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Today, we come to, perhaps, the greatest question ever asked. Everything you believe and are hangs upon how you answer it. You may not think it’s all that consequential, or that it’s just a question of history. But it is very consequential, and I hope you’ll take a few moments today and consider, not only the question, but how you will answer it, and the implications of your answer.

Matthew 22:41-42 “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?”

You know, there are many opinions concerning Jesus today, but what do you think of Him? Did He live? Was He a man? Was He more than just a man? Was He the Son of God? What do you think of Christ? We’ll look at history and sacred testimony for the answers.

Jesus Christ is without doubt the most influential name ever spoken throughout human history. Even the skeptic H.G. Wells acknowledged that to list the most significant people in the history of the world, Jesus Christ must top such a list. There is undoubtedly something incredible about a character whose name is commonly spoken on a daily basis in nearly every culture, all around the world, 2000 years after He lived. But, people look at Him in many different ways. Even during His life on earth, men had very different opinions of Jesus. The unbelieving Pharisees were asked on the occasion of the text that we read just a few moments ago, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is He? Well, they didn’t believe Jesus was the Christ because of their pride, their spiritual blindness and their ignorance of the scriptures.

But many did believe that He was the promised Messiah and the Son of God, and many still believe that about Jesus. And many do not. Many say that He was just a man or just a social and political revolutionary. Some say He was one in a long line of prophets sent from God; a gifted, perhaps even inspired teacher. Some believe He was a mentally unstable man who thought that He was God, like some who appear from time to time in our day making silly and blasphemous claims.

So, who really was Jesus? And, what think ye of Christ? Some think that Christ was a mythical character. That is, they don’t believe that the Jesus, whose life is recorded in scripture ever even existed, but that He was merely the imaginative creation of the Catholic church; wishful thinking of the part of crazy religious people. Some say that Jesus was a nice idea for the time, but not to be taken seriously, like people teach their children about Santa Claus.

Unfortunately, this view is gaining some traction among our increasingly atheistic and secularized society. And to me, it is really incredible that, supposedly serious people reject the historicity of Jesus, when there is a mountain of evidence that He indeed DID live on the earth. It’s a sign of the desperation of skeptics to blot the influence of Jesus out of our society. They protest too much, because if Jesus is nothing more than a mythical being like Santa Claus, then why do they take the claims of believers so seriously? Why do they rage such a vicious and rabid attack on people of faith? They may say, because there are so many who believe it and they wield so much influence and power over our culture and our world that this has to be exposed and put down.

But, shouldn’t that tell us something? Wouldn’t it really be strange, even incredible, for a purely mythical character to be taken as a literal fact of history—not by some little fringe element in some corner of the world, but by the overwhelming majority of people on earth, and have such an impact upon society, for thousands of years? Men just ‘dreamed Him up,’ and yet billions of people since have claimed to believe in Him, and even claim to follow Him.

Friend, you can’t date a letter, sign a contract, write a check, carve a tombstone, without acknowledging the birth of Jesus and admitting His influence on the entire civilized world. His life split history in two. Can you imagine how differently the history books would read? How different our music would sound? How different the art galleries of the world would appear? How different the literature of the ages would read if there was never a Jesus? Even the well known agnostic, almost atheist, Bart Ehrman, who has absolutely no interest in advancing Christianity, but a few years ago wrote a 361-page book debunking the mythicist views of Jesus and affirming His life and existence. You may not believe that He was the Messiah, and Mr. Ehrman doesn’t believe that He was the Messiah; Mr. Ehrman doesn’t really believe in God, but there is no denying that Jesus lived, according to this educated skeptic.

But what if we step back in time and allow history to testify about the matter? What if we were in a court of law with the very notion of a real Jesus on trial? What witnesses could be called? Well, some very convincing ones. You know, Roman history at the time of Jesus is sprinkled with testimony of Jesus’ existence in the first century A.D. Trajan was a Roman Emperor at the close of the first century and the governor of a small Roman province by the name of Pliny, wrote to Trajan for his orders on how Christians were to be treated. This was a question that had arisen in the Roman Empire, and both he and Trajan in their letters sent back and forth, called the Christians “followers of that Galilean.” They didn’t refer to Him as some mythical figment of men’s imaginations. He was a person from a real place.

There was a Roman historian–not a Christian apologist, a Roman historian–by the name of Tacitus, who recorded that Jesus was put to death under the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

Luke 3:1 “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee…”

Tacitus wasn’t a friend to Jesus or Christians, but acknowledged that He was a real person who had begun a real and influential movement.

