Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: The writer of the Hebrews says, "You know what? In the past, God spoke in various ways. God made himself known through miracles, through the writings of the prophets. But let me tell you right now, this is how God declares himself: in his Son. And the Son is the exact representation of the Father. Everything God wanted us to know about who he is, he made known in Jesus."

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Galatians. Let's listen in as JP gives part two of "God Has Made Himself Known."

JP Jones: The writer of the Hebrews says this in Hebrews chapter 1, at the very beginning in introduction to this book. "In the past, God has spoken to our fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways." The writer of Hebrews said, "Hey, you know what? God revealed himself through the prophets, through the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament."

Verse 2 says, "But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. He sustains all things by his powerful word. And after he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much more superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs."

The writer of the Hebrews says, "You know what? In the past, God spoke in various ways. God made himself known through miracles, through the writings of the prophets. But let me tell you right now, this is how God declares himself: in his Son. And the Son is the exact representation of the Father. Everything God wanted us to know about who he is, he made known in Jesus Christ. Jesus is God with skin on him."

Do you know what he did? He made purification for our sins, and then he was ascended into heaven. Then he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So, you want to know what God is like? You look at Jesus. You want to get to know God? You come to him through Jesus Christ.

Paul said this writing to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 3. "Surely you know and you've heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you, that the mystery that was made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then you will be able to understand my insight into this mystery, the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. What is it? Jesus our Lord."

Paul says, "Listen, there's something unique about this message that I'm writing to you about Jesus Christ and about being in relationship with Jesus Christ. God didn't make it known willy-nilly. He had an actual plan to reveal it to his prophets and apostles, and through them to reveal it to the world. Now it's made known to everybody. Now you'll understand why I speak so boldly about this."

In other words, he's trying to say, "I want you to understand why I'm so exercised about this, why I get so passionate about this, why I believe so strongly in this. I'm fulfilling a mission that God has given to me." See, all of that, those are examples of revelation: God making himself known through miracles and through historical events and through prophets, and especially through Jesus Christ, and then through those whom he's appointed to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ.

Now, what's the second step in the process? First, there's revelation. Then there's inspiration. Second Timothy 3:16 and 17 says this: "All Scripture is God-breathed"—many Bible translations say inspired—"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

All Scripture, the Greek word is *graphe*, the writings. In the Hebrew religion, in Judaism, the writings always meant the writings in the Bible. The Hebrew word for the Bible is *Tanakh*. It's the inspired Scriptures, the authoritative Word of God. Paul says all those inspired writings, the Scriptures, they are God-breathed. He uses a Greek word *theopneustos*. *Theos* is God, *pneustos* means breathed. So they literally were breathed out.

It's interesting. We talk about inspiration. If something is very inspirational, it has some kind of emotional, energizing effect. But when we talk about the Bible and we speak about the Bible as being inspired, we mean something more than that. We mean that God is the ultimate author of it.

Oftentimes, we think of inspiration as the writers being inspired to write what they wrote. That's technically not accurate. They were just guys. Like my old football coach used to say, "They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else." No, what they wrote was inspired because the Greek word *theopneustos* doesn't mean breathe in, like God breathed into the authors. *Theopneustos* means breathe out. It's saying the words were literally breathed out from God.

The amazing thing about the Bible is that we have a written record in the various writing style and vocabulary and worldview of each of the authors of the sixty-six books, probably forty authors. We've got unique writings that represent the uniqueness of the authors. But the doctrine of inspiration is that they are the very words of God because God breathed them out.

God revealed himself, and then that revelation was written down. That's inspiration. It is a seven-step process from God to us: revelation, inspiration. Here's the third step: canonization. Some of you now are going, "Wait a minute, I'm lost."

There's a Greek word *kanon*, which literally means a reed or a stick. It's like a cattail that grows by the river, a weed. But it was used to be a measuring rod because it was pretty long. So they'd pull it up and they'd stand over by the riverbank and put it in, and then they'd mark it to mark how deep the water was.

That word *kanon* came to not just mean a reed, but a measuring rod. Then as it was applied to the Bible, it was the measuring rod to say what was just some good book, some writing, some historical writing, some poetic writing versus what was actually inspired Scripture. So the canon is the collection of inspired writings, both Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament.

A lot of things were being written over history. We hear today some scholar from Princeton or Harvard will make some big deal about the Gnostic Gospels. Were those letters that were written in the second, third, fourth century? Yes. But were they not included in the canon? They weren't considered to be inspired. But they tell us some information about the early Christian movement.

