Christians Beliefs

We have, no doubt, all heard that the Bible is the word of God. It is God's Book given to man to serve as the User Manual for our temporal existence. However, some other books also claim to be God's word - even going to the extent of saying that God either personally (or through an angel) wrote such a book (e.g. the Book of Mormons) or that God dictated the contents of an "original" copy in heaven to the human writer (e.g. the Qu'ran).

One of the purposes of this article is to declare emphatically that the Bible has nothing to do with such ideas. There is no Bible in heaven. (And it is not necessary for it to be there since Jesus Christ, the eternal Word Himself, who the Bible points to, is already there. It is true that a few portions of the Bible were actually dictated by God and written down verbatim by the human writers - but these are very few indeed, and were so rendered by God for specific and special reasons. Such portions are always clearly stated by the writer.

On the contrary, when we declare that the Bible is the word of God we mean, firstly, that it is the sole written document which God has appended His name to - i.e. it is the Scriptures, and secondly, that its means of coming to man is by inspiration of God.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.2 Timothy 3:16

With respect to the Bible, God chose certain men according to His wisdom, and inspired them to "know" the precise information that He, God, wanted to put in the Scriptures (called prophecy). Thereafter, He also caused them to write the information down without error.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:20-21

We note from the above verses that those who God chose to inspire were deemed "holy" (which means consecrated / separated unto God) and were privileged to receive the special information which they wrote down. Only God Himself knows what "qualified" these men for such honour that they may be called holy - but we know that no man can qualify for anything before God by his personal merit. It is always by the grace of God.

So, it was that God chose about forty men from numerous locations over a period of some 1,500 years to receive by inspiration and write down what He wanted to put in the Scriptures.

Only the information (message) is inspired

At this point, we must address our attention to a popular misunderstanding of people about the Scriptures. Contrary to common belief, only the information of the language is inspired, not the literary competence of the human writers. An inspired primary school child writing in the English language will not suddenly begin to write impeccable Queen's English; neither will he miraculously acquire the skills of a WS (whether this means William Shakespeare or Wole Soyinka is quite irrelevant) The boy will only write at his level as a primary school pupil.

Of course, we are not insinuating that God never "touches" the skills of His chosen vessels (He often does!) only that such a touch is another issue entirely different from, and secondary to the inspiration to write the Scripture. Therefore, it is very wrong to use the literary skills of a chosen vessel as a yardstick to measure the authenticity of inspiration.

The same Holy Spirit who inspired Paul to write such that his highly learned readers acknowledged his great skills, is the same Holy Spirit who inspired Peter and John to speak the divine words recorded in Acts chapter 4. Their level of delivery was so exalted that the Sanhedrin members could not but marvel at the wonder that unfolded before their very eyes because they knew that Peter and John were neducated and untrained. I can only imagine the bewilderment of these pompous scholars listening to the two stark illiterate fishermen in undignified attires preaching with boldness and accuracy the deep things of life and eternity - and doing it in their unpolished koine (i.e pidgin) Greek! My dear reader, that's inspiration for you!

Revelation

The question may be asked, "Where does revelation come in?" Why are the religions based on the Bible (Christianity and Judaism) referred to as revealed religions? All such questions are due to lack of a basic understanding of spiritual terms, which we shall now attempt to resolve.

Revelation simply means to "show" or to "make known". In the context of our current topic, it refers to the nature and content of the inspiration. Put explicitly, inspiration is the means, revelation is the product. Revelation is not defined by a mystical nature of the revealed thing, but by the fact that it is revealed and that the Person doing the revealing is God. So the message does not have to be mysterious at all. All that is necessary is that an inspired person receives knowledge by immediate impartation rather than by mediate efforts at deduction.

Such knowledge may even be about things already known or a "mere" noting (and documentation) of supposedly general knowledge. For example, all the so-called historical books of the Bible were about things of public knowledge - yet God inspired His servants to know to write them down. What is thus written is revelation of God. The revelation is the God-given knowledge of exactly "what to write" out of all possible things and occurrences, as well as the spiritual truth that God Himself makes known through the writing of what men thought was ordinary "story". The apostle Luke dutifully wrote down all that he was inspired to write of what he saw as the early believers were living out their lives. It was a kind of diary / journal, but it was God who was directing everything being penned! How would the practice of Christianity have been today if not for such revelations as the book we now call "The Acts of the Apostles"?.

Conclusion

Are you a Christian? If so, may I just exhort you that as you continue in your walk with the Lord, by studying His word, do not permit occasional literary weaknesses of the human writers to distract you from the eternal truth of the God's word. And certainly, do not at all be swayed by the attempts of unbelievers who try to equate such literary weakness as spiritual weakness, by which they mean that if it is God's word, then the language must be impeccable all round. We Christians never claimed that the Bible was physically penned by God. We only say what the Scripture itself says, that it was inspired by God.