Then there was the famous Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. He was a Jew, born just a couple of years after the death of Christ, who never did accept Christianity. But he said in his famous Antiquities of the Jews, “Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call Him a man, for He was a doer of wonderworks. He appeared to them alive again the third day as the divine prophets foretold.” Now, that’s from a man who wasn’t even a Christian!

Ancient men who DID believe, like Polycarp, who was a personal acquaintance of John the apostle, men like Clement, Ignatius… all wrote about the life and the teachings of Jesus. There’s other written testimony by those who claim that they saw Jesus in His flesh and heard Him speak. How can anyone seriously deny that Jesus was a real man? But what should we think of Him? Who was He? Where did He come from? What do you think of Him?

First, what did Jesus claim about Himself? Allow Jesus the opportunity to speak for Himself. Did He ever represent Himself to be a divine being? Did He claim to be deity? Where do we begin? He over and over and over again presented Himself to man as the Son of God. Of the four gospels, which all testify to His being the Christ, John’s gospel really places the greatest emphasis on the words and works of Jesus illustrating His divinity and in the golden text of the Bible, said that Jesus declared this:

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

He said to the Pharisees,

John 8:23-24“And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

John 8:56-58 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”

Now, here, Jesus says, Abraham knew about me. Abraham looked ahead in time and saw “my day.” This confused them because Jesus was alive then, while Abraham lived thousands of years ago, but He was saying that He had seen Abraham. Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Not I was, but I am. The Jews understood what the Lord was claiming there. He was claiming to be God, eternal God, because when He said it, the Jews picked up stones and were ready to stone Him for blasphemy, for claiming to be God.

Then, just before He went to the garden to be betrayed and delivered over to be crucified, He prayed His great high priestly prayer.

John 17:5 “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

There’s no doubt that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God: not a son of God in the sense of which all who are spiritually born into the family of God are sons of God, but literally, the only begotten of the Father; God manifest in the flesh. Now, that has life-changing implications. You can’t be indifferent about one who claims to be the Son of God. If He was the Son of God, He was the Christ, the Anointed One, promised and sent of the Father for the purpose of redeeming and saving man.

John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

He didn’t say, I’m one way to God, He said I’m the way to God. That’s why people then and now revile Him so, because you can’t find polytheism and pleuralism and relativism in Him and in His teachings. He is THE means by which God, according to His eternal purpose and design, brought salvation to the human race and for Him to be your Savior and my Savior, we must receive Him, obey Him, believe Him, serve Him, bow to Him as Lord and King. What do YOU think of Christ? You see, if you think of Him what He claimed of Himself, He is not an option or an interesting philosophy; He is the Savior, He is your King, He is your Lord.

Matthew 16:13 “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?”

Matthew 16:16-17 “And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”

Peter said, you’re more than the Son of man; you’re the Son of God! Peter would later say this to his own countrymen when he preached the gospel on Pentecost:

Acts 2:36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Jesus claimed to be greater than the great and royal noteworthies of the past. He said in Matthew 12:42 that He was greater in birth, greater in eternal riches, greater in wisdom, greater in power, greater in authority than even the wise, rich, powerful King Solomon! Friend, if He is greater than Solomon, He is greater than Mohammed. He’s greater than Buddha. He’s greater than Confucius. He’s greater than ALL men, because He was more than a man. He was more than a teacher and more than a prophet.

But how do we know that? Why would the Jews to whom Jesus came in ancient Palestine be expected to believe such a claim? Anyone could make the claim, but why should He be believed? Well, for one thing, their own scriptures pointed to Him. The Old Testament is one prophetic portrait of Jesus Christ, painted on the canvas of time, hundreds and even thousands of years before Jesus was ever born!

One time, Jesus put the Pharisees, who claimed to believe their Old Testament scriptures, on the horns of a dilemma. In the passage we read to begin this study, they were asked of Him, “What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He?” (Matthew 22:42). Now, at that point, He wasn’t asking what they thought of Him; He’s asking about their belief concerning the promised Messiah, whomever they thought Him to be. In other words, according to your view, when the Messiah comes, whose son will He be?

Well, they did know enough about the scriptures to know that He would be the son of David. That’s what the Old Testament taught about the Messiah, that He would be the descendant, the son of King David; that He would one day reign upon the throne of David. But then Jesus asks the next question, that puts them in a corner:

Matthew 22:43 “He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord…” 

Well, what’s He talking about? Look back at Psalm 110:1.

