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CHAPTER 11

 

THE WORD DEFINITIVE,

EXPRESSION OF GOD

Eternal and as the living Christ

Incarnated in Time,

and

THE WORD INSCRIPTURATED,

Deposited in the Bible,

There Revealed to Man in Times leading to the Consummation in Jesus Christ

The glorious soaring peaks in this case are interestingly both found in Timothy, both in verses 3:16, the former in I Timothy, the latter in II Timothy! What a giant among massifs is this!

Indeed, it has such a range of arrangement, the lofty with the logical, the alpine with the celestial, it is so integrated with so much in the Bible, that this cluster of magnificent massifs cannot be torn apart. We shall have to look more broadly as we examine our chosen two, as some more mighty ones!

The sectors provided below, the majority of which are excerpts, are not always as in their originals, but may be extended, on occasion considerably, or re-phrased slightly.

 

A

I TIMOTHY 3:16

from The Christian Pilgrimage ...

Ch. 4 with addition.

 

C. The MYSTERY of GODLINESS

(not shrouded but unclouded in Christ is the impenetrable glory that has revealed itself in the saga of salvation, the wonder of the Saviour who though He was God, became man for this service) - I Tim 3:16 – cf. Philippians 2

 

Importantly, the majority text, nearly all the MSS, has it: GOD^*1 was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit … This is as in John 14:9, 8:58, Mark 2 where, although ONLY God can forgive sins, Christ proceeds in view of this, to raise a paralysed man, as practical testimony of His authority as GOD to forgive. If then God has been at such pains to make it visible, clear, personal and at such cost, available on straightforward terms, and that freely, how much more should we be straightforward with Him, not playing a double game, but sincere, faithful reliable. Christ is Saviour, and there is ONLY ONE (Isaiah 43:10-11), and it is He (Isaiah 53). With God Himself therefore you deal, in Christ, lacking NOTHING!

 

But Christ, He did not waver in His own test. He was

 

Ø        "justified in the Spirit" at the baptism,

  when the divine voice announced,   
   "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased!" (Matthew 3:17).

 

Not a sinner, as John the Baptist realised of Him (Matthew 3:14-15), He was baptised for a very different reason: as a priest extraordinary, it was fitting for Him to be sprinkled as was the custom for those, like Him, about 30, who would take the Levitical office of service. Thus, humbling Himself, He took this mode of setting apart, as they did, being thus accepted by His Father, as needing no sacrifice, Himself holy already (Numbers 8:6-8). As without sin it was IMPOSSIBLE for Him to have the ordinary baptism, hence John's demur (I Peter 2:23ff.). As baptised therefore, it was certainly by sprinkling, this being one of the main methods and incorporated under 'baptism' in  Hebrews 9:10 with 9:13ff..

 

Again was He JUSTIFIED, as in I Timothy 3:16, when the divine voice once more acknowledged Him, in the transfiguration when His true and divine nature was for a short time witnessed (Matthew 17:1-13), the Father declaring - "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" Again, He was justified in the Spirit, the Lord Himself attesting Him, as in John 12:27ff., this time the words being given, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again!" referring to the prayer of Christ "Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour!"

 

The divine attestation thus then gave public recognition to the approaching substitutionary sacrifice in which Christ bore the sins of all who would come to Him, from the past, in the core and kernel of faith which alighted on Him to come, from the present and for the future for all who would come.

 

How had the Father already glorified His name in Christ ? In power to heal, in power to preach, in power to rebut the foolish follies of the traditionalists and the innovators, scribes and Pharisees, in power to prevail in prayer, in the beauty of holiness, in the fulfilment of all the many prophecies, in the preparation of the apostles and in many things. How would He glorify it again ? In enabling the sinless Christ to carry off the prize, not coming down from the cross, but bearing even the sense of separation from the Father which sin HAD to bring (Isaiah 59:1-2, cf. Psalm 22 cf. Joyful Jottings 25); and then rising from the dead, imperial, impervious as well as compassionate and pitiful to have endured all these things.

 

Let us however revert to I Timothy 3:16. Christ was

 

Ø        "seen by angels", as at the birth (Luke 1), and as He laboured (Hebrews 5:7, Luke 22:42-46)
to overcome His psychic repugnance to the spiritual need to die not only as a sinner, which He was not, but with sin crowding like over-size blow-flies upon His purity, lashing His life like vultures, and abominable as it was, requiring His death, for such is the path of love for the King of glory: though in so doing He broke the power and basis of death, clearing the pathway of eternal life, which was His to give (I John 1:1-4), even to all whom the Father gave Him (John 6:44, 8:44).

 

Ø        "preached among the Gentiles" as by Peter at Pentecost, by Paul in Europe and Asia.

 

Ø        "believed on in the world", as by multiplied thousands at and after Pentecost, through Paul and his associates, and by the missioning of many (cf. Acts 12).

 

Indeed, He was

 

Ø        "received up to glory", as shown in Acts 1, this starting with the glorious rebuff to the faithless betrayers,

Ø        when He rose physically from the dead (Luke 24, Romans 1:4), the visible Lord of the victorious church. 

 

¨   Dauntless because He was immortal, persistent because He was:15, 6:2;;3, 3:23ff.) pure, undespatchable because He was, as He is, God the Word, though immersed in this world for His compassionate purpose,

¨   He swallowed up death in victory, once and for all.

¨   Its power was sin; He bore it for those who received Him in His gifts (Romans 8:32).

¨   It was in this way that He “brought life and immortality to light” (II Timothy 1:10),

¨   eternal life freely His gift (Romans 5for man.

¨   Death’s guillotine could no more hold its reign of Terror, but given its finale in physical triumph from spiritual glory (Hebrews 2).

 

All this is included in the "mystery of godliness" of which Paul speaks in I Timothy 3:16.

 

As to that, it is the exposed wonder from the very sanctuary of the holiness of God, redolent with His beauty, fragrant for faith with His practicality, like a sheer cliff by the oceans, showing the height and the depth to which He willingly went to save the souls lost in the sea below: it has all the grandeur of loveliness, the sanctity of service, the purity of purpose which is that of a love so distinct and definitive, that without it neither man nor human love has meaning, except as shadows of reality, cut from the mould but lacking its dynamic and its grace. Great as human love can be, without this love of God, it is already lacking its source and floating like souls shipwrecked, needing the rescue that they might live (cf. I Corinthians 8:2-3).

 

 

This love has provided GOD HIMSELF as the Saviour, GOD AS MAN as the service, that man CRUCIFIED as the payment for sin, CHRIST RESURRECTED as the testimony to truth, which none could ever, do ever or will ever be able to refute, from the days of the inane pretence that sleeping soldiers reported that His body was stolen (marvel of sleep awareness!), to the present (cf. SMR Ch. 6, The Magnificence of the Messiah *1). God said it would be; it was and nothing man or sin could contrive, conceive or create could prevent it. The follies to come as the Age matures to its end, like some cancerous victim, are then sketched in I Timothy 4 as later in II Timothy 3; but the truth remains and blessed is he, is she who believes, for there will be an accomplishment of the things spoken, as with Mary, as with Peter, as with Paul, as with Isaiah and all the prophets and as with Christ, who DID EXACTLY what He said He would do, always does and always will.

 

For you see, HE is the WORD of God. Never imagine that His divine restraint with man in His own image is any lack of power: the presence of love has its own ways, and the operations of power have theirs. It is this which the world has seen for millenia; and when judgment comes, according to truth, it will have cause enough to mourn on two counts: firstly that it neglected the opportunities so gloriously provided, and secondly that the power of God is no less real than His love, and love being scorned, justice holds sway for those who inherit it as their foolish option. Reader, one will pray that you may avoid such an end, for its very truth is like a lash.

 

Rather seek by His grace triumphant, His face divine.

 

 

NOTE

 

*1

 It was after all, not the mystery of godliness which was justified in the flesh. It was some ONE who is ABLE so to be justified. It was not a mystery which was received up into glory. It is there already in the sense of what is magnificent and revealed from above, so that it may be realised on earth by its release from heaven (as in Matthew 13, II Peter 1:20-21, Matthew 13:11 with 16-17. These 'mysteries' are so clear that it takes blind eyes to avoid them (Matthew 13:11,161-17 in contrast with 13:14-15.

The text however declares itself and so is used: on this aspect, see On Translations of the Bible, Words about Words  Ch. 1.

 

 B

 

 II TIMOTHY 3:16 and Associates

  This sector is from the volume:

On Translations of the Bible, Words about Words  13

I

45) On II Timothy 3:16, see The Christian Pilgrimage ...Ch. 5 and Pall of Smoke and Diamond of Joy Ch. 8.

§Every scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

"Given by inspiration of God" represents a sound option, if less direct in dealing with the original. I Corinthians 14:37 and 2:9-13 come to mind with their authority, as commands from God, and their precision, as formed and formulated, by God. Asinine indeed is any imagination that man can be wiser than the divine author, or can add his mortal breath to the divine inspiration; but is rebellion as well when this is asserted in the face of the divine declarations (cf. SMR Appendix D).

 

  A     

The Christian Pilgrimage Ch. 5 - excerpt.

 

LION THE SECOND

Now we find an altogether more delightful message. It comes this time from II Timothy 3:16. It is amazing how many significant 3:16 verses there are in the Bible, and here in Timothy is an excellent illustration.

In I Timothy 3:16, as we saw in the last chapter, there is one of the most beautiful, comprehensive and succinct references to the glory of God in the Gospel that one could wish to see; and here in II Timothy 3:16 there is the exposure of the status of the word of God in terms simple, express, explicit and sure, in summary and impactive form and formula. It is of no particular significance that his amazing numerical feature exists; the verses as such are not divisions in the original; but it does help the memory. Let us pursue, then, II Tim 3:16^*3.

ALL SCRIPTURE, roars this tawny lion, IS GOD-BREATHED and PROFITABLE for DOCTRINE, for REPROOF, for CORRECTION, for INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Now obviously the apostle is not telling us of this absolute standard in order that we should not know what it is. He is NOT saying that all scripture, in the case where it is God-breathed (undefined therefore) is so profitable. That would be rather like saying that all petrol is good for cars, provided that its hydro-carbon content is *^% , where these terms are not defined. It would be an appallingly useless, undefined, inexpressive jumble of sound, of no value, useless communication, a joke.

The character of inspiration has not been left unknown by Paul in I Corinthians 2:9-13, where first, the revelation in substance is conferred on the apostle, and then the words which provide the verbal assimilation of the revelation, these two are provided. On this topic, see SMR Appendix D. Again in Psalm 119, again and again we find that ALL His testimonies are true, that they last for ever, are enshrined in heaven and such things, as shown in the above reference.

Again, the Greek simply states ALL SCRIPTURE GOD-INSPIRED AND PROFITABLE FOR TEACHING, then listing other features of this focus. The omission of the copula (is) is not unusual. There is no 'which' in the text, no designation of any division, let alone any second verb, which would again have to be added to make any sense of it at all – which is … is. There is no such clause.

If such a gate-crashing were to be followed, this would be adding not only three words but even a clause gratuitously, constituting a form of verbal aggression, with the erratic invasion of a thought from the heart of man to the mouth of God, so that to implant this in the text is merely adding to scripture (against Proverbs 30:6): thus making it trebly ludicrous as an attempt to ignore the fact that man is "live by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). This is shown in Christ's dialogue with the devil, by its being absolutely final once cited, in the classic argumentation and confrontation. In the same way, in Acts 4:25, a given scripture is at once said to have come from God, in this way, "who by the mouth of Your servant David, has said..." What then ?

¨     It is solemn farce to act the ventriloquist when God is speaking, spluttering in one’s
own thoughts in His face, even acting as if to force one’s words between His lips.

Such is the audacity of disbelief, and the illustration of the need for the warning of the first lion,
in I Timothy 6. What is written is of another category than culture, than social nuances and desiderata of the flesh. What then is to be found in II Timothy 3:16 with all its allied topical utterances from the Lord in the Bible ? What does it teach about the biblical scripture ? Let us follow the text.

What was written is regarded as an absolute source and recourse, a citable matter of utter authority, without attenuation or mitigation, not a vexed question or a vague shadow in part or in whole. Would not the devil have said, But God has said ... and then put in some thoughts of his own, attributing them to God. Impossible since the word of God was WRITTEN already, so that Christ simply went on to make final demolition of every temptation with the word, "It is written." Or He might say, "It is written again...", thus signifying that SOME, indeed ANY word was final, with no countervailing element possible.

That written, declares Paul in I Tim 6, is profitable for instruction and in this case, for reproof. Any attempt therefore to subvert this clear revelation meets multiple contradiction at once, from the word of God; and further, it would be ludicrous to imagine that the apostle were saying this, All scripture which (not there, but added by the imagination) is inspired by God  is A, B, C and so on. That would require one to add three things: the 'which', the first 'is' and the second 'is', a real party of intrusion. In fact, there is simply the quite common omission of the first 'is' in the rather proverbial fashion applicable. Adding to someone else's words fails to render them; it is merely a form of intrusive plagiarism: and we are here concerned with what is being said by the writer, not the reader!

ALL THE GOD-BREATHED SCRIPTURES, as elsewhere defined and here APPLIED, are then of this character. One would expect this since if GOD breathes them, WE should find them PROFITABLE when we want to teach the new Christian or the old, what HE WANTS, HOLDS and DETERMINES. Naturally such a source would provide such a result in terms of being profitable for righteousness and godliness, for who is more godly than God is Himself, or where is RIGHTEOUSNESS but in Him as its moral source and uttermost base!

Further, all scripture is profitable for CORRECTION. How could you correct if the source for correction were incorrect! or how correct if it were not even known, or how use a basis which was unbased, unclear or uncertain! Not so with Christ: one blast of the word of God written and even Satan was powerless. Again, all scripture is profitable for reproof; but how could you reprove if the basis of reproof were reprovable! Hence this lion is roaring: take it all, use it all, it is the basis, the blight for error, the standard for correction, the reservoir for instruction, the module for doctrine.

