Description
IS: IT IS WHAT IT IS
Is the Bible True?
October 5, 2008
Ben Young
Is the Bible true? What is truth? In the second message of this series, Ben will tackle the tough objections people make countering the truthfulness of the Bible, “I can’t believe in the Bible because of miracles” or “The Bible has been copied so many times, the text has been changed and added on to” or “I can’t believe the Bible is true because it is full of myths.” Ben will answer these questions by discussing what Jesus has to say about truth. He will also take a look at various definitions and theories of truth in order to answer the crucial question, What is truth?
Is what you’re holding on to true? I had a friend who has now passed away; but he was a brilliant scientist and chemist. He would say this about 11:11 and coming to our church, “The thing I like about coming here is that you don’t have to park your brain when you come to church.” I like that, and I encourage you to never park your brain. As a matter of fact, today we’re going to need to be fully engaged. So if you’ve got an outline and want to follow along with me, we are going to cover a lot of ground today. If you’re still tired and you stayed out too late on Saturday night and forgot your thinking cap; I want you to mentally go back to your car or apartment, get that thinking cap and put it on!
Last week we talked about the Bible. Exactly what is the Bible? We said that it is God’s Word. We talked about God’s will for your life, for my life, and for this world and the fact that it is found in God’s Word. What else is the Bible? It is a library. It is a blueprint. It is a compass which points us to true north. It’s really a book that leads us and highlights who God is in Jesus Christ, and leads us into a relationship with Him. So the Word has become a Person! That’s good news.
I was at a wedding last weekend, standing by a guy who is a member of our church and who is an ultimate fighter. I know none of you ever watch ultimate fighting on T.V.—maybe a few guys, one or two of you! I thought about this story that I’m going to tell you about today, because to me, it’s kind of an ultimate fighting situation. It’s a smack-down, if you would, between a guy from Rome, and a guy from Jerusalem; from a guy who seemingly has all the power, to a guy who looks like he has little power. This is a verbal smack-down. It’s an ultimate fight, and a lot is on the line as we all know.
The story is found in John 18:31. Pilate is the guy from Rome. He’s the Governor of Judea. Jesus has been brought before him. Jesus’ approval ratings have declined. He’s been out on this campaign for three years, garnering support for this new interpretation of Torah; for this new kingdom, this new agenda that he’s pushing. He was popular; He was praised.
His approval ratings were just skyrocketing! Then all of a sudden—Bam! They turned against Him, and now Jesus was on trial for His life.
Pilate says this, “Then he went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked Him, ‘Are You the King of the Jews?’ ‘Is that your own idea,’ Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about Me?” ‘Am I a Jew?’ Pilate replied. ‘It was Your people and Your chief priest who handed You over to me! What is it You have done?’ Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My Kingdom is from another place.’ ‘You are a King then!’ Pilate said. Jesus answered, ‘You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me.’ ‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked.”
Pilate asked a great question. It’s a question that we’ve been asking for 2,000 years ever since. It was a question that philosophers and other leaders asked way before Pilate came on the scene, “What is truth?”
How you answer that question depends on whether or not you understand where we are in our western culture. Basically, we live on a bridge between modernism and post-modernism. Modernism basically came into being in the 18th century with Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire. In the United States, it was Thomas Jefferson. Basically they said that you can find truth by using rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism is using your mind, thinking things through. Empiricism is using the tools of science to discover things with natural causes within a natural system. Basically, they were trying to kick God upstairs and said, “We really don’t need God. We don’t need revelation to discover things that are really true. We can find out everything is true within reason and through testing things out through experimentation.”
Post-modernism on the other hand is on the other side of the bridge. That’s where our culture is heading. Post-modernism dismisses the question of truth altogether. To me, Pilate is kind of a roto-post-modernist when he’s cynically, or sarcastically saying, “What is truth?”
Post-modernism is expressed in our culture through relativism. Relativism is a popular expression of post-modern assumptions. You’ve heard them; perhaps you believe them! Someone will tell you this, “Well, that may be true for you, but that’s not true for me!” Or someone will say, “Well, you know, no one religion contains the truth.” Or, “All truth is really relative. All we have are small stories.
There are no meta-narratives, no ultimate truths that everyone needs to bow down to, whether that ultimate truth is expressed into our winning evolution, or whether ultimate truth is expressed within Christianity, or whatever religious truth claim you have.”
Post-modernism just dismisses the idea of truth all together. Culturally speaking, you and I live on this bridge in-between two very powerful and pervasive world views.