God bless you.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1: 1)

These divine words of Genesis 1:1 have held men and angels alike in awe for millennia since they were caused to be written by the Spirit of God. Just ten words. Just one sentence. Yet, in it we have the foundation of all that now is, and all that will ever be. In this teaching, we begin to take a closer look at the message of God to us and His purpose in making these particular words the beginning of the Scripture.

The Literal Beginning

In both the Hebrew (reshith) and the Greek (arche), the primary sense of the word is with respect to time. The idea is that of the starting point of a time-measured period or existence.

This is, no doubt, the sense in which it is used in our text above. Significantly, it is also the sense in which it is used in John 1: 1-3, a text which, on account of the issue of the deity of Christ, has assumed a place of unusual prominence in theological disputations. So, let us look at it in some more detail.

The Word at the Beginning

Genesis 1: 1 declares, "In the beginning, God created". It is interesting to note that practically every human being who has read this verse has interpreted it in the same way regardless of the religious persuasion of such a person. We are not saying that everybody agrees with the Scripture, but that everybody understands what the Scripture is declaring which is that "In the beginning, God, who had been in existence outside of the beginning, created". This is as it should be because common sense (which we all possess) dictates that God could not have created, or in fact done anything in the beginning if He Himself had not existed outside of (or, if you prefer, before) that beginning. Indeed, it is this type of explicit declaration of the existence and works of God without any prior introduction or accompanying physical evidence that atheists frown at. Theists also could frown at it if the god they have credited with the work of creation is not the Elohim mentioned here.

Now, on coming to John 1: 1-3, we find exactly the same message as in Genesis 1:1 albeit declared with the introduction of some details not available in Genesis 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him, nothing was made that was made. (John 1: 1-3)

Here, we are told the following:

• The God who existed in Genesis 1:1 was not just a solitary Person
• That there was a second Person with Him in that existence, going by the name "The Word"
• Being there at the beginning with the first Person, the Word is God as well
• The work of creation was actually effected by the Word.

This is to say that Genesis 1: 1 could be paraphrased as: "In the beginning, God, the Word being with Him in that beginning also as God, created the heavens and the earth".

Of course, we may not agree with the truth of this declaration, but we cannot deny that this is what the Bible has said in these two verses. It is therefore very inconsistent for any person to claim to accept the declaration of the Scripture and at the same time refuse to see in it the declaration of the deity of "the Word“ even if the portion that says "and the Word was God" were not included, since the very attribute of pre-creation existence already defines divinity.

The point is that what shows God as God was not because He was called God (there are thousands of beings who are called God), neither is it because He created but because He had been outside (before) creation in an uncreated existence. God was fully God before He created and even if He never created, He would still be God. We now see that the meaning of The Beginning in these verses was that moment when God decided to create. And the Word was with God and was God in that pre-creation, self-existent mode. This was the absolute beginning before which there was nothing except God as the absolute mystery that He is. But He has faintly, yet adequately revealed Himself to us creatures as One God in Three Persons. (We shall see the revelation concerning the third Person, the Holy Spirit in a later teaching). God at this beginning created Time, Space and Substance. Thus, the Beginning was Time zero, Space nothing and substance nothing.

Foundation of the World

This is another expression used in the Scriptures to denote the beginning. Hence, we see the following events being dated with reference to the foundation of the world:

•  Heaven and earth were created (Psalm 102: 25)
•  Names of the Elect were written in the Book of Life (Rev. 17: 8)
•  Christ was slain (in the spiritual) Revelation 13: 8 and hence, the work of redemption completed in reality (Hebrews 4:3)

Other Literal Beginnings

In the Scriptures, we also see numerous other events all of which happened after the original Beginning, but described with the same expression:

•  The beginning of sin by Satan (1John 3:8; John 8: 44)
•  The beginning of the Jewish calendar (Exodus 12: 2)
•  The beginning of Jesus earthly ministry (John 8: 25)
•  The beginning of sorrows before the end of the present world (Matthew 24: 7-8)

Figurative Sense

The second sense in which we encounter the beginning in the Scripture is the figurative sense where it refers to a person or a thing rather than a point in time or event. In this sense, it describes someone or something that stands in one of the following three positions:

1. The most eminent person or thing in a group, body, organ or community. Also the flagship. This talks of primacy of rank and/or authority. Thus, Christ is the beginning, i.e the Principality, of the Church (Colossians 1: 18); Similarly, Reuben was the beginning of Jacob's strength (Genesis 49:3). In many other places in the Bible, this word, arche, is translated as other things but in all of them, the essential meaning of the person of primacy and authority is maintained.

2. The Author of something is the beginning of that thing. For example, Christ is the Author of creation (John 1: 3, Colossians 1: 16; Hebrews 1: 2). Hence, He is described as the Beginning of creation in Revelation 3: 14. Secularly, Michael Jackson was the beginning of the moonwalk dance step.

3. The most important or most excellent aspect of an issue is the beginning of such an issue. Thus, the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1: 7).

With this short introduction. I believe the word beginning will be a little less confusing to the reader. God bless you.