered up by Christ, in behalf of all whom the Father had given him.

Alexander, Archibald. Thoughts on Religious Experience. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1844. pp. 7-10.

The Wrong Way to Grow a Church — Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon,

We do not consider soul-winning to be accomplished by hurriedly inscribing more names upon our church-roll, in order to show a good increase at the end of the year. This is easily done, and there are brethren who use great pains, not to say arts, to effect it; but if it be regarded as the Alpha and Omega of a minister’s efforts, the result will be deplorable. By all means let us bring true converts into the church, for it is a part of our work to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them; but still, this is to be done to disciples, and not to mere professors; and if care be not used, we may do more harm than good at this point. To introduce unconverted persons to the church, is to weaken and degrade it; and therefore an apparent gain may be a real loss.

All hurry to get members into the church is most mischievous, both to the church and to the supposed converts. I remember very well several young men, who were of good moral character, and religiously hopeful; but instead of searching their hearts, and aiming at their real conversion, the pastor never gave them any rest till he had persuaded them to make a profession. He thought that they would be under more bonds to holy things if they professed religion, and he felt quite safe in pressing them, for “they were so hopeful.” He imagined that to discourage them by vigilant examination might drive them away, and so, to secure them, he made them hypocrites. These young men are, at the present time, much further off from the Church of God than they would have been they would have been if they had been affronted by their being kept in their proper places, and warned that they were not converted to God.

It is a serious injury to a person to receive him into the number of the faithful unless there is good reason to believe that he is really regenerate. I am sure it is so, for I speak after careful observation. Some of the most glaring sinners known to me were once members of a church; and were, as I believe, led to make a profession by undue pressure, well-meant but ill-judged. Do not, therefore, consider that soul-winning is or can be secured by the multiplication of baptisms, and the swelling of the size of your church. What mean these dispatches from the battle-field? “Last night fourteen souls were under conviction, fifteen were justified, and eight received full sanctification.” I am weary of this public bragging, this counting of unhatched chickens, this exhibition of doubtful spoils. Lay aside such numberings of the people, such idle pretence of certifying in half a minute; that which will need the testing of a lifetime. Hope for the best, but in your highest excitements be reasonable.

taken from: The Soul Winner: Advice on Effective Evangelism.

The Word of God: How Should I Read It?

Think with me for a moment about when you started learning to read. After you had listened to your parents reading to you for several years, you started learning the letter sounds yourself. Then you started to learn to sound out two- and three-letter words. Then you learned to read those words in a short sentence. And then after a time of doing that, you learned to understand what you were reading. Reading really is amazing. What’s most amazing about it is that God has spoken to us in such a way that we get to read His words. Step by step, as God’s little children, we need to learn how to read the Word, beginning the process from learning letter sounds to understanding what we are reading.

In Deuteronomy 4, the Lord exhorts His dear children to hear, to know, and to do His Word. He exhorts them to “listen to [His] statutes and [His] rules” (v. 1) and not to “add to the word … that you may keep [His] commandments” (v. 2). He exhorts them to remember, “I have taught you statutes and rules” so that they would “do them” (vv. 5, 6). And by doing them the nations would say, “What great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous?” (v. 8). The practical benefit of this is “that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so” (v. 10).

To fear the Lord who speaks, you must understand what the Lord is speaking. Consider with me the question, how should I read the Word? To do this, I will be following an outline from the Westminster Larger Catechism, Q&A 157:

The holy Scriptures are to be read with an high and reverent esteem of them; with a firm persuasion that they are the very Word of God, and that he only can enable us to understand them; with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them; with diligence, and attention to the matter and scope of them; with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer.

With Reverence

I should read the Word with reverence: “with an high and reverent esteem of them.” Let me put it to you like this: if we love reading our favorite author’s books, how much more so should we have a love of the words of God himself? If we love the letters, the sentences, the prose and poetry of human authors, how much more should we love those words that were inscribed with the finger of God and breathed out of His mouth?

