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[0:00] All right, well, welcome, friends. It's good to see you. Last week, we considered the context for any affirmation of the authority of Scripture.

[0:15] How our cultural context is one deeply suspicious of any claims to authority. Come on in, friends. Just in time.

[0:30] Our cultural context is one deeply suspicious of any claims to authority. But we also considered how the biblical context answers this cultural concern by revealing how God exercises his authority as an instrument of holy good.

[0:55] We explored how worthy Jesus is of our trust. As one who has authority, one meek and lowly of heart. One who came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom.

[1:09] Now, this morning, we want to consider more specifically God's authority as it is invested and involved in the Scriptures, the Christian Scriptures.

[1:24] Now, the authority of Scripture, the Christian Scriptures, at least in the West, since the Enlightenment, has come under unprecedented and sustained attack.

[1:38] And indeed, for many traditional believers, this stress of this onslaught has proved absolutely overwhelming. And they found themselves, often to their great sorrow and confusion, bereaved of their once firm and fundamental conviction as to the trustworthiness and authority of the Bible.

[2:03] John Ruskin, the greatest theet, confided to a friend that he broke out into cold sweat at the sound of every strike of the geologist's hammer.

[2:21] For fear that it would uncover something that would rob him of some precious Bible truth. A loss that Matthew Arnold's poem, Dover Beach, likens to a receding tide.

[2:38] The sea of faith was once too at the full and round earth shore lay like the fold of a bright girdled furled.

[2:50] But now I only hear its melancholy, long withdrawing roar, retreating to the breath of the night wing down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world.

[3:06] Now, for some of you here, the notion of doubt dealing difficulties with the Bible is completely alien.

[3:22] Whatever could they mean, problems with the Bible? God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. If history or science or moral intuition seems to disagree with the scriptures, so much the worse for history or science or moral intuition.

[3:41] And indeed, perhaps, for some of you, the divine God-breathed character of the Bible is reinforced every time you open its precious pages and find in them the Savior you have come to love.

[3:56] Its spiritual work of comfort and guidance and healing and succor is so deep and wonderful. You could never doubt that the words of scripture are the very words of God.

[4:13] But there are others in the Christian fold for whom their experience of the Bible has raised many a question, some pressing. Some pages of scripture are, for them, not obvious candidates for God's words.

[4:29] These doubts, often agonizing, need not reflect infidelity. They may come out of a context of faith and reflect something of Mary's query.

[4:42] How can these things be? And I want to direct my comments this morning chiefly to those among us for whom these gnawing questions are a reality.

[4:56] Who feel some difficulty in affirming the Bible in all of its parts as God's word and as such divinely authoritative in all that it affirms.

[5:08] And indeed, in all likelihood, largely inhabit a world in which such a conviction is thought utterly implausible, ludicrous, even maybe morally reprehensible.

[5:21] So I want to first suggest some lines of reflection, which to my mind at least constitute strong grounds for maintaining the authority of the Bible, even in the midst of persisting difficulties.

[5:38] And our time will only allow me to be suggestive here, not exhaustive. But I hope fruitfully to seed your own further reflections that they might have in them seminally all that is needed for a harvest of strong conviction on this vital point.

[6:00] So hopefully, then today, laying this foundation, next week we'll take up the remaining sheer and stress on the structure, the foundation that we've laid.

[6:13] I will next week offer then some considerations, which I hope will render any persistent problems a little bit less problematic. How do we deal with the remaining doubt?

[6:25] So that'll be next week, Lord willing, if we're there. So let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, as we take up this topic, we especially crave the presence of your Holy Spirit, both in your Spirit's clarifying work, forming in us convictions, and in his comforting work, addressing our doubts and anxieties, which can easily gnaw on our souls and rob us of our joy.

[7:01] So we ask for his presence, confidently remembering your assurance that it would indeed be so. We commit our time to you. In Jesus' name.

[7:13] Amen. Okay, here we go, team. So let's consider some grounds for maintaining the authority of Scripture.

[7:27] And we're dealing with a wonderfully rich tapestry of warrant here. And any number of strands could be explored. We might take up the claims that Scripture makes for itself in reference to its truthfulness.

[7:45] So for instance, Psalm 119, verse 60 says, the sum of your word is truth. Notice, considering the whole collectively.