Psalm 110:1 “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”

David, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, called the Christ who was to come, his Lord. Now, think about it: how could the son of David turn around and be David’s Lord? What did Jesus mean by that? What did David mean by that? It’s because David’s son would also be the Son of God. He would not only be the Son of man through David, but also the Son of God born of a virgin, conceived of the Holy Spirit. You see, if those Pharisees believed their own scriptures, they had to acknowledge that.

Well, here Jesus stands before them, claiming to be the Son of God. They couldn’t accept that because they had determined that they were going to reject Jesus. But at the same time, nobody could dispute that Jesus was the Son of David. That was a matter of national genealogical record, which is even spelled out for us in the genealogies written in the gospel. Add to that the fact that Jesus fulfilled prophecy after prophecy after prophecy of the Old Testament right before their eyes. So, you see, Jesus had them in a corner, from which they could not escape.

Matthew 22:46 “And no man was able to answer him a word…”

Jesus’ teachings, His works, the details of His earthly life, His miracles—of which there were multitudes of witnesses, even secular historians as we noted, like Josephus, acknowledged that He worked wonders before the people. Ultimately, His resurrection from the dead, of which there were hundreds of witnesses in the forty days following it. Friend, the evidence is absolutely overwhelming! There are hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that specifically point to something that happened in the life of Jesus.

Now, skeptics try to explain that away, saying that Jesus arranged things to fulfill those prophecies, that He knew what the prophecies said, and He thought He was the Son of God, so He lived and He spoke in order to make it all fit, but it was just a great deception. Well now, if He was just a man, did He choose the place of His birth? The prophet Micah wrote that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem 700 years before Jesus was born and cradled in that lowly manger. You say, oh, but there were a lot of people born in Bethlehem. Well, 1400 years before He was born, Moses wrote that the Messiah would descend from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10). Over 500 years before Jesus lived on earth, Daniel wrote that the promised one would be rejected by His own people, just as Jesus, born in Bethlehem of the tribe of Judah, was all throughout His life (Daniel 9:26). I’ll tell you something else Jesus couldn’t have orchestrated if He was just a man, and that’s how He died. 1,000 years before Jesus came, David graphically and prophetically portrayed the crucifixion of Christ in Psalm 22. Read that Psalm. Friend, do you realize that crucifixion had never even been heard of when David wrote that psalm? Yet, it so vividly speaks of His hands and feet being pierced. In fact, crucifixion wasn’t even practiced until hundreds of years later. The mockery of the soldiers around Jesus was prophesied.

Psalm 22:7 “All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head…”

The fact that they stood at the foot of the cross and gambled for Christ’s clothes was also foretold in that chapter, 1,000 years before it happened.

Psalm 22:18 “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.”

Did Jesus look down from the cross and tell them to do that so that a prophecy could be fulfilled? Really?

Someone says, well, it was all just a coincidence. Well, we might believe that if we were talking about one, two or even a dozen prophecies. But hundreds of them, spoken over the course of hundreds of years before Jesus was born, and they’re ALL fulfilled in the documented life of Jesus? Now, what think ye of Christ?

Friend, how you answer that question has tremendous ramifications. You can’t just wave it off and dismiss it. It is worthy of your very serious investigation. You may not believe today, but it IS. It is not a question about which you can be neutral; you’re either for Him or you’re against Him. You cannot be indifferent about Him. If you’re not for Him, you’re against Him. You either believe Him or you don’t believe Him. He was either the Son of God or He was a liar. He was either the Christ, the Son of the living God or He was a lunatic. You either believe Him or you don’t believe Him. You can’t take the position that he lived and was the Son of God, then turn around and deny His authority in your life, because if you say He is the Son of God, then you’re saying that everything He said is true. If you say that He is the Son of God, then you’re saying He is the only way to heaven, and He is the King and Lord of your life, and that’s where the rub comes; that’s the real reason that so many reject Him and put Him off.

But, here, today, He stands in the courtroom of your heart right now. You’ve heard the evidence, the arguments have been weighed. So, what think ye of Christ? I hope you’ll put your faith in Him and obey His gospel today, being baptized into His death, burial and resurrection, and come to know Him living in your heart.

 

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What does the Bible mean to you? When you read it, what effect does it have upon you? What is your attitude toward it? You know some approach the Bible from a scholarly standpoint, some merely from a literary standpoint. Some lightly approach it from a devotional standpoint or out of a devotional motive. But even though they read it, the reality is that they remain fairly detached from it. The general attitude is that the Bible is an interesting, perhaps profitable book to some extent. But many don’t see it as having any real authority in their daily lives. But, my friend, by the Bible’s very nature, it calls for a response from every person who opens its sacred pages and reads it. The way we think about and talk about the Bible is very indicative of how we personally respond to the Word of God, and thus to God.

