Is the Bible Reliable for the Truth About Jesus Christ?

One of the most interesting stories of 2008 involved the CERN laboratory outside Geneva, Switzerland. On Wednesday, September 10, 2008, scientists activated the Large Hadron Collider, an eight billion dollar experiment designed to see what happens when protons crash into each other at incredibly fast speeds. "Now we can look forward," said the project director, "to a new era of understanding the origins and evolution of the universe." Christians can and should be enthusiastic about this kind of research. Our knowledge of reality, however, is not limited to what science can prove.

Christians believe that God has spoken (which obviously assumes a God who can speak!). As the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy: "All Scripture is inspired of God and is useful in teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully equipped for every good work." (2 Tim . 3:16). If this text isn't true - if Scripture isn't inspired by God - the Gospel, the church, and Christianity itself are just smoke and mirrors - a mirage that disappears upon closer scrutiny. Trust in the Bible as God's Word is essential for Christianity.

The Christian worldview presupposes and requires an inspired word: the Bible. The Bible is God's revelation, "God's self-revelation by which He makes known the truth about Himself, His purposes, His plans, and His will that could not be known otherwise." Consider how your relationship with someone else drastically changes when the other person is willing to open up - a casual acquaintance becomes a close friend. Likewise, our relationship with God is founded on the principle that God has chosen to reveal himself to us.

This all sounds good, but why would anyone believe what the Bible has to say is true? Is not faith in the historicity of biblical texts similar to the belief that Zeus reigned from Mount Olympus? This is an important question that deserves a clear answer on the part of those who bear the name of "Christian". Why do we believe in the Bible? There are many reasons. Here are two.

First, we should believe the Bible because Christ believed the Bible.

This reasoning may sound tortuous or circular. It is not. As the British theologian John Wenham has argued, Christianity is rooted first and foremost in faith in a person: “Until now, Christians who were unaware of the status of the Bible have been caught in a vicious circle: any satisfactory doctrine of the Bible must be based on the teaching of the Bible, but the teaching of the Bible itself is suspect. The way out of the dilemma is to recognize that faith in the Bible comes from faith in Christ, and not vice versa. In other words, trust in the Bible is based on trust in Christ. Is Christ what he said he was? Is he just a great man or is he the Lord? The Bible may not prove to you that Jesus Christ is Lord, but the lordship of Christ will prove to you that the Bible is God's very word. This is because Christ regularly spoke of Old Testament authority (see Mark 9). authority for His teaching saying, "I tell you" (see Matthew 5). Jesus even taught that the teaching of His disciples would have divine authority (see John 14:26). If Jesus Christ is trustworthy, then His words about Bible authority should also be trusted. Christ is trustworthy and trusted in God's Word. So we should. Without faith in Christ, you won't believe the Bible is God's self-revelation. With faith in Christ, you can't help but believe that the Bible is God's Word.

Second, we should believe the Bible because it accurately explains and powerfully changes our life.

How does it explain our lives? The Bible makes sense of the universal sense of guilt, the universal desire for hope, the reality of shame, the presence of faith and the exercise of self-sacrifice. Such categories loom large in the Bible and are evident, at different levels, in our lives. And the good and the bad? Some may try to deny their existence, but the Bible better explains what we all experience: the presence of good (the reflection of a perfect and holy God) and the presence of evil (the expected results of a fallen and corrupt creation) .

Also consider how the Bible powerfully changes our lives. The philosopher Paul Helm wrote, "God [and His Word] are tested by hearing and obeying Him and finding that He is as good as His Word." Our very life becomes a test of the reliability of the Bible. The life of the Christian should be a proof of the truthfulness of the Bible. The psalmist exhorted us to “taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him ”(Psalm 34: 8). When we experience God, when we take refuge in Him, His words prove to be a reliable standard. Like the captain of a ship in ancient times who relied on his map to take him to his final destination, the Christian trusts in God's Word as an infallible guide because the Christian sees where it has taken him. Don Carson made a similar point when he described what first attracted a friend of his to the Bible: “His first attraction to the Bible and to Christ was stimulated in part by intellectual curiosity, but more particularly by the quality of life of some Christian students he knew. The salt had not lost its flavor, the light still shone. A changed life is the proof of a true Word.

If this is true, what should we do? First: praise God: he did not remain silent. God was under no obligation to speak; yet he did. He came out of silence and made himself known. The fact that some would like God to reveal Himself differently or more does not change the fact that God revealed Himself as He saw fit. Second, because God has spoken, we should strive to know him with the passion of a young man chasing a young woman. That young man wants to get to know her more and better. He wants you to speak and when he does he immerses himself in every word. We should desire to know God with a similar, youthful, even passionate zeal. Read the Bible, get to know God. It's the New Year, so consider following a Bible reading schedule like M'Cheyne's Daily Reading Calendar. It will take you through the New Testament and the Psalms twice and the rest of the Old Testament once. Finally, look for evidence of the Bible's truthfulness in your life. Make no mistakes; the truth of the Bible does not depend on you. However, your life proves the reliability of Scripture. If your day were recorded, would anyone be more or less convinced of the truth of Scripture? The Corinthian Christians were Paul's letter of commendation. If people were wondering if they should trust Paul, they just had to look at the people Paul served. Their life proved the truth of Paul's words. The same goes for us. We should be the Bible's letter of praise (2 Cor. 14:26). This requires a sincere (and perhaps painful) examination of our life. We may discover ways in which we ignore God's Word. A Christian's life, however imperfect, should reflect just the opposite. As we examine our lives we should find compelling evidence that God has spoken and that His Word is true.