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In our first session, we were talking together about the manuscript evidence for the text of the New Testament. And I made the point, in all honesty, that when one looks at the manuscripts and compares them, there are many differences between them. The question, therefore, arises, how and by what means can we decide what was originally written? Because it is in the cases where the manuscripts differ, it is a case of deciding between, uh, manuscripts on the one side that have this, and manuscripts on the other side that have that, so to speak.
The scholarly discipline that is concerned with making that kind of decision is, as I said in the first session, called textual criticism. Now, I do not propose to discuss at length now, or even at all, scarcely, how textual critics go about their task. That is quite an involved, uh, discipline. And it is my permanent surprise that amongst evangelical believers who believe, like I do, in the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture, there are so very few believers who have given themselves to this subject.
Ponder that a moment, and you may well come to share my astonishment. We can get Christian architects, God be thanked for them. And all the other professions, we are delighted with them. But you would expect to find that among scholars who give themselves to the textual criticism of the New Testament or of the Old, the majority are evangelical believers because of their very faith. And they want to be, therefore, in on the task of deciding between the variant readings in the manuscripts.
The number of evangelicals is pitifully few. Curious, isn't it? But I mustn't do more than express my, um, astonishment. Mm. As I say, I don't propose here to discuss how textual critics go about the work of deciding. But this I can quote to you, that the very famous New Testament critics of a past cent- uh, age, Wescott and Hort, alas, slandered by many evangelicals, wrongly so, gave it as their opinion after a lifetime study of the manuscripts available to them in those days, that less than two percent of the whole new Testament remained in any doubt.
And where, and of that two percent, mostly was concerned with small matters. Like, for instance, there being two words for and in Greek, and sometimes one manuscript will have, some manuscripts will have the one word, and other manuscripts will have the other word, and they both mean the same thing. Moreover, it can be confidently said that no major doctrine of the New Testament stands in any doubt because of differences in the manuscripts.
That is because no major doctrine of the New Testament is dependent on one verse. So, then by your permission this morning, I shall not discuss the methods that textual critics use. If you are interested therein, speak to me afterwards, and next time I come, I will bring books by textual critics that will let you see how they go about their task.
Pray for the modern, uh, ones that are evangelicals, won't you? There's a book written recently in technical circles by a textual critic who tells the world that he was an evangelical once and studied at Wheaton College and then went off somewhere else. And he writes this book, and the first bit of it is sensible, straightforward textual criticism. And then he goes into telling the world that, of course, now he's not an evangelical any longer, because we don't have the original text of the New Testament, and you can't be sure.
So he doesn't, his faith is gone, out of the window. That is a sorry thing. If you come across a book like that, do pray remember that there are other scholars and evangelicals and non-evangelicals that wouldn't begin to say that we don't have the original text of the New Testament. So I must trouble you now with a very fine distinction in your thinking. I hope you haven't read, uh, eaten too many sandwiches so that your m- mental capacity is anywhere impaired before lunch.
What do we mean by the original text of the New Testament? What do you mean by the term text? You must distinguish between the message, which is the text, and the manuscripts on which it was written. Let me take a modern example. Suppose I write you a letter, and being somewhat of a dinosaur survival from an earlier age, I write it with a pen and ink, you see, on a bit of paper.
Mm? And you get this letter and you read it. And then you make a copy of it, scanning it or something in a computer, and putting it up on a website. And thousands of people, I wouldn't know why they would know if they would, but thousands of people, let us suppose, I don't know what the term is, drag it down or something on their, uh, their websites, you see. So there are thousands of copies. Meanwhile, that precious bit of paper that I wrote my message on has long since been confined to the dustbin, and you've lost it.
Now let me pose a question to you. Because you have lost the original bit of paper on which the message was written, would it be true to say that you no longer have the text of that message? Well, of course it wouldn't be true. You've got what I wrote. The original text, that is the original message. Text in that sense. Though you don't possess the original bit of paper on which it was written. So it doesn't matter that we don't any longer have the bits of paper that the Apostle Paul, for instance, and Matthew the Evangelist, the bits of paper on which they originally wrote it.