[7:58] But then, but then, David goes on and states, concerning its individual parts, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

[8:12] Or Psalm 12, verse 6, the words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times.

[8:25] clearly, clearly, no dross or ore, mingled, making it unreliable. It's a real potent image, isn't it?

[8:35] Refined seven times over. And in fact, the Hebrew word translated here as pure gives us another image. For it was that Hebrew word, tahor, tahor, I'm not good at Hebrew pronunciation.

[8:50] It was used, that was the word that was used to communicate ritual purity, as was required for the sacrificial lamb, without spot or blemish.

[9:02] That's what God's word is like. Utterly free from any defect, like that sacrificial spotless lamb.

[9:14] And any attentive reader of the scriptures will know that such claims are just studded throughout the Bible and could be multiplied effortlessly. These are just two. They're so commonplace.

[9:26] So that would be one strand of argument, just going through and looking at what sort of claims the Bible makes for itself. Some might plausibly object, well, wait a minute, isn't that circular?

[9:40] Yeah, I mean, we want to know if we can trust the Bible. So we look at the Bible and the Bible says, yes, it's trustworthy. You know, it's circular. Well, yes, it is.

[9:52] But anytime you're arguing for your final authority, you will either be circular or you will be inconsistent. Because if I'm arguing for my final authority and say, well, the Bible's authoritative and I'm, well, why do you believe that?

[10:12] If I say, well, it seems to make sense, it pragmatically works out, well, then my ultimate authority is pragmatism, not the word. So you're either going to be circular when you're arguing for your final authority or you're going to be inconsistent.

[10:27] Makes sense to me. Well, then reason is your final authority. So you got to do that. So there's one line. What does the Bible say about itself? But another particularly compelling line of thought explores the attitude of Jesus himself toward the scriptures.

[10:46] And this would make sense that we would consider that because as disciples of Jesus, what it means to be a disciple is to conform our views to the ones that Jesus had.

[10:57] our thoughts, we want to conform to his mind in all matters so we would naturally act. Well, what was his view of scripture's authority?

[11:09] Seeking to adopt that very view as our own if we're his disciples. And we can get at that, his view, straightforwardly revealed in his direct statements.

[11:22] And there are plenty of them. So, for example, on the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5.18, he says, truly I say to you, truly, again, a solemn asserberation.

[11:33] I'm really confident about this. Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law.

[11:47] And by law, Jesus is just using common parlance of the Hebrew culture in his day. Not pointing to just one single little bit of scripture, the law of Moses, but speaking of the whole thing as they commonly did, considering it in its commanding form.

[12:04] Indeed, taking up this very topic that we are taking up in its authoritative commanding form. All of scripture commands us because it comes with God's authority. So not a jot or a tittle.

[12:15] That is, not the least part shall prove to be less than of abiding authority. Or, as he tersely states, recorded in John 10.35, scripture cannot be broken.

[12:33] That is, it can never fail in its judgments and statements and is incapable of proving false. Or again, Matthew 22.29, is telling.

[12:47] Regarding the much married wife conundrum expounded by the Sadducees. Remember that? Jesus simply says, oh, you err, not knowing the scriptures.

[13:01] Remember that? That is, had you known the scriptures, you wouldn't have made this mistake. The assumption is clear. Scripture is an infallible guide to truth in these matters.

[13:13] And had you clung to it, well, you would have been right. Satan in the, Jesus in the wilderness. Oh, that's a good one.

[13:23] Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, I'll get to that in just a moment. That's, I will remember that one. So, summing up his conviction, Jesus states in the course of his high priestly prayer, addressing the Father, your word is truth.

[13:43] John 17, 17. So these, some of his direct statements, but even if we did not have these explicit statements of Jesus on the scriptures authority, just his whole manner is decisively telling in its implicit presupposition.

[14:04] Again, if you're familiar with the gospels, you're aware of this reality. To settle any controversy, Jesus simply quotes scripture as decisively authoritative to settle the matter as he does in Matthew 19, verse 4, concerning divorce.

[14:23] Oh, here's a question for you, Jesus. Oh, have you not read? This is what the scripture says. Boom. End of issue. As Jesus asserted, and this is what Raul just brought up, Jesus asserted against Satan in the temptation, Matthew 4, 4.

