Jesus Christ and the Authority of the Word of God (Urbana 73)

Part 1 of 2
by John R. W. Stott

Mr. Stott's talk has also been published as a booklet entitled The Authority of the Bible (InterVarsity Press).

Note: For ease of use, we have broken this talk into two webpages.
To read the second half of the talk, click Here.
Also, to see more on Urbana 73, click here.

Authority is a dirty word today, dirty, disliked, even detested. I doubt if any other word arouses more instant aversion among the young and the radical of all kinds. Authority smacks of establishment, of privilege, of oppression, of tyranny. And whether we like it or not, we are witnessing in our day a global revolt against all authority, whether of the family, the college, the bosses, the church, the state or God.

Now the Christian is always in an ambivalent position vis à vis the mood of the world. We have to avoid the two extremes of an uncritical acquiescence and of an equally uncritical rejection. On the one hand, we should respond to the contemporary world with sensitivity - listening, striving to understand and where possible agreeing. On the other hand, we must continue to stand over against the world, evaluating secular society by our own objective Christian criteria, and where necessary disagreeing, protesting and rejecting. It is not the calling of the church to be a chorus girl or - to use a more biblical metaphor - a reed shaken with the wind.

If we adopt this double stance towards the world, what will happen to the debate about authority? It would be extremely foolish if our immediate reaction were completely negative, and we were to give the whole anti-authority movement a blanket condemnation. For I do not hesitate to say that some of it is responsible, mature and truly Christian. It arises from the Christian doctrine of man and his dignity as a creature made in God's likeness. It protests against the dehumanization of human beings and sets itself against all injustice and discrimination which insult both God the creator and man the creature. It seeks to protect man against exploitation by "the system," "the machine," "the institution." It longs to see men liberated to enjoy their God-given freedom.

It is right, therefore, to detect a grievous misuse of authority when civil rights and freedom of speech are denied to citizens, when a racial or tribal or religious minority is victimized, when an economic system holds people in bondage to materialism or when education is hardly distinguishable from indoctrination. In such situations, when non-Christians protest, Christians should not be ashamed to be associated with the protest. Indeed, we should have initiated it ourselves.

On the other hand, much of today's anti-authority mood is more radical still. Sometimes it is a plea not for the true human liberty which God intends for mankind, but for anarchy (a total abolition of the rule of law) and for an individual human autonomy (every man a law to himself) which God never intended. Christians cannot go along with secularists when they agitate for unlimited permissiveness in social and ethical terms, nor when they foolishly imagine that "free thought" is intellectual freedom or that "free sex" is moral freedom.

For Christians are convinced that neither truth nor righteousness is relative, since God has given us (by revelation) absolute standards both of what is true and of what is right. Which brings us straight to our subject:

Jesus Christ and the authority of the Word of God.
Our starting point is the remark attributed to Charles Lamb that "if Shakespeare was to come into this room we should all rise up to meet him, but if that Person [Jesus Christ] was to come into it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment." For myself I think we would do more than kiss his clothing. We would surely go on to acknowledge him as our Lord. We would kneel beside Thomas saying "My Lord and my God" and beside Saul of Tarsus saying "Lord, what do you want me to do?"

This is the only possible attitude of mind in which to approach our study of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Word of God, for my theme is that belief in the authority of Scripture and submission to the authority of Scripture are necessary consequences of our submission to the lordship of Jesus. I propose first to expound this theme and then to draw some deductions from it.

Exposition
What is the major reason why evangelical Christians believe that the Bible is God's Word written, inspired by his Spirit and anthoritative over their lives? It is certainly not that we take a blindfold leap into the darkness and resolve to believe what we strongly suspect is incredible. Nor is it because the universal church consistently taught this for the first eighteen centuries of its life (though it did, and this long tradition is not to be lightly set aside). Nor is it because God's Word authenticates itself to us as we read it today - by the majesty of its themes, by the unity of its message and by the power of its influence (though it does all this and more). No. The overriding reason for accepting the divine inspiration and authority of Scripture is plain loyalty to Jesus.

We believe in Jesus. We are convinced that he came from heaven and spoke from God. He said so: "No one knows the Father, except the Son," he claimed (Mt. 11:27). Again, "my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" (Jn 7:16) and "we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen" (Jn 3:11). So we are prepared to believe what he taught for the simple reason that it is he who taught it. Therefore we bring our minds into submission to his mind. We want to conform our thoughts to his thoughts.