What it says is correct, clear, basic, assured, God-breathed and ipso facto God ordained, endorsed and provided. Just as departure from the word of God is most horrendous, that lion as we earlier saw roaring with a splendid organ-toned power, so the abiding in this word is wonderful, all of it, not some, all of the Bible in both testaments, not some, all that God has said, every word, not some of His words, whether one likes it or not, whether it hits favourite theories or not, whether it smacks one's hand when one ponders a possible course of action or not: IT IS PROFITABLE to correct, instruct, to show what is right, what is godly, what is rebukable.

THIS is what one would expect when the Maker of Man the Communicator, speaks to man the thinker, the one who engages in abstract thought, who makes rules, who has power to elect perspectives.

¨    Its tenor and severity is verification in KIND of the expectations from such a source. It is not a suggestion, any more than our DNA has suggestions.

¨  It is not a cultural offshoot, any more than 2+2=4 is a cultural offshoot, being rather a fundamental reflection in numbers of the divinely ordered creation.

¨    It is not variable, like the thoughts of some genius, often elevated, but sometimes  appallingly poor (as when Einstein reputedly made a fundamental mistake on one occasion, yes and a simple one, where perhaps his preference was at stake cf. SMR p. 422D).

¨    It is clearly demarcated as contradistinct in authority and reliability from the words of mankind (cf. Jeremiah 23:28-29); divorced from error in its promulgations, with a refined care (cf. Christ's words on this in Matthew 5:17-20).

 

Further, and most wonderfully, it is expressly testable, and one is exhorted to consider this in RESULTS, as a scientist might ask of students, when they turn from his lecture to the laboratory! This is seen repeatedly in Isaiah in Chs. 41, 43, 48, and is altogether characteristic of the approach of deity in His word, to the witless wanderings, the thoughtful self-elevations and the capricious foolishnesses of man, who wants to assert himself and in so doing, is about as wise as a moth, asserting itself in the mouth of a lion.

The LION HAS ROARED, as Amos puts it, who will not fear! (Amos 3:8). "Surely," he was saying, "Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets."

How He has done this as in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32, Isaiah 42, 49-55, as in Psalm 2, 16, 22, 102, as in Jeremiah 25, as in Micah 3, 5, as in Zechariah 11-13, as in Zephaniah, in Hosea, in Amos and all the prophets! Alas for Israel, but her end approaches which is full of good things as well as exposure of the ungodly (Romans 11 cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3, and Ch. 3 *1, SMR Appendix A). How does Micah 7 sketch that end, with Deuteronomy 32 and Romans 11! Already its preliminary events have stretched themselves luxuriously like a cat in the sun, in the lifetime of this author, in their amazing intricacy and prophesied detail (cf. SMR Chs. 8   -  9).

It is wise to hear the lions in their roaring, both lion I and lion 2, and to realise that this is not brute force, but beautiful sovereignty, that of the God who IS love, and whose protestations are GIVEN IN LOVE, that man might live more abundantly, not in the dives of political careering and career-making, philosophical vacuities, irrational premises and hideous ineffectual promises form the premises of mere arbitrary flesh.

Alas for the world, for more and more it moves into this sphere, where the roaring of the lion being ignored, the raw mess of its headstrong precipitancies becomes a stench, rather than mere malodour.

That, however, that too, you would expect it: it is what the world does with itself, ignoring the word of God; and the results are predictable as now they are predicable! This, it is verification as always, however sad, however grievous and however needless. How wise to listen to the roaring of these TWO LIONS!

 

*3

See for II Timothy 3:16, also Pall of Smoke and Diamond of Joy  Ch. 8.

II

This sector on II TImothy 3:16 is from 

Pall of Smoke and Diamond of Joy Ch. 8 - excerpt.

It deals with Timothy more broadly, and has the advantage of seeing in this context, both II Timothy 3:16 and I Timothy 3:16, giving a sense of their mutual belonging.

TIMOTHY AND TIMES

Timothy shows some things to the point here. In the first Chapter, I Timothy, we hear what the world is desirous of being deaf to, and hence makes so much noise (as well as for sundry other reasons). The LAW of God is STILL in OPERATION, despite the antinomian antipodes to the Bible, the virtual moral lawlessness, aggravated by mere dictation; and it remains the divine direction, despite the increasingly obvious secular hypothesis that each man is god, which seems attractive to some, until ALL men become desirous, and then the LEADER of men thinks it good to REPRESENT them and then COMMANDS them, and the results are as far from their being gods as the reality! Sin is by its very nature, deceptive.

Thus, further, when what is NOT GOD (Deuteronomy 32:21) becomes arrogant enough, politically, diplomatically, ecclesiastically, to PRETEND that it is (II Thess.2), adjusting words the while, then it is so sick and sodden in sin that the stuff squelches through its very shoes, and man and his representative will so grow to be even further from God, than merely being created in His image,  as man was made at the first.

Now let us be aware. It is NEAR to God to be created without sin, in His image: in the sense that fellowship is possible, wonderful, and the Creator is marvellous beyond all description like a sunset, though of course you can with Paul in I Timothy 1 too, say "eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God". It is not that God is not clear; it is rather that He surpasses without lacking clarity, because His love is of a tenderness and a height and depth, like His peace, which passes knowledge (Ephesians 3, Philippians 3). He is not AT ALL unknown to those know Him, but as to His depths of peace, love and comprehension, it is like the ocean waves for a swimmer, which go on amazingly, in breadth and depth, though they are perfectly clearly oceanic, blue and green, surging, vast.
 

This is the ONLY way in which the knowledge of God is (though it is proclaimed to BE eternal life to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent - John 17:3) past comprehension. Its sheer majesty, though the character of the Eternal God is most conspicuous, comprehends infinitude, and makes it seem small, for all number in our universe, all series, all procedure, is likewise His creation.
 

• The eternal  God is describable in perfectly clear terms,

for His omniscience,
faithfulness, goodness and mercy, love, graciousness,
His slowness to anger, His power and perception insurpassable,
with justice and righteousness the very foundation of His throne:

expressive, articulate, commanding,
comprehensive, directive, liberty creating,
pride abasing, the only God,
declarative, covenantal in procedure,
presenting His written and living word,
the former the Bible,
the latter His only begotten Son,
prophetically emphatic,
when necessary exceedingly dramatic,
evocative, provocative to sin, ultimate in judgment ...

and one could go on for a volume perhaps in this way. It is just that WHEN you know Him, and it is a real, vital, precise and articulable knowledge, you realise that His everlasting to everlasting magnificence, His lovingkindness, His peace are not of this or that order, but infinite.
 

Infinitely personal, He is without actual or assignable limit;
clearly self-declaring, He is more and more of what He declares,
like mountain ranges that go on,
known, yet magnificent in their abundance.

So it is. HE delimits the words (the Bible), and they describe Him: we who are His children by faith through Christ,  know Him: for that is what is essential and even definitive of being a Christian, IN the scope of His sovereign Son and declarative word, the Bible, as a man knows his friend. We know as one knows the morning dew, the evening twilight, the thrust of Spring, the cool of evening in the body and mind, but know as PERSONAL, VITAL and providing personal interchange.

Now this is in the area of what Timothy declares in 1:16ff., or rather, let beware of too ready metonymy, what Paul in the epistle to Timothy declares. Indeed it moves in the arena of  I Timothy 3:16, where the apostle makes the incarnation aspect equally clear, on which we have already touched:

• "And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness:

"God was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory."

"Before Abraham was, I AM..." is Christ's personal signature, as likewise in Revelation 2:8, allied with Isaiah 44:6, you find it prophetically again, 'the first and the last".

In I Timothy 6:16, thirdly,  you see that other aspect, the never ending magnificence of God, so that in the incarnation the declaration can be definitive (as in Hebrews 1:3), and we can know Him, without ever exhausting His splendour, or His splendour ever varying (as in James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8).

What then in 6:16 ? This: "Who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honour and everlasting power. Amen." Ally that with John 1:12 and you have it. By grace self-revealing, by incarnation in human format, is the One who is in His own form, light unapproachable.

All this hullabaloo about man and community and the united nations and anything else that is contrary to sound doctrine in its repeated aspirations and many declarations: it is beside the point. It is pointless. In the end, it will be merely disappointing, for it was never appointed.

Then, let us look further, fourthly, to II Timothy 3:16, where we find that ALL Scripture is given by God-breathing, through inspiration, and is profitable for teaching, edification, instruction. It is not saying that all of what we do not know, is of this character; it is saying that the category which is known, famous and delivered, scripture, is of this type, and hence applicable (as in I Cor. 2:9-13, Matthew 5:17-20, Revelation 22:18-19, Isaiah 8:20, Psalm 119 repeatedly, Galatians 1, and implied in Titus 1:9 - and see SMR Appendix D).

Paul is NOT advising people that if they can ever find the jolly thing, and Good Luck! they will find it of this eminent and ineffable character. He is rather saying that since it is clear what it is, famous as in Psalm 119, Isaiah 8:20, 59:21, then it is important to use it with this in mind. It is not a space controller in Cape Canaveral telling the astronauts that if ever they get to hear anything at all on the communication channel,  and are clear whose it is, then good luck to their endeavours! then that is it. That is meaningless. The word of God is not meaningless (Proverbs 8:8), but commanded (John 12:48-50). It is well to obey. Space is kindly compared with wilfully flouting righteousness and avoiding mercy! (cf. Hebrews 12:25, 10:31).

Thus Timothy lays down the law, or Paul does so! categorically in I Timothy 1, and supplies these other features of foundations, in other parts of these two marvellous epistles, given from God.
As he says,  what he speaks is to be taken as commanded from God (I Cor. 14:37). It is not a suggestion or a surmise!

But let us return to the law in Timothy 1. Foolish talk mounts on the topic, Paul indicates here. But the fact is, the apostle under the inspiration of God, declaims, that the law is FOR WRONG DOERS: whether sodomites or whatever. That contravenes the spirit of our Age, which like Sodom is asking for, and WILL GET its come-uppance for its wildly imperious folly, on such topics, when judgment sits and the thoughts of men are exposed, like cancers and leprosy in many cases. How ? Why ? GOD HAS SAID, that is how and why, and this specific point is found in I Timothy 1:10. But whatever the nature of the offence, be it ungodliness, murder of fathers, profanity of whatever kind, there is one answer: IT IS AGAINST THE LAW OF GOD which CONTINUES without limp or latch key, to be what it is, insurmountable, indispensable, ineluctable. IF you want this sort of thing, it is AGAINST you, says the apostle in I Timothy 1:

"knowing this, that the law is not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless ... for sinners, for the ungodly ... for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars... and if there is any other thing which is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust."

• The divine law remains comprehensive and commanded.

 

• IF you do not sin, the law does not oppose you. If ... ?

 

• But ALL men are sinners.

• Hence the law is necessary and sin is actual, and although its simple sovereignty is BROKEN in the heart of the forgiven Christian, law applies where sin is found in its unredeemed folly rules; and grace is yet more abundant, not to license it, but to oppose and overcome it (Romans 6). Having met the cost, and provided the dynamic in the hearts of those who KNOW God, grace reigns in life (Romans 5:17).

 

• It was NEVER the way to heaven to KEEP the law, since none succeeded, as Paul makes so clear in Romans Chs. 3,5,8;  but it was always, and still is necessary to obey, as Christ makes monumentally plain in John 14:21-23, in the CATEGORY OF LOVE! Love does not dig the salvation, but it illustrates its reality. Obedience of man is no part of the salvation of God; but it is every way relevant to the actuality of the job. Saved is saved to serve, for sanctity and in Christ the indwelling monarch, lord, the God of all flesh and creator, eternally with His Father and the Spirit, ONE GOD. Where He is, sin is not in control (John 8:30ff.).

It is simplicity itself when you believe and follow Him.

IF you love, you WANT to follow, and HENCE WANT to know His will, which does NOT alter morally, though ceremonial sacrificial elements are fulfilled (Hebrews 8-10). You are COVERED as His, LOVING as His, and hence earnestly desire to follow His will, His word, His law. With David and Abraham, you are justified by faith (Romans 4:24ff., 5:1, Psalm 32), already;  but with them likewise, you are God-fearing as Peter requires so wisely (I Peter 2:17), and God ?
He does not change (Malachi 3:6, Psalm 102:26ff.).

Do not therefore confuse SALVATION with SANCTIFICATION (I Thessalonians 5:23ff.). Faithful, says the apostle there, is He who calls you who also will do this. Grace saves; love insists on sanctity. It was always so from the first dealings of grace. It does not alter (Romans 4). The power is supplied (Matthew 28:20, Ephesians 1:19, II Peter 1).

The last days, in Timothy, says the apostle Paul, have various criteria (and he spells them out, as if a newspaper NOW! in I Timothy 4, II Timothy 3 and so on), and low estimates of what is written are to be among them, people being supercilious, tending to mere forms of religion, not knowing its power, consciences seared as with a hot iron, forbidding to eat meat, marriage and the like (as has long gone on, but had to appear in the TOTAL CONSPECTUS of the OTHER signals in simultaneity, for the end to be shown "NEAR").

BUT when you belong to the Lord, keeping your lamp burning, not IN ORDER to be saved, but BECAUSE you are saved (as in Matthew 25:1-10, Ephesians 2:8, Titus 3:5ff.), being, if you want to change the imagery, fruit-bearing BECAUSE good trees, and not vice versa (as in Matthew 7), and good trees not because naturally good (like having naturally 'curly hair', if you want analogy for that), but BECAUSE PLANTED BY GOD (Isaiah 61, Matthew 15:13): THEN there is a RESULT. It is to give attention to His word as to love letters, as to the sunset, as to the mountains, the marvels in peaking summitries of dash and daring, bare-headed among the clouds, which themselves move mysteriously and with wonder.

This then ends our second extract, but there is another like it to add.

