Scripture: Sola Scriptura

ONLY AND ALWAYS
SCRIPTURE: SOLA SCRIPTURA
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 5, 2012
2 TIMOTHY 3:10-17

The Bible contains 66 books—39 books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, and 27 books in the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation. The question is, can we trust them? Can we trust the Bible as the Word of God? Can we trust that when the Bible was formed, when the Bible was compiled, that the right books were put in the Bible and the right books were left out? Can we trust that process? And particularly, as we look at the New Testament and those 27 books today, can we trust that process?

You see, Dan Brown in his bestselling book, The Da Vinci Code, argues that the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, was not compiled until the fourth century AD, in the year 325, when Constantine the Great summoned the Council of Nicaea. He claims that when the Bible was compiled at the Council of Nicaea that the 27 books chosen were chosen arbitrarily and capriciously at best, or even worse they were chosen prejudicially. Dan Brown claims that some of the books that were put in the Bible should have been left out, and some of the books that were left out of the Bible should have been put in. So he says, “You can’t trust the Bible.”

Now, of course, The DaVinci Code is a work of fiction. Dan Brown has an agenda, and the pseudo-history in The Da Vinci Code has been debunked by both religious and secular scholars. But I would like us to take a moment as we begin this morning and look at how those 27 books in the New Testament were chosen. Of course, they were all chosen through a process. It did not happen at the Council of Nicaea in 325. The Bible was compiled through a long process by saintly people who were deep in prayer. They begin to compile the Bible in the latter part of the first century. And then the discussion over what books should be kept in it and what books should not be put in it continued into the second and the third century and even into the fourth. And there were great discussions between the Church of Jerusalem and at Antioch and in Alexandria and in Ephesus. There were great discussions in Rome. And of course, they wanted only the books that were first century and only the books that had apostolic authority. So they chose Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

I hope you understand that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are anonymous books. It was the early church who put the name Matthew to the first gospel, the name Mark to the second gospel, Luke to the third, and John to the fourth. Those four gospels were first century writings, but they were anonymous. So the early church believed that Matthew was behind that first Gospel, and he was a disciple of Christ. John was behind the fourth Gospel. He was a disciple of Christ. Mark was behind the second Gospel, and he was a friend to Paul and to Peter. And they believe that Peter was really behind that second Gospel. And the third Gospel was written by Luke, who was a friend of Paul. But they knew that these gospels had been composed and compiled in the first century

Of course, they added the 13 letters of Paul. The 13 letters of Paul were written between 45 and 65 AD. There are no scholars, including secular scholars, who would deny that the Pauline Epistles were written between 45 and 65, in the first century. So you see, the goals of the Christian church were to compile first century books with apostolic authority.

Now, you might be thinking, well, why were some of the other books left out? Why was the Apocrypha left out? And of course, the word apocrypha means “hidden.” It came from a word the original meaning of which was “hidden.” And then the word came to mean “esoteric.” And then the word came to mean “questionable.” And so the apocrypha were questionable books. And the apocrypha is found in the Catholic Bible today. The apocrypha has 14 books. And the apocrypha was in the Septuagint and also the Latin Vulgate Bibles. But the apocrypha was left out of the Jewish Bible left out of the Protestant Bible. So why do we not have these 14 books in our Bible? The first thing I would say to you is don’t worry about this. I mean, it’s not a big deal. These 14 books have nothing to do with the New Testament. They have nothing to do with the gospel, nothing to do with Jesus Christ or the life of Christ. These are Jewish Old Testament writings. They’re intertestamental literature.

So there’s a gap you see between the writing of the Old Testament and the writing of the New Testament. Between the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament, there’s a gap of about 500 years. That period of time between the writing of the Old and the New Testaments is called the intertestamental period. And these books were written during that time, but they don’t have anything to do with Christ or with a gospel or with a New Testament. And they were deemed to have some historical value.

I’ve read all the books of the apocrypha—I had to study them in theology school and had to write papers on them through the years. I’ve sometimes used First and Second Maccabees because there’s a lot of valid and wonderful historical information Antiochus IV (Antiochus Epiphanes), the Maccabean revolt, the desecration of the temple, and all the events surrounding Hanukkah. It’s really cool stuff. But these books in the apocrypha were deemed by the Hebrews to be of inferior merit. So they were not included in Hebrew Bible, nor in the Protestant Bible. But they have nothing to do with the New Testament.

