The Bible -- the Word of God?

Is the Bible God’s word?

First, does the Bible pass the test of historical accuracy? We know it does, for several reasons: first, because it passes the test of reality – worldly archaeologists rely on it to tell them where to find places to dig (and what do you know…the archaeologists dig, and presto – there it is) – the Bible is archaeologically accurate. Second, the Bible has more manuscript evidence than any other historical document. Third, even the secular historians’ (Josephus, etc.) accounts agree with those of the Bible. And fourth, the Bible’s account of historical events and people have consistently been confirmed by other historians, even today (Darius existed, King David existed, Solomon existed, etc.).

These are more than enough to show the Bible’s reliability, at least as a historical document. Now, this does not prove that it was inspired by God (i.e. men wrote what God told them to), as men alone can also write historically accurate documents…but it does give us some place to start, because if we know that it is historically accurate, then we can look at its content (i.e. what Jesus said about himself) to see what it says.

Second, is the Bible consistent with itself? In its 2000 (at least) year history, there has been ample time for those who do not believe it to find a contradiction in it, but to date, there has been found not one bona fide, incontrovertible contradiction.

Now, can we prove something from this? Not directly, until we consider what Jesus said about himself. So what does he say? Most importantly, he claims that he is God.

If we examine Jesus’ claims, then we are left with only a few options. Either Jesus was who said he was, or he wasn’t. What does this mean? If we break it down further, Jesus could have been a lunatic (with an infinitely wrong belief of himself), a liar (one who knows that what he says is untrue), or exactly who he claimed to be – God. There are no other options.

That Jesus claimed to be God is plain to anyone who reads the historical accounts of his teachings (see John 1:1-17; 8:58; 10:30; Luke 5:20-21; and others)

But what if he was not who he claimed to be? We have two options left: he must have been a liar or a lunatic.

If he was a liar, what did he stand to gain by propagating the lie? That people would follow him?...this might be possible, except that when given the chance to save his life by simply saying “yeah, it’s not true, I’m really not God” does he do this? No, in fact, he continued to maintain that what he said was true (see John 18:19-23; Luke 22:67-71; and Mark 14:61-62). Again, if he was a liar, how is it then that he rose from the dead? He was certainly dead after having been crucified (the Romans were experts in crucifying people), and yet there were hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw him alive after he had been dead and buried. Not only this, but those who could have disproven his resurrection did nothing to deny it (the Pharisees had a lot of credibility to lose if Jesus rose from the dead, and the Roman soldiers who were guarding the tomb could have easily repudiated the story of Jesus’ resurrection, if it had not been true). Thus, we see that the claims that Jesus made were not lies; at the very least, Jesus believed in what he taught up to the very end.

This brings us to our third option…if he were a lunatic. What is the defining characteristic of lunacy? It is that what I am and what I believe I am are different. If this difference is only a little, we call it pride (or depression), if it is larger, we call it delusions of grandeur; now, these differences are those of degree – what if we look at differences of kind - if I were to believe myself to be a horse? I would certainly be classified as certifiably insane. The ultimate in lunacy, then, is to claim to be something infinitely different in kind and degree, when I am not that something. For a man to claim to be God is just such a situation – God is infinitely greater (degree) and definitely not human (kind). For Jesus to believe his claims (assuming that they are not true), would mean that he was raving mad – as insane as is possible. And yet, his claim were true, as we have seen before... everything that he claimed would happen to him, or that he was, are backed up by history, as he said, (paraphrased) “If I don’t do the works of my Father [God], then don’t believe me. But if I do, then you know that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10:37-38)…thus, he says that if what he does is not matching what he says, then we don’t need to believe him. Jesus clearly was no lunatic.

The logic of this argument goes thus:

Jesus is lord, liar or lunatic.
Jesus was not a liar.
Jesus was not a lunatic.
Therefore: Jesus is lord.

This argument is not my own original creation – I’m not that smart – C.S. Lewis originally used it in “Mere Christianity” (an excellent book, by the way) and Josh McDowell refines it in “Evidence That Demands a Verdict” (I don’t have space to quote his whole chapter here, you’ll have to read it for yourself).

"But," you may say, "you still haven’t proven that the Bible is the Word of God." You are right…but I don’t have far to go. Now we can say that:

Jesus was God
Jesus maintained that Scripture is authoritative (see Mark 12:10; Luke 4:21; and John 7:38; 17:12)
Therefore: Scripture is at the very least, ordained by God as the authoritative rule of conduct for all men (i.e., you and me).

Whether it was specifically written by God or “is the Word of God” or however you want to look at it, this is far enough for our purposes…the Bible is authorized by God as the rule of life which defines right and wrong conduct.