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: If the Bible is nothing more than the work of men, then we can never lean on it for any spiritual support. If it is nothing more than man's doing, then it must be degraded in rank and take its place as nothing more than a collection of human ideas about morality and ethics, with a smattering of Jewish history thrown in.

We have seen in previous studies that the Bible claims to be the Word of God. The apostolic preaching was all based on the precepts that Christ had to be presented in the context and with the background of the Old Testament.

Chorus: Thy Word is truth for all who came. Truth is reproof, correct and straight, which by it we can learn the truth. The Word God has for us to do. God's Word is all the Christian needs to grow in grace and to fulfill deeds.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth 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'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled The Inspiration of the Scriptures.

The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, "All Scripture is inspired by God," which is translated, "All Scripture is God-breathed" in some versions of the Bible. God gives the breath of life to spiritually dead sinners when he accompanies the preaching and reading of his holy Word with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

Has the Lord transformed your life through his inspired, God-breathed Word? 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, The Inspiration of the Scriptures.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to thee our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We ask thee that thou by thy Spirit shall take the living Word that is spoken in this hour, above and beyond the human word, and that thou shall take this to our hearts where it may do its work, of conviction, of conversion, of building and strengthening.

Bless, we pray thee in Jesus' name. Amen.

We continue our studies in the authority of the Word of God under the text of Romans 14:11, "It is written." What do we mean when we say that God's Word is inspired?

Writing to Timothy, Paul said, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

The word inspired comes to the English from Latin and means "in-breathed." The Greek word is Theopneustos and comes from the name of God and the word for breath. You know the words, Theos, as in theology, theophany, atheist, Dorothy, Theodore, and the word pneuma, p.n.e.u.m.a., from which we get pneumatic for tires with air, or a drill run by compressed air. And you know the word pneumonia, the disease of the breast box, the lungs.

When the Bible puts these two Greek words together to make Theopneustos, which is translated by our word inspired, it means that just as God created man by breathing into him the breath of life so that he became a living soul, so God breathes into the writer supernaturally, so that each writer could bring forth the holy Scriptures.

We will see how the process of inspiration came about. In the first place, it's very important to note that the Bible nowhere states that the men who wrote the Bible were inspired men, but that the writings which they wrote are inspired writings.

Inspiration applies to the Bible as we have it. The fact that Moses was an angry man, that he lost his temper, that he had killed a man, does not alter the fact that God kept him from error in recording old facts already known or new facts received directly by revelation from God.

The fact that David was unclean, that he committed adultery and murdered to protect him from its consequences, does not alter the fact that God spoke through him and that his writings, with all their prophecies of things to come and with all their revelation about Christ, were divine writings because of God's inspiration.

Our God is a God of great variety, and the methods which he used to communicate truth to the men who set it down are varied. One method is recorded in Isaiah, where we learn that the Lord spoke to Isaiah with audible words. We read, "The Lord of Hosts has revealed himself in my ears."

To Daniel, the Lord came in a night vision, revealing the divine secrets to the young man. Daniel was then told to write the words in a scroll and to seal it. This was a symbol of the fact that the knowledge of the meaning of Daniel's prophecy would not be fully known until the time of the end. Daniel heard and wrote, but he did not understand what he had written.

He asked the Lord what was the meaning of the things he had heard, and God replied, "Go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end." And these words were never unsealed until John, in the last book of the Bible, the Revelation, saw Jesus Christ tear away the seals and unfold the meaning of the word.

Our word revelation is a translation of the Greek word apocalypse. This comes from the preposition apo, which means "off," and a verb kaluptin, to "cover." The word revelation is used to "uncover," and when we realize that the Greek noun from this verb denotes a woman's veil, we can see that the word means an "unveiling."

God saw fit to lift the veil and to allow John on the island of Patmos to look into the future and to see world events as they would come to pass. As long as we realize that God is the God of infinite variety, it is not necessary for us to know all the ways in which he revealed his truth to the men whom he had chosen for the purpose.

Paul, for example, certainly has left us inspired writings. But if we ask how the truth came to him, we cannot answer. We only know the fact. Thus he tells the Galatians, "For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ."

When we are dealing with God, we must always expect a certain factor of mystery because we are creatures and he is the Creator. We are human, and he is God. We cannot expect to understand his ways because of the difference between us. He has said, "My ways are not your ways, nor are my thoughts your thoughts, but as the heavens are high above the earth so are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts."

When he told us about our new birth, he said, "The wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. So it is of every one who is born of the Spirit." And in like manner, the Word of God was communicated to us by the Holy Spirit, through the hearts and minds of the writers. The divine wind blew upon them.

They did not know the method of the Spirit anymore than they knew the secret processes of the wind. But they did know the power of the Spirit, and the divine book is with us to prove it. At this point, someone may ask if we believe that every word in the Bible is true. There have been those who have taught this, but the Bible does not teach it about itself.

The Bible teaches that it is a record of facts and a revelation of God. If the fact is that someone told a lie, then the lie is not truth, but the fact that the lie was told is truth. The Bible contains many stories of fallen and faithless human beings. Their deeds and their doings are of necessity fallen and faithless.

