If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

What are we to do when they make void the law of God?; living in a decadent culture that not only sins against God, but sins in order to make void His law and set up its sins in place of it. The number one sign of a nation being under the judgment of God in Scripture is that he curses it with wicked and corrupt leaders. Which is precisely what we are experiencing in the USA today at the highest levels. We are nationally under the judgment of God.

This morning I went to church, where I heard a sermon on Psalm 119:121-128 (ayin).

The prescription of the psalmist applies to Christians in the USA today. We find ourselves un precisely that situation. It is to 1. Call upon God in prayer to act. v. 126 “It is time for thee, LORD, to work:
for they have made void thy law”, and 2. Pray for national repentance, reformation, and revival. Daniel 9 gives a model prayer. Won’t you pray it with me?

Psalm 119:121ff I have done judgment and justice:
leave me not to mine oppressors.
Be surety for thy servant for good:
let not the proud oppress me.
Mine eyes fail for thy salvation,
and for the word of thy righteousness.
Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy,
and teach me thy statutes.
I am thy servant; give me understanding,
that I may know thy testimonies.
It is time for thee, LORD, to work:
for they have made void thy law.
Therefore I love thy commandments
above gold; yea, above fine gold.
Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right;
and I hate every false way.

Let us pray for national repentance, revival, and reformation, with Daniel:

Daniel 9:4-19

And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him; Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice. And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.

General Robert E. Lee quotes abolitionist William Wilberforce

Wilberforce was the leading statesman in 18th and 19th century British Parliament who successfully, in the end, pushed for the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery in the British Empire. (Although the United States was the first major country to ban the slave trade, Great Britain became the first to almost fully ban the institution of slavery in 1833.)

“Read the Bible, read the Bible! Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses, I seldom read any other book, and I as rarely felt the want of any other.” —William Wilberforce

The former commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, general Robert E. Lee, moved to Lexington Virginia after the Civil War where he was President of Washington and Lee College. Long known for his Christian devotion, while there he served as president of the Rockbridge Bible society, distributing God’s word to everyone in the region.

In a letter dated April 5, 1869 addressed to Rev. George Woodbridge, President of the Virginia Bible Society, he quotes the abolitionist Wilberforce in a positive sense, “I would, however, make the trial, did I think I could be of any service to the great object of the society. If the managers could suggest any plan, in addition to the abundant distribution of the Holy Scriptures, to cause the mass of the people to meditate on their simple truths, and, in the language of Wilberforce, ‘to read the Bible—read the Bible,’ so as to become acquainted with the experience and realities of religion, the greatest good would be accomplished. Wishing the society all success and continuous advancement in its work, I am, most truly yours. R. E. Lee”

Christ in the Camp, Jones, p 64.

Catholic Epistles veering more toward a Byzantine text form? This is getting interesting.

This is getting interesting. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the ECM NT looks like.

ECM ( Editio Critica Maior) is a project to produce a new revision of the Greek New Testament based on existing manuscripts and papyri, that is revolutionizing the field of textual criticism.  The Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) in Münster has added computer data analysis to evaluate not only textual variants, but the relationship of variants to their reading and textual family. It sounds like there are some interesting changes. The catholic epistles have been published in the latest Nestlé-Aland 28^th edition published by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (German Bible Society). Klaus Wachtel, a representative of the INTF spoke about the project at a gathering of the Society of Biblical Literature, and noted that the preferred text of the catholic epistles has veered more toward the Byzantine text compared to previous Nestlé-Aland editions! Startling admission. This could get interesting. The text of Acts, the gospels, and Pauline epistles are still a work in progress. I’m interested to see if these also veer more toward a Byzantine text type based on computer data driven analysis of variants, readings, and text families.

Quotes Daniel B. Wallace, “As INTF worked through the Catholic letters, they came to see much greater value of the Byzantine manuscripts than they had previously. In Wachtel’s presentation, he noted that the NA²⁷ displayed “prejudice against the Byzantine tradition” while the NA²⁸ recognized the “reliability of the mainstream tradition.” This is a welcome change in perspective, made possible because of exhaustive collations.”