[14:41] Man shall live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And his practice testifies to his confidence as to every word.

[14:56] For Jesus is quite comfortable hanging his arguments, letting them turn entirely on a single word of scripture.

[15:07] Even a single tense of a single word of scripture. So, for example, we see this in Matthew 22, 32. Again, taking up with the Sadducees on the matter of the resurrection.

[15:22] Remember that where he says, oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, what do the scriptures say? I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[15:33] In other words, not I was their God when they were alive. I am currently their God. In other words, they are still arrived. God is still their God because they are still alive.

[15:47] Notice the whole argument is just on the tense of that. There's more to the argument to that, but that's a lot of it. Not only God is still their God because they are still alive, but they are still alive because God is their God, their personal God.

[16:04] God is so involved with them intimately, he can call them, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I have a special relationship, an intimate relationship with them. Therefore, because that's so, it's impossible to think that they could just die and go.

[16:18] So that's part of his argument, but part of it is just based on the tense, just the tense. Recall his remark in the Sermon on the Mount, remember Matthew 5, 18, authoritative down to the last stroke, or in Hebrew just jot or a tittle, the smallest little, he illustrates his conviction in reference to Psalm 110 verse 1 where he points out, do you remember that passage when he's dealing with the Pharisees and asking, hey, think about who the Messiah is.

[16:55] And he points out that David calls the Messiah Lord. The Lord, God the Father, said to my Lord, the Messiah, sit at thy right hand, and so forth.

[17:08] But it all pivots on just one stroke that makes it a reference, David's reference to my Lord in that. one stroke would have been a little bit longer, would have changed the reference on that.

[17:23] So the argument depends on just slightly lengthening the tiniest little jot. The argument depends on a single stroke of scripture, and Jesus doesn't hesitate to confidently assert it.

[17:38] So this is his practice. I'm supposed to be talking about good books on these as I go along. So one of these is John Wenham, an English scholar, and the book is called Christ and the Bible.

[17:49] It's an old book, but I don't think it's been improved upon. It's fantastic. I think it was out in 72, University Press, John Wenham's Christ and the Bible. So I think these in themselves, one, we've looked at the claims of scripture that it makes for itself, and the attitude of Jesus himself concerning scripture, I think those constitute good grounds for affirming scripture's authority.

[18:23] And these lines of argument are commonly and justly invoked and rightly part of an argument's stout weave, stout weave. But the strand that I want particularly to take up and reflect upon with you, we might call, or I'm going to call it this, the Trinitarian ontology of scripture.

[18:46] The Trinitarian ontology of scripture. That is, I want to explore the question, what are the implications for the character of scripture, of the involvement in them of the trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit?

[19:07] What are the implications for the characters of scripture, of the involvement in them of the trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit?

[19:18] And while we will consider all three persons of the trinity, and we'll kind of go through them one at a time, given, as we know, the intimate relations within the trinity, a crisp parsing out of their various involvements is a little artificial, because you say, wow, is that really the father?

[19:38] Is that really the son? After all, any action of one person of the trinity entails the involvement of all, what theologians call the perichoresis, or it's a Greek word kind of for an interwoven or interlocking dance of the persons of the trinity, peri, around, choresis, a choreography, kind of an interwoven dance of all the persons of the trinity together in all of their activities.

[20:16] So a little bit of artificial to separate them out. But anyway, even if we can't separate them out for our purpose as to the involvements in scripture of the persons of the trinity, what counts is not the distinctiveness of their involvement, but it's decisiveness.

[20:32] That's really what the argument is going to be based upon. So let's go into that. What about the involvement of the father? Let's go back to the beginning and reflect upon the relationship between God's person and the words that he speaks.

[20:56] And scripture indicates a very close relationship between them. Think back of Eden where God establishes a relationship between himself and Adam and Eve in part by means of a command.

[21:15] Remember? Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And when they disobeyed this verbal, this spoken command, they fractured their relationship with God himself.

[21:32] When his words are set aside, he himself is set aside. This helps us to see how God has invested himself in his words.

[21:50] Indeed, in a sense, he has identified himself with his words. whatever somebody does with God's words, they do to God himself.

[22:06] And this covenantal, I think we could call it a covenantal pattern, runs throughout scripture. And it is the fundamental way his redemptive relationship with his people unfolds and is expressed.

