Question 3: Scripture

This episode expounds Question 3 of the catechism.

Q. 3. What has God given to direct us how to be saved from sin? The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are the Word of God, contain all things necessary to salvation.

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You're listening to the Holy Joys Catechism Podcast, an introduction to the basics of the Christian faith. For more resources, visit catechism.holyjoys.org.

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Question three asks, What has God given to direct us how to be saved from sin? The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are the Word of God, contain all things necessary to salvation. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are the Word of God, contain all things necessary to salvation. So to understand the big idea here, we have to look back at questions one and two. We were created to be happy in God, to know, love, and enjoy our Creator. That's question one. But sin prevents our happiness in God. Question two. Sin offers us a temporary pleasure, a fleeting happiness that ultimately ends in misery and separates us from God, the source of true happiness and satisfaction. And so scripture then is that guide that God has given us to direct us how we can be set free from sin, save from sin, so that we can know love and enjoy him, so that we can come home to God and have that life-giving relationship with God for which we are so restless until we find our rest in him. So let's just break down this answer and look at a few key words. So the word scriptures means sacred writings, holy, special writings that are set apart from all other writings. And so in 2nd Timothy 315, Paul refers to the scriptures as the sacred writings. The holy scriptures, when we refer to those scriptures, we're referring to a body of literature, a collection of books that are recognized as being special and set apart from all other writings. And that collection of books is sometimes called the canon of scripture. So the canon is that collection of holy special books. And we recognize 66 books in the Old and New Testaments. So these books are divided into two major parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. But all of these books are set apart by their special divine quality, by their authorship, for example, by the apostles that Jesus chose or their close associates, and by the fact that they've been received by the whole church throughout history. The Belgic Confession says we receive all these books and these only as holy and canonical for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith. The Old Testament canon, the books that were collected in the first half, first part of the Bible, were recognized by Jesus himself as being authoritative in God's word. And then the New Testament canon developed through a very similar process. And some of the books in the New Testament were already being recognized by the early Christians and other apostles like Peter as divine scripture. So Peter says that the writings of Paul are recognized already as scripture, as being special books, unlike any other books. The Old and New Testaments should not be pitted against each other as if the Old Testament is old and outdated and not relevant anymore, and the New Testament is the only one that matters. Sometimes these testaments are called the First and Second Testaments, as a way to emphasize that Old doesn't mean less important, because the two testaments tell one unified story which centers on Jesus Christ. And so the New Testament opens up with the coming of Jesus, who was anticipated in the Old Testament. And Jesus himself said that he came not to do away with the Old, but to fulfill it. The plan and promises of God in the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New. And so without the Old, we lack vital context for understanding the meaning and the purpose of the New Testament. In the Articles of Religion, it points to Jesus as the unifying figure of the Old and New Testament. They aren't contrary to one another because in both testaments, everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man, being both God and man. So the Old Testament is anticipating the coming of Jesus Christ, pointing towards him as the hope of the world. The New Testament is announcing that Christ has come and that all has been fulfilled. Saint Augustine had this beautiful little formula the New is in the Old, concealed. The old is in the new revealed. So the New Testament is there in the Old Testament, it's just concealed. The truth and the reality of Jesus Christ was already foreshadowed and prefigured in the Old. It just wasn't clear yet. And then in the New Testament, the Old is finally revealed. Sometimes the illustration is used of a room where all the furniture is there, but the lights are turned off, and all you can see is the shadows. It's there, but it's concealed. Jesus is the light, and once the light is turned on in the room, now everything is revealed, and looking back on the Old Testament, we can see Jesus everywhere. And so Augustine said, all the divine writings, Old and New Testament, all the divine writings are at peace and consistent with each other. The Holy Scriptures, the sacred writings of the Old and New Testaments. Now, the next phrase is which are the word of God. These are not just human writings. These are not just the best human writings. If they were, then they wouldn't be called sacred scripture. They go beyond being merely the best human writings to being human writings that were carried out under the influence of the Holy Spirit. 2 Timothy 3.16 says, all scripture is breathed out by God. And the second epistle of Peter describes the process by which this happened. The human authors, as they wrote, were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit erased the personality of the writers. It doesn't mean that he took over their minds and their pens so that they were no longer acting as conscious agents. But it does mean that God so sovereignly and providentially oversaw the process of writing that when they were done, they wrote exactly what God wanted them to write, so that their words were not merely human words, but were indeed the words of God. And this is commonly called the inspiration of Scripture. In fact, 2 Timothy 316 is sometimes translated, all scripture is inspired by God. The Bible is the word of God through the words of men. No other human writing is the perfect and unfailing word of God. That doesn't mean that we don't treasure other human writings. We certainly do. We treasure the writings of the early Christians, of the church fathers, who have stood the test of time, who have had their wisdom tested by generations of Christians who have found it valuable. But the Belgic Confession reminds us that we must not consider human writings, no matter how holy their authors may have been, we should not consider those equal to the divine writings. Scripture alone is the word of God. And then finally, uh the scriptures of the Old New Testaments, which are the Word of God, contain all things necessary to salvation. All things necessary to salvation. The Belgic Confession says everything one must believe to be saved is sufficiently taught in it. And because of what we call the sufficiency of Scripture for salvation, the articles of religion say that whatsoever is not read in them, nor may be proved by them, is not to be required of anyone, that it should be believed as an article of faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. Because Scripture is sufficient for us to know all the things we need to know to be saved. It is a sufficient guide to be saved from sin given by God Himself. We should not require someone to believe something that can't be found in Scripture or proved by Scripture and say, you have to believe that or do that in order to be saved. Scripture is sufficient, and we need to have confidence that God has given us what we need in Scripture. 2 Timothy 3.15 is a key verse here. Paul says the scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And this is something that was affirmed by the early church fathers. Cyril of Jerusalem said, This salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning. It's not some great man-made scheme about how to be saved, something we've made up, the best human wisdom brought together. No, he says it depends on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures. We as pastors, we as church leaders, our job is not to invent some means by which human beings can have their best life and be set free from all the things that plague them and offer them some kind of man-made hope for life after death, but rather to simply set forth and declare from Scripture what God has said about how to be safe from sin and how to know him. In the preface to his sermons on several occasions, John Wesley has this beautiful passage where he talks about how his life is short. He's just here for a time, and soon he's gonna pass into eternity. And what he wants to know is how to be saved, how to make it to heaven, to God's dwelling place, to be with God eternally, and how Scripture is what God has given for that pursuit. He says I am a creature of the day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God and returning to God, just hovering over the great gulf, till a few moments hence I am seen no more. I drop into an unchangeable eternity. I want to know one thing, the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way. For this very end he came from heaven. He has written it down in a book. Oh give me that book. At any price, give me the book of God. I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be Homo unius libri, a man of one book. John Wesley was a man of many books in the sense that he read and published and shared hundreds of great books across his lifetime. He was an avid reader. He believed every Methodist preacher should read five hours every morning. And yet, John Wesley here says, really, when it all comes down to it, I'm a man of one book, because all the other books I read are helping me to go deeper into my knowledge of the one book that is at the heart of my faith because it is God's word to me about how to be saved and how to spend eternity with him.

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