WEBVTT 00:00:00.340 --> 00:00:05.540 Well, good morning again, and welcome to worship on this All Saints Sunday. 00:00:05.660 --> 00:00:09.599 My name is Jeff, and I'm one of the pastors here at Church of the Advent. 00:00:11.339 --> 00:00:18.000 I wonder if when you were a kid, if you were ever at a party or a social gathering, I wonder 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.940 if you ever played the game Telephone, or maybe you've played this game as an adult 00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:23.760 with your kids. 00:00:24.379 --> 00:00:29.160 If you're not familiar with the game, it's a group game where you line up across the 00:00:29.160 --> 00:00:29.899 room in a line. 00:00:30.039 --> 00:00:37.020 Maybe there's two teams because it's a competition, and one person at one end of the line has a 00:00:37.020 --> 00:00:42.640 word or a phrase, and they whisper it in the ear of the next person in the line, and then 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:47.960 that person whispers it in the ear of the next person in the line, and so on and so forth, 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:50.060 until you get to the last person. 00:00:50.659 --> 00:00:55.500 And then the last person at the end of the line says what they heard out loud to the whole 00:00:55.500 --> 00:00:55.780 group. 00:00:55.780 --> 00:01:00.640 And part of the funny, the fun part of the game is sometimes it's a bit funny, it's a 00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:06.519 bit silly, because the person at the end of the line has often, has often said something 00:01:06.519 --> 00:01:11.900 that is different than the word or the phrase that was given at the beginning of the line. 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:18.780 In the telephone game, which is a fun kids game, the content of the original message often 00:01:18.780 --> 00:01:21.260 gets lost in transmission. 00:01:23.099 --> 00:01:29.140 And in our modern culture today, this is actually how a lot of people imagine that the Bible 00:01:29.140 --> 00:01:30.040 was written. 00:01:31.099 --> 00:01:35.060 This is how a lot of people imagine how the Bible came together. 00:01:35.159 --> 00:01:40.120 Many people, of course, believe that Jesus was a historical person who lived long ago, 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:45.700 but that we can't actually know what reliably what he said or did, because the New Testament 00:01:45.700 --> 00:01:49.020 documents have been changed or lost over time. 00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:56.120 We're in a sermon series this fall called Read, Mark, Learn, where we're studying the doctrine 00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:02.180 of Scripture, and we're looking at the relationship that we have with God through his Word. 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:08.860 And so we've sought to understand that relationship by looking at different attributes of Scripture. 00:02:09.740 --> 00:02:13.520 And so we've looked at the truth, goodness, and beauty of Scripture. 00:02:14.159 --> 00:02:17.920 We've looked at the clarity of Scripture, that God's Word is understandable. 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:23.400 And last week, Dan spoke about the sufficiency of Scripture. 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:31.460 And this morning, we come to the topic or the characteristic of the reliability of Scripture, 00:02:31.460 --> 00:02:33.700 the reliability of God's Word. 00:02:34.020 --> 00:02:39.240 And this is an important topic because many people in our late modern Western culture are 00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:44.840 skeptical about the Bible as a reliable historical document. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:51.180 And they often imagine that it came together or that it was written kind of like the kids 00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:52.180 game, the telephone game. 00:02:52.680 --> 00:02:56.020 And this idea gets advanced in a number of ways. 00:02:56.020 --> 00:03:00.460 Sometimes it gets advanced in academia and university settings. 00:03:00.460 --> 00:03:04.219 Although, of course, in sophisticated academic ways. 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:10.760 And so some scholars, like Bart Ehrman, who's a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, some scholars 00:03:10.760 --> 00:03:14.480 have spent their entire careers advancing this idea. 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:19.860 Other times, ideas like this about the Bible get advanced through pop culture. 00:03:20.480 --> 00:03:27.360 So many of you might remember over a decade ago, many years ago, the fiction novel-turned-movie 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:29.700 by Dan Brown called The Da Vinci Code. 00:03:30.020 --> 00:03:31.640 It was kind of popular at the time. 00:03:32.180 --> 00:03:38.220 And this book-turned-movie kind of put forward some ideas about the early church and how the 00:03:38.220 --> 00:03:42.420 Bible came to be that are similar to the telephone game. 00:03:43.300 --> 00:03:48.820 But other people, kind of apart from academia and pop culture, kind of just find this idea 00:03:48.820 --> 00:03:50.200 to be intuitive. 