In Deuteronomy 4, the Lord says, “Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me” (v. 10, emphasis mine). To hear the Word is to hear God Himself. And while we distinguish between the Word of God written and the living Word of God spoken, these two have one thing in common: God. To hear the Word written is to hear the Word spoken by God. Therefore, Thomas Watson once said, “Think every line you read God is speaking to you.” As you read your Bible with reverence, consciously know that you are listening to the voice of God Himself. Because the Word is the Holy Spirit’s love letter to us, we should be humbled to the core and be in awe of the fact that of the billions of people in the world, you—I—have been given the Word.

With Persuasiveness

We should read the Word with persuasiveness: “with a firm persuasion that they are the very Word of God, and that he only can enable us to understand them.” We turn to the Scripture because, as Gregory the Great (AD 540–604) said, we “learn the heart of God in the words of God” (Letter to Theodorus). Since we are persuaded that we are reading God’s words, we should be persuaded that only He can make His words known to us. In the Psalms, we read again and again lines like this: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law… . Make me understand the way of your precepts… . Give me understanding that I may learn your commandments” (Ps. 119:18, 27, 73). In theological terms, we call this the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

We believe in the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the Word and also in His illumination. Because inspiration is true, illumination is necessary, regardless of our intellect and ability to read a text. Thomas Ridgeley (AD 1667–1674) said it like this: “If God is not pleased to succeed our endeavours, we shall remain destitute of the experimental knowledge of divine truths, which is absolutely necessary to salvation.” This means that reading the Word is not just understanding with our heads the words on the page, but knowing by the work of the Spirit on our hearts the meaning of those words for me. Like a child needs help understanding a book he is reading and therefore goes to a parent or teacher for that help, so too we need to go to God in prayer and ask Him to help us know what He is saying.

With Earnestness

I should read the Word with earnestness: “with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them.” When Moses called the Israelites to assemble to hear the words of the Lord, it was so that they would “do them” (Deut. 4:1).

This is vital for us to meditate upon. It’s so easy for us to read the Word looking for doctrine, looking for the theological argument the Apostles make, and looking for the proofs we need to persuade others to believe in Christ. We so often focus on the word Word when we speak of the “Word of God.” But don’t forget that it is the Word of God. The Word is the means that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. When you sit down to read it, then, you are coming not to an it, but to a Him. This should make us earnest and desirous to read because we are having fellowship with the Lord in the reading and in the doing.

With Diligence

I should read the Word with diligence: “with diligence, and attention to the matter and scope of them.” You may not like learning English grammar—what’s a subject, what’s an object, what’s a pronoun, or what’s a noun. It can be tedious. Here in Southern California, a regular sight on the beach is a person with headphones waving a metal detector back and forth over the sand. When a person first starts doing this, every little sound makes them think they have found something valuable, so they bend down and dig it up. Over time, though, they learn to listen diligently to the distinct sounds of different kinds of metals. We need to learn how to read the Word with such diligence.

The ancient prophets “searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Peter 1:10–11). We need to read the Word with such diligence and careful inquiry. As Thomas Watson said, “If one go over the scripture cursorily there is little good to be got by it; but if he be serious in reading of it, it is the ‘savour of life.’”

With Personalness

I should read the Word with personalness: “with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer.” Moses spoke to a generation of Israelites who were not present at Mount Horeb, yet he said they were to teach their children and grandchildren “how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God” (Deut. 4:10). How could they do that? The point was not that they were actually there, but that as they learned the words of God, they were personally to appropriate and to identify themselves with the Word.

The Word, then, is not some abstract thing “out there.” As Paul says, it is to dwell deeply within us (Col. 3:16). We are to meditate on the Word—that is, to think intently and intensely about it. We are to do this more than we meditate on our fantasy football stats, the latest political polls, or our Christmas shopping list. If reading the Word gets God’s truth into our heads, then meditating on it gets it into our hearts.

By reading the Word in such a way, we will not only be informed, but inflamed. The more we learn about God, the more we should love God. And the more we love God, the more we should become living epistles of His love for the world.

Legalistic Relativists

The appeal of ethical relativism is rather plain to see. If there is no right and wrong then I can’t be convicted of any wrong. Ethical relativism allows me to write my own law, to edit on the fly, to finish “I may do this …” with an unassailable “… because I want to.” Desire becomes its own justification. My will becomes my law.