We are living in what is called the ‘postmodern era.’ Postmodernism is a term that we really should be familiar with because it describes a growing number of people, especially among the millennial generation. The postmodernist essentially denies the existence of absolute truth. In other words, he argues that there is no source of moral authority. Every man is his own authority, and consequently, they will say that whatever is true for you is not necessarily true for me, and vice versa. From that philosophy has been born the demand for tolerance. Really more than a demand for tolerance, it’s a demand for acceptance: of all other ideas, of all other lifestyles and beliefs. That is, unless your belief doesn’t allow for someone else’s. If it doesn’t, then you belief has to be done away with. That’s the hypocrisy of postmodernism because somewhere in all of that, even the postmodernist is saying that there IS a standard by which to judge an idea. But postmodernism claims that there is no such thing as absolute truth. But, you know, when you get down to the bottom of it, all of us believe that there is some line, some standard of truth. The question is, what is the standard?

If you believe the Bible, especially if you believe that the Bible has any kind of authority in people’s lives, you’re going to be ridiculed, marginalized and insulted. You’ll probably be labeled something like a fundamentalist or evangelical fundamentalist. And I don’t claim that term. I don’t wear that label or any other label like that. I am simply a Christian and I believe the Bible. But the term fundamentalist is thrown around and is usually said with a hiss. The label actually arose during the early part of the 20^th century, during the anti-modernist movement. In the 1800’s, there was a rise of biblical criticism. Darwin’s theory of evolution arose and began to cause people to question the accuracy and the authority of scripture. So, as a result, modernists in religion began to change New Testament doctrine and morality to become more accommodating and accepting of what they view as scientific evidence. That way, they could believe the secular view and still claim to believe in God. They began to deny the creation account of Genesis, the historical narratives of the Bible, the miracles recorded in scripture and ultimately the deity of Jesus had to be explained away along with His resurrection. The bottom line, according to the modernist is that you can no longer claim that the Bible is an inspired, infallible book with any real authority over our modern day lives.

Today, many who spew the term ‘fundamentalist’ at those who are more conservative than they have come under the influence of secular humanism and postmodernism. And they use terms like that in order to discredit people with whom they disagree. They, on the other hand, generally look at the Bible as a book that has no real authority, that does not have God as its author, at least to any great degree. And if they place any importance on the scriptures, they interpret them in such a way as to allow for compromise with the secular world. I was asked some time back to explain what an evangelical fundamentalist Christian is. Without going into a long explanation of the folly of labels or the individual doctrines usually implied by the label, for the sake of brevity, I described to him what I basically just described to you: that people who use that term usually don’t have a lot of confidence in the Bible as the Word of God, and they think of themselves as being a part of the mainstream Christianity and of thought, rather than these ‘Bible-thumping fundamentalists’ who believe that the Bible is literally God’s Word. He said, Oh, I see. I believe in God as long as God agrees with me. You know, that’s a pretty accurate way of explaining it. But, as I said, I’m not concerned with labels, but if somebody wants to call me a name for believing that the Bible is the Word of God, that’s up to that person. But I can tell you that I believe in the inspiration, the relevancy, the sufficiency and the authority of the Bible. And the Bible claims to have such authority.

As I’ve said before in this series of studies, the battle for the Bible is not so much being waged in the hearts of unbelievers, as they already reject the Bible as part of their unbelief. Satan already has them. Where this battle is being fought is in the hearts of people who claim to believe in and love God. Eve believed God. She had communion with God. But what did the serpent ask her in the garden? “Hath God said…?” In other words, Eve, do you really believe what God said? The fruit is pleasant to look at and it’ll even make you wise. No, you won’t die…That battle is still raging hot in the minds of men and women today. It’s the age-old conflict of man’s reason vs. God’s revelation. So, Satan was able to compromise the Word of God in the mind of Eve, and he is still compromising it in the minds of millions of people today.

2 Corinthians 4:4 “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

If you claim to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand what the Bible says about itself. The Bible not only claims divine inspiration, but divine authority as well. Look at the chain of divine authority pictured in God’s Word.

God is sovereign and all authority comes from Him.

1 Corinthians 11:3 “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”

God vested His authority in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew 28:18 “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”

Philippians 2:6-10 “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.”