We've lost them all. There are no autographs, as we call them, existent, but we have copies. And what was copied out was not the paper, but the message, text in that sense. So that if anybody tells you we don't have the original text, he's talking very, very loosely and not exactly. Now, since there are differences in the manuscripts, you may say, but how, uh, what percentage of the original text is beyond any doubt?
And you have the, uh, the, uh, statement of Westcott and Hort that a very small percentage is any doubt, is in any doubt, though there are thousands of differences. I repeat, the differences should not be exaggerated, for page after page of the New Testament is all would agree, what was originally written. If I have that cleared that up for the moment, what we mean by text, let me not confuse it by saying more, simply to emphasize it by reiterating it, because it is commonly said we don't have the original text, and people that talk like that are, uh, generally speaking, very inexactly.
We don't have the original bits of paper on which the evangelists and apostles wrote their message. We do have a very high, seemingly high proportion of the message they originally wrote. But now I want to c- come to another matter. And that is this.
Granted that we have in our hands today what the apostles originally wrote, substantially what they originally wrote, and we can demonstrate that the New De- Testament documents are authentic. That is, they do go back to the authors. Paul, Peter, James, John, Jude, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and so forth. These are authentic copies of what they wrote. We still have a fundamental question to answer, don't we?
We've got what they wrote. How do we know that what they wrote was true to anyway? And of course, this is the second question that you will come at in your gospel work, is it not? Granted you can prove that we now have what those men wrote in the first century. How do we know that what they wrote was true? Well, you can do what, uh, Freddie Bruce in his book does, and many other scholars have done, and what I shan't be doing this morning, that you, you can check the histories, for instance, like the Acts of the Apostles, and all the references they make to geography, to the current rulers, to the laws, and so forth, of the day in which they lived.
And we can check that about these things in the ancient world of which we know. You'll see, if Acts said that Paul, having left, uh, uh, Philippi, you see, because he was in a hurry, rode his bicycle down to, uh, Thessalonica. He would say that that is nonsense. There were no bicycles in those days. And that would show that this document was written very late on, after bicycles existed.
Do you see? There is a gospel of Bartholomew around this world. It says that Jesus didn't die on the cross, so it is much loved by Muslims. Do you see? But this aforesaid gospel tells you of somebody who took a ship to Jerusalem, sailed into Jerusalem by ship, which is a remarkable diffi- remarkably difficult thing to do, to sail into Jerusalem by a ship. Whoever wrote it didn't know much about Jerusalem. And of course, this document was written about the fourteen hundreds AD, anyway, or fifteen hundreds.
So we can check these things, historical, geog- geographical, and so forth. We can check these things against what we know. For instance, in the Acts of the Apostles, we have many accounts of how the Apostle Paul was brought before the Roman authorities and accused and punished and imprisoned and this and other. As well, of course, of the accounts of our Lord's trial under Pontius Pilate. Some years ago, a classical scholar by the name of Sherwin White wrote a book on Roman law as depicted in the New Testament.
Now, he was a classical scholar. And came to the verdict that the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles in particular, is marvelously accurate. In its references to the legal proceedings under the Romans. That Paul had to endure. Or again, we're told in the Acts that the Apostle Paul, when he came to Corinth, was attacked by the Jews eventually, who ho- hauled his case before the Roman governor, and asserted before the governor that Christianity was an illegal religion, a religio illicita, as the Romans would have put it.
Now, the Jews were acknowledged as a legal religion by the Romans. The Romans were very merciful to Jews and continued to be until at last the Roman emperor came under the power of the church, and the church used their power in the three hundreds onwards to persecute the Jews. But until Christendom got hold of the Roman emperors, the emperors were merciful to the Jews. That's another story. But anyway, uh, the Jews came before the Roman governor in Corinth and said, look, Christians are not a proper Jewish religion. They are a sect and should not be covered by the law that, uh, establishes Judaism as a legal religion.
