Love Beyond All Comprehending.

A new hymn based on Ephesians 3:14-21.

 

Grebe – Johann Georg Ebeling by George vP

Authority (2): the source

The source of authority: God

When we speak about authority, then we need to ask about the source of authority. What or who is the source?

It is, of course, God. Ultimate authority belongs to God alone—to God the Creator and Redeemer of life. God is the absolute and final authority with respect to all things: Nature, history, faith and morals.

After the LORD God had shown his sovereignty over nature and history by bringing his people Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground and had drowned Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his soldiers in the midst of the Red Sea, then Moses and the Israelites sang a song which praised God as the One who has authority over people's lives and over all of creation. They ended the song (Exod 15) with the triumphant words: "The LORD will reign for ever and ever."

Many of the Psalms describe God as the great, ultimate, and final authority over all things. Psalm 93 says: "The LORD reigns, He is robed in majesty; … and is armed with strength. … Your statutes stand firm … for endless days, O LORD."

The Lord Jesus told us not to fear those who can kill the body and after that can do no more. Rather, said He, we ought to fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw a person into hell. And then He was talking about God the Father.

One of the apostolic letters of the New Testament, the letter of Jude, ends with these words: "… to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore!"

We can also think of the book of Revelation which shows so powerfully the authority God has over all the peoples of the earth, over all of nature, and over all of history.

Authority given to Christ

God the Father has given authority to his Son—to God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. As Jesus Christ himself said in Matthew 28:18: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

What kind of authority did the Lord Jesus Christ receive? He tells us, in the gospels.

The gospels tell us that He had authority on earth to forgive sins (Mark 2:10). He had the authority to drive out demons (Mark 3:15). He taught as one who had authority, and not as the teachers of the law of his time. The people recognized that. When He spoke, they listened (Matthew 7:29). God the Father gave his Son authority to judge (John 5:27). John 17:2 teaches that the Father gave Jesus Christ the authority to give eternal life to all those the Father had given Him.

God the Son has authority by virtue of being God. Because He, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is true and eternal God, He has authority over all things. But He was given authority in a special way—authority to forgive sins, to heal, to teach, to judge and to give eternal life.

The authority of God's Word

How does this authority—the authority of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ—reach us today? Through the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ and of God the Father, speaks to us today through the Word, the Bible. The Scriptures, as the very Word of God, has authority over us.

The authority of Scripture lies in the fact that it is inspired, the infallible Word of God. In 2 Timothy 3:16 & 17, the Apostle Paul wrote: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

God breathed the Scriptures out. God speaks to us today by way of the Holy Scriptures. We need to listen to them. Woe unto him who would ignore what the Scriptures say. The Bible has total authority over us, over every aspect of life, both doctrine and conduct.

It is the Bible that teaches us how to live. It teaches us what God's will is and how to live a life pleasing to Him. We need to read the Bible, every day at home, to study it, in order to know what the Lord requires of us. It is the Bible that teaches the gospel which tells us about what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for sinners. It speaks about how He died to set people free from their sins.

The Lord has given the task of proclaiming the gospel and teaching the Word to the church. All people need to seek out the church of Jesus Christ to sit under faithful and authoritative preaching to hear the good news of salvation and to be taught how to live in obedience to God's Word and in thankfulness for his goodness and grace.

(The next posts begin exploring the topic of the agents of authority.)

This series of blog posts were originally presented as a speech at the October 1998 Ontario Women's League Day in Ancaster, Ontario. Much of the spoken style remains.

The Vatican and Darwin

I had forgotten that I had written this.

A comparison of Genesis 49 with Deuteronomy 33

As we were reading through the book of Deuteronomy, we read Moses' blessings upon the tribes and I did a comparison with Jacob's blessings upon his sons. I made a little grid. I 'm not sure what I'll do with it. In 1965 Oosterbaan & Le Cointre published J.G. Meijer's two volume work, Ieder Een Eigen Zegen ("Each his own Blessing"). Perhaps Deuteronomy 33 calls for something similar. In the mean time, the two sets of blessings are interesting to compare.