[22:22] The reality and nature of our relationship with God is determined by the reality and nature of our relationship to the words God speaks.

[22:38] Think of the Ark of Covenant containing the tablets of his words to us. His words were the mode by which he chose to be present among his people.

[22:55] So God's actions, including verbal actions, are a kind of extension of himself. To put trust in the covenant words God spoke to his people was to put trust in God himself.

[23:15] So, and think about this, communication from God is communion with God when met with a response of trust.

[23:27] Communication from God is communion with God when met with a response of trust. How we might wonder, did God speak to Adam and Eve in the garden or to his people, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses?

[23:42] Well, we're not told how, but as the Old Testament unfolds, one form of divine speaking does emerge as prominent.

[23:55] God's speech through his appointed prophets in words that they utter in ordinary human language. And the Bible gives no worked out theology or philosophical account.

[24:10] we could put some together, and some have done so, of how human words can be said to be God's words.

[24:22] There's no clear philosophical account for that in Scripture. But it does hint as to how it might be. It is interesting, and I think significant, that when the Bible speaks of God creating mankind in his image and likeness.

[24:45] Though we're not told exactly what this means by being created in his image and likeness. We have, remember, we have God speaking, let us make mankind in our own image.

[25:01] Then, he fashions mankind in his likeness, and then immediately addresses them in speech. Could not God's image and likeness then include a capacity for complex language reflecting God's own character?

[25:25] Though I don't think that the image of God is exhaustively this, it's more than just that, it, I think, includes this. It is this capacity for complex language.

[25:41] That's part of God's image in us. And if so, that language is a divine gift from God, then it is a point of contact, not a chasm between the human and the divine.

[26:02] God's mind. And this is where I think a lot of people get this wrong. Well, our language is human and how could human language actually ever be a point of contact with the divine, the transcendent?

[26:20] How could it be? Well, what if actually our language capacity is a gift of God, an endowment? And that's what it seems to be. Then it would be a point of contact, not a chasm between us.

[26:35] Our language can be made by God to speak truthfully of Him because our language has its origin in Him and in ways requisite for communication is like His own.

[26:54] So, throughout Scripture, we see Scripture presented as God's Word. It is divine rhetoric.

[27:08] And not only that portion in which His very finger, we are told, inscribed the words upon stone tablets, but also, as mentioned, the prophetic word, the words that the prophets speak are divine rhetoric.

[27:25] As a test by the repeated refrain that we see again and again, and the word of the Lord came to Amos, and the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and the word of the Lord came to again and again and again.

[27:39] And this is true whatever genre happened to be the prophet's medium. Sometimes poetry, sometimes song, narrative, apocalyptic.

[27:50] It's all the word of the Lord coming to the prophet. prophet. As Hebrews 1.1 tells us, God spoke in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, but it's still all God speaking in these many ways.

[28:11] Continuing with the involvement of the Father, in 2 Timothy 3.16, Paul describes the relation of the Father to Scripture as one of literally breathing out the Scriptures.

[28:27] Breathing them out. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for and on and on it goes. And our English rendering there inspired doesn't really do a great job translating the Greek on this because you think Shakespeare is inspired or that was an inspiring dessert.

[28:49] But literally the word theonoustos literally God breathed. So the word, the Scripture is actually exhaled by God.

[29:06] A lot has been written on this. Excuse me. B.B. Warfield has done extensive work on that. In a work called The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture is fantastic.

[29:20] This Swiss scholar Gausen. And then notice all Scripture or every Scripture could be rendered anyway but it doesn't really make much of a difference.

[29:33] All involves every because it is all inspired not just the bits that come down in reported speech of the Father.