Then there's a whole group of books that were written in the intertestamental period known as the Apocryphal books. They tell us about Judaism under the Maccabees and some of the various historical things that happened from the last writing of the Hebrew prophet to the first New Testament prophet, John the Baptist. They're not inspired, but they give us some good information.

What separates the good books from the actual inspired books? That's what canonicity is all about. Canonization is a process that God oversaw. It's amazing to study it historically. But basically, God ensured that all those writings he revealed himself, he inspired the writings, those writings that were actually inspired got collected and put together in the Hebrew Scriptures, the *Tanakh*, the Old Testament, and in the New Testament. Sixty-six books, inspired.

God's communicating a message. God loves us. God wants us to know him. He's incomprehensible, he's infinite. So what does he do? *Apokalypsis*, he makes himself known. And then he breathes out his word so that people wrote it down so that not only that generation, but every generation would get that revelation from God.

So you've got revelation, you've got inspiration, you've got canonization. The fourth step in the process is translation. You've got the sixty-six books of the Bible. They're written over a period of about 1,500 years. They were written on three continents. They were written in three languages. The Old Testament primarily is written in Hebrew. The New Testament primarily written in a form of Greek known as Koine Greek. But some of the Hebrew Scriptures were written in a cognate language known as Aramaic.

So you've got three languages. Does anybody speak Aramaic here? Anybody speak Hebrew here? Dave, you speak a little bit of Hebrew. Now you see, the Bible's been translated from one language to another. Amazing, unbelievable accuracy in this process.

The first book, historically, ever translated from one language to another was the Bible. Did you know that? It took place in 250 BC. The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek because under Alexander the Great, the then-known world was hellenized. It became Greek culture and everybody started speaking Greek. So you had all these Jews who didn't speak Hebrew, couldn't read their own Bible.

So you had seventy Jewish scholars who were bilingual. They were fluent in both Greek and Hebrew. They got together in the city of Alexandria in Egypt, and they took seventy days and translated the entire Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. We call it the Septuagint, which means seventy—very clever, seventy guys over seventy days.

It was the first time any historical document was translated from one language to another language. Since that time, the Bible has been translated into more languages than any other book in the world. It's not even close. You take the New York Times bestseller for the last ten years, and then you total up how many different languages those ten books have been translated into, and it won't even be close to the number of languages the Bible has been translated into.

God is a God of history. He's a God of eternity and a God of here and now. He wants people to know him. He wants people to be in a relationship with him. He's revealed himself. He ensured that that revelation got written down in inspired Scripture, and he ensured that that inspired Scripture got collected in the canon, and he's ensuring that that canon gets translated into every language.

The good news is God wins in the end. Because when you read the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, the book of Apocalypse, the Apostle John has a vision of heaven, what heaven's going to be like in eternity future, to use that terminology. And he says, "I saw people from every tribe and tongue and language and culture." So God wins in the end. The Bible's going to continue to be translated into all kinds of languages because God's message is good news and God wants everybody to hear the good news.

So you've got this process from God to us: revelation, inspiration, canonization, translation. Then there's the fifth step: illumination. What's that? Paul prayed this in Ephesians chapter 1 for the folks at Ephesus. "Ever since the day I've heard of it, I haven't ceased praying for you and asking that God would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you might know him better. And I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened to know the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance for you, his saints."

Illumination is the Holy Spirit opening our eyes to what the Bible means and how to apply it to our lives. In other words, when we come to God today seeking him, seeking answers to our questions, seeking hope out of our pain, seeking truth to set us free—when we come to God seeking and we get into his Word, he speaks to us.

And the Word comes alive. Sometimes that happens in gatherings like this in a worship service. Sometimes that happens in small group Bible studies as people gather together and talk about the meaning of Scripture and how to apply it to our lives. And sometimes that happens when we just personally open up the book and read it.

In fact, Paul described it this way in 1 Corinthians chapter 2: "But God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? And in the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We've not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who's from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words."

"Now, the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. He cannot understand them because they're spiritually discerned. But the spiritual man makes judgments about all things. He himself is not subject to any man's judgment. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? We have the mind of Christ."

Paul says the Spirit reveals things. And that's why God's given us the Spirit, because he wants us to know the things that God has freely given to us. And he says, "I speak in spiritual thoughts put into spiritual words." Now, if you don't have the Holy Spirit, it's all foolishness to you in the first place. But the person who in dependence upon the Spirit is seeking after God, he's able to make judgments and discernments about spiritual things. He actually can gain the mind of Christ.

See, the Bible is one book. You've got to know the author to understand the book. You can read it, and it's just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to you if you don't believe in the author to begin with. On the other hand, you don't have to have a seminary education, you don't have to have a religious training. All you have to have is a seeking heart, and the Bible will jump off the page with meaning and truth and application and hope for your life because God is a revealer.