III

II Tim 3:16

This is taken from The Christian Pilgrimage ... Ch. 5

LION THE SECOND

Now we find an altogether more delightful message. It comes this time from II Timothy 3:16. It is amazing how many significant 3:16 verses there are in the Bible, and here in Timothy is an excellent illustration.

In I Timothy 3:16, as we saw in the last chapter, there is one of the most beautiful, comprehensive and succinct references to the glory of God in the Gospel that one could wish to see; and here in II Timothy 3:16 there is the exposure of the status of the word of God in terms simple, express, explicit and sure, in summary and impactive form and formula. It is of no particular significance that his amazing numerical feature exists; the verses as such are not divisions in the original; but it does help the memory. Let us pursue, then, II Tim 3:16^*3.

ALL SCRIPTURE, roars this tawny lion, IS GOD-BREATHED and PROFITABLE for DOCTRINE, for REPROOF, for CORRECTION, for INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Now obviously the apostle is not telling us of this absolute standard in order that we should not know what it is. He is NOT saying that all scripture, in the case where it is God-breathed (undefined therefore) is so profitable. That would be rather like saying that all petrol is good for cars, provided that its hydro-carbon content is *^% , where these terms are not defined. It would be an appallingly useless, undefined, inexpressive jumble of sound, of no value, useless communication, a joke.

The character of inspiration has not been left unknown by Paul in I Corinthians 2:9-13, where first, the revelation in substance is conferred on the apostle, and then the words which provide the verbal assimilation of the revelation, these two are provided. On this topic, see SMR Appendix D. Again in Psalm 119, again and again we find that ALL His testimonies are true, that they last for ever, are enshrined in heaven and such things, as shown in the above reference.

Again, the Greek simply states ALL SCRIPTURE GOD-INSPIRED AND PROFITABLE FOR TEACHING, then listing other features of this focus. The omission of the copula (is) is not unusual. There is no 'which' in the text, no designation of any division, let alone any second verb, which would again have to be added to make any sense of it at all – which is … is. There is no such clause.

If such a gate-crashing were to be followed, this would be adding not only three words but even a clause gratuitously, constituting a form of verbal aggression, with the erratic invasion of a thought from the heart of man to the mouth of God, so that to implant this in the text is merely adding to scripture (against Proverbs 30:6): thus making it trebly ludicrous as an attempt to ignore the fact that man is "live by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). This is shown in Christ's dialogue with the devil, by its being absolutely final once cited, in the classic argumentation and confrontation. In the same way, in Acts 4:25, a given scripture is at once said to have come from God, in this way, "who by the mouth of Your servant David, has said..." What then ?

¨     It is solemn farce to act the ventriloquist when God is speaking, spluttering in one’s
own thoughts in His face, even acting as if to force one’s words between His lips.

Such is the audacity of disbelief, and the illustration of the need for the warning of the first lion,
in I Timothy 6. What is written is of another category than culture, than social nuances and desiderata of the flesh. What then is to be found in II Timothy 3:16 with all its allied topical utterances from the Lord in the Bible ? What does it teach about the biblical scripture ? Let us follow the text.

What was written is regarded as an absolute source and recourse, a citable matter of utter authority, without attenuation or mitigation, not a vexed question or a vague shadow in part or in whole. Would not the devil have said, But God has said ... and then put in some thoughts of his own, attributing them to God. Impossible since the word of God was WRITTEN already, so that Christ simply went on to make final demolition of every temptation with the word, "It is written." Or He might say, "It is written again...", thus signifying that SOME, indeed ANY word was final, with no countervailing element possible.

That written, declares Paul in I Tim 6, is profitable for instruction and in this case, for reproof. Any attempt therefore to subvert this clear revelation meets multiple contradiction at once, from the word of God; and further, it would be ludicrous to imagine that the apostle were saying this, All scripture which (not there, but added by the imagination) is inspired by God  is A, B, C and so on. That would require one to add three things: the 'which', the first 'is' and the second 'is', a real party of intrusion. In fact, there is simply the quite common omission of the first 'is' in the rather proverbial fashion applicable. Adding to someone else's words fails to render them; it is merely a form of intrusive plagiarism: and we are here concerned with what is being said by the writer, not the reader!

ALL THE GOD-BREATHED SCRIPTURES, as elsewhere defined and here APPLIED, are then of this character. One would expect this since if GOD breathes them, WE should find them PROFITABLE when we want to teach the new Christian or the old, what HE WANTS, HOLDS and DETERMINES. Naturally such a source would provide such a result in terms of being profitable for righteousness and godliness, for who is more godly than God is Himself, or where is RIGHTEOUSNESS but in Him as its moral source and uttermost base!

Further, all scripture is profitable for CORRECTION. How could you correct if the source for correction were incorrect! or how correct if it were not even known, or how use a basis which was unbased, unclear or uncertain! Not so with Christ: one blast of the word of God written and even Satan was powerless. Again, all scripture is profitable for reproof; but how could you reprove if the basis of reproof were reprovable! Hence this lion is roaring: take it all, use it all, it is the basis, the blight for error, the standard for correction, the reservoir for instruction, the module for doctrine.

What it says is correct, clear, basic, assured, God-breathed and ipso facto God ordained, endorsed and provided. Just as departure from the word of God is most horrendous, that lion as we earlier saw roaring with a splendid organ-toned power, so the abiding in this word is wonderful, all of it, not some, all of the Bible in both testaments, not some, all that God has said, every word, not some of His words, whether one likes it or not, whether it hits favourite theories or not, whether it smacks one's hand when one ponders a possible course of action or not: IT IS PROFITABLE to correct, instruct, to show what is right, what is godly, what is rebukable.

THIS is what one would expect when the Maker of Man the Communicator, speaks to man the thinker, the one who engages in abstract thought, who makes rules, who has power to elect perspectives.

¨    Its tenor and severity is verification in KIND of the expectations from such a source. It is not a suggestion, any more than our DNA has suggestions.

¨  It is not a cultural offshoot, any more than 2+2=4 is a cultural offshoot, being rather a fundamental reflection in numbers of the divinely ordered creation.

¨    It is not variable, like the thoughts of some genius, often elevated, but sometimes  appallingly poor (as when Einstein reputedly made a fundamental mistake on one occasion, yes and a simple one, where perhaps his preference was at stake cf. SMR p. 422D).

¨    It is clearly demarcated as contradistinct in authority and reliability from the words of mankind (cf. Jeremiah 23:28-29); divorced from error in its promulgations, with a refined care (cf. Christ's words on this in Matthew 5:17-20).

 

Further, and most wonderfully, it is expressly testable, and one is exhorted to consider this in RESULTS, as a scientist might ask of students, when they turn from his lecture to the laboratory! This is seen repeatedly in Isaiah in Chs. 41, 43, 48, and is altogether characteristic of the approach of deity in His word, to the witless wanderings, the thoughtful self-elevations and the capricious foolishnesses of man, who wants to assert himself and in so doing, is about as wise as a moth, asserting itself in the mouth of a lion.

The LION HAS ROARED, as Amos puts it, who will not fear! (Amos 3:8). "Surely," he was saying, "Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets."

How He has done this as in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32, Isaiah 42, 49-55, as in Psalm 2, 16, 22, 102, as in Jeremiah 25, as in Micah 3, 5, as in Zechariah 11-13, as in Zephaniah, in Hosea, in Amos and all the prophets! Alas for Israel, but her end approaches which is full of good things as well as exposure of the ungodly (Romans 11 cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3, and Ch. 3 *1, SMR Appendix A). How does Micah 7 sketch that end, with Deuteronomy 32 and Romans 11! Already its preliminary events have stretched themselves luxuriously like a cat in the sun, in the lifetime of this author, in their amazing intricacy and prophesied detail (cf. SMR Chs. 8   -  9).

It is wise to hear the lions in their roaring, both lion I and lion 2, and to realise that this is not brute force, but beautiful sovereignty, that of the God who IS love, and whose protestations are GIVEN IN LOVE, that man might live more abundantly, not in the dives of political careering and career-making, philosophical vacuities, irrational premises and hideous ineffectual promises form the premises of mere arbitrary flesh.

Alas for the world, for more and more it moves into this sphere, where the roaring of the lion being ignored, the raw mess of its headstrong precipitancies becomes a stench, rather than mere malodour.

That, however, that too, you would expect it: it is what the world does with itself, ignoring the word of God; and the results are predictable as now they are predicable! This, it is verification as always, however sad, however grievous and however needless. How wise to listen to the roaring of these TWO LIONS!

 

NOTES

*1 Cf. The Other News 13, 18, Joyful Jottings 5, 14, 24, News 121, 73, 118, 152, Stepping out for Christ Ch. 1.

It seems best with II Timothy 3:16 to give a passage so parallel that to omit it would seem like breaking up a partnership.

IV

II PETER 1:20ff.

This is taken from the volume On Bible Translation, Words about Words Ch. 12

On this topic, again central in terms of the divine self-sufficiency and competence, sovereignty and faithfulness, initiative and control past all the sins and defects of man, displayed by the Lord in His revelation, we first shall regard what was written earlier. We have met these verses of II Peter 1, before. Let us first remind ourselves of this work, and then we shall add perspective.

Our first port of call is Things Old and New Ch. 6, from which the following excerpt is taken.

But let us pursue the visionary picture in Ezekiel 47. The waters come from the altar and are of such huge amount, like a flood, yet a beneficial and beneficent flood, that they swell and mount. At first the prophet finds himself covered to the ankles, then higher and higher, till he must swim. Then he is borne very much as the prophets of old were borne (II Peter 1:21) when the wrote the scriptures, which are not of any private explanation, BECAUSE this is the case.

That is, Peter here states that SINCE the scriptures were given by an operation of the Holy Spirit of a driving character, so that He was bearing the prophets along (the word used of the storm tossing the ship before it, when Paul was in the Mediterranean), THEREFORE these same scriptures are of no private explanation. How COULD they be, if GOD provided them with power and impulsion of this heavenly and majestic kind! They are, as stated from GOD, the men moved by His Holy Spirit, so that any other explanation of their existence is blind, unempirical folly!

Paul amplifies even this in I Corinthians 2:9-13. When God wants to speak, He secures His desire and declares to man what His thoughts are (Amos 4).

Any theory which sites them in the individual lives of the writers is asinine, astray, impervious to reality, simply wrong.

The scriptures, then, are not EXPLICABLE in terms of the individuals concerned, BECAUSE GOD is their source! That is the teaching in Peter. Here in Ezekiel 47 is its dynamic counterpart in the vision of the prophet, himself immersed increasingly by stages in the impulsion of the waters, till he must swim, being borne along.

This strong, bearing or impelling quality of the Holy Spirit is felt by Ezekiel as indicated in his vision, as a flood. Yet it is not a violent one, nor a resistible one either, and while it forces him to swim, it also surges on to the places which it refreshes (like the flushing we have in our tiny little Torrens 'River' in Adelaide, when large volumes of water are released from the reservoir to cleanse it); and in this visionary stream are the fishes. Fisherman fish for them! That is of course a primary source of Christ's word: "Follow Me, and I shall make you fishers of men!" (Matthew 4:19). Thus the Lord is at work in the world with His Spirit with the content of that Cross reality which bears the Gospel. Marshy places (Ezekiel 47:11 - like sects which distort the word of God, Titus 3:10) are left.
 

Our next exhibit comes from SMR pp. 1167ff..
 

There follows, for our thought, the passage from II Peter - 1:19-21. Here stress is laid on the irresistible dynamic of the deliverance of divine news and views to the devoted, dedicated, delighted servants of God in times past. Indeed, the Greek verb here used in verse 21, for 'moved' in the translation, is selected to refer to the stormy wind which 'drove' Paul's ship before it, on his way to Rome, described elsewhere in scripture (Acts 27:17).

It was not a matter of man, with his will, as we learn indeed in 1 Peter 1:10-12. lt was NOT EVEN to themselves that they 'ministered', as it is written. It was not a matter of man interpreting at all. THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED (the tense is PAST). The coming sufferings of Christ and His subsequent glory, says 1 Peter 1, were not (as the prophets then knew) being depicted in their revelation for their own use. They were provided for the use of others yet to come. No, the matter was unique and challenging, which reached the scripture writers from the Spirit of Christ, says Peter; and it was by no means a matter of THEIR thoughts, but of divine activity donating these scriptures for times yet to come. Thus, II Peter 1:20-21 declares (Weymouth):

Above all, you must understand that no scripture came about by virtue of its own release. For prophecy never came from the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit...

The word sometimes metaphorically used to mean 'interpretation', as Thayer points out in his Greek dictionary, is in fact to 'loose'. Scripture is meant and sent, not deposited from the work of one's own will. It is not 'idios', one's own (our word for 'idiot' comes from this); and there is a STATED REASON for this fact. It is not one's own unloosing, uncovering, one's own ideas at all.

This is BECAUSE the men who were HOLY and indeed OF GOD spoke in a different climate altogether. Being of God and being DRIVEN (Greek word used of storms on ships), they were under the power of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing about other people's interpretation of scripture; there is nothing at all about what one does with it. It is a cause and a consequence of the clearest character. They did NOT loose their own thoughts BECAUSE in this type of case, they were DRIVEN by someone else; and HE ? He had a special relation to them as men of GOD: HE in fact was, as the Bible here states, the HOLY SPIRIT.

Driven by the Holy Spirit (II Peter 1), these men spoke in times past. This we are told. THAT is why it is not a matter of what ANYONE MADE OF IT, or might make of it; that is WHOLLY beside the point. THIS, these words directly attest. GOD gave this to them, so that one's own ideas and constructions (literally, in the text), one's own developments and thoughts, simply are out of the question. It was NOT a faint suggestion: they were DRIVEN, MOVED by the Spirit. THIS, and nothing else or contrary, is precisely what is written.

God in His transcendence invested dependent man with news and views, and those views, being God's, were truth. God the Maker gave man in His image both declaration and information by the Holy Spirit. It was the SAME HOLY SPIRIT who brooded, as we read in Genesis 1:2, who 'hovered', who moved over the waters in that vast display of divine creative energy, at the birth of our material system. It was this same Spirit who brought from the heart and mind of God another spectacular creation.

