1.2 What Is the Bible?

1.2 What Is the Bible?
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute

What Is the Bible? The Bible is a record of God speaking to us. Inside that record is the history of God dealing with many different people down through the centuries of the human experience, and particularly with that family of people, the children of Israel, through whom He gave the law. That record also includes the gospels that set forth Jesus, our Savior, and His death by which you and I are reconciled to God and His resurrection by which we are saved.

In everything R.C. Sproul lays out concerning these things, and concerning God speaking through human beings in different times and places, I concur fully. What Sproul has taught you on this perspective is sufficient.

Searching the Scriptures. Nevertheless, Jesus said something we must grapple with. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life (John 5:39-40).

When Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures,” He meant what Sproul teaches in Knowing Scripture, and much of it good. But then Jesus stated that there is something else in the Bible, something those who “search the Scriptures” miss entirely. That something else is a Person, and life is found only inside that Person. We do not want to know Scripture; we want to know a Personal God by Scripture.

Killing Christ by Scripture. A young man named Saul knew the Scriptures, and he directed his life by God’s instructions possibly better than any other young man in human history. Then one day Saul was hit in the forehead by a 2x4, figuratively speaking. In his perfect obedience to Scripture, in obeying all that God instructs, by that obedience, Saul was putting Christ to death.

In his blind confusion, Saul shrank to nothing in his own sight, thus going by Paul (little) from that day on. Obeying the Scripture had not taken Paul to Christ. For years Paul pondered this shocking realization and what it really meant.

Paul’s Gospel. And thus Paul, reaching deep into the revelation of God, found a gospel of life that none of the disciples of Jesus had ever heard or known. And Paul, in a partial contradiction of the apostles, stated in so many words, “It’s my gospel and my Jesus against another gospel and another Jesus.” Now, most Christians are certain that they live by Paul’s gospel – For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). The problem is that these words and their definitions can be viewed through two totally different ways of seeing. And only one of those ways of seeing produces life.

Two Ways of Seeing. Here is a diagram illustrating these two ways of seeing. The circle on the left represents Christians who believe in Ephesians 2:8, but who prefer to look at the Bible through the “whole” picture, through what every Bible writer presented. The circle on the right represents Christians who live inside the Jesus of Paul’s gospel. Both groups look at the same Bible, but what comes back to each is something entirely different.

Let me give you a different definition of the Bible.

Jesus IS the Word. But let’s consider a few more verses first.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God (John 1:1). – Sustaining all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). – Except you eat My flesh and drink My blood you have no life in you (John 6:53) – The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63).

The Lord Jesus Christ IS every word God speaks; He is the all-speaking of God. Everything that exists is sustained every moment by these Spirit Words coming out of God’s mouth, that is, by Jesus.

My Definition. Let me give you my definition of “the Bible.”

God unfolds Himself to be known by His creation first as Word, Jesus, the All-Speaking of God. This Word comes, by the Holy Spirit, into the hearts and mouths of those to whom God reveals Himself.  That Word in their hearts and mouths remains the Lord Jesus Christ in Person.

These to whom God has given His Word, speak that word into the hearts and mouths of their hearers; they also write it down sometimes. There the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ in Person, sits quietly upon the page.

How Do We Hear? Then I, Daniel Yordy, read those words.  They come into me by the same Holy Spirit through whom they were spoken and written. As I look into the eyes of my Father, I hear Him speaking the creative Word of Christ into me. I believe that word, not as something on the outside of me that I must “perform,” but as Christ Jesus in Person on the inside of me now the only life I am and now fulfilling through me all the All-Speaking of God.

Therefore take heed how you hear (Luke 8:18a). The question for me is how do I hear Him?

Writing a Movie. Let me explain further.

When a movie maker records a movie, he uses a recording system to turn the sights and sounds of the movie into a digital format, actually, a written language. The recording system then writes the digital format onto a DVD disc. If I want to watch the movie, I buy the disc. But having the disc really does nothing for me. I cannot see the movie by studying the disk. No amount of mental penetration can force that disc to give up its secrets. It is, entirely, a mystery. Rather, I place the DVD into a machine that is designed in the exact same format as the original recording device. That machine translates the “mystery” written on the DVD into a movie I can watch and enjoy.

Through the Holy Spirit. In the same way, I cannot find life by studying the Bible any more than I can see a movie by studying the disc, even if I could read the language written there. The original “recording equipment” who recorded those words in the Bible is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows God. I am filled with the Holy Spirit; I am filled with the truth. The word of God as recorded in the Bible “plays” through the Holy Spirit in me, and I see and hear those words as the Lord Jesus Himself living now in me.

This is what Jesus meant when He said, the flesh (that is, studying the Bible by mental understanding) profits nothing. Jesus in Person in us is the only thing that is life.

Finding What We Seek. When R.C. Sproul reads the Bible, he sees one thing, and he shares what he sees in his several books and teachings. When I read the Bible, I see something entirely different in every verse and on every page. And when I read Sproul, I do not find there any mention of what I see and know when I read every verse in the Bible.

Sproul seeks for instruction in right living when he reads the Bible that he might guide his steps by God’s wisdom; he finds what he seeks on every page. I seek for Jesus, the One who fills my heart with His glory and in me fulfills all that He is; I find what I seek on every page.

Two Trees in the Bible. The Bible is the clearing in the garden of Eden. And there, in the Bible, God Himself has set two trees. One tree gives us the wisdom to know right from wrong, that we might hear what God speaks to obey all that He says.

The other tree is for failures, for those who discover that they cannot and will never please God or obey what He says or make the right decisions by His instructions. The other tree is for those who see the cross and know they are dead and know that now Jesus Himself in Person is the only life they are. These are those who live only inside of Jesus and who never ever want to live anywhere else.