So, uh, Paul and company were hauled before the Roman governor, and the Roman governor decided this was no more than a simple dispute about words and phrases in the holy books of the Jews, and he dismissed the whole case out of hand. And Luke says that the name of the gov- of the Roman governor was Gallio. And there were long decades in which scholars said that no such Gallio was ever known in the Latin records, uh, and Luke has got it wrong. There was no such governor as Gallio. And then an inscription turned up, which showed that there was a Gallio.
Interesting, yes. All such evidences, of course, are worthy to study. They are the objective, uh, well, some of the objective things by which you can judge the reliability of the New Testament. But that said, they don't come to the heart of the matter. Because the New Testament claims, for instance, that Jesus is the Son of God. How do you prove that? And that is absolutely essential to our doctrine, isn't it? Our gospel. How do you prove it?
What evidence will you cite in favor of it? Could it not have been that the early Christians, in their enthusiasm, exaggerated the claims of the Lord Jesus? Many people have claimed this, that Jesus himself didn't claim to be the Son of God. It was the early Christians who got excited and, uh, exaggerated his claims. Well, is this a story then that the early Christian writers made up? So that even though the manuscripts are reliable, in the sense that, yes, they report to us what the apostles said and wrote, did they make up what they wrote?
Or did they, is the story they write correct? The evidence that we shall need to cite for that is, of course, somewhat different from the mere facts of manuscripts and things. Manuscripts are relevant, they go back, therefore, to the first century. But is it true? Or is the story concocted by the apostles? One bit in the gospels, therefore, and it is worth citing whenever you need to. One bit in the gospels and in the epistles that we may be absolutely certain that the apostles didn't invent.
And that was what lies at the heart of the Christian gospel, the death of Christ upon a cross for our salvation. How do we know they didn't invent it? Well, to start with, in the gospel records, you will find when our Lord first began to teach his apostles that he must go to Jerusalem and be executed, that no less a p- apostle than Peter took him and and rebuked him straight. Oh, nonsense, Lord. Well, that's never going to happen to you. You've got a wrong idea there. And more than once it is said that when he said he was going to die at Jerusalem, they didn't understand him and didn't believe him.
They tell us, one and all, that when our Lord was in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Jews came with a squad of Roman soldiers to arrest our Lord, Peter started to defend him with the sword, and our Lord rebuked him and voluntary surrendered himself to the Romans, whereupon all the apostles forsook him and fled. Hm, and Peter denied him. It is true that, of course, after his resurrection, their doubts were silenced, and they preached the gospel.
But notice what Paul says about the gospel in one Corinthians chapters one and two. uh Though he preached this gospel, and the gospel he preached was of the cross of Christ, we preach Christ and him crucified. That even as he preached it, he realized that the d- the the the gospel to the Jews was offensive, it was a scandal, and to the Greeks it was utter folly. Huh. Fancy going to educated Greeks and telling them that the answer to all the world's problems was a man who was crucified by the Romans as a criminal on a cross.
A nonsense. Yet Paul preached it. That is evidence to me he didn't invent it. Preached it was because it was true. Demonstrated to be true by the resurrection of our Lord. And what is more, gentlemen, it is true in another sense. How do I know that medicine X is good for indigestion?
Well, you take it on the authority of the scientist who says this is good because he he made it, but some of them are doubtful, particularly the drug firms. But anyway, you take it, you find it works. It meets your need. How do I know that bread is good for hunger? Well, in the end, by eating it, of course. How do I know that Christ is true? It is his death for sin at Calvary that meets our profoundest need.
