Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Jesus had no dawning messianic consciousness. His full deity was present in his humanity from the first moment of his life. He came into the world crying in tones that were heard by the Father in heaven. He never was unaware of his deity. He never was unaware of the fact that he had written the Old Testament and that it was all about himself. Knowing that he was the object of its prophecies, he could wield it with all the force of his own spoken word.

Music: God's Word is good for all he gave, to teach, rebuke, correct, and train, equipped by it we can discern, the truth, the work God has for us to do. God's Word is all a Christian needs to grow in grace and truth and peace.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Fifth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry, which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Jesus and the Scriptures.

Shortly after his resurrection, Jesus met two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith and then opened the Scriptures to them so they could understand all that was written concerning him. The word of God held a preeminent place in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, and it should hold a preeminent place in the lives of his followers as well. The Scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 14 and verse 11. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled Jesus and the Scriptures.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We ask thee that by thy power thou shalt take thy word and use it in the hearts of those who listen. If there be any who do not know thee, awaken in them the sense of their sin and bring them to the knowledge of thy love through Jesus Christ.

If there are those who have named thy name, help them to grow in the desire to follow thee. We ask these things in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We are studying the question of the authority of the Bible in all matters of faith and practice, and we come now to the complete refutation of those who seek to destroy the supreme authority of the Bible by appealing to the supreme authority of Jesus Christ.

When this argument is raised, it seems at first glance to be a good spiritual approach, but when taken apart, the argument is revealed as very superficial. Sometimes this appeal to the authority of Christ is made solely as an an attempt to deceive. Such people are not really trying to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. They are trying to tear down the final authority of the Bible.

Others, who truly love the Lord, are sometimes deceived by this appeal from the written word to Christ the living word. They do not perceive the trick that is being played on them. They do not understand that Christ identified himself with the Scriptures in such a way that it is impossible to touch one without touching the other.

Any thought that gives us a greater concept of Christ must necessarily give us a greater concept of the Bible. And any thought that gives us a greater concept of the Bible must necessarily give us a greater concept of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us go to the Bible and find out exactly what Jesus Christ thought about it. We begin with a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which tells us words which he spoke at the moment of his incarnation. We read in Hebrews 9, "When Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifice and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure.' Then I said, 'Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God, as it is written of me in the roll of the book.'"

Scholars have created many problems about this verse, but the problems are not there if we take the passage to mean exactly what it says. The first part of the sentence is not a quotation from the Old Testament. It resembles a verse from the Psalms, but it is not a quotation. In Psalm 40 we read, "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. My ears hast thou opened." The Septuagint translation of this verse reads, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me."

We cannot say too strongly that Hebrews 10:5 is not a quotation of Psalm 40, but the actual historical record of what Jesus Christ said when he came into the world to accomplish what the Psalmist prophesied. So there's no question of Hebrew text versus Greek text. It's the simple record of what our Lord said.

From the point of view of our study, the important phrase comes in the end of our quotation from Hebrews. Here we discover that the Lord Jesus states that his incarnation was prophesied in the Old Testament, "In the roll of the book it is written of me."

It's highly significant that Christ began his incarnation by linking it to the Old Testament. Having written the Old Testament himself through various men whom he chose for this purpose, he now comes to fulfill that which he had previously announced concerning himself. He will never speak, act or think apart from the written record which he gave concerning his purposes and his acts. And before he is through, he will outline a similar authority for the New Testament to be written after him.

When Christ began his ministry after the Father's acknowledgement of him at his baptism, he was led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Nowhere do we have more clearly set forth the attitude of the Savior towards the word of God. Look for a moment at the three temptations. The Lord had been fasting for 40 days and he was hungry. Satan came to him with the first temptation. "Because you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."

There was no doubt in Satan's mind as to the nature and person of the Lord Jesus. We could paraphrase the temptation by stating it in this way, "Do not overcome me in your humanity, overcome me by the power of your deity." It was what would be called today a face-saving idea. Satan had boasted about his power and might from the day that he first abandoned the condition of perfection in which he was created. Now he knows that he is going to be defeated. He wants his defeat to come from the direct power of God as the Lord God Almighty and not from God made in human flesh, lower than the angels.

Suppose a man has aroused the hatred of a group of men who are standing with the world's champion heavyweight boxer. One of them says, "You're about to receive a black eye for your pains." The man says, "Well, if I am to receive a black eye, please let the world's champion give it to me. I can at least boast about that." But they reply, "No, you're going to get this black eye from the water boy who's the frailest of the group."

So it was that Jesus Christ, made lower than the angels, was to inflict an ignominious defeat upon the most powerful and mightiest of all the created angels. And how did he do it? He replied, "It is written." The quotation comes out of the book of Deuteronomy. No wonder Satan hates the books of Moses and does all he can to bring them into disrepute. The first of the books, Genesis, shows how he was defeated at the time of the sin of our first parents and how his doom is announced.