Hebrews 1:1-2 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…” 

So, God gave His authority to the Lord Jesus, who now rules as head of the church, king of His kingdom (Ephesians 1:20-23).

But then, Jesus has expressed His authority through His apostles, who HE called His “ambassadors.”

2 Corinthians 5:20 “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ…”

Well, what’s an ambassador? An ambassador is a diplomat or a sent representative of a king or government. Here in the U.S., we send our ambassadors all over the world and they become our representative or our voice in that foreign country. They are bestowed with the authority to speak with our interests on our behalf in that foreign land. We sometimes hear Christians referred to as ‘ambassadors for Christ,’ but that’s really a misnomer. We are not the ambassadors of the Lord Jesus. If you look at the personal pronouns that Paul uses in the above passage and their antecedents, you’ll see that Paul is talking about himself and those like him, as opposed to the other Christians at Corinth to whom he was writing. What he is saying is that the apostles of the Lord, those men who were eyewitnesses of Christ’s resurrected glory and were filled with the Holy Spirit, now stand in Christ’s stead on this earth. Not the pope—the apostles of Christ, who lived in the first century. Let’s read the rest of that verse.

2 Corinthians 5:20 “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”

So, Paul and the other apostles were standing “in Christ’s stead” or in His place and speaking by His authority.

John 17:18 “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.”

Galatians 1:11-12 “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after men. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

2 Corinthians 13:3 “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.”

In that last passage, Paul is affirming his apostleship to the Corinthians. These passages show us why the apostles were described as the foundation of the church in Ephesians 2 and 3. These men were vested with authority from Jesus Christ, and that gave them a seal of authority that does not belong to men today. That’s why Paul could say the following:

2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God…”

1 Corinthians 14:37 “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.”

So, that’s the chain of authority. All authority is God’s to give. He placed that authority in His Son, Jesus Christ, to rule over His church. Christ sitting at the right hand of God in heaven, left His chosen ambassadors, His apostles, here on earth and filled them with His Holy Spirit and inspired them with His words, so that when they wrote the scriptures, you see, they were writing by Christ’s authority and thus by God’s authority. What all of that tells us is this: the Bible is a book of authority. It was inspired and penned with the express purpose of being obeyed by the church.

People will tell you that there aren’t any rules in the Bible because it’s just a love letter, a general message from heaven. Well, the Bible IS the greatest expression of love known to man, but it was given to the church in order to be followed.

Philippians 2:12 “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Galatians 3:1 “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth…” 

2 Thessalonians 3:14 “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.”

Yes, the Bible is a book of authority. But Satan has waged war on that premise. How? We’re told, for example, that we shouldn’t take the Bible literally. I mean, that’s one of the primary things we hear today in an effort to discount obedience to the scriptures. Admittedly, there are things written in the Bible allegorically, poetically and prophetically. There are different genres within the scriptures. But does that include the commandments of Jesus and His apostles? Does that mean the Bible’s practical instruction for holy lives, the pattern for worship or nothing else is to be taken at face value and be followed and obeyed literally? It’s interesting that we don’t hear people saying that we can’t take the so-called golden rule literally. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s really interesting that people who don’t want to accept the Bible’s teaching on marriage and sexuality, for example, and say that we can’t take those ancient commandments literally, don’t seem to have a problem taking “Judge not that ye be not judged” literally. They believe that should be literally applied. What it boils down to is this: we will take the Bible at its word IF it agrees with our philosophy or our lifestyle, or if it bolsters our cause. But, all of a sudden we can’t take it literally if we deem it too restrictive or it conflicts with our will or the lives we want to live and the sins we want to commit.

We’re also told today that we have freedom in Christ. We get scolded for being legalists and pharisaic if we insist that we abide by the teaching of scripture. My friend, when Jesus condemned the attitudes and deeds of the Pharisees, He wasn’t condemning obedience to the Word of God! He was condemning their hypocrisy by claiming to follow the law, but instead doing what suited them. Jesus commanded obedience, He never condemned it. In fact, He insisted on it. He kept the law Himself.

John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

When Paul spoke of our liberty on Christ (1 Corinthians 8, Romans 14), for example, he wasn’t talking about freedom from the commandments of Jesus and the instructions of the apostles. He wasn’t talking about the liberty just to live as we please with no restraint, instruction or rules to live by. He was talking about freedom from the bondage of the Old Testament law that shackled men in a perpetual state of sin and condemnation (Romans 7, Galatians 3). He was telling them that those laws were no longer going to be what judged them, and teaching them how to treat one another in that age of transition from one law to the next. How to forbear with one another as many were coming out of the Gentile world and into the church and so forth. But in all of that, he never suggested that we are free from the commandments of the Lord Jesus or the instruction of the apostles.