Then you might say, well, why weren’t some of the apocryphal Acts included in the Bible? And these are the apocryphal Acts: Acts of Paul, Peter, John, et cetera. They’re all pseudographical. I mean, they’re all falsely ascribed. Paul didn’t write the Acts of Paul, Peter didn’t write the Acts of Peter. These are pseudographical books. They were not written in the first century. They were written towards the end of the second century and then the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. And some of them were written in the sixth and seventh century. They’re kind of rip-offs on the biblical book of Acts which claim to tell the history of the early church. But the book of Acts that we have in the Bible is written in the first century, not in the second, third, fourth, or fifth centuries. And it is of a completely different quality. This was really an easy choice.

You might say, well, why weren’t the apocalypses in the Bible? You probably aren’t saying that because you’ve never heard of them. But these are the apocryphal apocalypses, and these are some of the ancient writings that are apocalyptic. These are the ones that are in the genre of apocalyptic—like the Book of Revelation is an apocalypse, and certain passages part of Daniel as apocalyptic. So why weren’t the apocryphal apocalypses included in the Bible? And of course, these books were written in the third century and the fourth and beyond. None of them are first century. And if you look at the content in them, you almost can’t stop laughing. I mean, they claim to be predictive, to be prophetic, and to look to the future. But, boy, are they full of bizarre stuff. And they were deemed unworthy, and rightly so. They are not even close to the quality of biblical books.

And then you might be thinking, well, why weren’t some of the apocryphal epistles in the Bible? And of course, the apocryphal epistles are letters that are kind of like the Pauline Epistles, but again, they are pseudographical and written late. The apocryphal epistles are written way late, most of them starting in the third century. So these are a books that were written so late as to be deemed unworthy.

And then you might be thinking about, how about the apocryphal gospels? And there were tons of apocryphal gospels, and some of them are gnostic gospels mentioned by Dan Brown, and I’ve put the apocryphal gospels up there for you. You might be thinking of me, as you see this, as some kind of a theological nerd. But I do want you just to see all of these ancient writings and understand that none of them are first century. The earliest of the apocryphal gospels is the Gospel of Thomas, which is one of the books found at the Nag Hammadi Library. It was written about 140 to 150 AD, the middle of the second century. None of these are first century. The earliest of these was written in the middle of the second century. And the content of these… it’s just filled with gnostic theology and eastern religion and bogus material.

Understand that when the early church looked at the writings that came from the first century and had apostolic authority, they were amazed to find not only were they first century but that they were unified. I mean, they taught the same doctrine, they told the same histories, and they were unified. Clearly that was the hand of God upon the biblical books.

Well, there are also books that are called said to be part of Pseudepigrapha, and it’s the same story. None of them are first century, and they are books of inferior quality. Really, I’ve read portions of most of them and all of some of them—it’s been a tedious task in the course of the years. And I can tell you that, the difference between the biblical books and these books, it’s not even close. It’s like moving from a classic to a comic book. All of these are second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, even into the ninth century. Only the biblical books are first century.

It’s really a simple thing. It’d be like you say you’re having company tonight. You’re having them over to your house, and you got a nice dinner planned, but you’d like to start with some guacamole. You have some great chips, but you don’t have any avocados. You got yourself some tomatoes and some and some onions, maybe you got some garlic, but you need some good avocados to make the guac. So you go to the grocery store, and you start feeling the avocados. And some of them are hard as rocks. You don’t take those, because you gotta have guacamole tonight. So you don’t take the ones that are hard as rocks.

Some of them are so soft that they’re rotten, and you just know when you cut into them they’re going to just be black and ugly. You don’t take those either. I mean, it’s a pretty simple deal, right? I promise you it’s that simple. I mean, when you look at what was out there and the dating and the content, this was a simple deal. The books that we have in the Holy Bible make sense.

I really have to say, I don’t think most people who doubt the Bible in the world today doubt it because they don’t trust the way it was formed. I really think that’s a small matter for most people. Most people really don’t know anything about that. Now, I think there are some people who might have some questions about the Bible because of alleged internal inconsistencies. For instance, in the Synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the first three gospels—as you look at parallel accounts of the same stories, there are minor differences. And that might trouble some people, and I’m not gonna get into that today. I mean, it’s like, did Jesus heal Bartimaeus the blind man as He was going into Jericho, or as He was coming out of Jericho? These kinds of minor discrepancies are easily resolved, and of course they’re substantially insignificant anyway. But if you have questions about those things, this is a wonderful book by Mark Mittelberg. You can get it in the Inklings Bookstore here. Mark is part of our staff and just a wonderful blessing to our church. The book is The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask, and he poses 10 questions and seeks to answer them. The third question that he poses is, can you trust the Bible? And he deals with these alleged discrepancies in the gospel accounts and he deals wonderfully with them.