00:03:50.199 --> 00:03:53.179 The Bible was written a really long time ago. 00:03:53.379 --> 00:03:58.299 And so probably the original documents, the original message were sort of just lost or 00:03:58.299 --> 00:04:01.439 changed over time, lost to time and history. 00:04:02.099 --> 00:04:07.179 And so if you've adopted the telephone game view of the Bible, either through academia, 00:04:08.179 --> 00:04:14.239 your own research, or through pop culture, or through your own intuition, then most likely 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:18.740 you've adopted a kind of skepticism towards Christianity as a whole. 00:04:20.019 --> 00:04:27.180 If the documents of the Bible themselves are historically unreliable, then its message probably 00:04:27.180 --> 00:04:27.980 is too. 00:04:28.840 --> 00:04:33.280 And so is any organized institution that believes it and teaches it. 00:04:34.579 --> 00:04:39.740 But is the telephone game how things actually happened with the Bible? 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:43.439 Is the telephone game how things actually came together? 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:46.800 Does this make the best sense of the evidence that we have? 00:04:47.939 --> 00:04:54.199 Well, our text here in 1 John 1 that was read earlier, and the great tradition of the church, 00:04:54.240 --> 00:05:00.480 and perhaps most interestingly, much of modern scholarship would all say, actually, no. 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:03.399 This is not how things happened. 00:05:03.819 --> 00:05:08.180 The witness of Scripture and the best historical evidence and the great tradition of the church 00:05:08.180 --> 00:05:13.240 and lots of modern scholarship actually all point in the other direction. 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:20.639 And so what I want us to see this morning is that we can have great confidence in the historical 00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:22.199 reliability of Scripture. 00:05:23.300 --> 00:05:26.660 And we can have great confidence because we have some really key things. 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:33.600 We have reliable eyewitnesses, we have a reliable text, and we have a reliable message. 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:39.640 We have reliable eyewitnesses, a reliable text, and a reliable message. 00:05:40.140 --> 00:05:46.820 And one kind of quick caveat before we dive in is that for the sake of time and limited space, 00:05:46.820 --> 00:05:51.780 I'm going to be mainly kind of focusing our attention here on the New Testament and on the 00:05:51.780 --> 00:05:53.420 four Gospels in particular. 00:05:54.020 --> 00:05:57.300 And I'm going to be doing it from our text here in 1 John. 00:05:57.300 --> 00:06:00.139 But I know that this is a topic that may be of interest to you. 00:06:00.699 --> 00:06:05.600 And so if you'd like to explore these things more or if certain questions come up as I'm 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:10.060 talking that I don't address this morning, I'd be happy to talk further with you or recommend 00:06:10.060 --> 00:06:12.639 some more books or reading for you or resources. 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:16.699 And actually, some of those books were actually in our most recent Friday email. 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:19.139 So I'd encourage you to check those out. 00:06:19.139 --> 00:06:25.180 So first of all, let's talk about the reliability of the eyewitnesses, the reliable eyewitnesses. 00:06:26.719 --> 00:06:29.959 Our New Testament reading, 1 John 1, 1 through 4 says, 00:06:29.959 --> 00:06:36.919 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, 00:06:36.979 --> 00:06:41.939 which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life, 00:06:42.719 --> 00:06:47.060 that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you. 00:06:47.060 --> 00:06:51.879 That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you. 00:06:51.959 --> 00:06:55.420 This is a statement of eyewitness testimony. 00:06:56.259 --> 00:07:02.280 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John based their accounts on their and others' firsthand experience. 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:05.439 They saw Jesus live. 00:07:06.420 --> 00:07:09.120 They watched him do ministry and heal people. 00:07:10.139 --> 00:07:13.220 They listened to him speak and teach people. 00:07:14.100 --> 00:07:16.620 They saw him suffer and die. 00:07:17.060 --> 00:07:19.660 They watched him be buried in a tomb. 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:24.319 And then they touched his resurrected body. 00:07:25.019 --> 00:07:27.620 And they watched him ascend into heaven. 