Let me speak to something along that line. It’s amazing how Google and a Facebook account suddenly turn people into Bible scholars and theologians. Many allege that the Bible isn’t to be obeyed today because of some of the seemingly strange laws contained in the Old Testament. People reject the teaching of Christ and His apostles on marriage and sexuality, for example, because of some of the exacting and straining laws that Moses taught back in Leviticus. Friend, that is a gross misunderstanding of the Bible. Those Levitical laws were given to the Jews and not to the modern church. Paul later explained in Galatians 3 that that burdensome law was given to the Jews and the children of Abraham back there to impress upon sinful man the holiness of God and man’s need for a savior. And Paul taught in both Galatians 3 and Colossians 2 that Jesus came and fulfilled that law and took it away. We are now subject to the moral teachings and commandments of the New Testament, the will of the Lord Jesus. The New Testament doesn’t forbid eating shellfish or bacon, or mixing types of fabrics, etc. but it does condemn the impurity, the lewdness and the lasciviousness that our culture is steeped in today. The apostle Paul said not to let such things ever be named among the church (Ephesians 5:3).

Friends, we are saved by God’s grace and mercy and we are free, thankfully, from the shackles of the Mosaic law. We are not saved by our righteousness, but that doesn’t mean that we can be saved without obedience. There must be some authority. Even nature is governed by immutable laws, and when something or someone tries to defy those laws, trouble and chaos ensue. You see, the real battle we are fighting today over the Bible arises from the fact that sinful people want to be free from any moral restraint. Paul teaches in Romans 1 that that’s why the Gentiles suppressed the truth and rejected God. They chose evil over good. If you accept the Bible, it means that God makes the rules. It means that God is the authority. His Word is the authority.

Judges 17:6 “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

The book of Judges describes the results of that: absolute anarchy, disorder, moral and spiritual confusion. That’s what we have today. We have that today because people have rejected the Bible as God’s authority. As a result, we have chaos in the world today. The fabric of our society is coming unraveled. Won’t you believe and put your faith in the everlasting book of the ages, the Bible, the Word of God?

 

©2019 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.

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Is a book penned more than 2,000 years ago still relevant to people in the 21^st century? It’s not at all surprising that non-believers summarily reject the Bible. This was true even in the ancient world, as the apostle Paul stated in Romans 1:18:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;”

That phrase “hold the truth” means that they suppress the truth. They didn’t want it because they weren’t going to have God telling them how they needed to live, so they suppressed the truth. What’s alarming is the growing number of people today who claim to believe IN God, but they don’t really believe God. That is, people who claim to love Jesus Christ, but in reality they refuse to follow Him. Polls and surveys continue to identify a growing number of people who identify themselves as Christians abandoning the Bible as the Word of God. Instead, they think of it as an outdated scrapbook of ancient text, reflecting the ignorant and limited understanding of the pre-scientific and pre-enlightened men who were just trying to make sense of the world around them. Well, that is due to the fact that these people believe that the Bible is just the writings of men, and not divinely inspired. But is the Bible a book for PAST ages, or is it the book of THE ages? This question has incredible connotations for the church, for society and for our eternal destinies. Do we need a new gospel for a new age? Do we even need ANY gospel for this new age?

As I said earlier, the rejection of the Bible by unbelievers is nothing new, and is not at all surprising. What IS troubling are those who profess faith in God and the Lord Jesus Christ, but who, in increasing numbers, view the Bible as superfluous at least, or even wracked with error and irrelevant to the modern church. Not very long ago, former mega-church pastor Robert Bell, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, said that what he calls the church is moments away from embracing homosexuality and same-sex marriage. He said, “I think that culture is already there, and the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from 2,000 years ago as their best defense, when you have in front of you flesh and blood people who are your brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and coworkers and neighbors, and they love each other and just want to go through life.” Of course, the “letters” that Mr. Bell is talking about were penned by the inspiration of God, and the author of most of those letters, the apostle Paul, said in one of the exact letters that Mr. Bell is certainly talking about:

1 Corinthians 2:12-13 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

And Paul later said, 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”

But, the fact is that the view of Mr. Bell represents a growing number of people who claim to be Christians. Some reject the relevancy of the scriptures when it comes to their teaching on morality and ethics. Others reject the Bible’s relevancy to the modern church when it comes to doctrine. In other words, the Bible is not to be viewed as a guide or a pattern for the church to follow in the 21^st century. But is that accurate? First of all, look at what the Bible claims itself to be. Again and again, the scriptures claim to be the product of divine inspiration. Now, I won’t rehash the things we talked about a few weeks ago, except to say that the Bible has shown itself to be an extraordinary book. The circumstances of its authorship, origin and preservation are just far too compelling to conclude that it’s what ignorant men wrote as they groped their way through history. Friend, this book was written by 40 men, who lived 1,500 years apart, yet it weaves together the greatest story ever told!

