Does The Bible Prove God?

Biblegems #261

  

Question: Isn’t using the Bible to prove the existence of God circular reasoning—like trying to prove Harry Potter really exists because he is in a book that says he’s real?

At first glance this sounds like a reasonable argument. However, the analogy of the Bible and God to the Harry Potter novels is unfortunate. The novels are works of fiction. The Bible and its human authors claim to represent communication directly from the living God. There is no analogy.

A better analogy to God and the Bible would be an email or text. In that case, the “document” claims to be from a certain individual that corresponds to the number or email address of the sender. Is it circular reasoning to assume that the sender exists because the communication claims the sender exists and has indeed sent the document? No: it is common sense.

The Bible makes certain claims about itself or, more accurately, God makes certain claims in the Bible as His Word to mankind. For example, speaking of the Bible, the apostle Peter wrote:

         2Pet. 1:21  For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Likewise, the apostle Paul described all Scripture as “inspired,” an English word that translates a Greek phrase that literally means “God-breathed”:

         2Tim. 3:16  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…

More than 3,800 times throughout the Bible the claim is made that it is “the Lord” who is communicating His word through specific individuals. The Old Testament prophet Amos describes hearing from God as being so compelling he can’t help but tell it to others:

         Amos 2:8  The lion has roared—who will not fear? The Sovereign LORD has spoken—who can but prophesy?

Jeremiah tried to keep God’s word to himself because it was often painful:

         Jer. 20:9  But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

          

Like a text or email sent through a device, the Bible claims to be a communication from God sent through human intermediaries. The Bible does not attempt to prove God; rather, the existence of God is assumed, even as the existence of the sender of a text or email is assumed. God reveals Himself in the Scriptures as more than just a being that exists—even more than our Creator; He reveals Himself to be personal and deeply interested in us as the objects of His love:

         Ps. 8:3-6  When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet…

“The Dead Sea Scrolls And Jesus”

Biblegems #204

Question: What are the Dead Sea scrolls, and how does their existence have anything to do with Jesus?

Over the centuries there have always been skeptics who argued that the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Jesus were actually altered by Jesus’ followers to make the Old Testament conform to the historical facts of Jesus’ life and death.  This argument was widely used because everyone admitted that the probability of one human being fulfilling all the Old Testament messianic prophecies — as the New Testament claims regarding Jesus — was statistically impossible. 

Skeptics argued their belief that the biblical text was “fixed” on the grounds that our oldest existing Old Testament manuscripts (the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, or LXX) dated back only a far as 360 A.D.

While it was known that the LXX was first translated from the Hebrew into Greek between 285-247 B.C., the oldest surviving copies date back over three hundred years after Jesus. And the oldest Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament in existence dated back to only 1000 A.D. — nearly a thousand years after the life of Jesus! This gave the skeptics lots of ammunition (not evidence) for their claim of altered documents.

Everything changed, however, with the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947 by a shepherd boy looking for a stray goat in an area littered with caves near the Dead Sea. These caves were used as a repository of safe keeping by a community of Jews known as the Essenes. They preserved copies of their own writings, and copies of the Hebrew Old Testament, in earthenware jars. These manuscripts have been dated by archeologists as originating between 150 and 100 A.D. — more than one hundred years before Jesus’ birth.

What is most astounding — and most exciting for those who trust the authority of the Bible — is that these ancient Hebrew manuscripts predating Jesus are identical in wording to the Hebrew text we already had available to us, even after 1200 years of separation and 1000 years of Christianity. When comparing the Dead Sea scrolls to the 1000 A.D. texts there is only a discrepancy of 5%, and these differences are obvious spelling errors and minor scribal mistakes. Nothing of substance has changed over the span of 2200 years!

All the prophecies pointing to details of Jesus’ birth, his life, ministry, death and resurrection were original to the Old Testament as the Jewish people had available to them for centuries.

         Ps. 18:30 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

OT Sacrifices Under The New Covenant

Biblegems #68

Question: How much of the Old Testament are we held to regarding the sacrifices and the Ten Commandments?

Paul and Barnabas brought this very issue before the apostles in Jerusalem because many Jewish believers in Jesus insisted that Gentile believers had to conform to Jewish laws and customs (Acts 15). Should Gentile males be circumcised when they come to Christ? Should Gentile believers offer sacrifices and worship on the Sabbath?

Here is the decision by the apostles in Jerusalem, confirmed by the Holy Spirit: 

God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them [the Gentiles] by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (Acts 15:8-11).

So the rule for all believers in Jesus is that we are not bound by the law of Moses. As the Scripture says:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ (Col. 2:16-17).

This idea of the sacrificial system, Sabbath day observance and celebration of religious holidays as being “shadows” of the reality found in Christ runs throughout the New Testament:

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship (Heb. 10:1).

Even when it comes to the Ten Commandments, followers of Jesus Christ are not under the law written upon stone, but under Jesus’ new commandment to love one another (John 13:34). As Paul says in Romans:

         The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Rom. 13:9).

But here is the crux of the matter: The law, sacrifices and ceremonies are not bad; they are just incapable of changing a sinful heart into a loving heart. Only Jesus Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit can transform a person from the inside out. Then, keeping the Ten Commandments becomes a desire, not a law.

         So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law (Gal. 3:24-25). The law, which highlighted our sin and condemned us, has been replaced in the life of the believer by the grace of God, who pardons our sins and transforms our sinful nature into a holy nature.