Jacob, Genesis 49	Moses, Deuteronomy 33
“Reuben, you are my firstborn,     my might, and the firstfruits of my strength,     preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. 4 Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence,     because you went up to your father's bed;     then you defiled it—he went up to my couch!	“Let Reuben live, and not die,     but let his men be few.”
5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers;     weapons of violence are their swords. 6 Let my soul come not into their council;     O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men,     and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. 7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,     and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob     and scatter them in Israel.	“Give to Levi[h] your Thummim,     and your Urim to your godly one, whom you tested at Massah,     with whom you quarreled at the waters of Meribah; 9 who said of his father and mother,     ‘I regard them not’; he disowned his brothers     and ignored his children. For they observed your word     and kept your covenant. 10 They shall teach Jacob your rules     and Israel your law; they shall put incense before you     and whole burnt offerings on your altar. 11 Bless, O Lord, his substance,     and accept the work of his hands; crush the loins of his adversaries,     of those who hate him, that they rise not again.” (Simeon missing)
8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you;     your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;     your father's sons shall bow down before you. 9 Judah is a lion's cub;     from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion     and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? 10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,     nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him;[a]     and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. 11 Binding his foal to the vine     and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine     and his vesture in the blood of grapes. 12 His eyes are darker than wine,     and his teeth whiter than milk.	“Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah,     and bring him in to his people. With your hands contend[g] for him,     and be a help against his adversaries.”
13 “Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea;     he shall become a haven for ships,     and his border shall be at Sidon.	“Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out,     and Issachar, in your tents. 19 They shall call peoples to their mountain;     there they offer right sacrifices; for they draw from the abundance of the seas     and the hidden treasures of the sand.”
14 “Issachar is a strong donkey,     crouching between the sheepfolds.[b] 15 He saw that a resting place was good,     and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear,     and became a servant at forced labor.	For Issachar, see Zebulun
16 “Dan shall judge his people     as one of the tribes of Israel. 17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way,     a viper by the path, that bites the horse's heels     so that his rider falls backward. 18 I wait for your salvation, O Lord.	“Dan is a lion's cub     that leaps from Bashan.”
19 “Raiders shall raid Gad,[c]     but he shall raid at their heels.	“Blessed be he who enlarges Gad!     Gad crouches like a lion;     he tears off arm and scalp. 21 He chose the best of the land for himself,     for there a commander's portion was reserved; and he came with the heads of the people,     with Israel he executed the justice of the Lord,     and his judgments for Israel.”
20 “Asher's food shall be rich,     and he shall yield royal delicacies.	“Most blessed of sons be Asher;     let him be the favorite of his brothers,     and let him dip his foot in oil. 25 Your bars shall be iron and bronze,     and as your days, so shall your strength be.
21 “Naphtali is a doe let loose     that bears beautiful fawns.	“O Naphtali, sated with favor,     and full of the blessing of the Lord,     possess the lake[l] and the south.”
22 “Joseph is a fruitful bough,     a fruitful bough by a spring;     his branches run over the wall.[e] 23 The archers bitterly attacked him,     shot at him, and harassed him severely, 24 yet his bow remained unmoved;     his arms[f] were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob     (from there is the Shepherd,[g] the Stone of Israel), 25 by the God of your father who will help you,     by the Almighty[h] who will bless you     with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath,     blessings of the breasts and of the womb. 26 The blessings of your father     are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents,     up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.[i] May they be on the head of Joseph,     and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.	“Blessed by the Lord be his [Joseph’s] land,     with the choicest gifts of heaven above,[j]     and of the deep that crouches beneath, 14 with the choicest fruits of the sun     and the rich yield of the months, 15 with the finest produce of the ancient mountains     and the abundance of the everlasting hills, 16 with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness     and the favor of him who dwells in the bush. May these rest on the head of Joseph,     on the pate of him who is prince among his brothers. 17 A firstborn bull[k]—he has majesty,     and his horns are the horns of a wild ox; with them he shall gore the peoples,     all of them, to the ends of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim,     and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”
27 “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,     in the morning devouring the prey     and at evening dividing the spoil.”	The beloved of the Lord [Benjamin] dwells in safety. The High God[i] surrounds him all day long,     and dwells between his shoulders.”

Lesson from the Belgic Confession on Scripture

I've completed the lessons on what the Belgic Confessions says about the holy scriptures. Click here.

The Bible and the Peace Tower

This is from Tim Bloedow at Christian Governance. Very interesting!