2 Peter 1:21 “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

That phrase “moved by the Holy Ghost” means ‘picked up and borne along, like a ship by a prevailing wind.’ Now, an atheist or an agnostic may dismiss the Bible because they don’t believe that God exists to begin with. But don’t claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and then dismiss His word! Jesus, while on earth, told His disciples that He would make the truth known through them, after He ascended back to heaven and sent His Holy Spirit into their hearts.

John 16:7-13 “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”

Now, this was the promise that Jesus made to His apostles, who would remain after Jesus ascended back into heaven. How would He do these things?

Ephesians 3:3-5 “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;”

So, the Bible is the product of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In other words, they were under a divinely guiding influence as they wrote. The very fact that the Bible is the Word of God makes it relevant to you and me today.

Mark 13:31 “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Think about what the writer of Hebrews is saying here. That word “quick” means ‘alive.’ It’s not an ancient, dead or inert letter. It is living and it is powerful! How powerful? He says that it is able to divide soul and spirit, joints and marrow. What does that mean? Commentator Burton Coffman says that what he is doing is heaping together some powerful terms to illustrate the ability of the Word of God to penetrate the complex inward nature of man, to convict him of his sin, to expose his hidden motives and to judge the very nature of life itself. You see, the Bible is not a dead letter. It’s a living, abiding, powerful revelation of the will of God, which has the incredible power yet today to change your life from the inside out.

But, you see, Satan hates the Word of God. He is working still today to blind men and women to the power of the Bible. Let’s look at several ways that Satan works to make the Bible seem irrelevant today.

One, Scientifically

Do the advances of science render the Bible false, and therefore not to be taken seriously, but cast aside? Isn’t it strange that we’re told that science singlehandedly dismisses the Bible, even though scientific theories change nearly every day? We are supposed to immediately dismiss the Bible because of some scientific theory that stands up in the face of what the Bible says, yet scientists don’t even agree with one another much of the time about their theories? Friend, the Bible doesn’t stand in the way of science. Scientists were not there when the world began, and neither were we. All we can do is look at data and piece together clues from the past, then interpret those things. The fact is, how we interpret those things is determined by the framework or the world view that we begin with. For example, the atheist is looking at clues and interpreting data through a naturalistic lens. In other words, our natural environment is all that there is in his mind and there can be nothing supernatural or anything that is not defined or constrained by natural law. So he will reject that there can be a God who is beyond time and space because his naturalistic view won’t allow for any other interpretation of the data.

The fact is, the Bible does not contradict scientific fact. Rather, it affirms it again and again. Now, men’s theories about the past, which he did not witness, and his biased interpretations of scientific information, don’t have to agree with the Bible for the Bible to be true. So, science has not made the Word of God irrelevant.

Two, Morally

We’re told that our culture has moved beyond the antiquated teachings of scripture. For example, we’re told that sexuality and other aspects of morality are to be shaped by the whims of the masses rather than a 2,000-year-old book. Isn’t it strange though, that many of the people who scoff and reject what the Bible says about marriage and morality, sexuality, drunkenness, modesty, lasciviousness and so forth, will turn around and authoritatively quote Jesus saying, “Judge not that ye be not judged” or “Love thy neighbor as thyself” or “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “Ye who are without sin, cast the first stone”? They’ll quote those passages and do so with great emphasis, and those are all wonderful and true statements of the Lord Jesus. But why should we give those statements any credence if we’re so ready and willing to reject the other things the Bible has to say? Friend, did you know that man is not one bit different than he was 2,000 years ago? Think about it. Sin, as the Bible identifies it, has the same consequences. It wreaks the same havoc, and it creates the same problems that it always has.

Proverbs 13:15 “…but the way of the transgressors is hard.”

That was stated thousands of years ago, and you know what? Today, the way of the transgressor is still hard. You get out there and live an immoral and a profligate life and you’re going to find out that the way of the transgressor is hard. Man hasn’t changed.