Also, there’s this book by Craig Blomberg called The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. Craig Blomberg is the esteemed professor of New Testament theology at Denver Theological Seminary. He’s a great friend of our church. Craig often teaches here, but it’s a wonderful book on the historical reliability of the gospels.

But I think, again, in our world, in our culture, people don’t struggle with the Bible primarily because they wonder about its composition and how it was compiled or even because of these small alleged discrepancies. No, I think people struggle with the Bible because they don’t like what it says. I mean, that’s my experience. In my office, through 40 years of counseling, that’s my experience. As I read the newspapers, as I read magazines, as I listen to the entertainment industry, as I listen to academia, there’s just a lot of people out there who really don’t like what the Bible says.

First of all, they don’t like what the Bible says morally. Now, I hope you understand that in the Bible there is the moral law. And the moral law is capsulized in the Decalogue, which we call the 10 Commandments. It’s in Exodus chapter 20 and Deuteronomy chapter five. That’s kind of a capsulized version of the moral law. But the moral law is throughout the Bible. The moral law is not only throughout the Old Testament, it’s throughout the New Testament. And the new and the Old Testament agree completely on the moral law (what is morally right and what is morally wrong). They just are harmonized perfectly on morality, the Old and New Testaments.

Now, in the Old Testament, there are other laws—the ceremonial law—which regulated the feasts and the festivals and absolutions and ceremonial washings and purification from defilement. And it was given by God to the Jews for a specific period of time, but was repealed in the New Testament. Then in the Old Testament, there’s also, in addition to the ceremonial law the Levitical dietary laws, and those laws were given by God to the Jewish people for a period of time for their health and safety. And again, they were later repealed. But they were from God for a specific purpose and for a specific season. And then, of course, there were the sacrificial laws. The sacrificial laws governed the sacrificial system. But the sacrificial system came to an end when Jesus Christ died, once and for all, for the sin of the whole world. So the Bible tells us that the sacrificial system, which had been instituted by God, came to an end.

But the moral law, the Bible says, is forever. Jesus said it’ll never pass away. In the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus said the moral law will never pass away. Not one jot or tittle can be taken from it. The moral law is forever.

Now, we live in a culture that disagrees with what the Bible says morally. And maybe you do too. Maybe you disagree with what the Bible says morally. And if you do, ask yourself this: what is it that’s in the Bible that you disagree with? I mean, what’s the moral teaching in the Bible that you disagree with? Or maybe ask this question of the friends you have: what would be the morality of the Bible that your friends disagree with? And I think a lot of it has to do with sexual morality, because we live in a culture where the sexual mores of our culture are very different than the teaching of the Bible, right? For instance, what the Bible says about homosexuality I think many people, maybe even most people, in our culture and society would say, well, the Bible’s wrong. Don’t you think most people would say that?

When you look at Romans chapter one, verses 26 through 28, you see the statement that God gave men and women up to dishonorable passions. The women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and improper conduct.” So in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13, it says, “If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of the men have committed an abomination.” These kinds of passages are in the Bible. And what do you do with them? I mean, it’s the elephant in the room, right? I mean, what do you do with these passages? Because our culture just says, man, you know, homosexuality is fine and let’s be loving and let’s be kind and let’s be compassionate. And certainly the Bible teaches us to be loving and kind and compassionate. Obviously, it’s a very tough sub.

Understand this though: if you say the Bible is wrong on this, so much is at stake. I mean, if the Bible is wrong on this, maybe it’s wrong in other areas of morality. The Reformers said the Bible’s infallible. With regard to faith and practice—how you should think and how we should live?—the Reformers said the Bible is infallible with regard to morality and theology. But what if it isn’t? And if you can’t believe this, maybe you can’t believe some of the other stuff. Maybe the Bible’s just wrong on all of its sex stuff. You know, maybe nothing’s wrong with premarital sex. Maybe Jesus had it wrong on lust. Maybe lust isn’t so bad. Maybe the whole biblical concept of sex as a beautiful gift given by God but only meant to be opened within the context of marriage (and the biblical understanding that marriage is between a man and a woman and that this is foundational to society and to the family units) maybe that whole deal’s wrong. Maybe the Bible just has the whole thing wrong.