From Deuteronomy, Christ answered Satan, "It is written. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Christ wielded the sword of the spirit, and the flashing power of the word of God inflicted the first wound on Satan. The enemy immediately hurled himself into the one possible loophole. He answered, in effect, "This is wonderful. So we are to live by the word of God. Now, I am a considerable student of the word of God, and I have a verse for you to live by. You remember that it's written in the Psalms, 'He will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.' Now this is what God wants. Live by faith, live by faith."

What it was in reality was a temptation to fanaticism. It was the temptation to pluck one verse out of the Bible and to attempt to use it to destroy main themes of Bible teaching. This verse should teach us that Satan is a student of the Bible, and that he knows how to quote it for his purposes, and that we must always realize that no Scripture can be understood by itself, but that it must be balanced with the whole of the word of God.

The Lord's answer shows us the importance of seeing the Bible as a whole. He had the gift of discernment in the highest degree, and we must not forget that the gift of discernment is the gift of measuring all ideas by the word of God, the ability to test human ideas by divine revelation.

Christ answered once more, "It is written." And once more his quotation was from the book of Deuteronomy, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" By this time, Satan was deeply wounded. He knew that he was defeated. I repeat that it is very understandable that he should hate the book of Deuteronomy and do all in his power to destroy the effectiveness of the book of Moses.

The third time Satan had to come to Christ without pretense. There's no further use in acting. Not even the devil can remain a hypocrite in front of Christ. The third temptation is a craven bid for recognition. Paraphrased it would be, "Alright, I accept the fact that you're God and that you're going to win this battle. But I can fix it so that you'll not have to go to the cross and die in order to achieve your purpose. There before us lie all the kingdoms of the earth with their power and their glory. These were given to me, as you well know, at the time when I was first created to be the angel who held all authority for God. For we read in Ezekiel, when God placed him, 'I have set thee so,' or, 'I placed you.' And Satan goes on, 'I'm willing to deliver them back to you and withdraw from the struggle forever. All that I desire is that you shall admit just once that I am wonderful, that I am beautiful, that I am wise, and that I am worthy of having these things acknowledged.'"

Never was this cringing, slavering creature more despicable. Christ ends the whole scene with one last plunging blow, "It is written." And once more it is a quotation from Deuteronomy, "Begone, Satan, for it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'" How our text shines out, and what light it sheds on the inner mind of Christ. It is written. It is written. It is written. That's enough. Since victory is won by the word of God, then it is the word of God, living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. It is written.

Immediately after the temptation, we read in Luke 4:16, "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up." He's about to begin his public ministry. This scene antedates even the Sermon on the Mount. He was in his hometown. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day as his custom was. They delivered to him the roll of the prophet Isaiah and he read from what we now call the 61st chapter of that book.

When he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down in the place of the teacher.

Remember now, the vast importance of the fact that he is about to make his first public utterance. He had said nothing at his baptism, and the words spoken to Satan were in a personal conversation. The words spoken at the marriage of Cana were to his mother and to his disciples. But now he sits in the synagogue in the place of the teacher. We read, "The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him." And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

I say we cannot overestimate the importance of this statement. It is the same as saying, "I am the Messiah. I am the object of the Old Testament prophecies. Isaiah wrote about me." What you are seeing and hearing is the fulfilling of the word of God. It is written. And now it is being fulfilled.

In this single line, we find the death of all the theological ideas which purport to show that Jesus was merely a human being with what the liberals call a dawning messianic consciousness. In the light of this, it is not astonishing that the Lord Jesus based all his teaching on that which he had previously caused to be written. The smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the yod. The smallest seraph is a tittle, a minute flourish that distinguishes one Hebrew letter from another, such as the difference between a beth and a kaph.

The average reader can compare the two letters by looking at the difference between the Hebrew letters which are printed in most King James Bibles in the 119th Psalm. The Lord Jesus Christ stated that not a jot or a tittle would pass from the law until all was accomplished.

Even more astonishing than these statements about the utter finality of the divine revelation as it is recorded in the Bible, is the manner in which Christ appealed to the Old Testament as the basis for all truth and the explanation of all spiritual problems.

For example, one day a group of the Sadducees came with an attempt to trap him. This group was composed of men who prided themselves on their philosophy. They did not believe in a spirit world. They denied both the existence of angels and the fact of the resurrection. It's not necessary for us to describe the trap that they were laying for him. All we need for our purposes is to note his reply. He said to them, "You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said unto you by God? 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He is not God of the dead, but of the living."

And when he had finished saying this, the crowd heard it, and we read that they were astonished at his teaching. And well might the crowd be astonished. Christ was basing the entire truth of the resurrection of the body and of life after death on the difference between the present and the past tense of a single thought in the book of Exodus. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for several hundred years before God met Moses at the burning bush. And yet God said to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

Christ's argument is that if they had not been alive at the time, God would have had to have said, "I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." And thus we see that Christ based the entire argument for one of the most important scriptural doctrines on the mere change of a verb tense back in the book of Exodus. "It is written."