It is from Jesus that we derive our understanding of God and man, of good and evil, of duty and destiny, of time and eternity, of heaven and hell. Our understanding of everything is conditioned by what Jesus taught. And this everything means everything: it includes his teaching about the Bible. We have no liberty to exclude anything from Jesus' teaching and say "I believe what he taught about this but not what he taught about that." What possible right have we to be selective? We have no competence to set ourselves up as judges and decide to accept some parts of his teaching while rejecting others. All Jesus' teaching was true. It is the teaching of none other than the Son of God.

What, then, did Jesus teach about the Bible? We have to remember, of course, that the Bible consists of two halves, the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the way he endorsed each is different - inevitably so because the New Testament had not yet been written.

The Old Testament
Jesus made several direct statements about the Old Testament's divine origin and permanent validity. He had not come to abolish the law and the prophets, he said in the Sermon on the Mount, but to fulfill them. Indeed, "till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished" (Mt. 5:17-18; cf. Lk. 16:17). Again, "Scripture cannot be broken" (Jn. 10:35).

To these direct statements we should add the indirect evidence provided by the formulae he used to introduce his Scripture quotations. For example, he prefaced a quotation from Psalm 110 by the expression "David himself said in [that is, inspired by) the Holy Spirit" (Mk. 12:35), and he attributed a statement about marriage written by the author of Genesis to the Creator himself, who in the beginning made man male and female (Mt. 19:4-5).

More impressive than what Jesus said about Scripture, however, is the way he personally used it. His high view of Scripture as God's written Word is amply illustrated in the important place it occupied in his own life and ministry. He did not just talk about Scripture; he believed it and acted upon it himself. Let me give you three examples. In each there was a potential element of uncertainty, a question or problem. In each he answered the question and resolved the problem by an appeal to Scripture. In each, therefore, his personal submission to Scripture is plainly seen.

The first is the area of personal duty. What did the Lord God require of him? What were to be the standards and values by which he would live his life? The devil raised such questions as these with Jesus in the wilderness of Judea, as he had raised them with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden several millenia previously. The devil tempted Jesus to disobey God, to doubt God and to desert God. But whereas in the garden Eve succumbed to the insinuations of Satan, in the wilderness Jesus resisted them. "Begone Satan! " he cried. Why? "Because it stands written in Scripture) 'you shall not.'" The plain prohibitions of Scripture were enough for Jesus. For him what Scripture said God said. There was no place for argument and no room for negotiation. He was determined to obey God his Father, and he knew that in order to do so he must submit to Scripture and do what stands written there.

My second example takes us to the area of official ministry. The Gospels do not describe the process by which Jesus came to an understanding of who he was (his identity) and what he had come to do (his role). It seems very probable, however, that it was through meditation in the Old Testament Scripture. Certainly before his public ministry began he knew he was the Son of God, the anointed King, the suffering servant and the glorious Son of man described by different psalms and prophets. Also, he had so fused these different pictures in his mind that he knew he could enter his glory only if he were first to serve, suffer and die.

This self-understanding was confirmed to him at his baptism when the Father's voice acclaimed him saying: "You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."

But immediately afterwards the devil precipitated him into a painful identity crisis, challenging him repeatedly in the wilderness - 'If you are the Son of God ... if ... if ... if ..." - attempting to sow in his mind seedsof doubt about his identity and role.

And these temptations continued throughout his ministry. Another crisis came at Caesarea Philippi when Jesus first taught the apostles openly "the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected and be killed," and Peter rebuked him, "No, Lord. God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you" (Mt. 16:22). Immediately Jesus rounded on Peter with the fierce words, "Get behind me, Satan!" He recognized in the words of Peter the voice of the devil. It was the same question of his identity and role.
Peter did it again in the Garden of Gethsemane when he drew his sword and tried to avert the arrest of Jesus. Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place ... Do you think I cannot appeal to my Father and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" (Mt. 26:52-54).

This "must" ("the Son of man must suffer," "it must be so") has only one explanation. It was a necessity laid upon him by Scripture. Scripture revealed to him his messianic role. And he was determined voluntarily to fulfill it, because, as far as he was concerned, what Scripture said God said.