[29:47] The bits in quotes so to speak. Finger on the wall many many you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting or the voice from heaven this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

[29:58] We might call the quotation mark bits not just that but because it's all expired from God everything it is all invested with God's authority and this conviction Jesus reflects when citing bits of scripture that are actually not in quotation marks even though it's not reported speech of God Jesus says well just quoting any bit of scripture as God says so for example in Matthew 19 when he's taking up the question of divorce he says well God says and then he quotes a little bit that's actually Moses speaking but in Jesus mind it's scripture even though Moses is saying it so God says it God says it man shall leave and cleave and the two shall become one flesh as God says it's actually Moses but God says it's it's expired by

[31:01] God this relation of the father to scripture is true not simply of the Old Testament prophetic voice but also of the New Testament apostolic voice for they also spoke under the same divine inspiration thus their words too were and are the words of the father as the apostle told the Thessalonians this is 1st Thessalonians 2 13 we thank God that when you receive from us the words of God's message you accepted it not as the words of men in other words not merely as the words of men but for what it really is the very words of God that is the apostolic speech as recorded in the scriptures are not merely the words of men but the very words of God 1st

[32:01] Thess 2 13 so that on the involvement of the father it's very intimate involvement what what about the involvement of the spirit in the scriptures 2 Peter 1 21 reminds us of the remark of 2 Timothy 3 16 about all scripture being inspired but here 2 Peter 1 21 focuses on the relation of the spirit to scripture so 2 Timothy talks about God expired but in the 2 Peter passage we will look at it's the spirit effecting effecting it Peter writes for no prophecy of scripture he's talking about scriptural prophecy no prophecy of scripture was ever made by an act of the human will but men moved by the

[33:05] Holy Spirit spoke from God so notice the Holy Spirit as the agent the instigator and every once in a while you'll encounter some regarding either implicitly or maybe even explicitly that the explicit words of Jesus somehow in their mind possess greater authority than the rest of scripture you know all that's all very well and good but that's Paul or that's the Old Testament but what does Jesus say about this matter I don't know if you've ever encountered that objection as if somehow kind of the red print stuff takes on greater authority you know it's from the horse's mouth and somehow makes the requirement for greater clout you know give me something dominical something that Jesus said but But this distinction that we often hear is completely scuttled by an appreciation that Jesus' words are divine precisely because they are spirit-inspired.

[34:20] Jesus' prophethood was a spiritual gift, a gift of the spirit. It was the spirit's anointing that made his words God's.

[34:37] As he said in the synagogue at the opening of his ministry, remember Jesus cites Isaiah 61.1. The spirit of the Lord is upon me and appointed me to preach.

[34:53] This is Luke 4.18. So Jesus' speech is God's speech because it is the Holy Spirit's speech.

[35:08] Because he was the spirit-anointed son. And John 3.34 makes this point. For he whom God has sent, speaking of Jesus, utters the words of God for, okay, it's giving an explanation, for, or reason.

[35:30] For he gives him the spirit without measure. Do you see that? Because of the involvement of the Holy Spirit, Jesus' words are divine words.

[35:45] Therefore, despite Jesus' uniqueness, his words are no more divine than those of the New Testament apostles or Old Testament prophets, whose words were also uttered under the Spirit's mediation and agency.

[36:06] Just as Jesus asserted in what we just crafted it. As David said, through the Holy Spirit or by the Holy Spirit.

[36:21] He talks about that again and again and again. So, what this does, it keeps the words in red. If you have a red print Bible, keeps the words from red from superseding those in black.

[36:35] There is no difference in terms of their authority. Because of inspiration and the involvement of the Spirit. And just as the Holy Spirit conceived, anointed, and mediated the words Jesus spoke.

[36:56] So, the Holy Spirit carried on this work in Jesus' absence in the words of the apostles. And this was Jesus' own promise to them.

[37:10] He writes, These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

[37:29] It's John 14, 25 and 26. Or again, I have, Jesus speaking, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot hear them now.

[37:41] But, when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, hears me, he will speak.

[37:58] He shall take what is mine and disclose it to you. John 16, 12 through 15. So, as with the Word of God made flesh, Jesus, so with the Word of God made words, the Scripture, both are the work of the Holy Spirit.

[38:25] So, the great work of the Holy Spirit, the incarnation, this is the Word of God made flesh, and also, in Scripturation, the Word of God made words.

[38:37] So, both the work of the Holy Spirit. When he conceived, when the Spirit conceived Jesus in Mary's womb, she was, by the Spirit, the Word-bearer, logotakos, the theologians say.

[38:58] Her human body introduced God's eternal Word into the human world. And likewise, the prophets and the apostles are word-bearers.

[39:17] Logotakoi. Word-bearers, just like Mary. Okay? And introduce God's eternal Word into human words. So, we're saying the Spirit-conceived Son is analogous, at this point, to the Spirit-conceived speech acts.

