Sunday Recap 9/30

We had another great week in the HSM. It was awesome hearing Anne Buehner talk about "Special Revelation" and the role of scripture. I'm looking forward to the conversations we'll be having this week! Here's a recap on what Anne talked about:

GOD IS NOT MUTE

Scripture…

1. IS INSPIRED BY GOD (2 TIM. 3:16-17)

Though the Bible has approximately 40 different authors, runs the gamut from history to law and prophecy to poetry, and includes 66 books written over the span of 1,600 years, it has one Author who made every word sure and every truth proclaimed.

Paul reminds Timothy of this vital truth in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. That God inspired the Scriptures does not mean that men wrote the words of the Bible completely of their own devices merely as an act of honor to God. 

Certainly their work in writing the books of the Bible was an act of honor to God, but it was not merely that. So when we say God inspired men to write the Bible, we don’t mean it in the same way that a guy may write a poem because he was inspired by a beautiful woman. The inspiration that the Holy Spirit provided in revealing the Word of God was direct, not indirect.

On the other hand, the inspiration that the Spirit provided in the revelation of the Word of God did not turn the human authors into automatic dictation machines. They weren’t possessed—at least not in the sense of losing control over their own faculties. God used men to write the Bible, but He did so without overriding their personalities. When Paul taught that his biblical words were inspired by God, he meant that God took whatever care determined necessary to make sure that what Paul and all the other biblical writers said was what God wanted said.

God may have used a variety of means to inspire the human authors of the Bible, but He determined that the final result was His own supreme authorship.

Paul tells Timothy that the Word of God contains all that we need to be “complete” and “equipped for every good work.” The words “complete” and “every” mean there is nothing necessary for us to know that the Bible lacks to show. And since the Bible’s help for us in these areas is comprehensive and exclusive, it is therefore authoritative. 

We should neither need nor want to look outside of the Bible to find out what God deems as “need to know” knowledge.

While the Bible is a message for us, it is ultimately a message about God. All that God does in the great history of redemption He does chiefly for His own renown.

2. REVEALS HIS EXPECTATIONS (PS. 19:7-11)

In the general revelation of creation, we can discern God’s existence and the shape of some of His attributes. These leave us without excuse in our responsibility to seek God and obey Him. But even though we see the imprint of the gospel in general revelation, we do not receive His specific word to us regarding what He expects from His relationship with us.

We do not worship the deist’s god, who leaves clues about himself scattered about the universe but then goes hands-off and leaves us to our own devices. No, we worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We worship the God who interrupts us when we’re trying to mind our own business, and He tells us His name, His plan, and His complete set of instructions on what to do with them. The great I AM is not content to be discerned; He wants to be known.

God does not want us to fumble around in the shadows, trying to figure out the meaning of life. He tells us where we stand in relation to Him (sinners deserving wrath), how we got there (through Adam’s sin, which we both inherit and embrace), and best of all, how we get out of it into a right standing with Him (through Christ’s sinlessness, culminating in His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection). 

Thanks be to God that He does not expect us to piece these expectations together solely through the changing of the seasons or the pervasive injustice in the world or the metamorphosis of a butterfly! He tells us straight out.

3. GLORIFIES CHRIST (LUKE 24:25-27)

Many of us are not used to thinking of God’s commandments—and Scripture in general—as “sweeter than honey,” or something that is delicious. Even if we can reckon with the idea of loving God’s law, we may have trouble figuring out how not to think of it in the context of a religious duty or a “chore chart” (something followed but not particularly enjoyed). 

But the Psalms speak of God’s children delighting in God’s law. How in the world do we get to that perspective?

The way we find God’s commands delightful and His instruction tasty like honey is by moving beyond what God requires of us and seeing what He has accomplished Himself. 

As we learned before, God Himself is the Hero of God’s story, and as it pertains to His desire to be known, He Himself bridges the communication gap we are unable to span ourselves. He does this first by speaking into the shadows of general revelation in the special revelation of Scripture. He does this savingly by speaking in the special revelation of Scripture the great announcement of the gospel of Jesus.

The point of special revelation, then, is to reveal the gospel. God’s written Word points to Jesus, the Living Word. After Jesus was raised from the dead, He caught up with a couple of disciples making a trek to Emmaus. He walked alongside them and preached the greatest Christ-centered, expository sermon from the Old Testament ever preached in the history of the world. “The point of all that,”

Jesus essentially said, pointing to the varied wonders of what we call the Old Testament, “is Me.”

As Jesus claimed implicitly and explicitly throughout His earthly ministry that He is the true Messiah long awaited by the people of God, He was asserting Himself as the culmination of human history. 

Psalm 19:11 tells us there is “great reward” in keeping God’s commands. We can’t do that. But Jesus can, and did. And there is great reward in Christ’s righteousness for all who will repent of their sin, trust in His work, and thereby receive His goodness credited to their account.

'TIS TRUE INDEED...GOD IS NOT MUTE!

Through His Word, God specifies His intentions for humanity and His expectations of us. He shows us how the glory of Christ is the purpose of world history. We are to respond to God’s special revelation by aligning ourselves with God’s expressed will.