The third area of questioning in which Jesus was involved was that of public controversy. Every reader of the Gospels quickly notices how many public debates they include. Regarding him as a particularly wise rabbi, individuals would come to him with their questions. Sometimes they were genuine inquiries like "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" On this occasion Jesus' reply is significant, He responded with a counterquestion: "What is written in the law? How do you read?" (Lk. 10:25?26).

Jesus was also drawn into disagreement with the religious authorities, in particular the rival groups known as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Both criticized him and came to him with their trick questions. The Pharisees complained that his followers did not observe the traditions of the elders in ceremonial matters like washing their hands and their vessels. In his reply Jesus accused them of rejecting the commandment of God and making void the Word of God in order to keep their traditions (Mk. 7:1-13).

The Sadducees, on the other hand, who did not believe in survival or resurrection, emphasized the problems an afterlife would create. They asked Jesus what would happen to a poor woman who had seven husbands, one after the other, each of whom she outlived. Whose wife would she be in the resurrection? Would she have one of them (which would mean the other six were out of luck) or none of them (which would be a bit hard all round) or all seven (which somehow does not sound decent) ? They thought they could dispose of the doctrine of the resurrection by ridicule. But Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?" (Mk. 12:18-27).

Thus Jesus' complaint to both religious groups concerned their cavalier treatment of the Word of God. For the Pharisees added to Scripture (namely, their traditions) while the Sadducees subtracted from Scripture (namely, the supernatural). Neither of them gave Scripture the respect it deserved as God's Word written. Jesus accused the Pharisees of making it void and the Sadducees of being ignorant of it. In both cases he appealed against their teaching to Scripture. He made Scripture the judge.

In each of these three examples - concerning the realms of personal duty, official ministry and public controversy - there was a question, a problem, a dispute. And in each case Jesus turned to Scripture to answer the question, to solve the problem, to settle the dispute. When the devil tempted him, he resisted the temptation with "It stands written." When the apostles rejected the necessity of his sufferings he insisted that the Scriptures must be fulfilled. When the Jewish leaders criticized his teaching, he criticized their treatment of Scripture.

This evidence cannot be gainsaid. Jesus endorsed the Old Testament as the Word of God. Both in his view of Scripture and in his use of Scripture he was entirely and reverently submissive to its authority as to the authority of God's own Word.

Now the disciple is not above his teacher, nor is the servant above his lord. How then can we, the disciples of Jesus, possibly have a lower view of Scripture than our teacher himself had? How can we, the servants of Jesus, allow Scripture to occupy a smaller place in our lives than it occupied in the life of our Lord himself?

There are only two possible escape routes from this obligation. The first is to say that Jesus did not know what he was talking about, that the incarnation imprisoned him in the limited mentality of a first-century Palestinian Jew, and that consequently he believed the Old Testament as they did, but that he, like them, was mistaken. The second is to say that Jesus did know what he was talking about, that he actually knew Scripture to be unreliable, but that he still affirmed its reliability because his contemporaries did and he did not want to upset them.

According to the first explanation, Jesus' erroneous teaching was involuntary (he could not help it); according to the second it was deliberate. These theories portray Jesus as either deceived or a deceiver. They discredit the incarnate Son of God. They are incompatible both with his claims to speak what he knew (Jn. 3:11), to bear witness to the truth and to be the truth (Jn. 18:37; 14:6), and with his known hatred of all hypocrisy and deceit. They are totally unacceptable to anybody who has been led by the Holy Spirit to say "Jesus is Lord" (I Cor. 12:3). Over against these slanderous speculations we must continue to affirm that Jesus knew what he was teaching, that he meant it, and that what he taught and meant is true.

The New Testament
The argument here is different, but equally compelling. If Jesus endorsed the Old Testament, setting upon it the stamp of his own approval, he also foresaw the writing of the Scriptures of the New Testament, parallel to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, Indeed, he not only foresaw it, he actually intended it, and he deliberately made provision for it by appointing and authorizing his apostles.

Apostle is the title which Jesus himself chose for the Twelve, in order to indicate their role. "He called his disciples," Luke writes, "and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles" (Lk. 6:13). Mark adds that he appointed them "to be sent out to preach" (Mk. 3:14). The verb apostello means to send, and the mission on which he proposed to send them was essentially a teaching and preaching mission.