For he not only taught us that we ought to be good, but faced the fact that we are not good, that we have sinned and come short of God's glory, and our first need is for forgiveness. That does not even belittle our own moral standards, that does not begin to say that sin doesn't matter, and certainly that doesn't belittle God's standards. For God's sa- standard is that our sins deserve eternal death. But has the answer to it. Gentlemen, there is no other message, as far as I'm aware of it, on the whole of this planet, no other religion that says to you, I am your creator.
I love you with a creator's love. You are a sinner. I've died for you, rather than that you perish. I died to bring you forgiveness. Now that this goes back to our Lord, not merely back to his apostles, putting an interpretation upon his death, is evident from one or two things. First of all, there is our Lord's own remarks.
When in Mark he says, ten verse forty five, Mark ten forty five, The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. Here is our Lord interpreting what the purpose of his death would be. Secondly, as a matter of sheer history. The institution of the Lord's Supper, such that Christians from the very earliest days met, if on no other day than on the first day of the week, to conduct a ceremony in which they ate bread and drank wine, in memory that Jesus gave his body for them at Calvary and
poured out his blood for them, for the forgiveness of sins. The historical evidence that this goes back right to the very beginning is exceedingly strong, of course. It goes back to the time before there were any gospels written, when the stories of Christ were put around by the apostles who knew them and heard them. It goes back before the epistles were written. It goes back to Christ, of course. It is an exceedingly important part of our gospel that we keep that tradition.
Gentlemen. In one extreme, you have the sacramental traditions that turn the Memorial Supper into a sacrifice, and that was wrong. In reaction to that, you've got many Reformation churches that made the Bible central, with the preacher standing in the pulpit and expounding the Bible, and the Lord's Supper, if celebrated at all, about once a month or once in six months. Pity, isn't it?
Before the New Testament was written, the believers gathered to keep the Lord's Supper in direct tradition from our Lord's command and the practice of the early church, because it is central. Our Lord could have told his apostles to do many things to remember him. He could have told them to keep, uh, when they meet, to read the Sermon on the Mount. Marvelous. And thus remember him, and we should have remembered him primarily as a moral teacher. He could have told them that when they meet, they were to read the record of his miracles.
Marvelous. And we should have remembered him as a doer of miracles. He didn't choose that. He chose emblems that point us to his death for our sins. And you who have pondered these things many times will perceive that implied in it is not only his sinless humanity, but his deity. You cannot say that before God, your forgiveness of your sins depends on the death of Christ, and then proceed to deny his deity, can you?
For if the one who died for you was not God incarnate, then you are not saved, and you don't have any forgiveness. And when the gospel was preached and formulated, as right from the beginning, our Lord's, uh, death, he said, was a fulfillment of the Passover. The gospel is that he died according to the scriptures. And in remembering the Lord's death, we remember, of course, all those prophecies in the Old Testament that prophesied that he would die for our sins and were fulfilled when he died.
And according to his own statement, he would be rejected and crucified, and the third day he would rise again. You cannot celebrate the Lord's Supper without remembering his resurrection. So that we keep a balance here, don't we? Where it is necessary, we talk about manuscripts and the historical confirmation of the New Testament.
Records, archaeology, and all the rest of it, and the manuscripts for the establishment of the text. But beyond that, gentlemen, our evidence goes much deeper, doesn't it? Now I want to make what may be for you is a difficult thing to grasp, because what I'm about to say will appear to contradict a basic principle that you may often have heard enunciated. So ponder it anyway. I speak as to wise men, you judge what I say. If you must then decide that I'm a heretic, treat me mildly and try to convert me.
But I want to read you now what our Lord Jesus himself said, as is recorded. In John chapter five, Verse thirty three and thirty four. This is our Lord talking to his contemporaries in Jerusalem. You have sent unto John, that is John the Baptist, and he has borne witness unto the truth. But the witness which I receive is not from man.
Howbeit I say these things that you may be saved. He was the lamp that burneth and shineth, and you were willing to rejoice for a season in his light. So ponder the historical situation. John was sent by God to be a witness to Christ. A witness to the light, to prepare the people for the coming of Christ. And when the Christ came, John continued to be a witness. He that comes after me was preferred before me, is preferred before me because he was before me, testifying to his pre-existence, testifying to his present superiority.