On another occasion, Jesus flatly stated that nobody would ever believe him if that person did not first of all believe the writings of Moses. Christ had healed the man at the pool of Bethesda. We read in John 5, and all of these quotations come from the fifth of John. And he had there declared himself to be the giver of eternal life, the ultimate judge, the possessor of life in himself, the one who is to raise the dead. And we read that his enemies sought to kill him.

Jesus said to them, "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they who bear witness to me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. It is Moses who accuses you, on whom you set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

Any honest interpretation of this passage must admit that Christ believed that Moses wrote the five books of the law, and that Christ stated that anyone who did not believe the writings of Moses would never believe Christ's own words. To me, this is one of the most significant passages in the history of theology. It explains why Satan has poured out such hatred on the first five books of the Bible. He knows that if he can destroy faith in the writings of Moses, he has gained his purpose of destroying faith in the word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We now move on to the scene of the crucifixion. Christ is on the cross, not dying slowly, but in complete command of the situation, head unbowed to the end, and able to cry out with a loud voice even after all of the blood had been drained from his body. There he is, separated from the Father, while taking upon himself the penalty of our sins.

As he was thus reigning from the cross, there is evidence that he quoted Scripture. We have the record that he quoted from the 22nd Psalm, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" There was a painstaking check on all of the lines of the Old Testament. Is there anything in the law that remains to be fulfilled? Nothing. Is there anything in the prophets that remains to be fulfilled? Nothing. Is there anything in the writings that remains to be fulfilled? Yes. There is one verse, a prophecy in the Psalms, that has not been fulfilled. It reads, "For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink."

John describes the moment on the cross when this verse came to the orderly mind of the Son of God. "After this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished, said in order to fulfill the Scripture, 'I thirst.'" One of the soldiers put vinegar to his mouth. The last Scripture to be fulfilled was then fulfilled.

There is something awe-inspiring in this careful thought of the Lord Jesus that his word should be completely fulfilled. Let those who tamper with the word remember that the Son of God saw to it that the final unfulfilled Scripture was brought to fulfillment before he cried out with a loud voice, bowed his head, and dismissed his spirit.

We have one more scene to contemplate. Three days and nights have passed. The Lord Jesus has come forth from the tomb. He is alive forevermore. The resurrection is an accomplished fact. He walks along the road to Emmaus, and two disciples, returning to their home in that village, meet him in the way. He asks why they're so sad, and they answer by asking, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" They then tell him of his own death, not knowing that it's he. And they go on to speak of the hope that they had had in him, a hope which they now think is deceived.

He answers them with these words of tremendous implication, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses, and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

This constitutes the first teaching utterance of the Lord Jesus Christ after his resurrection. What is the theme? It is written. Why are you in doubt? Does not Moses and all the Scriptures speak of the sufferings of the Messiah? Has it not been written? Then are you not foolish ones not to understand and believe the Scriptures?

Sum up all that we've seen. When Christ entered the world, he coupled his coming with a reminder that his incarnation was written into the Scriptures. When he began his ministry, he overcame the temptations of the devil with the threefold, "It is written." He calmly appropriated the prophecies to himself, announcing that he was their fulfillment. He based his teaching on the shade of meaning of a single verb. He announced that no one could ever believe him if they had not first believed Moses. He took care, even while dying, that a final unfulfilled prophecy should be accomplished. And when he arose from the dead, he appealed to the word of God as having foretold all that happened to him, and showed that the ignorance of men is due to their failure to go to the Bible to understand its meaning.

"It is written." And we may not leave this great text without asking this direct and pertinent question. Does any individual have the right to call himself a follower of Christ if he does not have the same attitude toward the Scriptures that our Lord himself had? Christ the living word, and the Bible the written word, they are one and the same thing. Even as the word that comes from my mouth is a part of me, so when Jesus said, "It is written," he was talking about the Bible, himself, his word.

And our God and Father, we pray thee to give us a great love for the book. Bless it to our hearts and give us yieldedness to it. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Guest (Male): Jesus constantly directed his hearers to the Holy Scriptures, and when we diligently search and study them, they will lead us back to the Lord Jesus Christ. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled Jesus and the Scriptures. To listen to additional teachings by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled Jesus and the Scriptures, or simply request message number R14-16.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled The Gospel We Like to Hear. The Bible warns us against following teachers who will tickle our ears with false doctrines that appeal to our fleshly nature. This free booklet clearly states forth the true biblical gospel and sounds a warning against ear-tickling, people-pleasing distortions of the good news, including the false religion of signs and wonders, salvation without Lordship, and the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. Ask for your free copy of The Gospel We Like to Hear when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview, drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by. We seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. We also produce the radio broadcast The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a full list of radio stations carrying our programs, visit our website at alliancenet.org.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to further our work, contact us by calling toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. Call us today. You may also write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. Don't forget to request a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.