Article V - Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for
Salvation
The Holy
Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation;
so that
whatsoever is not read therein,
nor may be
proved thereby,
is not to be
required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith,
or be thought
requisite or necessary to salvation.
In the name of the Holy
Scripture we do understand those
canonical books of
the Old and New Testaments of whose authority was never any doubt in the
church.
The names of the
canonical books are:
Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, The First Book of
Samuel, The Second Book of Samuel, The First Book of Kings, The Second Book of
Kings, The First Book of Chronicles, The Second Book of Chronicles, The Book of
Ezra, The Book of Nehemiah, The Book of Esther, The Book of Job, The Psalms,
The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or the Preacher, Cantica or Songs of Solomon, Four
Prophets the Greater, Twelve Prophets the Less.
All the books of the New
Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive and account canonical.
Strictly
speaking, the Bible isn’t A book. The Bible
is an anthology, a collection of (in this case) 66 different books, authored by
dozens of different men, and written over the course of anywhere from 700 to 3500
years depending on which scholar you prefer to believe.
Some of the
Bible’s authors were highly respected priests and prophets (like Samuel). Some were seemingly random guys who professed
a calling from God, came out of nowhere, did their thing, and then disappeared
back into obscurity (like Amos). Some
Biblical writers were highly educated and well-connected (Luke and Paul for
examples). Some were near illiterate
members of the 1st century working class (Peter).
With the
exception of a couple of Paul’s letters in the New Testament, you can find some
“expert” who will dispute the authorship and authenticity of every book in the
Bible. Some people sincerely believe
that the entire Bible is a conspiracy of fiction put together by a Catholic committee.
But I, and my
church, and millions of Christians like us believe that the Bible is the actual
Word of God Himself, the Holy Scripture [that]
containeth all things necessary to salvation.
How can we (and
you) trust our souls to the words of a disputed ancient anthology?
See what I
did there?
I described
the Bible in a way that implied that every element was unreliable. I never offered any evidence for why the
testimony of multiple writers would be LESS reliable than the testimony of just
one. But if you were iffy on the topic,
you’d think that it was.
Now think for
yourself. Which is MORE reliable, the
testimony of one witness or the corroborating testimony of 3 or 4 dozen
witnesses?
We trust the
Bible. I stake the fate of my soul and
the purpose of my life on the integrity of the Bible because the authors of the
books of the Bible present a single, unifying theme. There is a common mind behind all of their
works. (And some of these writers had
never read the works of the others.)
But what about the time lapse between books?
Yeah. The dispute over the age of books has been a
major source of skepticism. Critics
point out that the oldest fragments of the Old Testament only date back to the
2nd century B.C. which isn’t that old for a collection that begins “In
the beginning….”
Critics also
note that the oldest fragment of the New Testament dates 125 A.D., that
somewhere around 80-90 years after Jesus was crucified. The criticism is that these can’t be
eyewitness accounts. The witnesses would’ve
be dead.
I have a copy
of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. (No, I’m not rambling. Stay with me.) My books says that Shakespeare died in 1616,
but the earliest copyright on the book is 1980.
How can I believe a book dated 366
years after the supposed author of its plays died?
Because I
know that my copy of Shakespeare is just a copy. All the
copyright date tells me is that the original stories were completed and
circulating BEFORE 1980.
We don’t have
the original manuscript of any of the books of the Bible. The dates of our COPIES do not tell us when
the Bible was written. The dates of the copies do tell us that the New Testament
was completed and circulating well before 125 A.D. The dates of the copies assure us that the
Old Testament is OLDER than 2 B.C.
The early
leaders of the Church poured over the books, testimonies, and evidence
available in the first 300 years after the Resurrection and affirmed what the descendants
of eyewitnesses had been affirming for centuries. The 27 books of the New Testament and the 39
books of the Old Testament are the Word of God, just like the big red volume on
my bookshelf is the words of Shakespeare.*
Knowing this first, that no
prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came
by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1: 20, 21)
The arguments
against the authenticity of the Bible as God’s Word are based on more
assumptions, presumptions, and leaps of logic than even faith requires.
The Bible on
your coffee table may contain errors in translation, after all neither Jesus nor
Moses spoke English. (Actually nobody spoke
English during the time the Bible was being written.) So, in some verses there are legitimate questions
about which English term best fits which Greek or Hebrew word.
But those
mini-arguments aren’t what drive churches apart. The big, looming question is: Did God really deliver His Word through all
those different dudes in all those different settings?
No. No.
The question
REALLY is, COULD God do it?
Is it
reasonable, rational, or logical to believe that all those texts by all those
people are really the product of ONE supernatural source?
In other
words, is the Bible too complicated to be Divinely authored?
In other,
other words: Behold, I am the Lord, the
God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me? (Jeremiah 32:27)
The answer
already given is: Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your
great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. (Jeremiah
32: 17)
If you
believe that God is love, then believe the Bible that told you, God is love (1 John 4: 8, 16)
If you
believe that Jesus lived, and taught, and defended the powerless, then believe
the Bible that told you of Jesus.
You search the Scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. (John 5: 39)
You embrace
the parts of the Bible that bring you comfort and hope and make you feel good
about yourself and the future. Well then you
don’t get to redact the other parts that make you feel uncomfortable and sinful
and concerned about judgment for how you live.
Same book. Same God. Same truth.
Do not think that I came to
destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For
assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle
will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5: 17, 18)
The Bible is
the Word of God, the testimony of Jesus Himself. If you reject the Bible, you turn your back
on aspects of Jesus that are non-negotiable.
Therefore many of His disciples,
when they heard this, said,
“This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”
When Jesus knew in Himself that
His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? …”
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. (John 6: 60-66)
Don’t do
that. Hold to Jesus. Hold to the Word made flesh. Hold to the Word.
Then Jesus said to the
twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…” (John 6: 67, 68)
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry,
and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson
T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director
of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);
and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute
for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Support by
check or money order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel
CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al
35064
*To my fellow
English nerds: I am aware that I open up a possible argument of whether or not
Shakespeare claimed some of Bacon’s work as his own. My point about copies and copyrights still
stands.