So there's revelation, and there's inspiration, there's canonization, and there's translation, and there's illumination. Then what are we going to do with it? Sixth, application. Jesus said this very simply in John 14:21: "He who has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father. I too will love him and show myself to him."

Those last four words: "Show myself to him." When we take what we have received and we obey, not only are we demonstrating a love relationship with God, but God makes a promise: "I will show myself to that person." We'll get to know more about God, we'll experience more of his plan for our life, we'll grow more in terms of what he's trying to do in our lives.

Obedience is the key to get to know God better. If God has revealed something to you and you don't do anything with it, why should he reveal anymore to you? On the other hand, if God reveals something to you and you take that into your heart and you seek to obey it, God promises, "I'm going to reveal even more."

There's a dynamic. That's why we talk about Christianity as not a religion, but a personal relationship. It's like any personal relationship. You spend time with somebody, you get to know them better and better. See, God is a revealer. He wants to make himself known. He wants us to understand who he is. He wants us to experience his grace and his love and his power and his truth.

So he's revealed himself. He's ensured that everybody gets access to that, so he's inspired that and had it written down. And then he had that collected, and then he had that translated, and now it's available to anyone to actually get into, and he'll speak to the person out of that. But then, now, what do we need to do with what God has personally spoken to us? Put it into practice. Obey it.

And here's the last step in this seven-step process: transformation. Second Corinthians chapter 3, verses 17 and 18: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, all reflect the Lord's glory. We are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

The Greek word for transformation there is *metamorphoo*. It's where we get the word metamorphosis. God literally wants to bring about a spiritual metamorphosis for us, to change us from where we are right now to who he wants us to be, to become more and more like Jesus Christ. God wants every person here to have more and more of his grace, to have more and more of his love, to have more and more of his power, to have more and more of his mercy, more and more of his truth, more and more of his hope—the very life of God increasingly filling our lives. So what did he do to get this ball rolling so that we could be changed? He revealed himself.

And so Paul says, "This gospel, this good news I'm telling you, it doesn't have a human origin. A bunch of men didn't sit around and figure it out. Nobody came and taught it to me in any kind of human fashion. It was revealed to me by God himself. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's changed my life." And I don't know if Paul knew it, but here we are 2,000-plus years later, and it can change our lives today, the good news of Jesus, because God has revealed himself.

Guest (Male): What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just five dollars. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250.

For your gift of twenty-five dollars or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, *Facing Goliath*. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a minute, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. In Galatians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul says that the grace of God had changed his life. When he received the gospel of Jesus Christ by revelation, it changed his life. And now 2,000 years later, God is still in the business of changing lives. I've had my life changed. The gospel has changed my life. I've seen the gospel change others' lives. It's because God reveals himself in the gospel.

In fact, God instituted a plan long ago whereby his thoughts could come into our heads and change our lives. It began with revelation, God making himself known. It continued in inspiration, the things that God has made known being written down in the words of Scripture. It continued through canonization where the Scriptures were put together so that we have the Old and New Testament together. It continues on in translation so that original Bible in the Hebrew and the Greek could be made known to people of various languages.

And so the Bible has been translated to various languages, and then it moves on into interpretation when we read the Bible for ourselves in our own language. And then it continues through illumination where the Holy Spirit takes the words that we read and he gives us the meaning and he speaks directly to our lives. And then it moves to application where we take what we have learned and we put it into practice. And then it culminates in transformation where God the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God that's received into our lives and makes us new people.

Second Corinthians chapter 3 says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty, and we all with unveiled faces behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. We are being transformed into that same image from glory to glory, even by the Lord the Spirit." You see, God wants to transform lives. And he institutes the process of transformation by revealing himself, by making himself known.

And so Paul says in Galatians chapter 1 that he didn't receive this gospel through human origin. He wasn't taught it by man. He didn't receive it from man. It came to him as a revelation of Jesus Christ. God is still in the business of revealing himself so that people might be transformed. Have you experienced the transforming power of Jesus in your life? Have you received the revelation of God as he speaks in the gospel in the Word of God?

If you have, then give praise to God. If you haven't, then ask him to reveal himself to you. Ask him to show you his forgiveness and love and plan. Ask Jesus Christ to be the Lord of your life and receive his grace right now. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you that you reveal yourself, you make yourself known, you change lives. And I thank you that you've done that for me and for thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people. But I pray right now for those who are hearing these words who have yet to experience your transforming grace. And I pray right now they'd open up their heart to you and say yes to Jesus, and you would reveal yourself to them and they would receive you as their Savior and Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Guest (Male): We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.