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:35.519 These people who saw him and heard him and touched him became the authoritative eyewitnesses 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:38.240 for the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:47.860 And for the gospel writers, these eyewitnesses became like ancient footnotes, like ancient footnotes. 00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:53.560 So if today, if you were to write a paper for a class or write a research paper, dissertation, 00:07:53.879 --> 00:07:58.500 or if you were to write a book, to cite your sources, you would use what? 00:07:58.579 --> 00:08:01.139 You would use footnotes or endnotes. 00:08:01.139 --> 00:08:03.000 Well, why would you do that? 00:08:03.039 --> 00:08:08.500 Well, partially to show that you are building on someone else's work, to show that you're 00:08:08.500 --> 00:08:09.379 not plagiarizing. 00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:12.560 But you also use, you also cite your sources. 00:08:12.699 --> 00:08:13.919 You also use footnotes. 00:08:14.180 --> 00:08:18.180 So if people want to look up more information about what you're saying or if they want to 00:08:18.180 --> 00:08:21.660 investigate the argument that you're making, they can check out that source. 00:08:24.620 --> 00:08:30.699 Biographers in the ancient Greco-Roman world did the same exact thing, except their footnotes 00:08:30.699 --> 00:08:33.019 were names of people, names of people. 00:08:33.399 --> 00:08:35.799 And this was a common literary convention. 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:39.860 This was a literary feature that people in the ancient world would have understood. 00:08:40.940 --> 00:08:44.139 And so if you read the gospel, you'll notice that it is full of names. 00:08:44.820 --> 00:08:45.759 Names are everywhere. 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:52.340 And this is partially the author's way of saying, if you want more information or if you want 00:08:52.340 --> 00:08:55.860 to investigate the claims that I'm making, go check my sources. 00:08:56.539 --> 00:08:57.360 Go check my sources. 00:08:57.639 --> 00:08:59.200 You can hear it straight from them. 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:05.779 Now, there are dozens of examples all throughout the gospels that you could see, but let me give 00:09:05.779 --> 00:09:06.139 you one. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:07.740 Let me give you one. 00:09:08.139 --> 00:09:15.319 In Mark chapter 15, there is a scene where Jesus is carrying the cross to be executed and 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:15.720 crucified. 00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:24.820 And Mark tells us that there is a man named Simon of Cyrene in North Africa, Simon of 00:09:24.820 --> 00:09:27.460 Cyrene who helped Jesus carry his cross. 00:09:28.120 --> 00:09:34.280 And Mark makes this interesting editorial detail and he says, Simon was the father of Alexander 00:09:34.280 --> 00:09:34.840 and Rufus. 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:39.480 And we kind of read that and go, you know, why include that? 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:42.920 I mean, the whole story is about Jesus being led to be crucified. 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:43.480 I mean, why? 00:09:44.180 --> 00:09:48.800 That seems like an irrelevant detail to talk about like the name of Simon's sons. 00:09:49.399 --> 00:09:53.379 But if you understand this literary convention in the ancient world, you know exactly what 00:09:53.379 --> 00:09:53.980 Mark is doing. 00:09:54.700 --> 00:10:00.259 Mark is saying, if you want to check my sources, if you want to corroborate this story, go to 00:10:00.259 --> 00:10:02.560 Cyrene, go to North Africa and talk to Simon. 00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:08.799 And if you don't, if for every reason he has passed away, if he's no longer alive, you can 00:10:08.799 --> 00:10:11.919 talk to his sons, Alexander and Rufus. 00:10:12.939 --> 00:10:19.399 The recording of these eyewitnesses, the naming of all these names means that the gospel writers 00:10:19.399 --> 00:10:21.259 weren't writing fiction or legend. 00:10:21.959 --> 00:10:23.500 They weren't making stuff up. 00:10:23.559 --> 00:10:29.259 They were actually using the most reliable, authenticating literary conventions of the day. 00:10:29.259 --> 00:10:35.259 They were trying to record the most reliable account of Jesus's life that they possibly could. 00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:41.480 If you paid attention to the gospel reading in Luke chapter 1, this is exactly what Luke 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:45.200 tells you he is doing in the first few verses of his gospel. 00:10:45.899 --> 00:10:52.480 He says, I am writing to you to give you an orderly account of what the eyewitnesses saw 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:53.019 and heard. 00:10:53.019 --> 00:10:58.100 This is not someone who's making stuff up. 00:10:58.179 --> 00:11:01.039 This is not someone who's creating a story or a narrative. 