The Bible and the Peace Tower

... The Christian engravings on the Parliament Buildings and the Peace Tower, however, must be attributed to the chief architect, John A. Pearson. After the engravings on the outside of the Peace Tower were unveiled, there was some discussion in Parliament about removing them, but the providence of God trumped the will of non-Christian men. Following is a relevant transcript on this matter from the May 27th, 1921 House of Commons Hansard, the official transcript of debates in the Lower House of our Canadian Parliament (for the 5th Session of the 13th Parliament, 1921, p. 3997): Mr. McCURDY: ... In answer to a question asked by the hon. member for Middlesex West (Mr. Ross) and the hon. member for Halifax, the words which are being inscribed on the tower, some of which are now visible, are as follows. Facing Wellington street:     Give the King thy judgement, O God, and thy righteousness unto the King's son. That is taken from psalm 72 as, no doubt, my hon. friend will recognize. On one side there will appear these words:     Where there is no vision, the people perish. On the other side:     He shall have Dominion from sea to sea. Also from psalm 72. Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax): Is that approved by the Parliamentary Commmittee? Mr. McCURDY: That detail was not approved by the Parliamentary Committee. Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax): While one is diffident about expressing an opinion in regard to a matter of this kind offhand, it strikes me as being an absurdity; I do not think it will add anything to the beauty of the tower and it is altogether inappropriate. Then, on June 4th, the matter was picked up again in Parliament (pp. 4543-4): Hon. CHARLES MARCH (Bonaventure): I desire to ask the Prime Minister if he does not think that one of the three inscriptions on the tower of this building should be in French, seeing that French is one of the official languages of this country? Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Prime Minister): ... Mr. SPEAKER: I am informed that the Building Committee have ordered these inscriptions be removed. Mr. LAPOINTE: That would be the best thing to do. Two weeks later, the inscriptions were discussed at a June 16th meeting of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction of the Parliament Buildings. The Minutes of that meeting include the following note: "The question of the inscription on the Main Tower was brought up and reference was made to the statements of the Right Honourable the Prime Minister and the Honourable Speaker of the House of Commons on June 4th, the day of Prorogation. "As the inscription has been completed, the Committee decided that it would not be justified in taking any action in regard to its removal at the present time." A few months later, on October 4, Parliament was dissolved, and the new Parliament apparently did not take up the matter again. Nor was a fresh committee organized to continue the work of the Reconstruction of the Parliament Buildings committee. As you can see, the inscriptions on the Peace Tower did not originate from the will of our politicians. On the contrary, they were prepared to see them removed. But God used the vision of an architect and the inertia of civil government in His Providence to ensure that these Bible passages would be inscribed in such a visible public place, at our seat of national government. What we do have is the finger of God - the Word of God - carved into the architecture of the buildings which symbolize our national government, notwithstanding the political fancy of the day, and regardless of the particular convictions of the governments and political leaders who come and go.

"Inerrancy"

Lately, in the circles I move in, there has been some discussion on the topic of "the inerrancy of scripture." See, e.g., here and here.

One set of seminary notes that I, over the past 2 1/2 decades, have kept within arm's reach are my thousands of pages of hand-written notes of the Faber (my dogmatics prof) lectures. The following is an excerpt from a lecture on revelation, Nov. 20, 1986.

Dr. Faber is discussing the perfections of scripture. Under “authority” he said the following (I’m responsible for any errors):

To the traditional Reformed view of this perfection of scripture, we can add, today, the dependability, trustworthiness, of scripture. Also, the unity of scripture. These categories are implied in the authority of scripture. Rom. 3:2, “Though every man were a liar, yet God is true.” Psalm 12: the pure gold of God’s Word is set over against the words of man.

Nowadays we must talk about the historical reliability of scripture. (Recently the GKN [synodical, gvp]) issued a new report because of criticism against God Met Ons which starts on a philosophical footing. This new report admits the philosophical starting point  is not good, but defends that historical criticism is necessary. The new report maintains that.)

Today’s theology makes a distinction between “salutary contents” and “history.” The salutary contents are said to be dependable, but the dependability does not extend to the historical data.

G.C. Berkouwer speaks this way [his 1975 book on Holy Scripture, gvp]. He speaks of the scopus, the tendency of scripture. He says that what scripture intends to relate to us is salvation.

Critics of scripture say that the Bible has an old fashioned three-story view of the universe; we know better since Newton.

Dr. Faber does not make a distinction between scopus and data. There is some truth in saying that the scripture is not a history text book. Article 2 of the Belgic Confession, on scripture: “Second, He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word as far as is necessary for us in this life, to His glory and our salvation.” The “scopus” of scripture is that it is God’s self-revelation unto our salvation. Thus we should not put to scripture questions that it is not meant to answer. We should keep in mind that scripture has a scopus. We read it in a redemptive-historical manner. “Redemptive” qualifies “historical.” The Bible gives us a history of redemption, not a history of the Ancient Near East.

Having said this, this does not mean that the historical data are unreliable. Berkouwer leaves open the possibility of attacking the reliability of the historical data. In the ch. entitled “Reliability” in a book on scripture by Koole, Berkouwer attacks the “inerrancy of scripture.”

We must, at times, admit that we cannot explain everything. Scripture, because it is God’s Word, is pure, infallible. Thus we can say “inerrant,” but “infallible” is a better word. “Infallible” stresses more the “troth” aspect. Behind “troth” lies the Hebrew concept of ENUMA: truthfulness. “Troth” includes correspondence to the facts, but it is a deeper concept. Troth implies reliability. “Infallible” implies “inerrant.”

Today’s inerrancy school is in danger of advancing rationalist arguments for the inerrancy of scripture. It is deeper than that. It is a faith conviction, faith created by the Holy Spirit.