You probably would say, “Ben, come on man! What’s all this philosophical mumbo-jumbo about modernism and post-modernism? That doesn’t affect me in my everyday life.” Wrong! The questions asked by modernity and post-modernity are so a part of the whoop and warp of our culture—it’s like oxygen! It just is! Have you thought about breathing in oxygen today? I haven’t.
We all are the children, grandchildren, or step-grandchildren of the Enlightenment. We’re asking both modern questions, whether you’re a Christian or not; and you’re asking probably post-modern questions as well. That’s just the culture we live in. It affects everything! Every time we turn on the T.V. set, watch a news report, watch a movie, or read a novel; the questions and the way things are presented are either from a modern or post-modern construct. We live on the bridge in between these two pre-dominant world views.
Let’s go back to Pilate. He still asked the question, “What is truth?” Some would say, “You know what? The Bible is truth. The Bible is true truth. It’s absolute truth. It’s objective truth.” This stands outside of you, and outside of me. It’s true whether we want to believe that it is true or not.
The Bible is not just truth, but in my life it has been an authoritative source. We all have authoritative sources, don’t we? For example, what’s one of the authoritative sources in finance daily? You want to read The Wall Street Journal, right? What’s one of the authoritative sources in fashion? Vogue, Cosmo, GQ, Sports Illustrated. So we all have these magazines, these periodicals, these things we go to. We also go to particular web sites that we believe give us authoritative answers about different situations in our world. The Bible is the place where I turn to find authoritative answers about life. It tells us where we came from. It tells us who we are, where we’re going, and how this thing is all going to end. The Bible presents itself to you and me as a meta-narrative; as an ultimate truth. It’s true for all people and all times in all places.
For some reason, that reminds me of the so-called Christian bumper stickers I saw as a little kid. I remember one that said “Honk if you love Jesus!” Some of you aren’t old enough to remember that one!
When I went out in the car, I was honking and getting honked at for other reasons that had very little to do with Jesus. There are probably other better ways to say you love Jesus, but anyway…
Another one I thought was funny was “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” That’s a good one! So we can be a jerk, or have unethical business practices; but just have that fish on your car or whatever, and you’re forgiven! I don’t like that one either, as you can tell. There is another bumper sticker that is kind of knee-jerk, but I kind of like it because it kind of expresses truth. It says “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” That’s pretty harsh, but there are many places in God’s Word where He simply reveals Himself and says “Bam! This is truth. This is the way things are!” He lays it out to us like that.
When I’m talking to someone about the truthfulness of the Bible, one thing I will say is this: When God speaks to us, He speaks with self-attesting authority. That means God does not need anyone else to vouch for Him to prove His Word is true. If He did, then He would not be God. In argumentation, we’re talking about any ultimate world view. Everybody pre-supposes their starting point. Rationalism pre-supposes the mind. Empiricism pre-supposes the sense. Existentialism pre-supposes existence and experience. So everyone has to begin from a starting point that they hold to in order to believe by faith. God has revealed Himself to us in a multiplicity of ways through nature, creation, people, our conscience, the Bible, and primarily through a Person. God’s Word is true.
We saw this last week in II Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.” This Scripture is God breathed. It’s the breath of God, and God doesn’t have bad breath! When God speaks, He speaks truth. There are some people who would object to that. What is truth? The Bible is true. God’s Word is true. Someone says, “Well I can’t believe the Bible is true because it is full of myth.” Have you heard that one? I have. Here’s the problem with that: When someone says that to me, how do I respond? I say, “Well, have you ever read the Bible? Have you ever read any book in the Bible? Have you read the New Testament?” Most people who are critiquing the Bible—not everyone, but most of them have never read it! So I say, “Read the Bible. The Bible is not written like myth.”
As we talked about last week, the Bible is a library. It contains a wide variety, or genre of literatures; be it narrative, or historical settings, apocalyptic literature, poetry, romantic literature, or eyewitness accounts, and God speaks to us in a very colorful way when He presents truth and reveals it to us. So the Bible is not written anything like a myth.
Also, I’d say if you believe that here today, go home and get Aesop’s Fables, or Beowulf, the book, and read it. Then go read Matthew or Luke, and you’ll see there’s a great difference between the style of mythic literature, and the style of Scripture.