A witness that he would eventually die as the Lamb of God for our sins, that he was the one God appointed to baptize people in the Holy Spirit. John was a witness to Christ, and it was very good, therefore, and profitable that people could go to John and be guided by him to the Savior. And in a sense, believing what John said about him, because John was a prophet, so they believed on the strength of what John said. So that was perfectly okay. And I dare say, if I ask some of you, why do you believe the Bible is the word of God?
When did you first come to believe that the Bible was the word of, word of God? Would you, you, you would say, my mum told me. My dad. And all the elders in my assembly told me that, that's why I believe it. Oh, marvelous. They were true witnesses, weren't they? But now, pray, look what our Lord says. I sent you to John, and you did well to believe him, but actually, ultimately, the wis- witness which I receive is not from man.
The ultimate witness that Jesus is the Son of God. He is ultimately his own evidence. His witness is from God. He is the Son of God. And by ne- definition, gentlemen, God is his own.
Why must that be? Because there's nothing in the whole universe that's ultimately independent of God. Yes? Even the devil is not independent of God. God made him anyway. Didn't make him fallen, but made him. There is no authority in the whole universe independent of God. God has to be his own evidence. And what is true of God is true of Christ. Ultimately, he is his own evidence.
Be a funny thing if when you got home to heaven and you saw all the shining angels, you'll be flabbergasted when you see them. You'll have a job not to fall down and worship them like John did, and they'll have to pull up your, pull you up by your heavenly hair and say, you mustn't do that up here. I'm just a servant like you. And suppose you couldn't make up your mind, well, hmm, who amongst all these mighty beings that excel in strength, which one is the Lord Jesus? How shall I know? Well, who would you consult as the final authority? Of course, Gabriel, if you ask him, he'd tell you the truth, of course.
But if you ask who is the ultimate authority to decide which one is Jesus, oh, it'd be a bad job, wouldn't it? He's his own evidence, gentlemen. Logically, all else are dependent on him. There is no witness independent of Christ. Well, let's get it into our hearts. When we meet Christ, we meet God incarnate, and ultimately the witness he receives is not from man. Though he's been pleased to appoint John the Baptist and the prophets to prophesy of his coming, and the apostles to expound his doctrine.
Yes, yes, yes, but the authority and the evidence ultimately comes from him. Now, like you, I believe the Bible is the word of God because my parents told me, and all the elders said so, and the preacher said so. But if you ask me now in my ripe old age, and that's been true for many decades, why do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? I shall not say, if you're pressing me for my ultimate evidence, I believe it because the Bible says so. Though it does say so, of course.
I believe it because Christ says so. And I believe the Bible is the word of God because Christ said so. That's the way round it is. I believe the Bible is God's word because Christ said so. I shall try to demonstrate that to you in a moment. But lest you think I'm talking impractical academic ideas or something, this gentleman is important for you in your evangelism.
You say to your friend, atheist or whatever he is, hmm, um, you ought to read the New Testament to find out that Jesus is the Son of God. And he replies, they're no good telling me to read the New Testament. You say that's inspired by God, don't you? Yes, that's inspired by God. But he says, I don't believe it. If I read this New Testament, I shall find it's full of miracles. I don't believe miracles can happen anyway. There's no good me reading the New Testament. I don't believe it's the word of God. I don't believe miracles anyway.
So what do you say now? Oh, well, you're lost then forever. There's nothing I can do about that, because if you don't believe the Bible is the word of God, there's no good you're reading it then. My answer to a chap like that is to say, do you read the daily newspaper? Most of them do. Whether it is the Observer or the Telegraph or the Times, or the more popular ranks. They read them. I say, do you suppose that everything that you read in the newspaper is true?
