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.