THIS TIME some men were witnesses! What was THIS ? It was the word of God to man (cf. Amos 4:13, 12:1). God made the STAGE and He made the SCRIPT. The script is scripture. (There is ALSO - see Chapter 2 supra - an extraordinarily biological script written in programmed format into our very HUMAN PROTOPLASM.) We could go further. Peter does so. As man despoiled the CREATED WORLD, so men seek to despoil the WRITTEN WORD of God (cf. II Peter 2:1), which itself is like a world - of its own ? of GOD'S own! His speech world, His direct speech world (for even cells, we recall, are an INDIRECT speech world, crammed with thought, expressed in one language, in consistent code).

Wilfully, many seduce themselves, permit themselves to be seduced from the certainties of God's word, and from God's creation by His word, ignoring the desecration of the world in past judgment (cf. II Peter 3:3-6). In fact, they went so far as to slay the 'lamb' of God, that signally strong Saviour who worked with His Father (Proverbs 8, John 1) in making the world: they desecrated that explicit personal expression of God, whom even to know is a matter of "joy inexpressible and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8). This they did in an act foreordained by the divine thought and word (I Peter 1:19-21, 2:7-8, Acts 2:23-32).

It is ALSO, however, ordained, and was so from the first, that this desecrated divinity, this God-as-Man, the living word who CAME TO the world, will judge men, not vice versa (John 5:27, Matthew 7:21-22, Acts 13:36-41, 17:31). THIS He will do in due concord WITH THE WORDS THAT HE, THIS SAME CHRIST SPOKE (John 12:48-50). It is THIS Christ, who bothered to come and be sacrificed, and NOT another. NOW

God... commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all, by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).

Thus in II Peter 1:20, the verb used about private explanation has the following force: literally loose, or explain, release, uncover, solve. The noun is thus explanation, release, uncovering, solution, and it can be extended to the concept of interpretation, since this may be used to uncover what is already there.

However the last concept is alien to this context. What is the topic ? FInding what something MEANS, or seeing its security and reliability ? It is clearly the latter, in context, for this is the whole thrust, while the other is not found, relevant or pursued.

Since the theme is God's competence and action, driving and impelling, leaving all thought of man behind, the LAST thing that would be involved is any interpretation by some man, by some human being, since the WORD given is the OBJECT of thought. What we are being told in II Peter 1:21 is this: that as far as the prophetic word of God is concerned, its implantation defies explanation, its deposit is beyond account,  except by divine power beyond all that man can do. Man is ruled out; God is ruled in. The word is His. Therefore it is faithful and reliable and to be regarded as stable, securing life in the midst of evils. That is the context.

J.B. Phillips puts it rather well, since the verb is 'become' or arise, not strictly 'is'. He renders this,  that no prophecy: "arose from an individual's interpretation of truth." THAT is what is excluded in this appeal to us to rely on these words of the Lord. Actually, it does not so arise (it is really present tense of ginomai - Peter and perhaps Paul were then still writing scripture, and John, in that era), in accord with some individual's interpretation, by someone's philosophy, understanding, because it was never brought by man's will. How it does arise is equally taught by Paul, in contemporary sense as a penman for God, himself, in I Cor: 2:9ff..

In fact, better is found from Thayer, who in treating this very verse in his classical dictionary, notes that ginomai with the Genitive case, as here, means "to become i.e. be changed into something, come to be, issue in, something", and he proceeds concerning this verse in Peter, "no one can explain scripture by his own mental power (it is not a matter of subjective interpretation)". However, while these renderings preserve something of the antithesis made by Peter, they do waft into a theme not present. The actual theme is reliability and the exclusion is the will of man. The grammar is centring on something 'coming to be' as Thayer has it.

What however is the topic ? Scripture, its fact, its presence as sure, sufficient and proficient. What is coming to be, then, in the simplest and most unobtrusive sense ? Scripture. That and that alone is the topic here.

Thus we have this: the prophetic scriptures did not come (or generically, do not come as at the time of Paul, whose writings also included this kind) into being through any individual man as explanation. THIS is not their way, source or origin. It is not through its own intrinsic mental source, that it arises. Not so at all! It is indeed the antithesis. It is not accountable, explicable, resolvable in terms of some normal individual source, the native basics of a mere man. It is not self-explanatory a a literary item.

HOW then DID they come to be ? Not through the work of an individual. Not indeed (v. 21) by the will of man at all. Even the will did not contribute. It was by the power of God. WHAT was by the power of God ? Interpretation of something ?

Of course not. THE ARRIVAL OF SCRIPTURE was by the will of God. THIS is the meaning sustained in the context, through the varied treatments. How such things came is NOT IN THEIR OWN TERMS. Indeed, this, the arrival and production of scripture is not explained by individual perception or enlightenment, power or thought; it not explained as sourced in the will of man: it IS explained by the power and impelling provisions of God in action. It is not explained as to interpretation, but as to existence, origin, presentation, coming to be, arising, becoming as the text has it. One cannot well intrude some other additional material. This is the defined topic, and the defined result, with the negations and affirmations accordingly.

The Berkeley version is good in presenting the clear sense that follows:

"Because no prophecy ever resulted from human design;
instead, holy men from God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."
 

• WHY is it reliable ?
• Because it is tested and verified.

 
• HOW is it reliable ?
• Because of its source.

 
• HOW did it come and how is this spiritual phenomenon explained, so that we may indeed rest assured in its utter and absolute authority and calibre ?
• NOT by man,
• NOT by individual insight,
• NOT in any such way,
• since it did NOT come by the will of man,
• but DID COME by the power of God.

NOT by the thought of man, then (v. 20), us it explained, and NOT by the will of man (v. 21), and not the first BECAUSE not the second, but for entire explanation of its derivation, regard but one thing: IT IS BY THE POWER of God, His impelling, His thrust and His MUST! That, it is not an 'interpretation' but a creation. THAT is the ONLY explanation of the word of God. NOTHING else can stand in the arena with it, to account for it.

Interestingly, there is the same whole hearted negation as with Elisha's word for Ben Hadad. Here in II Peter 1:20, the parallel power has this concerning prophecy: No, it does not come at all like that. It is the entire antithesis of such a concept. In fact, Holy men spoke as DRIVEN ... It came from God, and this is how, not from some philosopher's musings.

Thus the negation is followed by the affirmation, the prohibition (on erroneous thought about prophecy) is succeeded by the explanation of such a rejection. This is good NOW and that is why: THEN it came in that way. That is WHY it is good now.

Nothing could be clearer when you ponder it just a little!

That is the thrust of the passage: Was it some individual's unloosing, release, explanation of things, uncovering, solution, was this was the origin, source, basis, nature of this powerful, protective, wholly divinely sanctioned word of God ? not at al! Such could scarcely be further from the truth. WHY ? It is BECAUSE Holy Men of Old spoke as DRIVEN ALONG by the Holy Spirit that this other hypothesis, the humanistic one, is not applicable. That is why: it was not wrought (in the times past cf. Hebrews 1:1), by man at all. He was merely an exponent of what was deposited, yes driven in to him by divine power.

Prophecy - so sure and reliable, so much to be exploited, as Peter indicates, in order to
strengthen ?  What is to be said of this amazing phenomenon, this spiritually therapeutic marvel, this resource extraordinary! What ? Why this: Its explanation is not to be sought in the riddles of man's solution at all, but in the deposition of God by the Holy Spirit.

HOW COULD you explain such a thing as the prophecies which Peter has been at pains to exalt before us in the preceding verses ? Would it be by saying that man is the explanation! Rubbish! God is the explanation, and HOW He conveyed these vital words is as Peter then shows, the explanation. It was by the dynamic direction of the Holy Spirit. THAT is how they spoke it. What anyone makes of it is not an issue in the entire chapter. It is what God did to bring it to us, past all flesh. GOD DID IT ONCE, man can benefit now. This is the indubitable teaching.

Thus the translation could be put like this:

• §"Knowing this first: that no prophecy of scripture is sourced simply in itself;
  for prophecy was never introduced by the will of man,
  but by the Holy Spirit, being borne along,
  holy men of God spoke, did holy men of God speak."

This gives due attention also to the word order, expressive of emphasis, to the passive where used, and seeks to remove any addition from the actual flavour of the text, in its logical setting.

Or you could put it: Knowing this first: that no prophecy of scripture is accountable in its own terms ... and then on as before.  This gives due attention to the usage of the verb ginomai in this genitive phrase context, to the logic, the focus, the topic and the result in view. It is not some interpretation which is to be accounted for, the idea being conspicuously absent; it is the RELIABILITY and DEPENDABLILITY, it is the ADEQUACY of the prophecy which is in view. Pay attention to this great light source.

Do so, the word of God indicates,  KNOWING THIS...

In other words, the principle to follow embraces the fact just stated, confirms it, gives ground for it.

What then is it which gives ground to the reliability, the light source quality of the prophecy which (unlike something else, be it men or institutions)  is to be heeded ? It is this thing which we KNOW.

What then is this thing which we know ? It is this: that no prophecy is accountable in its own terms. Why is that the case ? The gar or for to follow then unveils this mystery or reality, also. This in turn is for a most potent reason. The ground of rejection of any assault on the prophetic word, any doubt about it in elevating it to the position of a light source, in a dark place, this world - it is not something else, there is no noticeable attention at THIS point to something else; for it is this. And that is it which we find in the text here ? It is that those humanly responsible for it, the writers themselves of these prophecies of scripture, did  not exercise their own wills to achieve it. It is not an individual human sponsorship matter at all. They were not philosophers. Theirs was not the internal inspiration, the authorship brilliance.

Not in the least degree is this so. That is why not in the least degree should you doubt the wisdom of following the LIGHT OF THE WORD OF GOD.

Indeed, to take the matter to completion and conclusion, not only negatively but POSITIVELY, the word of God continues. The fact is this: that they DID speak as they were CARRIED ALONG by the Holy Spirit. It is in this way that the prophecies of scripture were BROUGHT IN. Both terms are passive in the original, emphasising the divine initiative, power, precision, and HENCE RELIABILITY of this word DISTINCTIVELY from ANY announcement, be it new or matter of interpretation for that matter, of mere men.

Mere men were NOT the source, because GOD was and their participation was NOT IN THE LEAST a contributing factor in the outcome, namely the revelatory product, which is precisely in content, what GOD wanted. Anything further from 'interpretation' being handed to someone not having the advantage of being GOD is hard even to imagine! It would foul, indeed contradict the sequence, defy the topic and defile the exhortation.

Thus the translation of the NKJV and AV, if it were not for some measure of ambiguity, would be not only wrong, but appalling! As it is, it is entirely inadequate. Weymouth however has done an excellent job. All of this is only one more reason why the dictatorship of pope or AV is so wrong. God did not ordain man to mix his puny thoughts in this way with His own, and direct the brotherhood (and you are ALL brethren, with only ONE master Christ EXPLICITLY declared - Matthew 23:8-10), and you have but ONE FATHER, who is identified as GOD. We are not polytheists, one Father and one God, and this is that!

The highest wisdom of man and the greatest powers of some individual's or individual work of translation from some or one, it is not this which is the light. It is the word of God which is that light, and in translation there is no divine commission to any one party on record, be it slow in coming in the 17th century, before or after, which is defined and detailed in the Bible to be the one to heed. What presumption to make a mere man, be it pope or translator, or group, the criterion of the word of God! What follies follow, obscuring by the refusal to use ALL the gifts God has provided, in church or translation, the wonders of the light in the very presumption of trying to limit to him or nowadays we had better add it, to her! to these or to those.

Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for in what is he to be esteemed ?
(as the NASA has it, for Isaiah 2;22). It is only when we are unimportant that the result has good hope to be important. It is only when GOD HIMSELF, that eternal Spirit, is in control, sole recipient of majesty and focus of praise, that magnificent trinity of love and peace, truth and power, majesty and dominion, creation and consummation for all things, revealed in His word, made manifest in His Son: it is only then that the conditions of spiritual prosperity are present.

We may rejoice in what He does through us, but do so IN HIM, not in our own works, of whatever magnitude they may appear. The more they are praised, the more the danger that their very human limitations or tendencies to error will become the objects of idolatry, the confines of comprehension. Rejoice in diversity, insist on integrity in the translation of the word, and rest in NONE BUT GOD. His word is very clear.

It is necessary never to enthrone any man or group in the place of God. ALL assemblies even, as the Westminster Confession so rightly says, are subject to error. Trust never in them. Be thankful for them, but rely on God by Christ, and according to His word as your CRITERION, not man, not men, not their ways. The church is good and a fine provision; but its very health comes in NOT TRUSTING in itself, its own works or ways.

Does this mean you never know where you are ? Of course not. The word of God is intrinsically clear (Proverbs 8:8ff.), and it is arrogance which tends to polarise and impose upon it.

It is by such trust in GOD HIMSELF, that the healing, the health comes. It is when the church is humble that it is more nearly holy, and being holy, casts itself in faith on the Lord Himself, not the engineers or engineering of man. It is to rejoice with trembling, not to assert with arrogance that is the task prescribed (Psalm 2)! It is then that the follies of pseudo-sanctified extremes, and the narrowness of preferred traditions, so hated by the Lord because of their intrusion of MAN's things into those of GOD (Mark 7:7ff.), arise, then when man is put level wt. God, and his works are added as if they could direct even the word of God!

ALWAYS that word of prophecy is as far above the thoughts of man as the heavens above the earth! If you try to bring in man's marvellous nostrums, soon it is like an asteroid impacting on the earth, all of heaven that is responsive to human arrogance; and indeed, it is just this which IS predicted in that prophetic word to which we do well to take heed (see Revelation 8:8-11). As to the word of God, as the Westminster Confession again so scripturally affirms, never take anything as from it but what can be PROVED, without addition, FROM IT.
 

