We talk of "God's Word" when we refer to our Bibles. Jesus referred to "God's Word" in John 17:17 when He said, "Your word is truth." And we connect the two -- "God's Word" and "our Bibles." But is that accurate? They tell me, "You know, Jesus didn't know about the New Testament. He was referring to The Old Testament. And when Paul referred to 'All Scripture is God breathed,' he was referring to the Old Testament because that's all he knew." And most of us will nod and admit that's true. But ... is it?
John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John here claims that "God's Word" was a being, not a writing. The text claims that Jesus was God's self-expression. So when Jesus claimed, "I am the truth" (John 14:6), He was agreeing with John's claim in the first chapter. Jesus was and is the expression of God -- God's Word. If that's true, then Jesus, as God the Son, knew of the Old Testament and the New Testament, even before that was written. That is, the "word" that Jesus said was truth in John 17:17 was Him and all that was transmitted in our Scriptures, before and after. So, it's not true that Jesus didn't know, and it's not true that the New Testament is not as much true as the Old.
It doesn't stop there. The argument is that the Bible wasn't made canon until the 4th century. True. But ... that doesn't mean it wasn't Scripture. Peter called Paul's writings Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). And Paul refers to Luke's Gospel as Scripture (1 Tim 5:18). (Note: In this text Paul quotes Deut. 25:4 and Luke 10:7, both listed as "Scripture.") So the claim that the only Scripture the New Testament writers knew was the Old Testament is false, and the claim that the only "Word of God" Jesus knew was the Old Testament. Unfortunately, that won't deter the skeptics ... but no truth will.
6 comments:
Funny that they tell me that because Jesus claims to be the truth, then the truth CANNOT be the Bible, the written word, as if it must be an "either-or" proposition. Of course, if Jesus's claim of being the truth -- truth incarnate, as it were -- is accepted as true and requires that only He is the truth, then math is false. Or any other truth claim. Because "truth" is Christ alone ... by that line of reasoning. An example of "believing themselves to be wise, they became fools." If Jesus is, as John claims, the Word -- the full expression of God -- it wouldn't negate the written word. It would include all truth about God.
It may be true that most of the time when the New Testament writers referred to "Scripture" they meant the Old Testament, but as you point out, Paul referenced Luke and Peter straight out calls Paul's writing Scripture. They may not have had the idea that what they were writing was going to be in a Bible some day, but they did know it was extremely important and inspired by God.
Wow, your follow-up comment really exposes some illogical thinking on the part of some people!
If it were true that Jesus alone is the truth and that therefore the entire Word of God is not also the truth, then only those people who were alive at the time and place where they could encounter Jesus in person could know the truth. But if no one before His time on earth could know the God’s truth, how would they have been able to recognize Jesus as the prophesied Messiah and Savior when He appeared? And if those who knew Jesus recorded it all for those that followed--i.e. shared the truth of Jesus with those who came later--then we are back to embracing the New Testament--God’s written Word. None of it makes sense except in its totality. Also, the phrase “Jesus, the truth incarnate” implies additional revealed truth, since random truth claims cannot be properly judged and substantiated without context. Jesus would be “a truth incarnate” rather than “the truth incarnate” without the written Word of God.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to interpret Jesus' claim to be "The Truth" as meaning that Jesus embodies everything that is True. That He is the very foundation of all Truth, and that everything that is True is founded in Him and the character of YHWH?
I think that this notion that the writers of scripture knew that their writings would be gathered in one specific book in the future is an example of people imposing 21st century thinking on the writers of scripture. It's the attitude that we as modern people know better than a bunch of Bronze Age savages.
1 Corinthians 14:37 "If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment."
Seems to me that Paul that he was writing Scripture.
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