Galatians 6:7 “Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Those things are just as true as they ever were. I sincerely ask you to think about this: If the Bible is morally irrelevant and unreliable and outdated, then what determines right from wrong? Don’t think about it selfishly. Don’t ask the question merely from the “It’s my life and I’m gonna do whatever I wanna do” standpoint. Think about it this way: Do you really want to live in a world where there is no absolute standard for right and wrong? I mean, nobody wants someone to come and steal their belongings. But why is it wrong to steal? Why is it wrong to kill? It happens in the animal kingdom all the time. Why is it wrong to rape? That happens in the animal kingdom all the time, too. Why is it wrong to abuse others? Why is it wrong to lie? Seriously, why are those things wrong? If there is no absolute standard, and if every person just does whatever feels good to him/her, whatever fulfills their desires and wishes, then what is the limit? Who determines what’s right as opposed to what’s wrong? Could it be that the Bible is NOT morally irrelevant after all?

Let me mention something here that the critics of the Bible will argue. They’ll say that the Bible condones and even encourages some evil behaviors, such as slavery, rape and incest and so forth. That is NOT true. The Bible was written to men who make up a sinful and fallen world and the fact is, because of its fallen state, that world is full of injustice and abuse because it IS fallen, from the very time in the Garden of Eden and the sin of Adam. While the Bible acknowledges and deals with those evils in the world, you will see when you really read and study it and stop taking verses out of context, that the overarching purpose of the Bible is to lift man out of his depravity. The Bible doesn’t encourage these societal evils. Rather, it points men to Jesus Christ, the great emancipator from these evils.

Three, Spiritually

The Bible has one central purpose: to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ and His salvation to us. Jesus came to solve the sin problem. You know, man STILL has a sin problem. There is not one single sin that is new in this age to the human race. Sin may manifest itself in different ways, but the sin is the same. Where do the problems we have today come from? Greed, filth, perversion, not loving God, not loving our neighbors as ourselves, and so forth… All of these things have been here since the fall of man. Every deviant human behavior that you see plastered on the evening news today, you can read about in the pages of the Bible from yesterday? Time moves along, generations come and go, men are born, men die, but the fact is that we have ALL—from Adam to me to you—we have ALL been sinners who are in need of Jesus. He came to this earth 2,000 years ago to open the veil between us and heaven and provide a plan of salvation whereby our sins can be forgiven and we can be reconciled to a holy God and have eternal life. Man has not come up with one idea or invention or piece of technology or innovation that does away with that need or fulfills it!

John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

John 5:39 “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”

Four, Doctrinally

If the Bible is morally and spiritually relevant, isn’t it doctrinally relevant as well? Didn’t Paul say that it was “profitable for doctrine?” But in Satan’s battle for the Bible in your heart and mine, he tells us, “Aw, but this is the 21^st century! Surely you don’t think the modern church is expected to go by a 2,000-year-old book!” Friend, if you reject the secularist saying that about moral issues, I reject the modernist and liberal saying it about doctrinal issues. The Bible is a blueprint. It is an everlasting revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and His will to the church of EVERY AGE. Once, Paul was dealing with a controversial issue in the 1st-century church at Corinth. Some there doubted Paul’s authority and his credibility as an apostle, just like many do today. He corrected their abuses in the worship and in the work of the church when it came to the public role of the women in the assembly in 1 Corinthians 14.

Afterward, he said in verse 37:

1 Corinthians 14:37 “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.”

They are the commandments of the Lord! He didn’t say that he was merely prescribing his opinion in order to confront some cultural issue. No, he said that what he had written were the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ. That means that the Bible is relevant to us even yet today.

Christianity is often thought of as being irrelevant in our modern world today. However, the principles by which we that are Christians live, are really a breath of fresh air in a world that is dominated by greed, covetousness, lying, vengeance and such like. And though the stories may involve donkeys instead of cars, and fishing nets and plowshares instead of computers and cell phones, and grinding flour from stones instead of sliced bread from the grocery store, and dirt roads instead of interstate highways, the teachings of Jesus are no more irrelevant now than they were when He spoke them on the shores of Galilee. I say with the apostles of old when Jesus asked if they were offended by Him, and would they also abandon Him:

John 6:68 “Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”

 

©2019 BibleWay Media. All rights reserved. BibleWay Media grants permission to copy this material for personal use. Permission is also granted to distribute this transcript as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, used solely for its original purpose of spreading the gospel, and attribution is given to the author and Let the Bible Speak.