And when the Bible tells us about these things, the fact of inspiration merely assures us of the accuracy of the written accounts. It does not mean that God approves all of the utterances or the deeds of the men who are the characters in the story.

For example, we have in the book of Job the words, "Skin for skin, all that a man has he will give in exchange for his life." Now that sentence simply is not true. It is in fact an abominable lie. If we read the context carefully, we discover that that lie was spoken by the devil himself.

Well, what is true and inspired is that the devil told that lie when he was appearing in the presence of God to give an account of his dealings with Job. Further, when we go on through the book of Job, we find the three so-called comforters visiting Job and mouthing great paragraphs of platitudes. Their total output runs to many chapters.

Are their words inspired? Suddenly God himself intervened in the midst of all their palaver and said, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" God specifically denies that there is truth in what these men say.

What is true is that these men said these things to Job as described, but what they said was false. The same principle applies when we turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. Here is an entire book in the Bible, which God declares is not true. What is true is that Solomon, with nothing more than human wisdom, recorded for all mankind the sum total of that which philosophers can come to without divine help.

It is the total of man's thinking under the sun. It boils down to the fact that all is vanity. A living dog is better than a dead lion, and as far as man can see when the spirit leaves the body, there is unconsciousness. And the dead have gone down to the grave where there is no knowledge.

This brief compendium of philosophical ignorance has been put in the Bible by God in order to let his people know what folly the natural man thinks, the natural man who is untouched by the Spirit of God.

In the light of these examples, we can see that inspiration carries absolute authority as to the historicity of the narratives, but that it lends no authority whatsoever to the sayings of human beings who talk as sinful human beings and who act as sinful human beings. On the other hand, where God speaks directly, there is not only complete accuracy, but absolute authority.

In the Pentateuch, almost 800 times we read, "And the Lord said, and the Lord said." I decided to open the Bible at random, and my fingers opened to the first chapter of Amos. I read that chapter and discovered that God is speaking directly through Amos, eight times in the first chapter we read, "Thus saith the Lord."

In these passages, God speaks personally, and the pronoun "I" for God is found 13 times. Here then is the inspired Word of God. Not only are the circumstances of the giving of the prophecy true, but the words are true and accurate. These are the very sentiments of God.

And he stands behind the truthfulness of the record and sanctions all the thoughts that are expressed. In studying the Word of God, it's necessary to cultivate an awareness of this difference between accuracy and authority. All Scripture is accurate.

And all that is spoken by God, speaking in the first person or through one of his chosen messengers, is both accurate and authoritative. Every believer should be reading the Bible constantly. If we read it with complete surrender of our wills, the Holy Spirit will teach us and will constantly make us aware of eternal truth.

If we turn to the book of Genesis for example, we will read and our minds will take in the narrative. When we come to the New Testament, we will hear Christ himself speaking of these narratives, saying that they are the Word of God.

That anyone who does not believe these writings of Moses will never be able to believe the sayings of Christ, and that the God who created man and woman in the beginning created them male and female. When we have read the Bible for the hundredth time, believingly, prayerfully, carefully.

When we have submitted ourselves to the Lord of the Book, and thus to the Book itself, we will have a supernatural awareness of all these things. I know that the Word of God is true. Why? Because God has given me this supernatural understanding that John describes in the last verse of his first Epistle.

This is what he meant when he said, "And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ."

In a noted book entitled Knowing the Scriptures, Dr. A. T. Pierson, who was a Philadelphia pastor, distinguishes three degrees of authority in the inspired record. A paragraph from his work will illuminate our thought. He writes:

"Every student must observe what in holy Scripture carries authority and what only accuracy. Even prophets and apostles, apart from their character and capacity as such, being only fallible men, were liable to mistakes."

And he notes the instance of Elijah under the juniper tree and Peter speaking such nonsense that Paul had to rebuke him to his face. And he then continues: "A very instructive instance of this principle may be found in 2 Samuel 7:2-7. David declares his purpose to build God a house, and his reasons are both devout and unselfish. He is unwilling to have his own palace outshine the dwelling place of Jehovah."

"Not only so, but on communicating to the prophet Nathan his purpose, he meets with entire approval. The prophet bids him do all that is in his heart, assuring him that the Lord is with him. If the narrative gave no further light, we should infer this to be a God-inspired thought of David. But the prophet is bidden to go to the King and tell him that he is not to build the house."

"That privilege being reserved for Solomon. Here, the narrative is inspired, but the proposed action is not. It was well meant, but not in God's plan. A very conspicuous example of the principle that many a good man says and does what is not authorized by God. And that the fact that such words or deeds are recorded in Scripture carries no necessary sanction of them as prompted of God."

We must therefore discriminate and distinguish three degrees of authority in the inspired record. An authoritative narrative where sentiments and acts are not sanctioned and may be disowned as disapproved of God. We have seen an example of such in the words of Satan.

Second, an authoritative narrative where sentiments and acts are not expressly approved or disapproved and must be judged by the general standards of Scripture teaching. And thirdly, an authoritative narrative where the sentiments and acts are inspired and controlled by the Spirit of God and therefore represent his mind and will, as we have seen in the passage from 2 Samuel.