Daniel B. Wallace

Overview

At the annual Society of Biblical Literature conference held in Chicago last month, the latest edition of the Novum Testamentum Graece, or the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, was unveiled. This has been a long time coming—nineteen years to be exact. The Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) in Münster is behind this production, and deserves accolades for its fine accomplishment. This is the first new edition of the Nestle-Aland text since the death of Kurt Aland, the founder of the INTF.

Inexplicably, even though the new text was available at SBL—both as just the Greek text and in diglot with English translations—it could not be acquired through Amazon until later. I pre-ordered a couple copies last April; the diglot arrived in November but the Greek-only text will not be released until January!

Several gave presentations on the new Nestle-Aland text at SBL. Klaus Wachtel of INTF gave an…

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Perkins on the Power of the Word Preached

apuritansmind.com

Finally Perkins speaks of the vitality of the Word of God (p. 647, The Art of Prophesying).  It is endowed with virtue in its operation.  This means that the Word has a vitality, a power to convince the hearers of its truth and to bring about that which it promises.  We notice that others in the history of preaching have spoken of this virtue or vitality of God’s Word.  It is a fundamental concept for understanding the Puritan School of preaching, because it is on this insight that the confidence of the preacher is built.  He does not have to rely on the arts of oratory, although he may use them, because the power of the preaching is not in the preacher but in the Word itself.

Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church: Vol IV, the Age of the Reformation, 265.

The Scriptures Are the Church’s Only Final Rule

The Scriptures are the Church’s charter and foundation, her only final rule for faith and practice.  All that the church does is to be regulated according to the doctrine and practical instructions given in the Scriptures.  Since the Scriptures are her only warrant for ecclesiastical authority, she is not to transact anything not clearly addressed by them.  The conscience of Christians is free from all doctrines and commandments not specifically provided in the Scriptures in matters of faith and worship, and free from anything contradicting the Scriptures in other life matters.

Protected: Answer to “The Bible – Divinely Authored? — A Response to Highplainsparson.” by Warbinator

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How God’s Word, and the True Religion, May Be Recognized

There are three general Characters whereby we may know any Word to be the Word of God; and a Religion to be the true Religion. 1. That which doth most set forth the glory of God. 2. That which doth direct us to a rule which is a perfect rule of holinesse toward God, and righteousnesse to men. 3. That which shows us a means suitable to God’s glory and men’s necessity, to reconcile us to God. The word of God sets forth God’s glory in all the perfections, and is a compleat rule.

Leigh, Body of Divinity, quoted in Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. I, 435.