It is true that the word apostolos seems to have been used once in the New Testament to describe every Christian (Jn. 13:16), for Jesus sends us all "into the world" as his ambassadors and we are all called to have some share in the apostolic mission of the church (Jn. 17:18; 20:21). It is also true that the same word apostolos is used once or twice in the expression "apostles of the churches" (2 Cor. 8:23; cf. Phil. 2:25), which seems to refer to what we would call "missionaries" - Christians sent on a particular mission by the church (cf. Acts 13:3; 14:14). Nevertheless, the almost universal practice of the New Testament is to restrict the word apostolos to the special apostles of Christ, namely, the original twelve, together with a very small number of later additions, notably Paul (cf. Gal. 1:1) and James, the Lord's brother (Gal. 1:19).

There was a double background to the word apostle - ancient and contemporary - which helps us to interpret its meaning and understand why Jesus chose it. The ancient background is biblical, namely, the repeated Old Testament use of the verb to send in reference to the prophets of God. "Come," said God to Moses, "I will send you to Pharaoh" (Ex. 3:10); and later Moses insisted over against his jealous rivals, "You shall know that the Lord has sent me ... and that it has not been of my own accord" (Num. 16:28-29).

It was even clearer in the case of the great prophets of the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. "Whom shall I send?" God had asked in Isaiah's hearing. "Send me," Isaiah had replied (Is. 6:8). "To all to whom I send you you shall go," he said to Jeremiah (Jer. 1:7), and to Ezekiel: "Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel" (Ezek. 2:3).

Several times the word of God came to Jeremiah saying, "I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently" (Jer. 35:15). In each case the "sending" is not a vague dispatch but a specific commission to assume the role of a prophet and to speak God's word to the people.

It is evident that when Jesus gave to the Twelve the title apostles and sent them out to teach, he was likening his apostles to God's prophets and indicating that they were to speak in his name and carry his word to others. The prophets of the Old Testament and apostles of the New Testament were equally organs of divine revelation. As such they are the foundation on which the church is being built (Eph. 2:20; 3:51).

The second background was contemporary. It appears from recent research that apostolos is the Greek equivalent of the Aramaic shaliach, and that the shaliach already had a well-defined meaning as a teacher sent out by the Sanhedrin to instruct the Jews of the Dispersion. As such the shaliach carried the authority of those he represented, so that it was said, "the one who is sent is as he who sent him." In the same way Jesus sent out his apostles to represent hirn, to bear his authority and teach in his name, so that he could say of them: "He who receives you receives me" (Mt. 10:40; cf. Jn. 13:20).

Both the prophetic and the rabbinic background throw light on the meaning of the word apostolos. The apostle was a specially chosen emissary, the bearer of another and higher authority, the herald of a given message.

When one turns to the New Testament itself and to the New Testament's understanding of the apostles of Jesus, it appears that they were given a threefold equipment for their task, which together render them a unique and irreplaceable group. These three qualifications were their personal commission, their historical experience and their special inspiration.

First, their personal commission. No apostle was self-appointed, or even appointed by another man or men or even by the church. They were all personally chosen, commissioned and authorized by Jesus. This was clear in the case of the Twelve. Out of a much wider constituency of disciples Jesus "chose from them twelve,whom he named apostles" (Lk. 6:13). It was equally clear in the case of Paul, although Christ chose him after the ascension. One of the accounts of his conversion which Luke preserves in Acts includes the very words of apostolic commissioning, ego opostello se, "I apostle you" or "I make you an apostle" (Acts 26:17). And in his letters Paul not only asserts his apostleship ("Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God") but vigorously defends it (for example, in Gal. 1:1, "Paul an apostle - not from men nor through man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead").

Second, their historical experience. Again, this is clear in the case of the Twelve. Jesus appointed them, writes Mark, "to be with him and to be sent out to preach" (Mk. 3:14). These two purposes belonged together. They could be sent out to preach only after they had been with him, for their preaching was to be a witness to him, out of their own experience, from what they had seen and heard. "You also are witnesses," Jesus was to say to them later, "because you have been with me from the beginning" (Jn. 15:27).

Go to part 2

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Jesus Christ and the Authority of the Word of God (Urbana 73)

God's Word

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December 27-31, 2009