Well, of course not. Oh. You read them nonetheless? Yes. Well, how do you decide which is true and which is... Do you think I'm so stupid I c- I can discern what is true and what is not true? Oh, you do. And so you read them. Marvelous. Well, why won't you read the New Testament like that then? Start reading it, old chap. And listen to Jesus Christ. See what he says. And I rely upon this, that Christ is his own.
And sim- simply, in the second place, the Holy Spirit has come down from heaven to authenticate Christ. And believing Christ, finding him real, their faith will be in Christ. They will come to accept the rest of scripture on those same grounds, because he said so. Now, I'm not discouraging you from distributing the Bible. Carry on distributing it, of course. Get everybody to read it you can, because in it they will find a savior who will talk to them.
And the Bible is true anyway. But I remind you that when Peter got up on the day of Pentecost to preach Christ, the New Testament wasn't written. They preached the gospel, how Christ died for our sins according to scripture. They quoted the Old Testament, of course, but the New Testament wasn't yet written, but they preached the living Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit come down from heaven. So now let me finally, in this session, call your attention to Christ and his authority for the New Testament.
For today, gentlemen, we're dealing with the New Testament. In the next series, three weeks from now, I shall, God willing, talk about the Old Testament. What does our Lord say about the New Testament that was yet to be written? John chapter fourteen to start with, John chapter fourteen, verses twenty five and twenty six. Verse twenty five: these things have I spoken unto you while yet abiding with you, that the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said unto you.
What authority have we for thinking that the gospel records are true and authoritative? Here it is. The Holy Spirit sent down from heaven was to be responsible for bringing to their memories what Christ had taught to them. This is Christ before he died, pointing to the authority of the gospels that were yet to be written. Let's look at John chapter twenty, verses twenty one and twenty three.
Acts twenty one verses twenty one to twenty three. This is our Lord in the upper room. Jesus therefore said to them again, Peace be unto you, as the Father has sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and saith to them, receive the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven unto them. Whosoever sins you retain, they are retained.
Let's ponder the words, because these words have, as we know, been grievously disputed, indeed, sometimes perverted, in the course of the centuries. Let's put them straight into their immediate historical context. The risen Lord, now in the upper room, commissioning his apostles as they were about to go forth. Just as the Father had sent him, now he was sending them. And one of the functions, if our Lord mentions it, is the function number one. Whosoever sins, uh, you, uh, uh, forgive, they are forgiven.
Whosoever sins you retain, are retained. What does it mean? Some commentators have said this means that when the church meets and exercises discipline, if a believer has seriously offended, they are to excommunicate him, and if he repents, they are to forgive him and bring him back. It's a question of church discipline. Seem to me to be highly unusual that our Lord would have thought of that as the first thing he said when he appeared to his apostles in the upper room. Gentlemen, I'm about to send you to evangelize the world. Now, please, you'll have to exercise proper discipline in the church. Hardly. The question was, they were to preach forgiveness.
On whose authority? So here is Peter on the day of Pentecost, and it's a good way of testing what these words mean, is to read the Acts of the Apostles and see how the apostles interpreted them in their behavior. Here is Peter standing up on the day of Pentecost, and he's preached in the power of the Holy Spirit come down from heaven, and some of the very murderers of Christ are now pricked to the heart in their conscience and realize they have murdered their Messiah. And they come round to Peter saying, Sir, what must we do? We've murdered the Messiah.
What on earth shall we do? Is there any forgiveness for it? If there is, how do we get it? And Peter replied, well, what you must do, I don't take it from me, read the New Testament. Did he? If you were leading somebody to Christ today and they said, well, how can I get this forgiveness you talk of? You might well say, but don't take it from me. Take it from, uh, this epistle here by Peter, you see, or by Paul. We have forgiveness, redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin.
Don't take it from me. That's the Holy Scripture says so. And their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. The gentleman on the day of Pentecost, the New Testament hadn't been written. And yet here is Peter standing on his two legs, and when the cra- crowd asks what must they do to be saved, he doesn't hesitate. He doesn't say, go and read the Old Testament or something. He says, I'm telling you, you will repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus, and you shall receive the forgiveness of sins. What authority did Peter have to say that?