The Bible Proven to Be God’s Word by Its Own Evidence

The Bible Proven to Be God’s Word by Its Own Evidence

Christians believe the truths presented in Holy Scripture.  When asked to provide evidence of the truths we believe, we point to Scripture.  This is correct and natural for those who are convinced that the Bible is the very Word of God.  But for those who remain unconvinced, it’s not very convincing.  A question remains: Can it be known, or even proven, that the Bible is God’s Word?  Certainly if someone were to hand me a medical prescription for me to fill and take, I’d want to know that it actually came from the doctor who supposedly gave it.  So likewise it is normal for someone unfamiliar or unconvinced of the Bible’s truth claims to ask whether it can be proven that God is its Author. Some Christians would respond by pointing to statements and quotations from the Bible that it is God’s fully-inspired word, such as that found in 2 Timothy 3:16a, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,”  There’s nothing wrong with this method of reasoning for those who are already convinced that the Bible is God’s word; but to the unbeliever, it smacks of circular reasoning.  The Bible whose divine authorship is to be proven makes claims that are not unique.  Other books also claim to be from God (i. e. the Hindu Vedas, the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon, etc.)  In this case the disputant is using the Bible’s own claim to prove the truth of its claim.  Since there are other books which claim to be from God, the claim that the Bible is from God may not simply be taken at face value.  (Plus, it is quite a high claim for any book to make, isn’t it?)  While it’s important to the question at hand for us to understand that the Bible claims to be God’s Word, more evidence is required to add credibility to that claim beyond just the bare claim itself.  We don’t believe that a book is from God just because it says so. Another approach is to seek to prove the truth of the Bible through evidence from external sources such as history or empirical science.  Can we use other disciplines to prove that the Bible is true?  While there is much in this world that corroborates the truths of Scripture, the person who looks for positive certainty that the Bible is from God based on sources of evidence outside the Bible itself will be searching in vain, (and quite possibly for a long time.)  You cannot prove without a doubt that the Bible is God’s Word by historic testimonies or by scientific observation of nature.  The Church has historically held that the Bible is God’s word, and this is a weighty testimony.  There are remarkable prophecies in Scripture whose fulfillment is recorded in secular history.  There are also insights on nature found in Scripture which scientists did not discover in their fields until many centuries later.  Yet these things alone are not able to prove that every word of the Bible comes from God.  Although these points may support the Bible’s claims, and they are quite impressive, they do not in themselves rise to the level of positive evidence that God gave the Bible in every word and detail.  Without more evidence, these points amount to little more than inexplicable phenomena.  The objective enquirer who takes note of these proofs will simply not have an explanation for them. What we need is the actual stamp or signature of God in the Scriptures themselves to prove that He authored them.  It’s not enough for a book to claim to be from God.  His signature must be verifiable.  Like a raised seal on a birth certificate, or a doctor’s signature on a prescription slip, the features of the Bible itself hold the key to proving the authenticity of its claim to be God’s word.  If you are reading this and you would like to examine the evidence I will point to, you will have to pick up the Bible and read it.  I will not be adding a lot of specific Scripture citations because I would like to discourage the reader from simply picking out the verses I might cite and then leaving it at that.  If I gave a lot of proof texts, the reader might be tempted to just look them up, which is exactly what I would like to avoid.  Think of me as a tour guide in a great botanical garden.  I will point out the things to look at, but I won’t lift them up for you or touch them.  You have to look carefully for yourself.  The evidence that God wrote the Bible, and not merely humans, is in there for you to see, in the Bible.  The more you read of it, the more clearly you will be able to see the marks or features that I will describe which point to divine and not human authorship.  An investigator who is looking for clues must carefully examine all the available evidence to fully appreciate their direction, weight, and import.  Just so, the more one reads and understands the Bible, the more clear the evidences of divine authorship will appear.  I would recommend reading through all sixty-six books of the Bible at least once, and preferably more, in one or more of the popularly accepted English translations (KJV, NKJV, ESV, NASB) for the skeptical reader of this article who would like to examine the Bible’s claim to be God’s word.

Argument: The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (66 received books known as the Holy Bible) are the Word of the Creator to mankind, the special way that He has chosen to reveal Himself to us.  Although penned by many human authors, and bearing the particular marks, genius, style, and language of each individual author, who sometimes may have made use of preexisting sources, these men of God were so directed by the Spirit of God that every word of the final product is His true word.  These books have been kept pure and preserved entire throughout all ages by God’s particular providence.

Disclaimer: There is evidence that the Bible is God’s infallible word.  This evidence is in the Bible and nowhere else.  I am not presenting the evidence that the Bible is God’s Word, but merely pointing to it.  In order to see the evidence, the reader will have to pick up the Bible and read for himself.  For the purpose of seeing the objective evidence of the Bible’s divine authorship, many of the bestselling Bible versions in the English language today are sufficiently accurate.  This does not mean that everyone who reads this will be convinced.  In order for someone to be convinced that the Bible is God’s word and what it teaches is true, it is absolutely required that the Spirit of God witness to his heart to persuade him that it is the very word of God.  I do not hope to persuade anyone who reads this post, if the Spirit of God does not intervene in that person’s heart.  The objective evidence is there, but because man is by nature committed to deny and oppose it, he will subjectively disbelieve it every time unless God opens the eyes and heart. The Bible’s marks, signs, signatures, and evidences of authorship by God are the following:

1.    The simple majesty and sublimity of the Bible is unmatched in merely human literature. The wisdom, profundity, brevity, natural eloquence, pointedness, clarity, freshness, boldness, and wonder of the Scriptures, given for the most part in everyday human language, is far beyond what any human author could achieve without divine inspiration.  Other books may claim to be what the Bible is in this regard, but they fall far short upon impartial examination.

2.    The Bible is free from error and taint of evil. The Bible is free from error and contradiction in every point and statement that it makes.  No one has ever proven that a contradiction exists in the Scriptures, or successfully disproven any statement of historical or scientific fact found in the Bible. The Bible has had a profound impact on western civilization and literature: not just among Christians.  Other books are full of monstrous immorality and injustice, especially those published in nations where the Bible has never been a widespread influence.  In contrast, the Bible presents a pure morality from God Himself.  The morality of the Bible resonates deep inside the reader, because it comes from his Creator.  The purity of the ethics or morals of the Scriptures and those of the Christians who believed their truths have historically been one of the great draws to Christianity, especially when pagan cultures have first come in contact with them.

3.    Every part of the Bible penned by dozens of authors over a period greater than 2400 years reveals the same God, the same human condition, and the same plan of salvation. The Bible is not one book.  It is one collection of books.  It is truly remarkable that around 40 human authors writing the sixty-six books of the Bible in three languages over a period of at least 2400 years could find such agreement on doctrines such as God, Sin, and salvation through the Messiah.  The congruence or overall development of the central themes of the Bible over this period of time and this range of authors and dates of writing is something that would be humanly impossible.  There is in fact no other collection of books approaching anything close to this remarkable, miraculous feat.  No such extensive body of human literature has such agreement, or even has central themes that can be clearly discerned.  And that’s if we ignore the diversity of the centuries and locations in which it was written, to which there is no other match in known literature.

4.    The whole Bible glorifies God and humbles man in ways that no other literature does.  This is not the way people choose to write.  It is a mark of its divine authorship.  There is a saying that history is written by the victors.  No people writes a history the way the Bible is written.  The Scriptures, penned by exclusively Hebrew authors, present a strikingly unfavorable view of the Hebrew people.  They are portrayed as stubborn, disobedient, ungrateful, and foolish.  Other literature before the age of academic criticism is what amounts to hagiography, or hero-worship.  Even modern histories, though making an effort to appear critical and avoid hagiography, are slanted toward the bias of their author.  But in the Bible, even those who may be viewed as the Heroes of Scripture are portrayed with glaring flaws, like the patriarch Judah who unknowingly committed incest when he intended to hire a prostitute, King David who committed adultery and murdered to cover it up, or Solomon whose many foreign wives enticed him to commit rank idol-worship.  God gets all of the glory and the Hebrew people, Kings, or prominent figures get none.  The idea that the Hebrews wrote these books without God’s inspiration is preposterous. No one writes about the human race the way the Bible does.  The Bible presents man as completely unable to do any good thing apart from a sovereign change of his heart wrought by the power of God as a miracle upon the soul.  The Bible is utterly unflattering to all humankind and exalts God alone.  Its revealed way of salvation by God’s grace alone through Christ for the very people who have earned eternal punishment for themselves by their hatred of Him and their evil deeds, is something that no human being ever could or would dream of.  Human literature is flattering to the human nature and character.  But in the Bible, God gets all of the credit for everything that is truly good, and man gets absolutely none, which proves that God is the Author and not merely man.