THE FORCE OF IT ALL, THE PERSPECTIVE AND THE PEACE

Now, since so much evil has come from misuse of this word of the Lord, inII Peter 1:20ff., let us now see it in its contextual sweep and realise to the fullest extent, its teaching.

Of what, then, does the apostle Peter speak earlier  in II Peter 1? It is of this: that Christ declared and PERSONALLY expressed  God in Majesty, was aurally attested and that this confirms prophetic predictions concerning Him; while the PROPOSITIONAL expression, the written format of the word of God this is a further valuable attestation, one indeed which was in no small measure fulfilled in Christ's own life. As to these writings, says the apostle - "so we have the prophetic word confirmed" -  they continue to confirm, and will do so until the Light of the Lord sallies fresh to the hearts of the regenerate in heaven. THAT is their target, their fulfilment, not something else or less: heavenly light IN HEAVEN.

Thus they are an exceedingly valuable resource now that Christ has returned whither He came (and we await the actions of His return at the time appointed - II Peter 3:10).

Very well: "Knowing this ... " (II Peter 1:20), is the very next phrase in the sequence. What it says is therefore confirmatory of what precedes, a basis for the understanding for the above.

In fact, as a prelude Peter at once declares, in explaining his exclusion of man as a basis, that it was not brought by the will of man at any time. This, it is what is written. It guides our thought, directs our understanding. No, man is NOT the explanation, because (past) it did not come by man's will. The PRESENT is dealt with in ONE WAY ONLY. It is in verse 20, and it deals with a contemporary feature, how scripture comes to be (literally, 'becomes', comes into being). It is NOT, this becoming, this coming to be, to be considered, explained,  in terms of any individual (i.e. writer) as source. THAT is not the solution of the 'problem', the resolution of the issue (as the term, centring on solve, loose, uncover, has in its thrust). That is not how the matter is to be interpreted. Far from it!

This is not the explanation of the matter at all. Nothing else in thought is present in the text. The whole character of scripture, how it comes to be, is to be considered in the light of established routine. It is NOT a writer's brilliant idea; because it did not come that way at all. We find this appeal to known fact in dealing with present circumstance.

It came instead by God's energetic deposition. This past act, and past exclusion jointly give to the prophetic word its assured status, and issue in the character of scripture as given at any time; and that, it is far from being, and simply is not the subjection to the opinion of a man. Acts accomplished, and described are its ground; actions axed and proscribed guarantee its purity.
A licence to direct man as to their understanding is not given by the fact that in past times man's will was excluded! The value indeed is wholly opposite, an intrinsically sure guarantee, first confirmed by a specific exclusion, then by divine action in times past. THAT is how the thing works, is founded, is explained, comes to the pinnacle of reliability and dominion of certainty which is its inherent right.

It is GOD's word. You cannot explain it by, in or with, through or in terms of ... man! Further, what has GOD's AUTHORITY has it because GOD DID IT. It is not an inference. It is a divine specialised function, to present in dynamic directiveness and assured quality, what is His very word, impelling with purpose, dealing with authority, providing with thrust that nothing can or does resist.

What then are we 'knowing' ? What is the 'this' ? It is that this whole 'burden' of the word of the Lord, of prophecy as exampled in its light and reliability as shown just before, did not come from man's will, is not so explicable, but was driven into the mind of the prophets by the thrusting power of the Holy Spirit. It is this that we are knowing... We could not be knowing this if we were talking about mere interpretation. THAT may be perfect, but if the original is not perfect, it is in vain! The ground of the knowing is the fact that the will of man did not produce scripture. This is written. Something else is NOT!

No mere mortal surmise was this: it is therefore trustworthy always a a light in a dark place, this prophecy. It is not a matter of uncovering some one man's thoughts, his or her 'explaining' of divine mysteries, as if it were by any individual's concept of truth, by stabs in the dark, or purely personal 'inspiration'. It is as far removed from such littlenesses as is heaven from the earth.

Not at all, and far from such a thing is the actual case! What then is the case ? It is this: that God Himself, the thought proceeds in parallel in I Peter, by His own Spirit made His own excursion and incursion into the heart of man by His Spirit, dynamic and undeterred.

This, it was the DIVINE INITIATIVE, WROUGHT IN THE PAST TO SECURE THE STABILITY OF THE PRESENT. In I Peter 1:10-12, we find indeed quite directly that those who wrote realised that they were MINISTERING TO US. This is the basis; this is the ministry. They wrote it; it was for us.

Hence you may with complete safety rest on such a revelation. It is NOT subject to human intervention and sin at all. It was so given ONCE, so that it is faithful NOW. Present actions are EXCLUDED in the ground of the security, which begins "FOR"!

Interpretation by human agencies is then, not merely wholly contrary to the context, it would make of it ludicrous collisions in time and topic.

What follows ? Is it this ? Be comforted by the word of God, whatever its purity , since somehow it will be interpreted aright! What good, however,  does that do, if the thing itself be not first
secure ? It is irrelevant, with no iota of contact with the context, so to interpolate, an example of eisegesis: non pareil, unexampled, perfect as a cancer in kind, like one that blocks the whole bowel, on X-ray when it is discovered. Further, the topic is not only the authenticity and reliability of scripture, but this in CONTRAST with all the works and inspirations of men, which, in comparison with what IS scripture, are just individualistic caprice or superficial soundings. THAT is the contrast in view.

• To interpret contrary to context, indeed in contradiction of contrast made, and in terms ancient for things present, is a trilogy of perversion of the word of God.

Contrasted in fact is the word of God, the advent of it, with the content of man, in his sin.

What then ? Why is this prophetic word not of a purely private loosing, explanation, and why is it not so to be esteemed ? Is it because God (past tense) Himself drove it home; or is it so because it is to be interpreted (contra to I John 2:27) by experts and because human tools, not mentioned or in view at all, will perform an explicatory act, so mixing their authority with that tried and tested one of God, by His very own word, expressly so termed, and their understanding with the deposition of men, who wrote as they were driven by the Holy Ghost! If it were to be something of men, or man, then, why contrast with God Himself, in His unique activity, that specifically related in terms of what is past and intimately known by His people ?

Here is the uttermost in stability and authority as a deposition of assured status because of what it has done. We now see that not only is this denial to man's will altogether a source of the scripture being outside mere human explanation, what did NOT happen ;  it is also because of the way it HAS come.

Indeed, if it is a matter of what man in his religious propensions can do now, why give the basis in the past ? such is mere presumption within the context, importing without licence; and if it is of man, why speak of what God in ways specifically described, has made His own mandatory and tested transmission medium (cf. Hebrews 1:1)! It is that unique thing, the very word of God written which is defined as the base in view. It is nothing less, nothing else; it is incomparable in kind, in authority and in origination on this earth, all three. Human inspiration ? religious exaltation (forbidden in Matthew 23:8-10 anyway - ONE Master, YOU ALL brothers) ? Forget it. This is not to be given any such superficial explanation. IT has come direct from God, bears His name, is His word.

Are we to ignore what He does say is the reason for the words of  II Peter 1:20, and to provide what He does not! Certainly, and by all means, if only we revert to Genesis 3:4, and are hearing the serpent: HAS GOD SAID! He wants his own word to be interpolated, introduced, while Eve is seduced.  It is here just the same sort of event which arises.

No, nothing like that! as Elisha said to Ben-Hadad. The prophecy is what it is; and it is this by virtue of its origin, not from what man can do to it! Its sourcing in celestial mind, will and power has no bearing on man's contortions or proportions, but with its calibre, quality and truth AS scripture. The reason WHY it is so, a reliable revelation, is that God by sovereign majesty and power, shown categorically in Christ in the flesh, in words secured this deposit of His meaning, His message, His thought and His will.

Both Christ and the scripture have come. The one is to be believed; the other received; and in reception, one is to be assured that it is a constant fount of inspiration, revelation, fixed, needing no change, authorised, verified, vindicated, indicated. Because of this status, woe to those who add their own words, to these (Proverbs 30:6).

II PETER, CHAPTER 2

In Ch. 2 immediately following, we find that despite this, evil men and false teachers will arise in the latter days, as the Age progresses towards its end, people who will bring in wicked and corrupting false teaching. That is a measure of HOW corrupt they are, that they so act in the light of what GOD HAS DONE, and done superbly. HE came as man; HE gave as God the words that went with it. HE confirmed the words in and through the man, and continues to do so.

Is man to do something more now ? Is this double and mutual assurance of the word of God and the Word of God, to be bypassed, added to, supplanted ?

There is no excuse for these things. They are obstreperous, intrusive, admirable only in one thing, the pure, unbounded character of the  presumption (and Jude with Peter, stresses with very thing).

In our text in II Peter 1, however, NOTHING is said about human authority. It is God's word on
the one side, and man's sleight of mind on the other. What then of these predicted false teachers? Their trouble is not understanding per se: it is motivation. They are interested in money.

Powers of interpretation are not the issue: indeed, it is precisely here that we receive in II Peter 2, immediately following, the WARNING. Willingness to obey, this is!

Would a managing director say, Now you can rely on my words and follow them safely because they will be interpreted aright. How useless! The question is this, whether they ARE right, and what is the sort of power and truth they contain. It is far too late if you are talking about interpreting something; it is the message itself which is the authority and the ground of reliance. If you are subjected to such insertive and assertive private parties pushing their own barrows, or any imagined barrow, then you are in the hands of men. THEIR antics Peter then describes in this Ch. 2 in some detail.

If however you rely on what God by the impelling power of His Holy Spirit HAS done, then you are safe. It is, we notice clearly, not what God is GOING to do, which is the ground of our assurance here, but what HE HAS ALREADY DONE. The thing is past, apostolically certified and defined. The first feature and focus is Christ Himself in II Peter 1, at this point. The second is the prophecy. Its efficacy is mentioned. Then more. And that ? It is the certified action of God, to send His own word, His prophetic word, which is to be explained not in someone's private thoughts about truth, but in HIS declaration AS the truth, and carrying this, His word to man; and as to that, it is  by a safe conduct no less than the power of God Himself!

The prophecies then are not reliable because they can be interpreted; they are worth interpreting because they are reliable. Yet interpretation is not even aroused as an issue. It is the action of God in the past which is provided. This is what is written. As to these words: They are reliable because God, personally and in the past, secured their purity past all human intervention of any kind. Hence those who depart from them, as in II Peter 2, can be discerned and dismissed. Their object as there defined,  is gain!
 
 

SOME SUMMERY SUMMARY
re II Peter 1:20-21
(it is December here in Australia)!

But let us summarise some of our findings. What does it all mean ? It is this: the concept that II Peter 1:20-21 means that private people, that is individuals of any kind, people not specified by Peter in his giving of grounds for faith in the word of God, are by no means in the equation of stability or the concept of constancy, yes the favours of faithfulness or the grounds of assurance.

No man can come into this realm. If however you should extraneously, presumptuously and intrusively seek to put some such idea into the context, there are a number of areas violated.

Let us list a few.

It is

• 1) the wrong time
• 2) the wrong theme
• 3) the wrong topic
• 4) the wrong task.

 

  It is likewise
 

• 5) a perversion of the exhortation
• 6) a bypass of the warning
• 7) a logical non sequitur,


as well as
 

• 8) a fallacy imported into the word of God
• 9) a fecklessness of deviation and
• 10) a parade in the face of parallels


and
 

• 11) a contradiction of other scriptures,
• 12) a collision with prohibitions and
• 13) a derogation of scripture as such, in its own standing and weight.

Let us look at these.

WRONG TIME: What the apostle Peter is warranting is the PAST performances of holy men of God. This, and not something else in terms of authority or assurance, is what is written. Implying a present power or basis is arresting the authority and placing where it is simply not put.

WRONG THEME: The theme in II Peter 1 as it approaches its terminus, is the certainties of God, in Christ on earth, as attested by God, as attested by prophecy; and of prophecy, as attesting Christ who performed as predicted, in attesting likewise what is to come, this being now an even more verified tool, instrument of faith and guaranteed force in Christian life. BOTH Christ of divine honour and glory, God incarnate (Hebrews 1, John 8:58), and the word of God written, AS provided in the supernatural way noted in II Peter 1:20, are inveterately virtuous, tested, tried and true, sure and steadfast. One IS God in flesh; the other is the WORD of God in writing.

One reason for this is that it is all a verified work of God, done in the past, sure for the future.

WRONG TOPIC: The topic at the point of the text in vv. 20-21 is HOW scripture came to be, and WHAT is its quality. It is nothing whatsoever to do with untested human authority, or indeed man in his coming workings at all.

WRONG TASK: Hence there is, in any concept of a future ecclesiastical domineering or direction, as if this were in view, a failure to realise what IS written, the steadfast reliability of the word of God as already given, its certainties for all future occasions, and a negation with dire emphasis of any outthrust away from this, to invent machineries or approaches wholly dissonant. Such things are not even tangential - for in them, there is no point of contact with the emphasis on things past, things sure, things tried, things verified, the fulfilled power of God in providing a sure guide, no, not even an iota.

PERVERSION OF THE EXHORTATION:

Hence there is not far off, and soon looming into sight, a perversion of the exhortation to STAND by the PROPHETIC word ALREADY given, one made even more sure and confirmed. In that specious substitute for the word of God, the concept is that one should stand by what is NOT already given, NOT tested and verified and NOT mentioned by Peter at all. This perverts faith, corrupts the passion for purity and makes by devious means zealots instead of devoted people, trusting in God alone.
 

BYPASS OF THE WARNING:

Likewise, instead of leading naturally into the warning about what people will do, corrupting the faith with damnable heresies, things worthy of condemnation through false motivation, arising even from within the church, it would open up the vulnerable to this very vice by assuming that directors can come in and thrust their own authority into the midst of the word of God, precisely as II Peter 2 predicts will happen. It indeed has happened, fulfilling the prophecy of II Peter 2, Acts 20, II Timothy 3, I Timothy 4, all parallel,  and that with a rich fertility, impassioned weeds of poison flourishing in the soil that has departed from the faith (cf. SMR pp. 699ff., 743ff., 750Bff., Stepping Out for Christ Chs.  1,   5, Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming ... Ch. 3, News, Facts and Forecasts 122, 123, Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane  82,  87, Repent or Perish
Ch. 5, Things Old and New Epilogue, Ch. 2, Appendix, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 11, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 11).

