Is the Bible God’s Book?

Luke ‘…carefully investigated everything from the beginning.’  Luke 1:3  

What did he investigate?  He investigated the claims about Jesus and the Kingdom.  Where do we start if we want to investigate it?  There is only one book that reveals the life and work of Jesus and the Kingdom of God.  So the investigation centers on Scripture, the Bible.  

However, we first need to know if we can trust the Bible?  Is it the Word of God?  Is it a human book by human writers with their opinions, or a book authored by God and written down by men?  Simply said, is it a product of God or of man?  The one big reason we know that it is not a human product is the ‘strange’ facts revealed in the Bible.   

Bible –  product of God or of man?   

Could human writers who according to our estimates are actually ‘primitive,’ with little knowledge of philosophy, science, et cetera, imagine the following:     

• • • A Triune, eternal, invisible God.  God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is one in essence and three in Person.   
    • A God who created the universe in six twenty four hour days.  Moses, who wrote the book, Genesis, grew up in the palace of Pharaoh.  It took many years to build pyramids, temples, store cities, et cetera.  Yet he claims this invisible God did it in six days.  Wow!
    • A Garden in Eden with two ‘strange’ trees.  It was a tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The tree of life will be eternally in the New Jerusalem, 

‘On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.’  Revelation 22:2b

• • • Who has ever heard of a fruit tree that bears a crop every month?
    • The Bible claims that God will destroy this present heaven and earth and replace it with a creation of stupendous beauty which will last forever.  That new earth will have an unimaginably large capital city.  It is in the shape of a cube with a width, height and length of 2,200 kilometers or 1,400 miles.  It streets are of gold.  
    • Join me and be amazed that the Bible, with those fantastic revelations, is banned, banished, abolished, decried and detested.  Many claim it is a myth, yet they fight that ‘myth’ will all their might.  If one just looks what happens around the world you understand the war against the Word.    
    • Could ordinary writers imagine the following: the Creator God has a Son who became the Son of Man and was born as an ordinary human being?  Later, after a sinless life and a three year ministry of healing and hope, He was crucified in a horrible way as only slaves and the worst of criminals were.  However, He was resurrected on the third day and after forty days went back to His Father in heaven.  We have the promise that He will come again.     

Conclusion

The Bible is a product of God, not of man. 

Hallelujah, no Judgement!

The one essential aspect of God’s Kingdom is the final division between humans: those who were willing to serve God, and those who were not.   That will take place on the Great Day of the Lord, the final Judgment.  Revelation 20:11-15

God has assigned Jesus to be the Judge. 

‘…the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father.’  John 5:22  

The Great Problem

If Jesus was an ordinary man who was ‘elevated’ during His life to become the Son of God, there can be no Judgment Day.  The reasons are: 

• The Final Judgement is based on what a person did while on earth (‘each person was judged according to what he had done,’  Revelation 20:13b). 
• God is clear that no one can ever be considered sinless, ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’  Romans 3:10  If Jesus was an ordinary human being, it means sin was part of his life.  
• For Jesus to be the Judge, God must have declared Him sinless.  But, that is manifestly unfair!  To be fair God then has to declare all humans sinless, not only one specific one.   
• The holy God can never do that.  Judgment is serious since on it hinges man’s eternal destiny.  God is a just God.  He will never commit such a serious ‘sin.’ 

Conclusion

God’s rule applies to all people: all sinned and need forgiveness.  Jesus was not a man that became the Son of God, He is the eternal Son of God who became a sinless human Sacrifice on our behalf.  He is qualified to be the Saviour and Judge. 

Why was Jesus so ignorant?

God’s critics love to claim that Jesus is not the eternal Son of God.   And why do they say it?  Among other things, because Jesus supposedly did not know when the Second Coming would take place.  They reckon, if He was God’s eternal Son, He would have known it.  

Terrible of Jesus to be so ignorant!  Jesus told His disciples, ‘No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.’  Matthew 24:36 

However, there is a very good reason that the Father did not reveal the date to  Jesus.  Jesus faithfully reported what He heard from His Father:

• ‘…I [Jesus] told you the truth I heard from God.’  John 8:40b 
• ‘…I [Jesus] did not speak of My own accord, but the Father who sent Me commanded Me what to say and how to say it….  So whatever I say is just what the Father has told Me to say.’  John 12:49-50b

If the Father revealed the date to the Son, the Son would have revealed it to the disciples.  With that knowledge the disciples through the ages could have lapsed into complacency, and ‘postponed’ holy living.  After all, why trouble yourself when you know the end will come only in 500 or 1,000 years?   Why not eat, drink, be merry and forget the Lord?

God desires that we live holy lives.  ‘Since everything will be destroyed in this way [when the day of the Lord comes], what kind of people ought you to be?  You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the Day of God and speed it’s coming.’  2 Peter 3:11-12  

Conclusion

God wants each generation of the saved to seek Him and live as if Jesus might come at any time.  God wants us to be filled with the Holy Spirit and live in a relationship with Him.  The accusation that Jesus was ‘ignorant’ does not hold water.  God kept the information about the Second Coming hidden from Jesus for a good practical reason.  For our benefit.