Well, he had the authority given him by our Lord in the upper room, didn't he? And symbolically, as a symbol, he breathed on them and said, receive Holy Spirit. Of course, that was what happened when they wrote their epistles. John and Peter and Paul. For those epistles were written by inspiration of God. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, they wrote.
But Peter was already being inspired of the Lord by the Holy Spirit when he stood on the day of Pentecost and pronounced what the terms of salvation are. We go to his epistle, we go to Paul's epistle, we go and believe it to be the word of God, you've got to ask, well, who wrote this anyway? And what right had Paul to write it to start with? And by what authority did Peter write it? Well, by the same authority as he originally spoke it, of course.
The authority given to him by the risen Lord. Through the Holy Spirit. And finally, one scripture, John chapter sixteen, Verses thirteen to fifteen. John sixteen verse thirteen, how be it when he, the Spirit of truth, is come. Notice his title here, not the Spirit of grace, but the Spirit of truth.
He shall guide you into all the truth, for he shall not speak from himself, but what things soever he shall hear, these things shall he speak, and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you. Our Lord said to them, while he was still with them, I have many things to speak unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit when the Spirit of truth comes, he shall lead you into all truth. He shall not speak from himself, he shall speak what he hears.
Oh, really? Hears from whom? Who does he hear it from? Well, says Christ, he shall take of my things and reveal them to you, for all that the Father has is mine. It's the Holy Spirit speaking from the risen Lord. And here our Lord says he will guide you into all the truth. The authority for our epistles. Those epistles take us beyond what is said in the gospels, do they not? Into all truth.
They take us, of course, into the future, things to come. Here is our Lord then, stating what is the authority behind the epistles and the prophetic parts of the New Testament. What a lovely thing it is, as our Lord said, when the Holy Spirit has come, he shall glorify me. And you will find the Holy Spirit doing it right from the very start, the day of Pentecost. Pentecost signified, if you would know what the significance was, that Jesus, uh, the Holy Spirit came not simply after Christ was raised, not merely after he ascended, but Christ having received the promise of the Father, says Peter, Christ hath poured out this spirit that you now see and hear.
Who is Jesus then? Deduce this, says Peter, that God hath made him both Lord and Christ in the fullest sense of those words. And read of Colossians chapter one and Hebrews chapter one, how the Holy Spirit revels in glorifying the Lord Jesus through his inspired apostles. When our Lord came to dictate the epistle, the, uh, book of the Revelation to John, says he, I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify of these things in the churches.
Listen to those last letters that were written. Thus says he to the church of Ephesus, thus says he who walks in the midst of the candlesticks and holds the stars in his right hand. That's our risen Lord talking. But when the epistle finishes, as in all the other epistles in the Revelation, he adds, he that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The Spirit come in the name of Christ, speaking not from himself, but from Christ, taking the things that are Christ's and revealing them to us.
Our Lord's own authority for the New Testament gospels, for the epistles, for the prophetic parts of the New Testament. I believe, gentlemen, to sum up my personal faith, I believe that the New Testament is God's inspired word. Why do I believe it? I believe it because Christ says so, and I believe Christ. You will decide what you do with that personal testimony of mine. You must ask whether it is according to scripture.
Maybe you'll go away saying, I, I, no, no, no, I believe Christ is the Son of God because the Bible says so. I, I, it's that way round with me. Carry on doing it. It's true anyway. It is the word of God. If you believe it, you won't be wrong. Yes. But one day you'll ask, yes, I believe the Bible because it is the word of God. Who said so? Who tells me that what Matthew writes is the word of God? Who tells me what Paul writes is the word of God? And you will come round to the position. It's Christ that tells me But that Martha, Matthew, what Martha Matthew writes was inspired by the hope.
Holy Spirit.