Thus instead of seeing the incoming of deceivers, putting their own authority into action as they corrupt the church through false motivation, gain, themselves corrupt, and being justly warned, this fiddling with the word of God has a perilous outcome. Indeed, this interpolation of extraneous material, emphasis and thought into what is actually written opens up the church to precisely what Peter warns it AGAINST! Indeed, in II Peter 2, this warning is long and sustained, devastating in its condemnation and massive in its implications. Jude acclaims the same.

It is parallel to that of Paul in Acts 20:20 about wolves coming IN, not sparing the flock, yes concerning those of this ilk, who "from among your own selves will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves." This drawing after themselves is precisely what ROMANISM has done, sects have done, false prophets like Muhammad have done (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4). In such cases, MAN, as excluded in II Peter 1:20-21, is now the focus. NOT what the word SAYS, but what man says, what someone NOT a writer of the prophetic scriptures, the word of God says: this becomes the test, the criterion.

NOTHING, however, could be further from Matthew 23:8-10, which REQUIRES

• a) that none be called (spiritual) father - i.e. director, guru, interpreter, dealing with his little children and
• b) that none be master, that is, giving with authority requirements for the faith. Why ? It is statedly because ONE ONLY is Master, and that is a person who

 
• i) is sinless
• ii) is increate
• iii) in Himself the Saviour!

 
• NO ONE ELSE is this (Acts 4:10-11).

This is also 11) above, but we shall augment this aspect shortly, DV.
 

LOGICAL NON SEQUITUR:

It really is a massive (literal) impertinence, to thrust a concept of human interpretation of scripture as the thrust of this passage, for more than all the above reasons. It is so for quite another. Simply: it DOES NOT FOLLOW that because

a) men did not 'achieve' scripture from any will of their own and
b) in fact God by an impelling vigour and direction secured it by His own inalienable and always adequate power,

therefore no one but important people, special people, can interpret it.

That, then, is to put into the mouth of God a fallacy: some gift! In fact, and as a point of empirical reality, the stress is quite the opposite. You do not NEED, indeed you MUST NOT HAVE, anything to interfere with this tested scripture, for if you do, then where are you placed under the guarantees given ? Not only would you then be NOT COVERED (as with any insurance policy, when you go outside the prescribed conditions - NO cover is given for any affirmative action whatever relative to the handling of scripture here) , but you would be UNCOVERED DESPITE A GRAVE WARNING of the dangers of precise the area of your vulnerability! This would be gross, outrageous and reckless to the uttermost point, contrary and contrary, using both pronunciations and meanings of the term!

But what a travesty, to seek so hard to bring in a mischief, or to ignore the point, for whatever reason (including cultural conformity and so forth), that you make God by your mere importation of philosophy into the scripture, to be author of confusion! What a confusion it is which is not merely confused but wishes to put into His word, a logical fallacy! FOR, says II Peter 1:21, "prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit".

WHAT then is the case BECAUSE holy men so spoke, BECAUSE the word of God did not come from the will of man at all ? Is it that THEREFORE only special authority may interpret the word of God ? Is it the case that since God is authentic, and this word is tested, tried, true and deposited exclusively by divine action, in its outcome infallible therefore, that MEN MUST authorise its understanding ?

Does it follow ? It is the OPPOSITE of what follows. The result in fact: be careful not to pollute it, as II Peter 2 AT ONCE goes on to direct. This IS the authority: do NOT do such a thing. It is not at all, DO IT! Nor would it follow. If God did it like that, it is not implied in the least degree that we must therefore treat this word to a new authority, so that we can try to catch up with what God was 'trying to say'. Not only it is incongruous, but there is also no way in the world that such a thing would FOLLOW from the exemption of the will of man from the creation of the written word of God. Further, since any such authority would be extraneous to anything Peter here or elsewhere says, this is an INVASION by ILLICIT authority of what is NOT provided for.

FALLACY IMPORTED INTO THE WORD OF GOD:

As a result, such a misinterpretation of this text becomes an actual fallacy imported into the word of God. All this comes before we even look at what it is actually saying. It is merely propounding the negative, what it cannot be deemed to say, both because of contradiction of logic, denial of reason and uninhibited abuse of context. It is, in other words, more than a non sequitur. It is an import as well of extraneous material, offensive and contrary. It is moreover a

FECKLESSNESS OF DEVIATION:

It is no mere wavering of thought, lack of concentration which is involved in this error. It is very dreadful. It abandons restraint and wisdom, looking to what is not merely missing, but what is deplored in the context, when it is present, as it is predicted to be. Moreover it is a

PARADE IN THE FACE OF PARALLELS:

Not merely does it collide with the surrounding parallel with Christ, the living and the written word being the topic, in their whole and integral reliability, both in being tested and sure (indeed made more sure, confirmed in the case of the prophetic scripture), as found in II Peter 1, and the negative parallel of warning in II Peter 2 into which Peter at once proceeds, but it smashes headlong into I John 2:27, where we are advised that you do not NEED any man to instruct, since the anointing suffices.

This does not remove the advantages, the expediency if you will, of help in humble ministration, or genuine presentation with assurance of what is manifestly the word of God beyond all human authority, as in Romans 12 where different gifts minister from one to the other. It does however removes any concept of a MASTER, of a NECESSITY, of an actual intrinsic AUTHORITY, which can in any way come into the scene outside the scriptures of God.

Let us hear John's inspired word, itself part of the scripture:

"But the anointing that you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught  you, you will abide in Him" - I John 2:27.

In other words,

AS the anointing TEACHES concerning all things,
AND is true and is not a lie,
AND just as it HAS taught you,

SO you will abide in Him.

What do you not NEED ? That anyone to teach you. Is a pope covered by 'anyone' ? Of course, he is a man. Is a church council covered ? Of course, each participant is a man. The thing is one body, one authority. What then can a church council do ? ONLY provide by sound and assured reason what cannot be controverted. From John as from Matthew, as likewise we learn that they can have NO authority in themselves. The Westminster Confession is utterly sound here, forbidding an implicit faith in anything of men, and requiring that ONLY the DEMONSTRABLE certainties of what follows from the word of God may be doctrine.

It is even SIN to go further, NOT SANCTITY.

These scriptures utterly exterminate and annihilate the whole authoritarian conception of the church. Its power is only to carry out what is written. Certainly, it can form arrangements expedient, but its power over the faith is zero. The word of God has power over it, and if it in anything goes beyond, it runs headlongs into all these scriptures. Pompous prelates like honeyed harridans, prostitute the power of God readily enough, when they intrude into divine things apostolically made, and made in the past (Ephesians 2:19-21), the foundation "having been built", the Master the increate Christ, the number of masters ONE, and that one, Christ; and the word one, the word of God. There is the gulf of infinity between God and man, and the forgetfulness of this simple fact is the bane of nations, and of many false churches, lords over the heritage of the Lord, having dominion over faith, false Masters, not Christ, not so identifiable any more than is the heaven with the earth.

Even elders are NOT lords over your faith: indeed and rather are they helpers of your joy (I Peter 5). SO says this same apostle. What therefore we have, and have multiply is a

CONTRADICTION OF OTHER SCRIPTURES in any such pollution of this text. It is not merely other than these, adding to them: it actually precisely and directly CONTRADICTS them. Further it produces a

COLLISION with PROHIBITIONS, for there is not only thought in this matter, its denial, its contradiction, but there is also an actual collision about practice. YOU must not and CANNOT do the things which some would bring into this text in II Peter 1, as if the word of God were a mere sink for human thought, precisely as  is being DENIED RIGHT HERE, by Peter in II Peter 1:20a. The erected authority in this text, it is scripture (in II Peter 1 in context, after reference to Christ who in times past was so authenticated).

You must realise that its arrival had nothing to do with the WILL of men, and that is WHY it is to be viewed as surpassing all human explanation (II Peter 1:20). You DO NOT NEED such teachers, and you MUST NOT HAVE them (I John 2:27, Matthew 23:8-10). What obtrudes, intrudes. What suffuses, confuses. Men may minister; God alone commands.

Thus, moving in this illicit way in constructing a contrary sense for the text, you actually collide with the word of God about what you MUST NOT DO! Indeed, Paul in II Corinthians 11 shows what folly is wrought when high-minded and mighty individuals start throwing their puny weight around, like wet putty (II Cor. 11:19-20). You suffer it, he says, if some foolish intruder pushes you around and so on! It is however the SAME Jesus, the SAME Gospel, the SAME Christ. NOTHING must alter this at all (Galatians 1), and what chiding comes from the apostle when there is any movement from that sacred and secure, safe and spiritual foundation of all doctrine, the word of God. WHO ELSE knows! WHO ELSE can understand ? Whose word IS IT!

BUT any such  intrusion as this is simply another gospel, another spirit, and another Christ. It is alien to the authority in God only, in the word of God only, which is the indubitable and explicit focus of Peter in I Peter 1-2 in general, and in 1:20-21 in particular. Indeed, here, in such a fallacy imposed on this word of God, you have a

DEROGATION OF SCRIPTURE AS SUCH, IN ITS OWN STANDING AND WEIGHT.

Instead of following what is actually in this text, and noting that the validity and reliability, the teaching power and pure certainty of the prophetic scriptures comes from two facts, that the will of man had NOTHING to do with their production, and that the power of God had everything to do with their inditement, provision and presence, there is a perversely contrary procedure. What then is this ? It is nothing less than an entangling of the very thing hated, human will and authority, in the sacred places noted, required to be without addition, and provided with warning about additions.

What is not demonstrable from scripture is assuredly an addition, as any judge would know, who examines what the actual data of a crime are, and what the lawyers think they can make of it. The two are distinct and contra-distinct.

Hence, in making this subversion of theme and topic, logic and parallels, such a perverse misinterpretation of this passage, there  is a pushing of powers outside those noted and authorised here, into the arena so specially select, preserved and being of certified purity, safe. This both waters down the word of God and works in another authority, not merely forbidden, but extraneous. It is a simple addition to the word of God, per favour of irrational extension, illicit logic and extensive breach of context and this both immediate, broader in these first chapters and extending throughout the entire epistle, fraught with warning on this very thing.

But let us now look at the actual movement of this passage in Peter. It is not saying that the complete absence of man's will from the production of scripture is a reason why its intrepretation should be carried out ONLY by important people, or with deference to their thought, whatever their claims; but that the complete absence of man's will from the production of scripture is a reason why it may be affirmed as having no human explanation, no source in the heart of an individual man, of whatever kind, calibre or character. That is what verses 20-21 are declaring, logically, contextually and in the entire context of the Bible.

What is given is this, and no idios, single or singular action by any man, no humanity, no flesh, has any part at all in it. Man in all his littleness, regardless of his situation, presumption or accolades, is here OUT altogether. The word given by God is outside this domain. Its power rests only on God; its criterion is found in the past; and what is His word has a bearing and autonomy accorded to nothing else.

This, in fact, is what is written. Man can't solve or explain scripture by any of his own thoughts since what ? Since scripture did not even depend on his will at all. HOW COULD you imagine in some humanistic, some naturalistic, some psychic notation of man, that scripture has an explanation! It would be ridiculous. Why ? Simply because it had NOTHING TO DO with the will of man at all. His resources were not the criterion of the advent, his imagination did not create the substance, his powers were not the issue. It was without his very WILL, by which he could summon.

Not only so. It was on the other hand, BY the WILL and POWER of God that the actual impetus, the whole substance, the entire gamut arrived. This is PRECISELY  of course what Paul is saying in I Corinthians 2:9-13.

There we find that the THINGS themselves, the substance involved in the scriptures, as Paul declares, came from God AND the words with which to express it were likewise from His provision. This is not necessarily the same as 'dictation' in some narrow sense. It IS however the same as an entire provision by whatever divinely directed means the Lord should choose, of the RESULT.

In the end, it is God and not man who supervised and succeeded in securing the input of substance and the output in words to His entire control with the intended consummation: expression in exactitude of His heart and mind toward man, and of what concerns him, with power.  The result has NOTHING of the will of men, and ONLY the output of the power of God, unimpeded, acting as needed to secure the issue of His own will in His own name of His own word. HE has spoken! (cf. the almost endless array of sentences like these - Thus says the Lord, and the Lord has spoken or the mouth of the Lord has spoken and cf. Acts 4:25, where once again, it is Peter who is speaking).

This, then, in II Peter 1:20 is the result of the divulgement of II Peter 1:21. This DOES follow with NECESSITY, with ENTAILMENT, without non sequitur, but with robustly apt logic: that SINCE man's will was not involved in the production of scripture, was indeed a wholly alien matter, and SINCE secondly, on the affirmative side, the POWER and PROVISION of God was involved, and that with impelling and imperial thrust, therefore what we have in the production of the prophetic word of God is not a matter of explanation in human terms at all. That is the word of II Peter 1:20. Nothing else fits the sequence, the situation or the scenario, the logic and the validity.

On the other hand, this is wholly and emphatically, richly and dramatically the exact message of other scriptures; and again, any endeavour to attribute invalid logic to God by intruding a theme not found here, out of the development and contrary to it, is merely a measure of the desperation to deceive, or the inuring of custom and tradition, which does indeed make null the word of God, as Christ warned (Mark 7:7-13). This intrusion, inversion, perversion, addition to what is written, this whole genre is certainly to "reject the commandment  of God that you may keep your tradition" and a matter of "making the word of God of no effect through your tradition", as Christ there declares.