This appeal, however, soon enough begins to dissipate if we have any interest at all in being coherent, consistent in our thinking. We quickly turn, “I may do this, because I want to” into “You may not do that, because I want to do this.” Consider, just as an example, sexual perversion. The problem, morally speaking, with sexual perversion is that it is an abomination to God. Ethical relativism, of course, bars God from the conversation. Therefore there is no reason by which we might condemn the practice. There is, to these folks, no transcendent moral standard by which we are all bound. We can do what we want, no matter how perverse. Which means, doesn’t it, that I can call sexual perversion an abomination to God? What, after all, is to stop me?

My ethical relativist friends, of course, do not take my bigoted, narrow, hateful position lying down. In fact, they will insist that since there is no right or wrong, it is, oops, wrong for me to say otherwise. They will chasten me, rebuke me, come down on me with all the grace and love of a Pharisee. And in so doing expose the lie of their own foundational premise. They don’t deny the existence of law, just any law that would stop them.

In like manner, if instead of condemning sexual perversion I club baby seals, or question global warming (oops again, climate change), or argue that government schools ought to be forbidden to teach evolution, suddenly my friends embrace a transcendent moral standard—one I am guilty of violating. Sadly, it doesn’t do much good to be more thoughtful, or more radical. You still run into the same problem. Nietzsche, you’ll remember, castigated Christianity for its “herd morality.” He grumbled that we believers were all the time going about doing what we were told. If we wanted to be authentic, right thinking, if we wanted to be Super men, he reasoned, we ought to throw off all morality and each of us create our own. But, oops, there’s that pesky “ought” again. Did you miss it? It’s there. Why “ought” we to throw off the herd morality? Where did that moral imperative come from? Even Nietzsche could not escape the unbearable oughtness of being.

Lawlessness does not fail because bad things will happen without law. Lawlessness fails because if it succeeds it becomes law. If moral law requires there be no moral law, then it’s a rather nasty pickle. Law is inescapable, and all those who insist that we not follow any law ultimately want us to submit to their law. Nietzsche and his heirs are not liberators, but slave traders, slave traitors. They do not throw off law but impose it. The only difference is their yoke is not easy, their burden not light.

Your Testimony Is Not the Gospel

So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.” He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:24–25).

This statement, “Give God the glory!” seems positive until we read the remainder of the sentence, in which the Pharisees revealed that they had concluded that Jesus was a sinner and therefore could not have performed the miracle. They were saying that the man should give glory to God, not to Jesus. The man was straightforward with them, saying: “I don’t know whether He’s a sinner. I don’t even know Him. All I know is this: once I was blind and now I see.”

With these simple words, the man bore witness to Christ. He testified about the redemptive work of Christ. However, he did not preach the gospel. What am I getting at? In the evangelical Christian community, we sometimes employ language that is not always sound or biblical. You’ve heard the lingo. It goes something like this: “I plan to become an evangelist so I can bear witness to Christ.” Or sometimes we say, “I had a chance to witness the other day,” meaning, “I shared the gospel with someone.” We tend to use the terms evangelism and witnessing interchangeably, but they are not synonymous. Any time I call attention to the person and work of Christ, I am bearing witness to Christ. But that is not the same thing as preaching the gospel.

More than thirty years ago, I learned the evangelism technique taught by Evangelism Explosion, and I trained more than 250 people in that program and led them through evangelism efforts in Ohio. One of the finest aspects of that program is that everyone who goes through it must write out and memorize his or her testimony. Your testimony is your story of how you became a Christian. I think it’s very important that Christians are able to articulate to other people how and why they became believers. We all should have a prepared testimony, and we should be willing to share it at the drop of a hat.

But we shouldn’t confuse our personal testimonies with the gospel. Sharing our personal testimonies is not evangelism. It’s merely pre-evangelism, sort of a warm-up for evangelism. Our testimonies may or may not be significant or meaningful to those with whom we are speaking. There are lots of folks who can relate to my story; they say, “Yeah, I know what he’s talking about because I used to live like that too.” But not everyone can relate to my story. In any case, the gospel is not what happened to R.C. Sproul. God makes no promise that He will use my story as His power unto salvation. The gospel is not about me. The gospel is about Jesus. It is the proclamation of the person and work of Christ, and of how a person can appropriate the benefits of the work of Christ by faith alone.