00:11:01.699 --> 00:11:07.699 This is someone who is seeking to create the most authentic, reliable eyewitness account 00:11:07.699 --> 00:11:09.139 that they possibly can. 00:11:11.319 --> 00:11:15.399 Let me say one more really important thing about these eyewitnesses accounts, the gospels, 00:11:15.500 --> 00:11:16.439 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 00:11:16.440 --> 00:11:20.360 And that is that they were actually written too early to be made up. 00:11:21.320 --> 00:11:23.480 They were written too early to be legends. 00:11:24.100 --> 00:11:30.020 The scholarly consensus today, and this includes secular, non-religious scholars, the scholarly 00:11:30.020 --> 00:11:35.160 consensus today is that the gospels were all written by the end of the first century. 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:41.640 And many scholars actually put most of the gospels within just a few decades of Jesus's life. 00:11:41.639 --> 00:11:47.759 And this means that the gospel accounts were actually written within the lifetimes of those 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:49.059 first eyewitnesses. 00:11:50.179 --> 00:11:55.340 This is also important because this also gives us evidence for why the gospel writers couldn't 00:11:55.340 --> 00:11:56.080 have just made it up. 00:11:56.779 --> 00:12:03.519 If you're going to make something up, if you're going to invent a story, you would do it after 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:08.139 the first generation of witnesses passed away, after they died, so that they couldn't refute 00:12:08.139 --> 00:12:10.559 your facts, so they couldn't argue with you. 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:13.059 So they can't contradict you. 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:19.179 But the fact that modern scholars, both secular and religious, have given the gospel at such 00:12:19.179 --> 00:12:25.619 an early date means that there is strong evidence that we can trust the historical reliability 00:12:25.619 --> 00:12:33.019 of these accounts because it means that the eyewitnesses were alive to confirm and corroborate 00:12:33.019 --> 00:12:33.919 what they were saying. 00:12:34.739 --> 00:12:36.839 So what's the takeaway from all this? 00:12:37.019 --> 00:12:38.139 What's the takeaway from all this? 00:12:38.139 --> 00:12:41.740 Well, the takeaway is that the gospels weren't written like the telephone game. 00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:45.600 They were written in a Greco-Roman literary convention that people would have recognized, 00:12:45.860 --> 00:12:46.600 that would have been authentic. 00:12:47.159 --> 00:12:50.019 They were written with authoritative eyewitnesses. 00:12:50.299 --> 00:12:54.439 And they were written within the lifetimes of those witnesses, which means they would have 00:12:54.439 --> 00:12:59.799 been alive to corroborate the facts, which means we have every reason to believe that what 00:12:59.799 --> 00:13:00.600 they were writing was true. 00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:06.360 So we have every reason to believe that these eyewitness accounts are reliable, but that 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:07.840 actually leads to a second question. 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:14.960 Well, how can we know that the actual text of the Bible is reliable? 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:21.240 I mean, we don't have what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John originally wrote, and so how can 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:26.420 we be sure that what they originally wrote wasn't somehow changed over time? 00:13:26.419 --> 00:13:31.899 So secondly, let's talk about the reliability of the text, the reliability of the text. 00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:40.419 So let's say this afternoon you are feeling patriotic, and you decided that you wanted 00:13:40.419 --> 00:13:42.000 to read the Gettysburg Address. 00:13:42.819 --> 00:13:47.279 The Gettysburg Address, of course, is Abraham Lincoln's famous speech after the Civil War 00:13:47.279 --> 00:13:48.259 battle in Gettysburg. 00:13:48.379 --> 00:13:53.199 And so you go online and you type in the Gettysburg Address, and it pops up, and you start reading 00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:58.400 it, and your heart starts to become warm, you start feeling patriotic, you're amazed 00:13:58.400 --> 00:14:01.620 by Lincoln's eloquence, his command of the written word. 00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:06.340 Four score and seven years ago, our founding fathers brought forth on this continent, a 00:14:06.340 --> 00:14:10.300 new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 00:14:10.300 --> 00:14:10.560 equal. 00:14:11.420 --> 00:14:16.220 And you're reading this great speech, but then you think to yourself, now, how do I know 00:14:16.220 --> 00:14:22.779 that what I'm reading on the internet is what Abraham Lincoln originally wrote? 