Indeed, that is the end of the whole concept of tradition without more ado. The traditions of men are merely the provision either 1) of extraneous presumption, putting the will of man into the word of God, or beside it or 2) the clear and logically demonstrable presentation of what is actually written. If the latter, it is however, not tradition but exposition. Exposition that is nothing else, nor does it add anything. THAT is precisely what man is permitted, no encouraged and directed to do with the word of God: ADD NOTHING (Proverbs 30:6).
 
 

The perspective is as always, the clout of truth, the invasion of reality, the transmission of the mind of God through the word, spoken and incarnate. In no case is there room for change; in each case, it is self-declarative. The room for man is zero (I John 2:27). Man may help; but he has no capacity to adorn the word of God with opinions. It was precisely the removal of such a possibility in the past, which is the ground for the confidence for the future. That is what is written. How rightly the Westminster Confession insists that ONLY what is written and what is necessarily implied is to be taken. NOTHING of dubiety, nothing of intrusion, incursion is permitted.

That is how the situation stands. God will not stand for those who stand in the way of the light, making themselves arbiters and authorities. ONE is the Master (Matthew 23:8-10), and ONLY one. Who is that One ? Why He is the very one whom Peter speaks of, before these verses, Jesus Christ,

• "For He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed ..."

THAT is the conjunction of terms, of realities made by Peter. In each case the divine is made manifest, heard and is to be done. That is ALL there is to it. What then ? in the first case, Peter shows the divine transmission of the Son (to whom none may add so much as one iota), and in the other that of the written word (add not to His words, says Proverbs 30:6 lest you be found a liar!).

With GOD ONLY as your trust (Jeremiah 17), and His expression of His eternal word (Micah 5:1-3), in flesh  as your Saviour (I Peter 1:18-19), and in the writing of your assured guide, the one specified by the apostle Peter: you are surrounded with certainties. Small wonder then Peter tells us that we are KEPT by the POWER of God (I Peter 1:1-5) to an inheritance that does not fade away! The word is sure, definitive, declarative, investing truth in the format for man, which gives utter assurance.

If you put anything else anywhere near it, no wonder you have trouble with Christian assurance.
A chain is only as sure as its weakest link. When the chain is commanded by God, there is NO room for doubt. No link is weak.

THEN you can go forth in the power and faith of God, and become partakers of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4), a cleansed creation, a victorious phalanx (I John 5:4), founded on the rock, on the work and person (Psalm 62), on the words of Christ (Matthew 7:24-29). Nothing, but nothing can touch you there. (Cf. SMR pp. 98-99).

Small wonder then that Christ declared, THEY SHALL NOT PERISH (John 10:9,27-28). When you are dealing with God, rather being dealt with BY Him, the options for failure in life are zero. His word is your guarantee, His work is your cover, His Spirit is your supply, His guardianship is your solace. And there ?

There is the peace which surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:6-7), and in whom is it found ? In him, in her in whom God has "begun a good work" ^*4A, and having begun THAT work, will "perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). Thus it is  that you look for Him in whom is your trust, according to HIS ONLY word, the one which bears His name, so that "He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself". There is no dubiety. God has spoken^*5A.

THAT, it is the way it has to be. It is also the way it is. Any other way faces the NO WAY, GO BACK highway sign. Such a way is not on the highway of holiness on which a person, though a fool shall not go astray (Isaiah 35). The way of God, however, is PRECISELY THAT! It IS the way of faith, which accepts what is offered, and counts it done.
 
 
 
 

NOTES

*4A
A GOOD work, as here stated,  does remain. It is the trees which "My heavenly Father" has NOT planted which will be "uprooted"! (Matthew 15:13, Isaiah 61:3). On the brows of His people there is everlasting joy (Isaiah 51:11). These are those whom He has redeemed, with eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). These, if it were possible might be seduced as in II Peter, by 'interpreters' of the word of God who do not bother to KEEP to it. However, it is NOT POSSIBLE (Matthew 24:15). These are "the elect", chosen in Him before all time (Ephesians 1:4), purchased and kept (Romans 5:9-11), and indeed serviced (Hebrews 12:4-13). See Red Alert ... Ch. 7, The Biblical Workman Ch. 2,
Part 3.

*5A
For a biblical doctrine on its own status, see SMR Appendix D. For the relationship of this to its proven character, see SMR Ch. 1.

 

V

It seems good to add a little more, briefly

ON II PETER

as a correlative to our chief interest in II Timothy 3:16.

While many of the peaks may seem similar, yet to examine them
from first this angle, then that, to look straight up at some soaring surface,
and then distantly in more perspective, and then to examine a particular rock:

all this is part of appreciation of the Alpine Splendour.
So this time, briefly, let us ponder the rock.

Not merely is the POINT of the path of the sweep of the dynamic of the Lord as specified in II Peter 2, this- that the no scripture is of any private origin or portent, or under any sinful human  individual's contro, the purvey of his mind, the fruit of his ruminations, or having its root in the brilliance of his perceptions. The TOPIC itself is athe RELIABILITY of the scripture for guidance, the precise opposite of the capacity of this or that man to think, write or act. It is not the interpretation of the scripture which is in point, but its origin, HOW IT CAME TO BE. Indeed, as Thayer points out in his Greek dictionary of  such just fame, the word ginomai being used in the context, it never CAME by the will of man, is actually it never BECAME, or in the idiom of that very, CAME INTO BEING. That is the point there.

Thus on every side we are hemmed into the theme. We are discussing HOW RELIABLE is the word of the prophets, in practical terms as a light in a dark and fallen world moving to its extermination. In this context, we are assured that NO SCRIPTURE CAME INTO BEING by any individual's recherché, sophisticated, earnest or other work or insight. The very used merely reinforces the point in the normal assiduous clarity of the scriptures of the Lord God. Thus far the impact is this. You can be SURE of the help the prophets provide because their provision did not depend, directly (by insight) or indirectly (by culture et al) upon them. You are not at all in the realm of human power, of fleshly insight at all. That is all irrelevant. It is not a matter of man but of God.

To put a fresh basis even to this clear message of dependability because of more than human power in the origin of the scriptures, we come to precisely WHAT ultra-human power DID then work so that they could come into being. The next verse, 21, tells us this necessary datum.

In fact ('for') the way of it was this. Holy men spoke as they were driven, moved, thrust upon, enabled by a divine power, indeed that of the Holy Spirit. The prophets very WILL was not involved. It was not something dependent on them at all. The reason for that remarkable function, it was that it depended on both the will and the work of God Almighty who drove them into the writing as a wind drives a ship. In fact, the very used here is the same one as used of the ship in which the apostle Paul was driven by the Euroclydon tempest, as noted in Acts 27:17ff..

In all of this the topic of interpretation does not even arise. It is simply one of dependability in the practical duress of life in this dark world where the prophecy is the source of a light which cannot and does not fail. The REASON why this is so is then given. It did not depend on any individual's unloosing, release, ascertainment of the truth. In fact, it did not even depend on the will of man. The reason in turn for that fact is not far too seek. It depended on the will of God. In what way did this fact become relevant to the reliability of the Bible which is the point at issue ? It was in this way. The Holy Spirit, NOT even the WILL of man, was behind it. In what way was He behind this coming into being of the prophetic scriptures ? It was by His moving the men concerned, driving and both initiating and accomplishing the task of depositing the said scriptures.

WHY does NO scripture depend on the individual equation of man ? on his release of data ? It is because that is a misunderstanding. In what way ? It is because it did not even depend on the will of any individual. In what way did that then occur ? It was because it depended on the work in dynamic power and thrust of the Holy Spirit. The prophecy NEVER CAME INTO BEING by the will of man. It DID COME by the will of God and the thrust of the Holy Spirit SO THAT these holy men SPOKE as t hey WERE MOVED  by that very Spirit. THAT is why it is so dependable, so that you can rely on it even when the winds of this world are a hot blast, and danger, peril and horror dog our steps through the valley of the shadow of death.

The Romanist perversion of this text is allied to their other perversions of texts, and it is without excuse. It contradicts the entire point, purpose, language and topic. On the other hand, this scripture DOES provide a mighty staff for solidity and stability of purpose against all false teachings and teachers, for as in I John 2:27, it is this same Holy Spirit who teaches so that we are not dependent on man, as if he were God. Man may help; only God prevails. Men may teach, but only God is THE teacher (Matthew 23:8-10). Thus sophisticated twisting is to be avoided as one intensively relies on the word of God itself, which is not wreathed, tricky, but given in purity and to be  understood in its own clarity (Proverbs 8:8).

VI

It is fitting with this emphasis on II Timothy 3:16 which led to II Peter 1, to refer at least briefly to the WHOLE COUNSEL of God as from Paul.

ACTS 20

This enables one to find the collation of concepts in Alpine air of abundant truth, where though massifs abound and soar, yet the whole plateau itself on which they stand, is elevated far above the dust and turmoil of striving man, where one is fed with manna celestial.

This is taken from Massifs of Pure Splendour in the Celestial  Alps of Christ Jesus Ch. 3.

II   THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD AND THE WOLVES

That is precisely why this verse 27 of Acts 20, this declaration of Paul, parallel entirely to his epistle to the Galatians in Chapter 1, constitutes such a massif in the Celestial Range of the Mountains of God, the alpine glory of the faith.

	"I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God." Such is the word of the apostle.
	There is not only nothing else, but no more. It is as if a child, having had three full courses of delightful food, ending with a sweet, is told this: there is nothing more, there is nothing else.

The WHOLE COUNSEL of God is displayed. It is not misted over, as if unclear and smitten with fog. To be sure, in due course, we who love God will indeed see Him face to face (Revelation 22:3); but in the interim we have a precise parchment, the very word of God, and what is more, the entire Gospel, the exact panorama of truth is what is displayed, under no less authority than that of God Himself. We see this in such scriptures as Matthew 5:17-20, where breaking the least commandment and keeping the same, become indications of great import in the kingdom of heaven. Teaching and doing the least commandment is a matter of relish from the Royal King of the Kingdom of heaven, we there learn.

ALL that God says matters, because it is the truth: thus Christ told them that they did not well to seek to kill Him, "a man who told you the truth,"  John 8:40. Indeed, it came as what His Father  commanded (John 12:48-50).

"For I have not spoken on My own authority;
but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command,
what I should say and what I should speak.
And I know that His command is everlasting life.
Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."

BECAUSE it is eternal truth, it cannot fail, and THEREFORE every jot and tittle of it (Matthew 5:17-20) will hold up and be fulfilled in the practical, time-space realm of this earth. It could not be more stringent; and this we have investigated in detail in its biblical base, in  Communication and Consummation. Moreover, the prophets spoke by the thrust and command of the Holy Spirit Himself. This, indeed, is as shown in II Peter 1:19-21, where what came into being was by the moving of the Spirit of God, so that the result was not something individual in its perception, but as granted by divine fiat. The identical message is that of Paul in I Corinthians 2:9-13, and the divine control and precision is seen likewise in I Peter 1:25, II Peter 3:2,16 (cf. the exposition in SMR Appendix D).

Old or New Testament, it is the same. Thus Isaiah 34:16, having specified a lot of specific detail concerning a divine judgment, right down to the physical aspects of various creatures to be in the area detailed for ruin, declares this of the specifications of the Book of the Lord. None of these shall fail, none shall lack its mate. Every last composition of the depiction, phase of the picture, fact of the forecast, it will be there. The words that speak, the things they depict: ALL  stand.  Nothing is riven, nothing is reduced. What it says, this it will be.

In similar vein, but this time of things just past, the apostles spoke. It was actual, factual, incontestable, whether the sight was of things to come, or of things that had happened in their midst. God deals with facts, is friend to them, and makes them happen (cf. Isaiah 14:27, Lamentations 3:37, Acts 2:23,29ff.). We cannot, said Peter and John, but speak the things we have seen and heard (cf. Acts 4-5). None could deny what they asserted, just days after the years of Christ's actions, which Peter depicted; for it had happened in that very same Jerusalem which had killed Him, centre of the nation where many had flocked, throughout the land, to be healed, to hear, to marvel and be astounded as His wisdom and witty answers to the seemingly witless and certainly wily words of his highly trained religious enemies.

What then ? 

While God makes His mind plain to man, it is HIS MIND which He makes plain, and not something else. He who IS the truth does not lie, and indeed CANNOT (Titus 1:1-3, cf. Barbs  ... 6-7). This is His own dictum. Trying then to evacuate from the Bible what it says is not merely playing with atomic hardware, but toying with the immutable beautiful glory of God (Psalm 102, II Corinthians 4:2-6). It is like throwing acid into a lady's face, scum into the mouth of majesty.

What is truth ? "They word is truth," declares Christ (John 17:17), and word by word (the Greek remata as in Matthew 4:4), it is sustained because He sent it, impelling the very words by His Holy Spirit. It is not a question of His using this or that psychic method in so doing. It is not of this that He speaks. It is of the RESULT of His action. As with the healing of the body, we are not a party to the method of performance which the Creator exercises when a billion cells in the body are all instantaneously altered by divine healing (cf. Things Old and New Ch. 3, Endnote 1A  ). What we DO see and find is this:  the RESULT.

So it is with that other expression of divine power: the downloading of His words so that He might speak through prophet and apostle of old. Thus we read in Ephesians 2:20-22 that the foundation has been laid, and thus is the church in Paul's day, seen likewise as already not only on its foundation, but excluded from any other, whoever might like to act otherwise, and build  (cf. I Corinthians 3:11). The word is given, immutable. The basis is built. The affair is settled. The God who gave it cannot be unsettled.

The Lord, the living word has come, indestructible, resurrected after death. This thing also, it is sure, certain and DONE.  It is neither equivocal nor parabolic. How does God proceed ? It happens, it is there, what is said would be the case. It is as when Christ Himself healed, or for that matter raised from the dead (John 11). One failure would have ruined His testimony, shown Him an impostor, not the truth; but this is precisely what did not happen, because it could not happen, in word or deed. When God acts, He never has stage-fright or impotence.