Now lack of proper discrimination in matters such as these has often led to much confusion and needless controversy. But with these careful limitations, verbal inspiration is an absolute necessity if in any proper sense there be divine inspiration at all.

As Dean Burgon has expressed it, "What music would be without notes, a mathematical sum without figures, so would an inspired book be without words controlled by the inspiring Spirit."

As we turn through the Bible, we find it describing itself with wonderful symbols that reveal what the Lord thinks of his Word and what he intends it to be for us. First, the Bible is both lamp for our feet and light for our path.

Many men throughout history have commented on this text and pointed out that the feeble lanterns which men carry throw a circle around their feet and illuminate the distance of a single step. But nevertheless, that's enough, that's all that is needed for walking in the darkness.

It is not necessary that a man who is walking on a mountain path should see the bottom of every canyon or the summit of every mountain. If he can see where his feet are standing, and if he can see the ground on which he is to take his next step, he will find his way home. This is what the Bible does for God's people.

Second, the Bible is a fire. God tells us this through Jeremiah in chapter 23 and verse 29. "Is not my word as a fire?" That fire will consume the dross in the Lord's own people and that fire will consume the people themselves who refuse the love and grace with which he would warm them.

Third, the same verse in Jeremiah goes on to say, "Is not my word like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?" This is spoken to the false prophets who prophesy in the name of the Lord, but who do not prophesy that which the Lord wants the people to know.

God reveals in many places that he hates false preaching, and he tells all of his people that his word is like fire and a hammer, which will burn and break all that speak contrary to him. His Word will be the standard of the judgment.

Four, the Word of God is the sword, the offensive weapon in the hands of the believer. We have seen how the Lord Jesus met the attack of the enemy with the flashing word, "It is written." This same weapon is ours to wield, and it is also the instrument, in addition to the Christian's armor, which enables him to carry the battle into the camp of the enemy.

Five, the Bible is a mirror. James tells us this in the first chapter of his Epistle. Perhaps this is the reason why the Bible is the most hated book in the world, as well as the most loved. The mirror of the Word of God is that which shows any man his inward being.

Happy the man who has come to the place where he can truly say, "I have seen myself in the mirror of the Word of God. I recognize that the horrid image that I see is really myself as God sees me."

I have accepted God's invitation to turn from the mirror to the fountain, and I have cleansed myself of all sin by plunging into Christ, as he has provided cleansing for me. And the wonderful thing about the mirror is that when we have thus turned to Christ, we turn again back to the mirror and discover that we have been made like Christ, and that one day we shall awaken in that likeness forever.

Six, the Bible describes itself as a diet. It is both milk and solid food. When we first come to Christ, we need the simplicities of the Word, the milk, a knowledge of our sin, and a knowledge of the salvation which he provides.

But after we have come to the place of assurance, we need to go on in the great truths of the Scripture in order that we can grow into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. As newborn babes, we long for the pure spiritual milk.

After we pass through spiritual childhood, we grow up to the strong food which God wants us to take in order that we may be maintained in spiritual strength. Seven, the Bible describes itself as a two-edged scalpel. The English word is sword, but the medical vocabulary of the ancient times uses this word for the surgeon's instrument.

In the medical collections of the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, these instruments are on display, described in the terms which are used here in the Bible for the two-edged scalpel. The whole of the verse, Hebrews 4:12, gives us the medical picture. "The Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged scalpel."

"Piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." This is a very important principle, for the Christian cannot penetrate into spiritual depths until he knows by the Word of God the tremendous difference that there is between his soul and his spirit.

This is learned only through the Word of God, but when it is learned, the whole struggle between the flesh and the spirit takes on a different turn and the victory is brought much nearer. Eight and last, the Bible describes itself as the seed of life.

We read in James that "of his own will he brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creation." And in Peter, we're told that "this same seed is the instrument of our birth." "You have been born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God."

Lamp, fire, hammer, sword, mirror, milk, meat, scalpel, seed. What an amazing book. How it reveals in its every part that it is the Word of God, that it was written by God, "It is written." This is our life and this is our authority.

And our God and Father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit will take thy Word to our hearts. And in this hour, that it may do the work that thou has sent it to do. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

Guest (Male): The Lord has revealed himself and his way of salvation through his inspired, God-breathed Word. The Holy Scriptures can infuse your life with power, peace and blessing. You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled The Inspiration of the Scriptures. To listen to additional teaching 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 The Inspiration of the Scriptures or simply request message number R14-18. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled The History of Sin. The reality of sin is a stumbling block for many people when they consider the existence and character of God.

If God is loving and all-powerful, then why does he allow sin, evil and suffering to exist? In this free booklet, Dr. Barnhouse carefully and scripturally outlines the history of sin and examines its nature, extent, and course. Ask for your free copy of The History of Sin 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.

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Thanks for listening. Join us again for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

Chorus: The Bible has come and it works to do. To give words to us for us. It draws our souls from death to life and rescues us from evil's strife. Amazing gifts unto our hearts, the life-imparting word of God.