[39:45] And incidentally, just as Jesus bore the marks of his human bearer, he's probably, hey, you look just like Mary. Oh, that did Joseph to you?

[39:56] Well, not Joseph, sorry. Just like Mary. You look just like Mary. Okay? So, God's words bear marks of their human authors.

[40:08] The apostles' personality, diction, idiom. You can kind of tell the difference between Peter, Paul, and even the author of Hebrews.

[40:19] So, bear the marks. Jesus in the Bible, no less human for being divine. You know, you've got the hypostatic union, no less divine for being human.

[40:34] And you've got the verbal union, the words of God in the words of people, no less divine for being human. Analogous in that respect. So, that on the spirit.

[40:45] Well, let's finally consider what is the involvement of the Son, God the Son, Jesus, in the scriptures. First, it's worth pausing to notice that with the incarnation of the Son, we have God's logos introduced into speaking humanity.

[41:13] That means the divine logos, the second person of the Trinity, and wordly humanity can and do co-inhere.

[41:27] They can come together. None of this, well, that's too transcendent and our human language is too imminent, so the transcendent can never connect with the imminent.

[41:38] No! The incarnation does that. That's exactly what it does. As an aside, this means, for one, the troublesome Kantian distinction, you know, for those of you that do a philosophy between the noumenal and the phenomenal, those two realms, boy, these two can't come together.

[41:58] You know, there's ever going to be an inseparable bridge. We can never, you know, from the phenomenon, have any sort of noumenal sense. That dissolves forever with the annunciation that God has actually come down into the phenomenal.

[42:14] That's a huge, huge thing. Since Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, His words are the words of God, the words of God and also the words from God, surely without qualification.

[42:31] That is, Jesus' words are the words the Father gave to Him. John 8, 28. I do nothing, Jesus says, I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.

[42:44] John 12, 49. I do not speak on my own but the Father who has sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.

[42:56] John 17, 8. I gave them the words you gave to me, speaking to the Father. the Father. This implies that God the Son, the word incarnate, speaks to us in human words, the very words He heard the Father say in the eternal life of the Trinity.

[43:23] But, so that's clear enough, but consider what Jesus so often speaks in His career as those words.

[43:39] Scripture. Scripture. Jesus commonly speaks the words of Scripture as His own words, as the words the Father gave Him to speak.

[43:54] You know, again, you think of the temptation in the desert as just one example. quote Scripture, takes them as His words. And it is noteworthy that when Jesus quotes Scripture, He does it as canon, okay, in virtue of it being Scripture.

[44:19] He doesn't quote as if selectively appropriating a bit here or a bit there, which might happen to reflect His perspective.

[44:30] Kind of like some speaker might rummage through a book of quotes to see if he can find one that he can use. No! He takes it upon His lips as Scripture.

[44:41] Because it's Scripture, He takes it on His lips and appropriates it. No, the rummaging around in the little, you know, fortune cookie sayings or whatever.

[44:53] That's precisely the way the devil uses Scripture and used Scripture to try to tempt Jesus to do so in the same way Himself, but He would not.

[45:07] There is no indication, no indication of Jesus favoring some scriptural words over others. Just as Scripture says, as Scripture says, as Scripture says.

[45:19] On the contrary, one lives by, as He put it back in Satan's face, one lives by every word, every word, Matthew 4.4, that comes from the mouth of God.

[45:34] Not a single stroke accepted, Matthew 5.18. So, how then can the biblical passages that He does not quote be any less true revelation?

[45:46] If what He does quote, He just quotes as Scripture and because it's Scripture. Thus, we see Jesus' endorsement. His taking Scripture words as His own affirms those Scripture words as divine.

[46:02] But, really, the interplay of Jesus and Scripture runs both ways, does it not? There is a reciprocal authorization.

[46:16] Oh, the weave is so rich and thick here. not only does Jesus point back to the words of the prophets and say in effect, these are my words too, but the prophetic words pointed also to Him and authorized Him.

[46:38] It was the Scriptures that formed the Christ. The Scriptures defined His vocation as Messiah.

[46:48] They constituted Him. They marked out His path of faithfulness. As He would say again and again, no, no, the Scriptures must be fulfilled.