Consider if Jesus the Christ had NOT healed in Mark 2, or raised from the dead in John 11, in view of His precise prediction in Mark 2, and His command to Lazarus to 'come forth' from the tomb in John 11! No one would have considered Him further. On the other hand, the relentless parade of the impossible never ceased, till jealous ecclesiastical functionaries and hypnotised followers of their trade, sought death for the One whom they could not control. Otherwise, ridicule would have ruined Him, and the unmet bar would have shown by failed jumps, the ludicrous character of claiming to be God (John 10:30).

In this business, there is no room for error; it is more precise than any experiment, since this subject talks Himself, and then does it, also ... Himself. It is self-interpreting and self-verifying.

The marvel then is this, that the God whose word made DNA, cognitive consequences of controlled symbolic systematics, using matter as a tool, who made His written word to guide man, who sent His living word to bring salvation for man (cf. Titus 2-3, John 8:58), has not failed to tell us the works. It is not that it is staggering that He spoke, but it regales the heart to see that He so cared as both to speak, portray the way and His concern, and act to enable restoration by redemption. It is all there, written, wrought and taught. It does not change. Because God has acted, it is free.

The COMPLETE WORKS of William Shakespeare may be purchased for a relatively small price; but the writing of them was costly.

The complete word of God to man, this too may be purchased relatively cheaply in the Bible, but the deeds to which it refers were not cheaply wrought, nor were the lives of the prophets cut-price, but they endured as they were used to bring in written form,  the preliminaries which were to come before the Christ and in His day on earth. It was then at the foretold time (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), that in His own predicted self, He brought the culmination and the consummation.

Not only, then, was THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD given to man, so that no Gospel is even conceivable apart from the word of God, even as preached by Paul in the day of his epistle to the Galatians, but its necessity is so great that Paul did not cease, night and day for three years to declare it. He knew too, that after him there would come fierce wolves, using the image of shepherd and flock, who would take the sheep with bloodthirsty lupine lust!

Be warned, he said, for the whole counsel of God is by no means acceptable to the devil who lusts for another way, another will, another word and another game altogether (cf. Ephesians 6). CHANGE is his evil desire, to change the gospel, the word of God, the way of truth (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 8, Dastardly Dynamics and ... Immovable Faith Ch. 6). As to God by contrast, His ways do not change (Malachi 3:6, Psalm 102, Hebrews 1:12, Habakkuk 3:6, I Peter 1:24-25, Psalm 119:89,111,140-142, Isaiah 8:20, Revelation 22:18-20, Deuteronomy 4, 12). His word stays, to be fulfilled, or to function as before, inveterate, unvanquished, the testimony of the living God to the time-space medium of man, to his mentality, to his spirit, for his future, his destiny, his life.

Rebellion thinks otherwise, as it always has strangely imagined , from the refusal to enter the GIVEN LAND in place and time as specified by  God, of Canaan (Numbers 14), as if history were too much; and this, even when God has shown in detail and dynamic such a control of it as to vanquish through the word of a slave, the imperial potency of Egypt!

Then as now, this variability, equals assault on divine integrity, equals by implication, departure from this same Bible, the Book of the Lord. This litany of rebellion, this byway of religious lust has been noted frequently in our own generation (cf. News 121, 122 for example), and some would seek to hold hostage to their will, the very word of God.

 

VII

 

Getting back to the thematic stress of the origin and hence reliability of scripture, the Bible, we mention too I Corinthians 2:9-13, as from SMR Appendix D, since it gives yet more detail. This also gives us in its own sequence, the case of II Peter 1 and for more joy, that of I Peter 1, which has its own internal parallel to its brother epistle to follow.

 

 I CORINTHIANS.

It is of interest to note that I Corinthians 2:9-13 is often used carelessly. Eye has not seen... the things which God has prepared for those who love Him... says the speaker. Often in Church practice, this seems to satisfy both speaker and people that this is what Paul is teaching. Not so!! In fact, the words continue:

But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes the deep things of God...

says Paul in this statement... the SAME statement! As a matter of fact, it is with these just cited words, that Paul CONTINUES HIS SENTENCE!

Let us observe then:

1) Paul is dealing with the aspirations of men for real knowledge of God; he is speaking in the deepest terms. Factually, he is also speaking of great destined realities - what God has prepared for those who love Him.

2) THE SPIRIT has already revealed these things.

3) the revealed things, in the sentence, refer to 'the deep things of God', which "the Spirit searches" ...

4) these things are revealed as to substance. They are however also 'taught' the writer, Paul, by the Holy Spirit. A FURTHER part of this 'teaching' is in this feature: the 'words' with which to designate and describe what Paul sees, what is revealed, what is disclosed concerning God and His intentions... THESE too are taught. It is not...'Oh I could never formulate that!' Rather God teaches how: dictation it need not ALWAYS be (as in Isaiah 40:5; 41:1-5; 43), by any necessity. The point is that the WORK continues till the words are found.

 

 

2) JOHN

Again, the passage in John 12:48-50 indicates that Jesus speaks what God the Father Almighty gives Him to say. The Greek term used here for 'words' is REMATA, which reflects what is spoken, the series of actual words (so Thayer q.v.). REMATA also has parallel use for Biblical prophecy, Old and New Testaments, in Romans 10:17, I Peter 1:25, II Peter 3:2,16, Matthew 4:4*, cf. John 14:26. Just as Christ spoke what His Father commanded, utterance, articulation by articulation, so the prophets' diction was subjected to an absolute spiritual control... a control by the Spirit of God, of which we shall see more in 3) infra. Whatever approach God uses in Scriptural inspiration, there is therefore at least such a jurisdictive control as to reach in the resultant, to the... words. By this time taught, inspired, authorised, proclaimed, the words are fine tuned, attuned, harmonious with the divine desire for content wholly in accord with the mind of God (cf. pp. 1171, 1176-1179 infra), guaranteed. (For *, see p. 1169 infra.)

Jesus then spoke as commanded. This stresses the authority and the ultimacy of the SOURCE, just as Paul stresses the dynamism and the adequacy of the METHOD of inspiration, leading to revelation from God Himself. Jesus Christ also stresses that not merely has He not CONCOCTED this doctrine, but that it is positively not His at all in any differentiable sense as a man, relative to His Father: John 7:17-18; 17:16. Similarly, He claims identity with the Lord ('Jehovah') of the Old Testament - John 8:58 (cf. Exodus 3:14); and that His words will sit in irrepressible judgment in their intrinsic and precise force and diction (John 12:48-50).

Whatsoever He speaks is a replica of the Father's command to HIM. Christ, of course, unlike Paul, is GOD in human form; so that there is this rigorously intrinsic stress on authority, on immense personal relationship. What of the production, however, the word
given ? It is infallible, wholly authoritative, God-given revelation, admitting of no adjustment or error. In this, the result is the same.

 

I, II PETER

There follows, for our thought, the passage from II Peter - 1:19-21. Here stress is laid on the irresistible dynamic of the deliverance of divine news and views to the devoted, dedicated, delighted servants of God in times past. Indeed, the Greek verb here used in verse 21, for 'moved' in the translation, is selected to refer to the stormy wind which 'drove' Paul's ship before it, on his way to Rome, described elsewhere in scripture (Acts 27:17).

It was not a matter of man, with his will, as we learn indeed in 1 Peter 1:10-12. lt was NOT EVEN to themselves that they 'ministered', as it is written. It was not a matter of man interpreting at all. THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED (the tense is PAST). The coming sufferings of Christ and His subsequent glory, says 1 Peter 1, were not (as the prophets then knew) being depicted in their revelation for their own use. They were provided for the use of others yet to come. No, the matter was unique and challenging, which reached the scripture writers from the Spirit of Christ, says Peter; and it was by no means a matter of THEIR thoughts, but of divine activity donating these scriptures for times yet to come. Thus, II Peter 1:20-21 declares (Weymouth):

Above all, you must understand that no scripture came about by virtue of its own release. For prophecy never came from the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit...

The word sometimes metaphorically used to mean 'interpretation', as Thayer points out in his Greek dictionary, is in fact to 'loose'. Scripture is meant and sent, not deposited from the work of one's own will. It is not 'idios', one's own (our word for 'idiot' comes from this); and there is a STATED REASON for this fact. It is not one's own unloosing, uncovering, one's own ideas at all. This is BECAUSE the men who were HOLY and indeed OF GOD spoke in a different climate altogether. Being of God and being DRIVEN (Greek word used of storms on ships), they were under the power of the Holy Spirit.

There is nothing about other people's interpretation of scripture; there is nothing at all about what one does with it. It is a cause and a consequence of the clearest character. They did NOT loose their own thoughts BECAUSE in this type of case, they were DRIVEN by someone else; and HE ? He had a special relation to them as men of GOD: HE in fact was, as the Bible here states, the HOLY SPIRIT.

Driven by the Holy Spirit (II Peter 1), these men spoke in times past. This we are told. THAT is why it is not a matter of what ANYONE MADE OF IT, or might make of it; that is WHOLLY beside the point. THIS, these words directly attest. GOD gave this to them, so that one's own ideas and constructions (literally, in the text), one's own developments and thoughts, simply are out of the question. It was NOT a faint suggestion: they were DRIVEN, MOVED by the Spirit. THIS, and nothing else or contrary, is precisely what is written.

God in His transcendence invested dependent man with news and views, and those views, being God's, were truth. God the Maker gave man in His image both declaration and information by the Holy Spirit. It was the SAME HOLY SPIRIT who brooded, as we read in Genesis 1:2, who 'hovered', who moved over the waters in that vast display of divine creative energy, at the birth of our material system. It was this same Spirit who brought from the heart and mind of God another spectacular creation.

THIS TIME some men were witnesses! What was THIS ? It was the word of God to man (cf. Amos 4:13, 12:1). God made the STAGE and He made the SCRIPT. The script is scripture. (There is ALSO - see Chapter 2 supra - an extraordinarily biological script written in programmed format into our very HUMAN PROTOPLASM.) We could go further. Peter does so. As man despoiled the CREATED WORLD, so men seek to despoil the WRITTEN WORD of God (cf. II Peter 2:1), which itself is like a world - of its own ? of GOD'S own! His speech world, His direct speech world (for even cells, we recall, are an INDIRECT speech world, crammed with thought, expressed in one language, in consistent code).

Wilfully, many seduce themselves, permit themselves to be seduced from the certainties of God's word, and from God's creation by His word, ignoring the desecration of the world in past judgment (cf. II Peter 3:3-6). In fact, they went so far as to slay the 'lamb' of God, that signally strong Saviour who worked with His Father (Proverbs 8, John 1) in making the world: they desecrated that explicit personal expression of God, whom even to know is a matter of "joy inexpressible and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8). This they did in an act foreordained by the divine thought and word (I Peter 1:19-21, 2:7-8, Acts 2:23-32).

It is ALSO, however, ordained, and was so from the first, that this desecrated divinity, this God-as-Man, the living word who CAME TO the world, will judge men, not vice versa (John 5:27, Matthew 7:21-22, Acts 13:36-41, 17:31). THIS He will do in due concord WITH THE WORDS THAT HE, THIS SAME CHRIST SPOKE (John 12:48-50). It is THIS Christ, who bothered to come and be sacrificed, and NOT another. NOW

God... commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all, by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).

 

THE ALPINE AIR IN THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, WITH HEALING IN HIS WINGS

Thus have we seen the glory of Christ, the incarnate, eternal word of the living God, by whom He created all things (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15), in whom alone is redemption, from whom comes revelation, incisive, decisive, who is the express image of God Almighty, equal in honour by the Father's desire (John 5:19-23), as in His own being as the very focus of the Eternal God (Philippians 2:1-12). We have witnessed the wonder of the word written, its source, its origin in the originalities of the unchanging God, its deposition by the Holy Spirit, its driving force, its entire and exquisite separation from the mere insights of man, staring at puzzles, longing for inspiration, so that it is DRIVEN and MOVED they are by God, to become scriptors of scripture, as God releases from eternity, the truths of His domain for man.

In this, we have seen the phases and facets of this revelation in the Son and in the Scripture, from God, as HE has seen fit to expose them. We find no stiff necks in looking up to these things, for one good reason. It is for this we are made, and the stiff necks in this instance come not from looking where our necks are made, and fitted to turn, but where they are not, in the abyss of unrealism, the smoke screens of surrealism or the hopeful nothingnesses of irrationalism.

God is, has spoken, has done it as He describes, with the results we have so often reviewed. Such a twin set of volumes is

LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST

WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES

AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS

Bible or Blight, Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God

ONE thunders the Alpine voice, ONE speaks the DNA language, ONE says the cell without precursors in its sophistication, ONE says the mind of man that mirrors the logic in nature and answers to the challenge of his Maker, ONE says the word of God about the word of God. There is attested in sublimity, with the certainty of His own infinitude and power:  ONE GOD, ONE REVELATION, ONE SALVATION, ONE WAY, and beside Him, MANY a fray, MANY a fraud, MANY a wafting and begetting of phoney telephones from the deep, the abstracted, the symbolic and the winged flights of human imagination.

MANY are the wars from this cause, MANY the tribulations from such annihilative attitudes to truth, which led to the crucifixion, remedied in the resurrection, both the way for man, to share in the cross, by being identified with his substitute, the Saviour, and in the resurrection, to know the power of God, not only in the Alps, but in the plains of humanity, where the sun still shines, though obscured by the obscurationist and belched against by the polluters of this world (Ephesians 1:19, Philippians 4:13)..

ONE is His peace, which passes all understanding, for as in all design, there is the designated, and it is only when the design called man, more than this, the designated image-bearer of Almighty God, able to have fellowship with his Creator, DOES SO, that such peace comes. It is not fatalistic, or philosophically flatulent, nor is it resignedly ruined: it is vital and alive with joy, because it has found the unsearchably precious, as one who having lived all of his life on the polluted plains, with but a distant gleam of the marvels of the Alps,  suddenly is transported to the Celestial Alpine Splendour, given intimate access and lifelong habitat, there where not only is the air pure, but the view comprehensive and the sun warm, but never scorching.