Scripture is Authoritative
On what basis do we judge Scripture to be authoritative?
Q: I am now leaning Reformed, [having been disillusioned by Rome] but have questions.
The main one is: since Christians obviously don't accept the authority of the Pope or the Catholic Councils, by what basis do we judge Scripture to be authoritative? If no premium is placed on any Apostolic Authority or Succession and their heirs (and their judgment is claimed to have history of the reason anyone accepted the Bible), why even accept it?
On what basis do we judge "the Bible," we have today be authoritative when I don't have some authoritative interpreter or guarantee that the books we have are even what many claim to be?
A: The 66 books of the Bible had authority long before the Roman Catholic Church existed or any Councils claims to accept it.
Our interpreter is the Holy Spirit, and the one who preserved His Word is God [and He will continue to do so].
People must have a true and authoritative basis for their faith. Many popular religions are based entirely on human ideas and thus are merely theories or philosophies. Christianity is based on the Bible which Christians accept as their final authority because they believe it to be inspired by God; His actual Word. Thus, our first topic for study is the basis for this belief. Why do Christians believe the 66 books of the Bible to be a Book inspired by God? Our answer is found in the Bible itself.
1. The Bible Claims To Be A Revelation Of God.
This claim is found in a large number of places in the Bible. It is summed up in two short readings as follows:
Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (2 Peter 1:20-21).
These two short paragraphs give a definition of the Christian concept of the inspiration of Scripture. All Scripture is given by God. It was given in two main ways, first by direct revelation (by which the actual words of God are recorded by the prophets): second by inspiration (by which the Holy Spirit guided the prophets as they wrote and thus the prophets wrote Divine Truth). Let us examine these two aspects of the Divine origin of the Bible.
The Bible was given by means of direct revelation. Nearly four thousand times in the Bible we find words or expressions such as: And God said... or The Lord spoke to Moses, or The Word of the Lord came to Isaiah. You could look up the following references by way of example:
God spoke to Moses (Exodus 3:4), about 1500 B.C.
God spoke to Samuel (1 Samuel 3:11), about 1000 B.C.
God spoke to Elijah (1 Kings 21:17), about 900 B.C.
God spoke to Isaiah (2 Kings 20:1), about 700 B.C.
God spoke to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:2), about 600 B.C.
God spoke to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:3), about 600 B.C.
God spoke to Malachi (Malachi 1:1-2), about 400 B.C.
The above dates are given in round numbers to convey the sense of historical continuity. Thus, God spoke directly to His prophets from time to time throughout the entire period of Israel’s national existence commencing with Moses and ending with Malachi. These holy prophets received direct revelations from God and recorded them at His command. Thus, we have here the actual spoken Word of God.
We then have Jesus who comes on the scene in human history, God in the flesh, who spoke His Word to us, and passed his teachings on to us in the NT. After He departed earth, the Holy Spirit came and continued to bring God's Word through the Apostles [to complete the canon which ended with John in Revelation]. The full Word; the special revelation from God to mankind for what we need to know... was complete. It is the authority.
As noted, the Bible was also given by means of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There are large sections of the Bible which contain history and poetry. Are these sections nothing more than Jewish literature? Certainly they are classified as Jewish literature, but even the Jewish people were able to distinguish between ordinary literature and Divinely inspired literature. “Direct revelation” from God was not necessary when the prophets were recording actual historical facts, but to be authoritative history it had to be inspired by God.
2. The Authority Of The Bible Does Not Depend On Our Ability To Understand It.
Read the following verses:
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who predicted the grace that would come to you searched and investigated carefully. They probed into what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he testified beforehand about the sufferings appointed for Christ and his subsequent glory (1 Peter 1:10-11).
And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him (2 Peter 3:15).
You will notice that even the prophets themselves did not fully understand the words that God spoke through them or revealed to them. They were simply God’s messengers, and often the great truths they wrote down were too profound for them to understand. No human mind can fully understand Divine truths. A Muslim leader once asked, “Would God punish a man for failing to understand Bible doctrines?” The answer is, “No, we are not punished because we cannot understand the mysteries of the Bible, but for unbelief—for refusing to believe what God has said.” The prophets themselves were unable to understand the great truths they taught, so obviously many aspects of Divine revelation are beyond the limitations of our minds. This problem is partly explained by our next point.
3. Divine Truth Cannot Be Compressed Into The Life Span Of Any Human Being.
Study this verse:
They [the Prophets] were shown that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things now announced to you through those who proclaimed the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things angels long to catch a glimpse of. Therefore, get your minds ready for action by being fully sober, and set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:12-13).
God is eternal, and we are mortal. For this reason Divine revelation is progressive. God’s promises and revelations began in the first era of human life on earth, and continued through the centuries with new aspects of truth being added from time to time. Predictions were fulfilled in some cases hundreds of years after they were made, and so the prophets did not live long enough to see the fulfillment of their own words. Some of the prophecies in the Bible will not be fulfilled until the coming day of judgment. It is foolish for a man to reject a revelation because it does not fit in with the local circumstances of his short life span. Faith in God compels us to believe that God’s revelations embrace the entire period of His dealings with the human race. This is why we continually stress the vital need for clear historical perspective in our study of the Bible.
4. The Authority Of The Bible Is Unchanging As The Source Of Moral Conduct.
We see this in the verse we began with, 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Because the Bible is given by inspiration of God it is profitable. It teaches us the truth about God and states the kind of moral conduct God requires of us. It is profitable for doctrine, for instruction and for correction. For this reason, our study of the Bible cannot be treated simply as an academic exercise! Unless we are willing to obey God’s Word with a sincere heart, we will never learn the deepest truths it contains about eternal life. When we read the Bible seriously and ask God to speak to our hearts through its inspired teachings, we begin to realize that God does indeed speak to men with Divine authority through His Word, the Bible.
You can accept the New Testament as reasonably, historically trustworthy. From there all the dominoes fall into place and you end up with the word of God.
If the gospels are testimonies to Jesus’s historical teaching, then:
1) The law and the prophets are “God speaking,” according to Jesus Christ (so the Old Testament is God’s word)
2) Jesus’s teachings are God speaking.
3) The teaching of Jesus’s 12 apostles is Jesus’s (therefore God’s) teaching. “Whoever accepts you accepts me, whoever rejects you rejects me.”
4) Peter teaches that Paul’s letters are scripture in 2nd Peter. Since Peter teaches it, that’s the equivalent of Jesus teaching it, therefore that’s God teaching it.
5) All of the New Testament either has apostolic authorship or connection to apostolic authority (Example: Mark has Peter’s authority. Luke/Acts have Paul’s authority behind it).
6) The early church immediately started using the New Testament texts as scripture.
So there it is in a nutshell. That’s a truncated, simplified explanation. The summary is, we know Jesus is God, so he has the authority to tell us what’s scripture. We know Jesus gave his apostles the authority to tell us what’s scripture.
However, there’s NOTHING in the Bible (the only historical record of Christ’s teachings and His apostles teachings) that tells us any “successor of the apostles 2000 years later has the authority to tell us what is scripture", nor did Christ or the Apostles ever indicate anything is authoritative besides God's Word itself. God's Word is all we have ever needed and all God has and will ever give us. It is "the light to our path" and should be "hidden in our hearts" so we can "live by it", "trust God", and help us "follow Christ". The main problem today is too few read and study it, and their life easily reveals they are not guided by it.
Bonus: We all learn by authority (see @19:50)
Investigate the reliability of Scripture and examine Christianity here.
Footnotes:
4 points provided by unknown author.
Various other info added is mine.
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