We see this from our passage in John’s Gospel. The healed man could say, “I once was blind, but now I see,” and that was a wonderful testimony. But it was not the gospel. The man could not tell the Pharisees about Jesus’ saving work and about how they could be delivered from their sins by faith in Him. So we need to learn not only our testimonies but the concrete elements and content of the biblical gospel. Evangelism takes place when the evangel is proclaimed and announced to people—that is the gospel.

A Catechism on the Heart

Sometimes people ask authors, “Which of your books is your favorite?” The first time the question is asked, the response is likely to be “I am not sure; I have never really thought about it.” But forced to think about it, my own standard response has become, “I am not sure what my favorite book is; but my favorite title is A Heart for God.” I am rarely asked, “Why?” but (in case you ask) the title simply expresses what I want to be: a Christian with a heart for God.

Perhaps that is in part a reflection of the fact that we sit on the shoulders of the giants of the past. Think of John Calvin’s seal and motto: a heart held out in the palm of a hand and the words “I offer my heart to you, Lord, readily and sincerely.” Or consider Charles Wesley’s hymn: 

O for a heart to praise my God!
A heart from sin set free.

Some hymnbooks don’t include Wesley’s hymn, presumably in part because it is read as an expression of his doctrine of perfect love and entire sanctification. (He thought it possible to have his longing fulfilled in this world.) But the sentiment itself is surely biblical.

But behind the giants of church history stands the testimony of Scripture. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart (Deut. 6:5). That is why, in replacing Saul as king, God “sought out a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), for “the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7). It is a truism to say that, in terms of our response to the gospel, the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. But truism or not, it is true.

What this looks like, how it is developed, in what ways it can be threatened, and how it expresses itself will be explored little by little in this new column. But at this stage, perhaps it will help us if we map out some preliminary matters in the form of a catechism on the heart:

Q.1. What is the heart?

A. The heart is the central core and drive of my life intellectually (it involves my mind), affectionately (it shapes my soul), and totally (it provides the energy for my living).

Q.2. Is my heart healthy?

A. No. By nature I have a diseased heart. From birth, my heart is deformed and antagonistic to God. The intentions of its thoughts are evil continually.

Q.3. Can my diseased heart be healed?

A. Yes. God, in His grace, can give me a new heart to love Him and to desire to serve Him.

Q.4. How does God do this?

A. God does this through the work of the Lord Jesus for me and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in me. He illumines my mind through the truth of the gospel, frees my enslaved will from its bondage to sin, cleanses my affections by His grace, and motivates me inwardly to live for Him by rewriting His law into my heart so that I begin to love what He loves. The Bible calls this being “born from above.”

Q.5. Does this mean I will never sin again?

A. No. I will continue to struggle with sin until I am glorified. God has given me a new heart, but for the moment He wants me to keep living in a fallen world. So day by day I face the pressures to sin that come from the world, the flesh, and the Devil. But God’s Word promises that over all these enemies I can be “more than a conqueror through him who loved us.”

Q.6. What four things does God counsel me to do so that my heart may be kept for Him?

A. First, I must guard my heart as if everything depended on it. This means that I should keep my heart like a sanctuary for the presence of the Lord Jesus and allow nothing and no one else to enter.

Second, I must keep my heart healthy by proper diet, growing strong on a regular diet of God’s Word — reading it for myself, meditating on its truth, but especially being fed on it in the preaching of the Word. I also will remember that my heart has eyes as well as ears. The Spirit shows me baptism as a sign that I bear God’s triune name, while the Lord’s Supper stimulates heart love for the Lord Jesus.

Third, I must take regular spiritual exercise, since my heart will be strengthened by worship when my whole being is given over to God in expressions of love for and trust in Him.

Fourth, I must give myself to prayer in which my heart holds on to the promises of God, rests in His will, and asks for His sustaining grace — and do this not only on my own but with others so that we may encourage one another to maintain a heart for God.

This — and much else — requires development, elaboration, and exposition. But it can be summed up in a single biblical sentence. Listen to your Father’s appeal: “My son, give Me your heart.”

This article was originally published in Tabletalk Magazine.

View the original article here