The deceptive (and dangerous) sweetness of viscous ideas might be accompanied by Scripture’s corrective sting.
Category: quotes
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If a different way to heaven existed, no doubt God would have recorded it, but there is no other way. Therefore let us cling to these words, firmly place and rest our hearts upon them, close our eves and say: Although I had the merit of all saints, the holiness and purity of all virgins, and the piety of St. Peter himself, I would still consider my attainment nothing. Rather I must have a different foundation to build on, namely, these words: God has given His Son so that whosoever believes in Him whom the Father’s love has sent shall be saved. And you must confidently insist that you will be preserved; and you must boldly take your stand on His words, which no devil, hell, or death can suppress. Therefore no matter what happens, you should say: There is God’s Word. This is my rock and anchor. On it I rely, and it remains. Where it remains, I, too, remain; where it goes, I, too, go. The Word must stand, for God cannot lie; and heaven and earth must go to ruins before the most insignificant letter or tittle of His Word remains unfulfilled. Kirchenpostille on John 3:16
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Dr. Briggs is more blunt and more explicit in his description of the changes which he thinks have been wrought. “I will tell you what criticism has destroyed,” he says in an article published a couple of years ago.” It has destroyed many false theories about the Bible; it has destroyed the doctrine of verbal inspiration; it has destroyed the theory of inerrancy; it has destroyed the false doctrine that makes the inspiration depend upon its attachment to a holy man.”
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The logic of some still insists that anything involving humanity has to allow for the possibility of sin. So, they say, as long as the Bible is both a divine and a human book the possibility and actuality of errors exist.
Let us examine that premise. Is it always inevitable that sin is involved where humanity is?
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It thus appears that Christ’s answer to the problem of authority can be summed up as follows:
- The Old Testament is to be received on His authority (over and above its own witness to itself) as the authoritative written utterance of God, abidingly true and trustworthy. Its divine authority and His confirm each other, so that not to accept both would be to accept neither.
- To learn what they must believe and do, His disciples are not to regard His words alone, but to take His teaching and the Old Testament together, reading the old revelation as the presupposition of the new and the new as both expounding and augmenting the old. In conjunction with Christ’s teaching, the written word of the Old Testament retains its full, divine authority.