00:14:22.860 --> 00:14:24.379 I mean, you weren't there to hear the speech. 00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:26.379 You don't have the original copy that he wrote. 00:14:26.460 --> 00:14:29.899 Actually, nobody has the original copy, not even the U.S. government. 00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:33.980 So how do you know that what you're reading is what Lincoln originally said at Gettysburg? 00:14:35.500 --> 00:14:41.240 Well, a good historian would say, among other things, among many things, that two things are 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:41.820 really important. 00:14:42.540 --> 00:14:43.600 Two things are really important. 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:47.480 First, the more copies of the original that you have, the better. 00:14:48.460 --> 00:14:50.879 And secondly, the earlier those copies are, the better. 00:14:51.300 --> 00:14:57.100 So if you have lots of copies that say the same thing, and if those copies are close to 00:14:57.100 --> 00:15:01.620 the timing of the original event that happened, then you can be pretty confident that you're 00:15:01.620 --> 00:15:02.200 reading the original. 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:07.420 And so when it comes to the Gettysburg Address, scholars agree, we have a pretty high degree 00:15:07.420 --> 00:15:08.639 of confidence that we're reading the original. 00:15:08.800 --> 00:15:08.960 Why? 00:15:08.960 --> 00:15:13.100 Well, we have five copies of the original speech. 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:16.360 Two are in the Library of Congress downtown. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:21.800 The other three are in the Illinois State Library, Cornell University, and the White House. 00:15:22.700 --> 00:15:28.460 And we know that all five of these copies are copies that Abraham Lincoln personally gave 00:15:28.460 --> 00:15:31.480 to people, to his private secretaries and to other people. 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:34.480 And that's about as early of a date as you can get. 00:15:35.820 --> 00:15:37.399 Now, how about the New Testament? 00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:39.279 How about the New Testament? 00:15:39.379 --> 00:15:43.259 Some people might say, well, because we don't have the original copies of the Bible, of the 00:15:43.259 --> 00:15:46.320 Gospels, we can't reliably know what they wrote. 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:54.120 But every ancient historian worth their salt knows that this is a naive view, that this is 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:54.500 naive. 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:58.360 Because when it comes to ancient literature, nobody has any of the original copies. 00:15:58.460 --> 00:15:59.059 That's impossible. 00:15:59.659 --> 00:16:03.659 But that doesn't mean that we can't reliably know what the original was. 00:16:03.720 --> 00:16:04.840 And historians know this. 00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:10.940 We actually have lots of ancient texts that historians believe to be very reliable. 00:16:11.639 --> 00:16:13.340 So let me give you just two examples. 00:16:14.039 --> 00:16:21.139 So the Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC, he was a Greek historian. 00:16:21.139 --> 00:16:24.179 We have about 75 copies of his works. 00:16:25.019 --> 00:16:32.699 The Roman historian, Suetonius, who lived in the 2nd century AD, we have quite a bit many 00:16:32.699 --> 00:16:35.379 more copies, manuscripts of his works. 00:16:35.439 --> 00:16:40.120 We have over 200 copies of his works. 00:16:40.179 --> 00:16:43.379 And all scholars would say, you know, the writings of Herodotus and Suetonius and lots 00:16:43.379 --> 00:16:47.120 of other ancient authors are very historically reliable. 00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:52.200 In fact, the average ancient historical document has about 20 copies. 00:16:53.419 --> 00:16:58.500 And that's a very reliable way to know that what we have is the original. 00:16:59.060 --> 00:17:04.279 Now, when we apply this to the New Testament, how does the New Testament match up? 00:17:05.220 --> 00:17:08.220 Well, the Gettysburg Address has five copies. 00:17:08.220 --> 00:17:13.100 The average ancient document has about 20 copies. 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:21.559 The New Testament has 5,700 copies in the original Greek. 00:17:21.640 --> 00:17:25.819 And that's not to mention the other copies in other languages that we have, like Latin 00:17:25.819 --> 00:17:29.900 and Coptic and Syriac, although the Greek copies, of course, are the earliest because 00:17:29.900 --> 00:17:31.279 that's what they were originally written in. 00:17:31.640 --> 00:17:37.140 And so in total, we have about 20,000 handwritten ancient copies of the New Testament. 00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:44.400 That's over 1,000 times the number for the average ancient work of classical literature. 00:17:44.840 --> 00:17:45.500 It's astounding. 