When people say that, what they really mean is this, and again, we’re dealing with common objections if you’re keeping score there on the handout. When people say the Bible is myth, they are really saying, “Well, I can’t believe in the Bible because of miracles.” There are miracles in the Bible, and we live in the enlightened 21st century with microwave ovens, airplanes, and the Internet (which Al Gore invented)! We have all this technology available to us, and you’re going to tell me you believe in talking donkeys, and the virgin birth, and a resurrection from the dead, and that Moses took the stick out and parted the Red Sea? It looked a whole lot like Jell-O in the movie! So, you tell me I should believe that?” They kind of ridicule or mock your view like that. Then they’ll say something like, “Well, science…” as if science has a capital “S” and all scientists agree—“Science has proven that miracles don’t happen today.” The problem with that statement is you’re pushing it too far, and you’re not distinguishing the difference between science and history. Science studies those things that are repeatable. History studies those things that are unrepeatable. You cannot scientifically prove that George Washington ever lived. You could prove it historically; maybe you could prove it forensically through digging up the bones—I don’t know; but you can’t prove it scientifically. “You can’t prove the Bible scientifically!” Of course you can’t! It’s an historical book that gives truth in an historical manner.
Science is designed to measure natural causes only. Just because science is able to measure some natural cause within our system doesn’t mean it’s able to explain all cause, or to cancel out other causes, i.e. God, or miracles. Also, if you believe in God who exists outside of everything we can see, then if He wants to intervene and break a few laws of nature now and then, He’s free to do so! So if your starting point is God, then miracles are rational. Miracles are logical.
I’m not saying it’s easy to believe in miracles. I read Matthew 28 today. There were followers of Jesus who had seen Him heal the sick, raise the dead, cast demons into pigs, and take the walk on the water without a bridge. They saw Him crucified and then come back from the dead alive! They were looking at a resurrected person bodily in the flesh, and the Bible says this in the New Testament. I love this! I love the honesty. It says, “Some worshipped, and some doubted…” So miracles are plausible and believable, given the starting point that there is a God who made us and everything, and who made these laws of nature. If He wants to interrupt them now and then, sure He can do that. Science has its limitations, and so does history.
Another reason someone may give an objection for receiving the truthfulness of the Bible is, “You know what? I’ve got a problem because the Bible has been copied so many times down the line. Basically monks have somehow morphed and changed the text. So what I’m reading here today in the translations we have in English are not really what they read back then. It’s been changed and added on to. All these things we have now are corrupted copies.” To say that, you have to understand something about textual criticism. Somebody who makes that claim is simply making a claim out of thin air. That’s like me saying, “I don’t believe that Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn.” If I’m going to say that, I’ve got to give some proof to that claim! It’s the same way if you say the Bible has been corrupted down through the years. Let’s look at the historicity of the Bible and the accuracy of it as an ancient document.
First of all, we’ll look at our good friend, Plato. He wrote The Republic around 355 B.C. We have a manuscript of that which dates around 900 A.D. So there’s a 1,200 year gap from the writing of Plato’s work to the first manuscript or copy we have of it.
Now check this out: The New Testament was written between 50 and 100 A.D. (and I’m being liberal there) and the first copies of manuscripts we have of that are around 100 to 130 A.D. So there’s a time gap of only around 50 years, give or take. There is not enough time between the writings of the event, and the recording of the event and our first manuscript for myth, and legend, and tweaking of epic proportions to be added to the text, no pun intended! That’s why even a liberal scholar like John A. T. Robertson would say this, “The wealth of manuscripts and above all, the narrow interval of time between the writing and the earliest copies make it by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”
Look at the number of manuscripts we have of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. We have only ten manuscripts of that. We have only seven manuscripts of Plato’s work. But I doubt when you’re in philosophy 101, you’re going to doubt that those were Plato’s words. Now Homer’s Iliad, if you read that, or you read the cliff notes, is one of the best attested books in all of antiquity. We have 643 manuscripts of the Iliad. Now let’s see how many manuscripts we have of the New Testament. There are 5,686!
So when someone tells you that The New Testament is not accurate, it’s not an historically reliable document, that’s simply not true. It doesn’t fit the facts. You may reject the Bible or the New Testament because you come to it with a set of pre-suppositions or assumptions that you read into the text. But to say that the Bible is not historically accurate, or we don’t have copies of it and there’s not a short time interval simply doesn’t wash! It’s not true.
Now, I can hear Pilate in the background. He is still saying, “What is truth?” Maybe you’re coming from a different perspective, and you say, “No one religion can contain the whole truth.”
Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the elephant and the three blind men. You have this elephant, and these three blind men are trying to figure out what this elephant is. So one of them backs up into it, and he hits the elephant’s stomach. He said, “Oh, the elephant is like a big, giant wall!” The second blind man goes around and bumps into one of the legs. He grabs a hold of the elephant’s leg and says, “Oh no! The elephant is like a big oak tree! It’s round and tall!” The third blind man said, “Oh no! He grabbed a hold of the elephant’s tail! He said, “Oh no, an elephant is long and skinny!”
The person telling this story who doesn’t believe that one religion contains all the truth says, “That’s just the way the world’s religions are. Everybody has bits of the truth and they’re trying to describe it; but no one has the whole truth. No one sees the entire elephant.”
That particular point of view is trying to be inclusive of everyone. But if you ask a few questions, you’ll find out it is just as exclusive as truth claims made by Christians, Muslims, Jews and people from other different faiths. How’s that? How in the world can someone know that people only grasp pieces of truth and ultimate reality unless you see the whole elephant yourself? Does that make sense? So to make the claim that no one has the truth, but only has bits and pieces of it; you have to know the whole truth to make such a claim! So you’re making a claim about ultimate reality, and you say your claim about ultimate reality is better than my claim, and I need to bow down to it. So someone who says all religions contain truth; all religions lead to God; no religion has all the truth. That’s simply a power play of trying to get you or me to bow down to relativism. Relativism deconstructs on its own terms. Relativism ends up re-creating the thing it critiques. It says what? There is no such thing as absolute truth!
Question: Do you believe that statement you made is true? Is your statement that there’s no absolute truth absolutely true? If you say that, you’re not just keeping that statement to yourself; you’re universalizing it to everyone. If it’s true for you, it may not be true for me! Well, it’s true for me that relativism is false. Whoops. What are you going to do with that? If you have that point of view, it deconstructs on its own terms.
It tries to be inclusive; it ends up being just as exclusive as the Christian world view and claims. I’m just being open and honest about it. When I preach and talk, I’m coming from a perspective of objective, absolute truth. Do I know absolute truth? Do I know all things? Does any Christian person? Of course not. We know the truth that God has made available to us. We can communicate that and live that out.
I love what G. K. Chesterton says. He says it the best! “There’s nothing more humorous than a preaching relativist!” Write that down and think about that later on after the football game. Let’s move on!
You’ve got Pilate who is still saying, “What is truth?” Some might say, “God’s Word is true.” Some might say, “Science is where I find my truth, or reason is where I find my truth.” Others might say, “Well no, there’s no such thing as truth,” which really is a true statement. So that is self-contradictory. Some would say, “Take your pick. There are a lot of theories of truth!”
This is what Aristotle says about truth. He has a good definition, using one syllable words. He says “To say of what is, that it is not; or what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is, and what is not that is not, is true.” Aristotle who was before the time of Pilate is simply articulating what people call the correspondence theory of truth. This says a claim is true if it corresponds to what is so, and false if it does not correspond to what is so. Most people adhere to some sort of correspondent theory of truth.
Then there is the pragmatic theory of truth, which says a statement is true if it allows you to interact efficiently and effectively within the cosmos. So, you’ve heard it before. Hey—if it works for you, right? That’s the pragmatic view of truth. “Man, you’re into Jesus, and that Jesus thing works for you—good for you!” As they patronize you. Or you’re into Buddha, and Buddha works for you. That’s good. You’re into Botox and Botox works—that’s good. Whatever floats your boat, whatever makes you happy, right? That’s a pragmatic view of truth. It is usually a post-modern concept of truth. They have no truth, so they end up basically trying to be pragmatic and original.
You have the constructivist theory of truth, which has fallen on hard times. Constructivism says that truth is constructed by social processes and is shaped in part by power struggles within a community. Karl Marx and the philosopher Hegel believed in this. It’s kind of a truth by natural selection by evolution.
Hegel said that you have a society, or culture or group, and they’ll have a thesis. Someone else will come up with the antithesis. Those two will get into an ultimate fight, and they will come up with a synthesis. Then they will live out the synthesis.
So this is kind of an idea that societies and cultures develop certain truth systems, and they evolve over time as you have these power clashes between a thesis and an antithesis, and you have a synthesis. Or in our culture, you have a thesis and an antithesis, and then you have Ron Paul!
So, you’ve got all these different theories of truth. You have Pilate saying, “What is truth?” Here’s the deal! Pilate is not saying this into thin air. He’s not just roaming around the castle there, “What is truth?” He’s in a dialogue with a real Person named Jesus; this carpenter-turned Rabbi, miracle worker that’s been placed before him that is really disrupting his day and his plans. It wasn’t on his blackberry schedule to really have this trial, but you know, he had to deal with it!
