Did God actually say?

The first words of the devil recorded in the Bible form the question, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?'" Casting doubt on the reliability of God's word (misinterpreting it to boot), this question has reverberated in the hearts and minds of people everywhere throughout history.

How do we know that God has spoken? Can we trust any sacred writings to actually contain the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God? Even if we grant that God has spoken, how can we be sure that the Bible of all books contains the word of God? Finally, if we grant that the Bible is the word of God how can we be sure that all of the Bible is God's word?

The Bible has a simple answer to this question,

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."

In other words, the Bible simply states that it is the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God because it says so. The Bible itself is the greatest proof of its own reliability. You might look at that and say that it is no proof at all; but that is only because you've already made up your mind that the Bible is not the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God.

People have raised tons of objections about the reliability of the Bible throughout history. Some have compared it with ancient mythology. Others have pointed out its antiquated worldview. Many have fished out "inconsistencies" throughout the text. More recently people have tried to revive the long dead Gnostic religion by co-opting the Bible with extra-Biblical writings like the so called "Gnostic Gospels". There are tons of reasonable, academically honest, and historically accurate responses to these objections (a subject for another post). But in my experience there is a fundamental belief driving every intelligent point and counter-point that anyone can make about the Bible.

I love the way that Bryan Chapell put it in his message at the Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago this past Wednesday:

"The danger with believing that part of the Bible is true and part of it is not and we'll just make our judgment as we go through is that ultimately there will be that moment of darkness in your life, in which you will cry out into the darkness, 'doesn't somebody have a word of truth for me greater than my own understanding?!' And the only voice that will echo back in the darkness is your own. Because you have become the word of God, the judge of it and the only one supplying wisdom. God says, 'I rescued you from that.'"

Our popular culture often demonizes those who live with the belief that God has spoken through the Bible. People who actually believe that the Bible is the word of God are often portrayed as intolerably self-righteous and judgmental people. Sadly and ironically the Bible declares that is precisely the sort of attitude from which Jesus came to rescue us.

The Bible declares that those who believe in the Bible need to be saved by God just as much as those who do not believe in the Bible. We all have been duped by the greatest myth of all: that God has not actually spoken (see Tim Keller's excellent message on the Gospel as "The Grand Demythologizer" from the same conference). Yet God did not remain silent. God reached down through the Holy Spirit and inspired fallible fallen people to write down the infallible and inerrant Divine Word. Then as if that were not enough, God came down to speak to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. God did all this to rescue us from the darkness.