5.    The Bible alone describes the true condition of man, and prescribes a remedy suitable to him.  No other book of philosophy, religion, or science accurately describes the state of man.  Human beings have a natural knowledge of what is right and wrong.  They show this every day in many ways, especially by judging the actions of others.  But why is it that they can’t live up to the same standard that they think of as normative?  How do we explain the depths of evil that man is capable of, evidenced by countless examples in history and from everyday life, while man at the same time is capable of such beauty and sparks of goodness that occasionally flicker?  Why is death so painful, even though it is so universal?  We all know these things to be true from our experience of ourselves, others around us, and society as a whole.  But how to account for them, we know not.  The Bible gives the answer to the human problem.  It explains why man has such good potential, but at the same time fails so miserably to live up to it.  It explains why man has a sense of what is right, and loves to judge others, but cannot live up to his own standard.  It explains why death still hurts so much, even though it is a fact of nature as we now experience it. No other book so accurately explains the human condition and then gives a remedy so suitable to it.  It explains that God created man good, but that he fell by his own choice, and received death as punishment for his disobedience to his Creator.  It explains, furthermore, that the Creator became man, and lived a perfect life, to take the punishment that man deserves for his disobedience.  Every human religion, book, philosophy, or way of life describes how humans may make efforts to better themselves to escape or at least lessen the effects of injustice and/or death.  But the Bible reveals a plan whereby the God and Maker of the Universe became man to reconcile man with his Creator.  This describes the only remedy suitable to the human condition.  Such a description of the human condition, with a perfectly suitable remedy, can only come by divine revelation.

6.    Those who believe the Holy Scriptures find comfort and support to faith unmatched by any other book. For those who believe, the Scriptures provide such supreme joy and comfort that it is unequalled by any other book.  Now, admittedly, this evidence will not be of much use to those who do not yet believe the Scriptures.  For them, they will have the opposite effect.  A gracious prince offers clemency to those who are his sworn enemies, who would not lift a finger in submission to him even to save their lives.  To these enemies, his offer does not have a sweet smell of life.  It stinks of the death they know they will earn by their obstinacy, because they are dead set against accepting his kind offer.  They will frown at the gracious offer of clemency instead of smiling, because it only increases their guilt for remaining in their rebellion.  The same is true with those who read the Scriptures.  Those who are able and willing by grace to submit to God and believe in His Son Jesus Christ revealed in the Scriptures will find solace for their souls and peace that passes understanding in its sublime truths and blessed promises.  Those whose hearts are yet hardened against God will find in the pages of the Bible only more promises that they will reject, more evidence to support God’s just sentence against them.  For them it is not comforting, but frightening. Like I said in the disclaimer above, you won’t believe anything I’ve written above unless the Spirit has opened your eyes to see clearly.  The objective evidence is there, but the average human reader is looking at it through glasses tinted by his own commitment to rebellion against the God of the Bible.  That’s where the subjective element comes in.  In order to overcome this rebellion, a sovereign work to change the human nature is required.  My hope is that some reading this will experience this change of heart and mind. Now, if you’re reading this telling yourself, “I’m not convinced,” then I’m not surprised!  That’s why I said it would take a work of the Spirit in order for you to acknowledge the evidence.  That doesn’t mean it’s not there, it just means that the average reader is not willing to receive it.

In conclusion, I would like to cite the magisterial Westminster Larger Catechism as a clear and concise statement of the evidence I have tried to explain above: Q. 4. How doth it appear that the Scriptures are of the Word of God? A. The Scriptures manifest themselves to be the Word of God, by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God; by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation: but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able fully to persuade it that they are the very word of God¹. ¹The Westminster Larger Catechism (1647) is the longer and more expansive of the two catechisms produced by the Westminster Assembly of divines (or theologians), a Church body meeting at Westminster Abbey, London, over the course of six years, made up of over 150 men chosen from among the most godly ministers and elders from both the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in England, with eminent representatives from Scotland and the French churches.  This catechism is one of the most scripturally-accurate and detailed teaching formulas from the history of the Christian Church,–still held in high regard today by the Presbyterian and Congregational churches among others.–RF