00:17:46.140 --> 00:17:46.680 It's astounding. 00:17:47.880 --> 00:17:51.520 Now, some might say, well, aren't there differences in these copies? 00:17:51.620 --> 00:17:53.759 Aren't there differences in these manuscripts? 00:17:54.020 --> 00:17:55.420 Well, yes, there are. 00:17:55.480 --> 00:18:01.500 But if you look at what scholars have written about this, the differences between these copies 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:03.200 are incredibly minor. 00:18:03.740 --> 00:18:04.700 They're incredibly minor. 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:09.779 Most of them are about word order and spelling errors. 00:18:10.299 --> 00:18:14.080 None of them constitute any significant point of belief or doctrine. 00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:21.580 Textual critics know, textual critics in this field know that the copies that we have are 00:18:21.580 --> 00:18:23.340 actually quite reliable. 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:28.140 If you have any questions about this particular point, I'd be happy to talk with you more about 00:18:28.140 --> 00:18:28.380 that. 00:18:28.380 --> 00:18:34.240 So we have about 1,000 times as many more copies as most ancient literature. 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:39.960 And in terms of dating, the New Testament, the Bible is actually very early. 00:18:40.580 --> 00:18:44.600 We have most of our copies are a lot earlier than also most ancient literature. 00:18:44.800 --> 00:18:48.320 So all of this, I know we're like nerding out here, but here we go. 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:50.579 All of this leads F.F. 00:18:50.659 --> 00:18:56.700 Bruce, the eminent Bible scholar and historian from Cambridge to conclude this. 00:18:57.919 --> 00:19:02.939 The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for 00:19:02.939 --> 00:19:04.599 many writings of classical authors. 00:19:05.139 --> 00:19:08.159 The authenticity of which no one even dreams of questioning. 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:14.300 And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would 00:19:14.300 --> 00:19:17.259 generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:20.660 Be generally regarded as beyond all doubt. 00:19:20.740 --> 00:19:21.980 So what's the takeaway from all this? 00:19:22.340 --> 00:19:26.620 Well, we have every reason to believe based on the sheer number of copies that we have and 00:19:26.620 --> 00:19:32.380 based on their dating that what we have here is what the original authors wrote. 00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:37.300 And in many cases, we have lots of reasons to believe that actually it's significantly more 00:19:37.299 --> 00:19:43.799 trustworthy, it's significantly more authentic and reliable than most other ancient historical 00:19:43.799 --> 00:19:44.579 documents. 00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:51.919 Finally, so we have reliable eyewitnesses, we have a reliable text, and finally we have a 00:19:51.919 --> 00:19:53.119 reliable message. 00:19:53.559 --> 00:20:00.299 It's great to have confidence in the Bible as a reliable historical document. 00:20:00.619 --> 00:20:03.899 It's great to know these things, but it's not enough. 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:08.180 It's not enough to have a relationship with God. 00:20:09.420 --> 00:20:11.420 It's not enough to live the Christian life. 00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:16.500 It's not enough to face things like suffering and death. 00:20:17.120 --> 00:20:22.280 For all of that, what we need more than to have confidence in the eyewitnesses in the text, 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:26.600 what we need to have more confidence in is the message of Scripture. 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:27.960 The message of Scripture. 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:30.160 And so what is that message? 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:38.060 Well, John summarizes this message well here in our text in 1 John 1, verses 5 through 9. 00:20:39.040 --> 00:20:41.160 And in verse 5, this is what John says. 00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:42.080 He says, 00:20:42.080 --> 00:20:50.620 This is the message that we have heard from him as eyewitnesses and proclaim to you, 00:20:51.800 --> 00:20:56.380 that God is light. 00:20:56.380 --> 00:20:59.700 That God is light. 00:20:59.800 --> 00:21:03.120 And in him, there is no darkness at all. 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:10.620 So several weeks ago, I was, it was a Wednesday, and I was getting my house ready to have, to 00:21:10.620 --> 00:21:15.000 host people later that evening, to have people over for our Wednesday night foundations class. 00:21:15.460 --> 00:21:19.260 And I was doing the responsible thing and thinking, well, the time is about to get close. 00:21:19.320 --> 00:21:22.800 I should probably maybe clean up a little bit and make sure everything looks good. 