But understand that if you say the Bible’s wrong in terms of its view of homosexuality, then you have to say, hey, it might be wrong in all kinds of places, right? That’s a tough deal. Now, I want to preface what I’m going to say by acknowledging, first of all, that I generally believe along with most of you that what two consenting adults of legal age choose to do in the privacy of their bedroom is no business of the United States government, or any government. It should not be regulated by the government. It’s between us and God. I also want to acknowledge that I don’t believe in gay bashing Whatever the Bible says, I don’t believe in gay bashing. And I don’t believe the Bible would ever advocate gay bashing. I think the persecution of homosexuals is tragic, and I acknowledge as well that some Christians are mean and some Christians are hateful. Jesus Christ grieves that. And there’s no doubt some Christians are mean and hateful.

I’ve heard evangelical Christians just say horrible things about gays, and they haven’t even called them gays. They’ll use the F-word or the Q-word, and they’ll say that gays are going to hell and they look smug and happy. And I cringe at the arrogance of it, the self-righteousness of it. I cringe because it’s not biblical. The Bible doesn’t say that gays are going to hell. Now, of course, you can look at passages like the end of Romans one and 1 Corinthians chapter six and Galatians chapter five and 1 Timothy chapter one and Revelation chapter 22, and you’ll see a listing of sins in each of those chapters. And it says that people who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So these are sins listed, and they say the Bible says that people who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And on some of those lists it includes homosexuality. But you can’t pull that out of context. You have to understand that those passages, as they list sins, also list selfishness. Selfish people will not inherit the kingdom of God. Anger. Angry people will not inherit the kingdom of God. Envy, jealousy.

These are lists that are meant to be summary lists of sin, and basically the passage is saying, apart from Christ, sinners will not inherit the kingdom of God. And of course, the Apostle Paul writes, “And so were many of you.” You were these things, but now you are sanctified. So these passages are not saying that sinners won’t get to heaven, but that sinners need to be covered by the righteousness of Christ and saved by the grace of the cross. So I just cringe when I see judgmentalness and self-righteousness in the body of Christ.

Now you might be saying, well, the Bible’s gotta be wrong because didn’t God create gays? Didn’t God make people gay? Didn’t God make people gay and lesbian? Didn’t He really just craft the genetics, and shouldn’t that affect the way we view it all? Let me just respond by saying there is no evidence, scientifically, that homosexuality is genetically mandated. I love science. I subscribe to scientific periodicals. I get Science News, I get Scientific American, and I get Psychology Today. I love the whole arena of science. I majored in psychology in my undergraduate work. But there’s absolutely no evidence that homosexuality is genetically mandated. There’s a huge mystery to our sexual orientations and to the nature of our human sexuality. The truth is that they found examples of identical twins where one was gay and the other was not. And if it were genetically mandated, that would not be possible. They found no evidence of a gay gene.

I think most scientists think there’s a complexity of causation. There might be genetic factors, there might be some biochemical factors. There’s not just nature factors but nurture factors, and also issues relating to life events and some very traumatic life events. There are even some issues of choice, particularly in the area of bisexuality. There’s huge evidence of choice. So there’s a great combination and complexity of factors in the composition of our human sexuality. And that’s fair.

Lemme give you an example. I serve on the board of Colorado Christian University, and I’m so grateful for the school and I love this Christian institution of higher learning. Bill Armstrong is such a great president of our university. We have to deal with a variety of issues because they all are part and parcel to our society. One of the issues is transsexuality—you know, are we, as a university, going to provide for transsexuals? Transsexuals, when you look at issues of transgender (and I sit on the subcommittee that deals with these things) has to do with a person who is biologically a male but who in his heart has always felt like a woman. I mean, there are people out there in society who are biologically men but in their hearts just have always felt like a woman. And then there’s vice versa. There are people out there who are biologically women but in their hearts they’ve just kind of always wanted to be and indeed felt like they were men.

And scientists do not understand this. With regard to transsexuality, we have found absolutely no genetic causation, no biochemical causation, and not even any hormonal causation. The hormonal nature in terms of estrogen, testosterone, et cetera, that relates to the biology of transsexuals is totally normal. They don’t know what causes this, but it’s hugely complex and we need a whole bunch of compassion on human beings right now at the university. We’ve decided that if you’re biologically a man, then God probably intended you to be one. And if you’re biologically a woman, God probably intends for you to be one. It’s very hard, because if we say we’re going to provide for transsexuals, you need to provide completely different facilities. I mean, if you’re in a woman’s locker room and there’s a guy who is biologically a man but he feels like a woman, that doesn’t mean women are going to want him in there. You understand what I’m saying? So you have to provide separate facilities. This is how complex the issues are in our culture and in our society.