Let’s see what this Jesus says, and had said about truth. He said a lot about truth. In John 8:31, Jesus said the following. I love this! To the Jews who believed in Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jesus says three things about truth. One, truth is knowable. We don’t have to walk around in a fog, wondering who we are, where we came from, or where are we going. How do I live this out in my life, in my dating, in my marriage? Truth is knowable! No one knows all truth, but God has revealed to us certain truths that we can know. By the way, if you’re a Christian, all truth is God’s truth! I’m going to celebrate truth wherever I find it, whether it be in anthropology, archaeology, biology, chemistry, business, or sports. All truth is God’s truth! So truth is knowable.
The second thing Jesus says is what? Truth is livable. You’ve got to live truth out. This is where Soren Kierkegaard would come in. Kierkegaard would say there is such thing as objective truth, but you experience truth subjectively. Soren may ask us, “You don’t know what’s true in your life? What’s really true? What is the anchor you’re holding on to? What did you do last month? What you did last month is truth. Or the truth you’re living out.” That’s pretty scary! Now don’t go Tolstoy on me or something like that! You’ve got to find grace in that. But that’s a good little deal! Jesus said, “Truth is livable.”
The third thing Jesus said is this, truth sets you free! The truth that Jesus gives, if we live it out, if we receive it, sets you free! I love that.
Maybe you would say, “Ben, I know all this. I believe this and I believe the Bible. I believe the Bible is God’s Word, and I believe in Jesus. I’ve even trusted Jesus to come into my heart, and I believe He will set me free!” Well, the question to you this morning is the same one I’ve asked myself this week, “How free are you?” What is going on in your life right now? What pops into your mind right now? You say, “In this area of my life, I am not free.” Maybe it’s a fear; maybe it’s a habit; maybe it’s some kind of addiction you thought you could handle. What is it that you’re not free of? Because He came to set you free! Perhaps one of the things you need to take home from today’s message is that you need to go and talk to God and say, “God, I know I’m not free in this area. Will You set me free?” Maybe tell someone else who you trust and know who will listen to you, and say to them, “Hey, I am not free in this area. Can you show me? Can you help me? I really want to be free. I know He came to set me free!”
Jesus said this, “Whom the Son has set free, that person is free indeed!” I like that. That means that person is really, really free. It’s like what John says, “You’re a child of God.” You know what? You really are! I know it’s hard for you to believe it, but you really are! He can set you free!”
Here is the problem with Jesus in truth. Jesus went too far! That’s the problem. Jesus pushed this truth thing too far, because later in John Chapter 8:58, He’s in a discussion, and He claims to be God Himself. He says “I Am.” He used God’s self-attested name, the Name that God gave Himself when Moses said, “Hey, when I go to my people to try to release them, who should I say sent me?” God said, “I Am that I Am.” Jesus says, “I Am.” They want to kill Him! Then in John 14:6, you know what He says? He says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. I’m not just talking to you about truth. I’m not just telling you truth. You’re looking at Truth!” Truth has become a Person! In the beginning of the beginning of the beginning was Truth, and Truth was with God and Truth was God, and Truth became flesh and dwelt among us. Truth is found in the Person of Jesus. He is God incarnate.
Christmas, believe it or not, is right around the corner. I can’t believe it, but it is. One of my favorite Christmas songs is Mary, Did You Know? Do you like that one? I like that song, but I wish somebody would write a song—maybe one of you, maybe somebody I don’t know; some neo-punk group or new wave could write a song called Pilate Did You Know? Pilate, did you know that Truth has been walking around in your backyard for three years? Pilate did you know that you can’t kill the Truth? The Truth has a way of just rising again! Pilate, did you know that if you kill the Truth and the Truth rises again; the Truth is going to spread to a bunch of small people there in Galilee, and then to hundreds, and then to thousands?
Then it’s going to take over the Roman Empire, and by the modern 21st Century, there will be over a billion people who are following the Truth, and that Truth is setting them free! Pilate, did you know? Did you know that if you build your life around the truth that’s found in Him and His Word, then that truth will hold you and will set you really free!
Truth is not something that falls down for you from Heaven, like the apple hitting Newton on the head. Truth so many times is where? It’s found within the context of our everyday life. It’s found within the context of relationships, isn’t it? We’re on some kind of journey in our lives.