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:26.839 And as I looked around, I thought, you know, I think everything looks pretty good. 00:21:26.859 --> 00:21:27.659 It looks pretty clean. 00:21:27.819 --> 00:21:29.000 I don't have much work to do. 00:21:29.079 --> 00:21:31.879 I don't have much cleaning to do before people get here. 00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:39.419 But as the afternoon and early evening went on, and as the sun continued to dip and drop, 00:21:40.680 --> 00:21:50.339 the sun got to this angle where the light from the sun shone in through my windows at just the right angle. 00:21:50.339 --> 00:21:52.539 And some of you know what I'm about to say. 00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:59.720 The light came in at just the right angle where you could suddenly see like every speck of dust 00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:06.399 and every speck of dirt, every spot all over the floor, all over the table, all over everything. 00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:14.679 And suddenly I was made aware that my house was not as clean as I thought it was. 00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:20.720 In that moment, I realized that there was lots that I couldn't see before, that I couldn't see before. 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:22.960 But the light exposed it. 00:22:23.980 --> 00:22:31.080 I realized that there was more in my house that needed to be cleaned up than I thought there was. 00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:34.100 Because of light. 00:22:34.680 --> 00:22:35.400 Because of light. 00:22:36.580 --> 00:22:40.080 And that's part of what God's Word does. 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:47.279 The psalm reading that Liz read earlier says that your Word gives light. 00:22:47.759 --> 00:22:49.859 God's Word gives light. 00:22:50.039 --> 00:22:54.619 God's light is His holy, glorious, moral beauty and perfection. 00:22:55.720 --> 00:22:59.960 And when we read His Word, we see God's light, and His light shines into our hearts. 00:23:00.419 --> 00:23:03.980 And it shows us we're not as clean as we think we are. 00:23:03.980 --> 00:23:09.559 We are way more sinful and broken and jacked up than we ever thought that we were. 00:23:10.200 --> 00:23:15.420 And the invitation from John is to walk in the light. 00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:17.400 Is to walk in the light. 00:23:17.460 --> 00:23:21.819 Now, this might seem like a kind of intimidating invitation at first. 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:25.440 If you think about what light does, it exposes, right? 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:27.440 So it might seem intimidating to think, 00:23:28.099 --> 00:23:31.079 I'm supposed to walk in the light and expose myself to God? 00:23:31.339 --> 00:23:32.360 What is He going to think? 00:23:32.420 --> 00:23:33.180 What is He going to do? 00:23:33.180 --> 00:23:34.180 What is He going to do? 00:23:34.620 --> 00:23:37.860 But John reassures us, because John makes it crystal clear, 00:23:37.980 --> 00:23:43.440 that walking in the light does not mean that we have to clean up our own lives, 00:23:43.539 --> 00:23:47.160 to clean up our own hearts before we enter into the presence of God, 00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:49.480 before we have a relationship with God. 00:23:49.799 --> 00:23:56.400 John actually tells us here that walking in the light means confessing our sin, 00:23:57.560 --> 00:24:00.240 acknowledging our sin, acknowledging the messiness, 00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:05.220 acknowledging our sin before God, exposing it, and bringing it into the light, 00:24:05.220 --> 00:24:12.000 but letting Jesus do the cleaning, letting Jesus do the cleansing. 00:24:12.500 --> 00:24:14.160 Here in verse 9, John says, 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:27.740 This is an interesting, curious phrase. 00:24:27.740 --> 00:24:33.940 What does it mean that God is faithful and just to forgive us? 00:24:35.539 --> 00:24:36.759 Faithful and just. 00:24:36.859 --> 00:24:43.559 How is it that when God forgives us, He is doing justice in the world? 00:24:44.299 --> 00:24:46.339 How are those two things related? 00:24:46.339 --> 00:24:51.099 Well, if you think about, if anyone has ever given you a gift card, 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:57.359 if you were to imagine someone were to give you a gift card to your favorite restaurant in D.C., 00:24:57.359 --> 00:25:01.959 and you go out either with a friend or maybe a spouse or a significant other, 00:25:02.199 --> 00:25:04.699 and you have a great meal together, and finally at the end of the meal, 00:25:04.700 --> 00:25:10.080 the bill comes and the waiter comes and gives you, you know, that little black book, 00:25:10.299 --> 00:25:12.900 and you were to pull out your gift card, 00:25:12.980 --> 00:25:15.220 and you were to put it in that little black book and give it back, 00:25:15.900 --> 00:25:18.980 and if the waiter were to come back and say, 00:25:19.860 --> 00:25:21.860 Sir, ma'am, actually, I'm really sorry, 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:24.880 but we are unable to apply this to your bill, 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:26.600 what would you say? 00:25:27.819 --> 00:25:29.039 You'd say, what? 