[47:02] I must do this. The Scriptures form me. They shape me. Scripture was His master and He its pupil.

[47:18] He rendered it obedience. It was there that He listened to the voice of the Father. Thus, the written Word formed the incarnate Word.

[47:35] The life that was truly divine was the life that fulfilled the Scripture. This is the relation of reciprocal authorization.

[47:50] In obeying Scripture, Christ is revealed as more than its servant. He is the very Lord of Scripture.

[48:02] And Scripture reveals that and confirms Him as that. So He's able to declare all food clean. And so He transforms Scripture by rendering it intelligible.

[48:14] It's all about me. Luke 24, Road to Emmaus. He renders it intelligible, renewing and reprobligating it. We also see an expansion of these divine words becoming human words.

[48:34] As Jesus prayed to the Father in His high priestly prayer, John 17, I gave them, speaking of the apostles, I gave them the words you gave to me, verse 8.

[48:47] Then He goes on to pray for those who will believe in me through their the apostles' message. So we have the words the Father gave to the Son being passed on by the incarnate Son in ordinary human language to His disciples.

[49:06] apostles. And now these words are passed on by the apostles to those who did not hear the Father's words from Jesus' mouth. Thereby we, at a distance in time and space, may encounter the words the Father and Christ who in those words of the apostles present themselves to us as a covenant-making God and His words to us.

[49:40] We see this pattern in the sending out of the twelve. Remember Matthew 10. If anyone will not welcome you, is apostles giving these words, if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust of your feet off.

[49:57] It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah. Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me, the Father.

[50:10] Thus, to reject the apostles' words, which come from Christ, is to reject God. God has identified himself both with Christ in person and with the passing on by his apostles of the words of Jesus.

[50:32] with the result that to reject the words of the apostles is to reject God. So, this is what we have called the Trinitarian ontology of Scripture.

[50:52] Do you get a sense of what I mean by that now? The deep, profound involvement of every person of the Trinity in the Scriptures themselves.

[51:04] Do you feel that? Do you see that? The Trinity is so profoundly involved in the being of Scripture that the character of Scripture is invested with the divine character.

[51:28] That is, the Trinity is so profoundly involved in the being of Scripture that the character of Scripture is invested with divine character.

[51:41] The Trinity is the three-fold cord, this intertwined involvement. And these, it strikes me, are solid grounds for maintaining Scripture's authority.

[52:00] So finally, just a few seconds on so what. Well, if this is so, how should we then live? Well, God's Word, the Scriptures must find functioned as authority in our lives.

[52:21] Four, the authority of Scripture is simply shorthand for the authority of God exercised through Scripture.

[52:35] Okay, this is the one phrase takeaway. The authority of Scripture is simply shorthand for the authority of God exercised through Scripture.

[52:51] So we must never place ourselves over it in judgment. Reminds me when I was in the Louvre some time ago, there was a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, and he's sitting there just kind of looking at the pictures and, you know, he's kind of looking at this thing and kind of wincing and, you know, he's in Mona Lisa and that and kind of looking that and just shaking his head, overrated, overrated, going forward to the next.

[53:25] At one point, this very elegant and kind of demure guard that was there kind of leaned over and said, monsieur, in this museum, it is not the artwork that is under judgment.

[53:44] In other words, you just judge yourself as a Philistine by not approving that. Look, when it comes to scripture, it's not the scripture that's under judgment.

[53:56] It's us. Just like it says that the cross was not, in one sense, that was the judgment of the world, it says in 1 Corinthians 7.

[54:11] When Jesus was judged by the world and hung on the cross in judgment of him, that judgment of him was the judgment of the world.

[54:22] That judged them to be false, to be out of touch with reality, to be on the wrong side of everything. And it's the same way with the word. It's the same way with scripture.

[54:33] It must judge us. James writes in James 1.21, in humility, receive the word. In humility, receive the word.

[54:50] Which works for our salvation. That we receive the word shows that we are being saved. That there is a saving work that is going on in us.

[55:03] Or why don't we end with this? Isaiah 66.2. But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and of contrite spirit, who trembles at my word.

[55:24] Who trembles at my word. Tremble. We need to respond to God's word exactly as we would to God himself.

[55:36]  In trembling awe. In reverential, urgent submission.