And, and I would say to you, as you look at a difficult subject like homosexuality, there just needs to be huge compassion. Oh, we need to minister in compassion. We have homosexuals who are in leadership positions in our church, but who are living celibate lives. And I believe that before Christ, they’re heroes. They’re just heroes. They’ve chosen to live celibate lives. But we have homosexuals who come to our church and attend here every week and who are living out their homosexuality, but we still want to love them and serve them. There needs to be huge compassion on this subject. But don’t say the Bible’s wrong.

I mean, understand that the Bible is very clear in Romans eight and in many other passages that the whole of creation has fallen. God breathed on man the imago Dei and gave the gift of freedom and we fell. And the whole creation has fallen. Even the cells and genetics of our bodies are fallen. We’re just born flawed, and we all need mercy. We all need incredible mercy. But don’t say God is wrong. I mean, the Bible is saying that homosexuality was not God’s intent. That’s not how He set the deal up. I think biologically that’s just tautological; that’s self-evident. You can just see how we’re designed and say, well, homosexuality was not how we were designed.

Also remember that God is loving and there are great dangers in terms of disease and infection, particularly with male homosexuality. A recent study that was exhaustive just came out and said that the children of gay couples and lesbian couples struggle. This study just came out and said that when gay couples and lesbian couples who adopt kids those kids really struggle. They struggle academically, they struggle emotionally, and they struggle behaviorally. And of course, the problem with a study like that isn’t it was conducted by secular people. But the problem with a statement like that is it is not politically correct and therefore it’s suppressed. It’s suppressed and virtually not reported on it.

But understand that God is not mocked. He’s called us to be loving, but truth is truth. And if you say the Bible’s wrong on any issue of morality, you’re entering into some huge and very, very dangerous territory.

Now, the Bible is the Word of God, and we say Sola Scriptura not just morally but theologically. And of course, when the Reformers looked at what was going on in the Catholic Church, they ran everything through the Bible. The whole concept of purgatory they ran through the Bible. They looked at 1 Corinthians three, they looked at Luke chapter 12, and they looked at Mark eight and they said, well, we think purgatory is an iffy concept biblically. They looked at indulgences, the idea that you could buy the forgiveness of your sins, and if you had enough money, you could get all your sins forgiven. They looked at it biblically and said, no way. They looked at Mariology and the worship of Mary, and they ran it through the Bible, and they said, you know, the Bible doesn’t really teach this. And they looked at celibacy in the priesthood. They looked at 1 Corinthians chapter nine, verse five, where Paul said, don’t I have the right to a wife? Don’t I have the right to be accompanied by a wife like the rest of the apostles, like the brothers of the Lord and like Peter himself? So Peter wasn’t celibate. He was married and most of the apostles were married. They ran it through the Bible and they said, you know, we think the church has this wrong. And it’s a huge problem for our brothers and sisters who are Catholic today, because there’s not enough priests, not enough people are willing to be celibate. So now many of the ecclesiastical functions of the Catholic church are done by deacons because they don’t have enough priests. And it’s just a doctrine that wasn’t necessary biblically.

So we use the Bible, Sola Scriptura, as our authority. And when they looked at the concept of papal authority, the power of the church to save, and looked at the Bible, and they said, no, it’s Sola Christus, Sola Gratia, and Sola Deo Gloria. That’s what the Bible teaches. They looked at the sacraments, and the Catholic Church had their seven sacraments—baptism, communion, marriage confirmation, ordination, penance, and extreme unction. They ran all of those through the Bible and they said, we only see two: baptism and communion. Personally, as I look at the Bible, I see four: I see baptism, I see communion, I see ordination, and I see marriage sacramentally. But I don’t care whether I’m Protestant or Catholic. I just want to be biblical. I kind of come out somewhere in the middle. I’m able to offend everybody. I just want to be biblical. So that’s what we’re saying today. Sola Scriptura. This is our authority. It’s our only rule of faith and practice. It’s where we find our morality. It’s where we find our theology. It’s how we understand God and how we understand ourselves. So please, be strong in Christ and don’t crater to the culture. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.