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:30.080 That's not right. 00:25:30.539 --> 00:25:31.319 That's not fair. 00:25:31.400 --> 00:25:32.500 That's not just. 00:25:33.220 --> 00:25:33.559 Why? 00:25:33.559 --> 00:25:38.460 Because somebody has already purchased the amount on the gift card. 00:25:39.159 --> 00:25:41.379 Someone has already paid for it, 00:25:41.419 --> 00:25:46.679 and so it is right and fair and just for the restaurant to honor it. 00:25:46.779 --> 00:25:48.639 For them not to honor that would be unjust. 00:25:50.019 --> 00:25:54.559 But if the restaurant were to actually apply the gift card to your bill, to your meal, 00:25:55.179 --> 00:25:59.720 it would be faithful and just of them to do so. 00:26:00.519 --> 00:26:00.899 Why? 00:26:00.900 --> 00:26:04.019 Because it's already been purchased. 00:26:05.040 --> 00:26:06.620 Because it's already been paid for. 00:26:06.619 --> 00:26:15.579 Listen, when it comes to God's light that exposes our sin through his word, 00:26:16.139 --> 00:26:18.159 when it comes to your sin and my sin, 00:26:18.299 --> 00:26:23.339 we have the most reliable message that the world has ever known, 00:26:23.899 --> 00:26:27.879 that it is faithful and just of God to forgive us our sins 00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:30.860 and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 00:26:30.860 --> 00:26:31.180 Why? 00:26:32.420 --> 00:26:33.880 Because it's already been paid for. 00:26:34.700 --> 00:26:36.620 Because it's already been purchased. 00:26:36.740 --> 00:26:39.500 Somebody has already purchased our forgiveness. 00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:42.040 Somebody has already purchased our healing. 00:26:42.200 --> 00:26:44.580 Somebody has already purchased our cleansing. 00:26:44.579 --> 00:26:46.919 And his name is Jesus. 00:26:47.699 --> 00:26:52.599 And he paid for it and purchased it with his own body and blood at the cross. 00:26:53.199 --> 00:26:55.220 And so every time you confess your sin, 00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:01.240 whether it's the first time or the hundredth time or the hundred thousandth time, 00:27:01.240 --> 00:27:08.620 it is faithful and it is just of God to forgive you 00:27:08.620 --> 00:27:16.180 because he's honoring the purchase that has already been made by Jesus Christ at the cross for you. 00:27:16.180 --> 00:27:23.160 How much unrighteousness in verse 9 does John say that Jesus cleanses us from? 00:27:24.539 --> 00:27:25.320 All of it. 00:27:26.060 --> 00:27:27.120 Well, how much is that? 00:27:27.380 --> 00:27:27.980 All of it. 00:27:28.620 --> 00:27:29.640 But really, like how much? 00:27:30.539 --> 00:27:31.279 All of it. 00:27:32.100 --> 00:27:35.259 All of your sin, past, present, and future, 00:27:35.340 --> 00:27:40.600 has been paid for and purchased by Jesus on the cross in full. 00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:43.120 And that is why, 00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:46.399 friends, we don't just have, 00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:48.419 when it comes to scripture, 00:27:48.519 --> 00:27:50.379 we don't just have reliable eyewitnesses. 00:27:51.099 --> 00:27:53.759 We don't just have a reliable text. 00:27:55.179 --> 00:27:58.739 But we have the most reliable message in the world 00:27:58.739 --> 00:28:02.639 because we have the most perfectly reliable Savior 00:28:02.639 --> 00:28:06.619 who is faithful and just to forgive us 00:28:06.619 --> 00:28:09.000 because he has already purchased it on the cross. 00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:13.900 All of your sin paid for and purchased in full. 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:18.299 And friends, that is what these eyewitnesses heard, 00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:22.240 saw, touched. 00:28:23.059 --> 00:28:24.299 It's what they proclaimed. 00:28:24.460 --> 00:28:26.319 It's what they gave their lives for. 00:28:26.380 --> 00:28:28.759 It's what the New Testament writers wrote down. 00:28:28.759 --> 00:28:33.240 What they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write down. 00:28:33.700 --> 00:28:37.279 It's what the church has preserved by the Holy Spirit 00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:40.319 in this book for thousands of years. 00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:47.539 And friends, if you can find a more trustworthy, 00:28:48.680 --> 00:28:53.759 if you can find a more reliable message in this world than that, 00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:57.099 man, I'd really love to hear it. 00:28:58.379 --> 00:29:00.779 In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 00:29:01.359 --> 00:29:01.660 Amen.