1 Corinthians 15. 3-5
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve.”
The Apostle Paul makes is absolutely clear that faith in Christ on which we base our eternal salvation rests upon the witness of the Scripture. Can he say it more plainly than in this text? “According to the Scriptures” defines and delineates personal faith in Jesus Christ. The affirmation is fourfold:
Christ died for our sins- according to the Scriptures
Christ was buried – according to the Scriptures
Christ was raised on the third day-
According to the Scriptures
Christ appeared to Peter and to the Twelve-
According to the Scriptures.
Do you believe that? Why do you believe that? We believe it because we trust the Scriptural evidence which tells us that He died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day and appeared to Peter and to the Twelve. And then, with Paul who writes a little later, we can also say, “…and last of all he appeared to me also.”
The message and information conveyed in our Scripture is essential for salvation.
For while we may know that God is through the created order, the Scriptures teach us and the WCF* states that we must have the revelation of Jesus as presented in Scripture in order to live in relationship with Jesus in the forgiveness of our sins.
Since that is so, I thought it good for us to share some information and insight which is usually abused and misconstrued, I am sad to say, even by those who trust in Christ as Savior and Lord.
When all is finalized, the Church of Jesus Christ, the church universal - led by men who are inspired by the Spirit of Christ, affirms the sixty-six books of the Biblical record as the canon of Scripture.
Through the years and in the process of canonization, the church debated the inspiration and authority of some of the books. But when the process was complete, the Reformed church has stood solidly for the sixty-six books we call the Bible.
We also affirm similarly concerning the human authorship of the books. Whether or not Moses wrote major portions or passages of the Pentateuch or whether it was written by the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Deuteronomist or the Priestly source makes no difference – whoever put quill to a scroll, they and the words they wrote were inspired by the Holy Spirit?
Whether the author of the Gospel of John was John the Apostle and/or the “beloved disciple” or John the Elder or someone else, does not the gospel remain inspired by the Spirit and authoritative for our lives in Christ?
Dr. George Eldon Ladd is quoted by many: “The Scripture is the Word of God but it is expressed in the words of men.”
That is part of the grandeur of the Written Word that the Spirit is able to communicate pure and undefiled truth which reveals the means of salvation in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins and our entrance into life in and with and through Christ. And the pure and true communication is accomplished through sinful human beings who have been redeemed by grace as the gift of God and dedicated to his service in this unique way.
By the power and sensitivity of the Spirit, he takes a murderer like Moses or a shepherd and part-time laborer in the harvest of sycamore figs like Amos or an abuser of Christians and a radical activist like Paul and creates newness of life which, stroked by the power of God, becomes a mighty instrument for the writing of part of the Word of God.
The Scriptures are inspired. Everything about them is inspired – not just the writing - but the compilation and copying and translations and textual variants in the manuscripts -----all bring glory to God and as part of the process of transmission, and also fall under the control and providence of the Spirit of God.
Manuscripts
There are more remaining texts of the Old and New Testament than any other ancient writings. The Bible has no peer in regard to the copies of ancient writings.
The most numerous manuscripts (fragments and larger) by a secular writer from the same period are 200 by Suetonius, which dates from the 9th century AD – very late dating for a first century author- and of the best known five Greco-Roman historians including Suetonius a total of 325 manuscripts.
On the other hand the New Testament has 5700 Greek only manuscripts, 10,000 Latin and over 1,000,000 quotations from the early church fathers. If we lost all the extant copies of manuscripts and fragments we have, we could still reconst5uct the NT from the quotations of the Church Fathers. There are well over 1000 times as many NT manuscripts still existing compared with what we have from the classical writers of the period.
That is the gift of providential grace.
Ten to fifteen NT manuscripts were written within 100 years of the completion of the NT books. 99 full manuscripts still exist which were produced before 400AD. This is astounding in the study of ancient literatures. And it is providential blessing of God.
Of the Old Testament we have 3000 manuscripts written in Hebrew, 8000 in Latin and 1500 Greek. It is obvious that the earliest language for the Old Testament would be Hebrew, the language of Israel. The desire to record events and produce literature comes from God himself who wrote the Ten Commandments on stone by his own finger. Daniel 9.2 refers to the Book of Jeremiah which was part of a larger collection of authoritative works called “the books.”
The oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, known as the Masoretic Text is the Codex (Book) Leningradensis which dates form 1008AD.
It was largely assumed that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, most of them dating from 250BC to 135AD, a 1000 to 1200 years older than the Codex Leningradensis that the older Dead Sea scrolls would contain significant differences than the Leningradensis copy 1000 years later. However, minute and intricate examination has shown that both versions very closely agree and thus, the accuracy of the text we have had for all these years has been confirmed.
The Process of Transmission
How did we obtain these texts? How were they preserved and passed on to us?
More than likely the Temple priests in the time of David and Solomon begin the process of accumulating and compiling and composing certain historical narrative and poetry which would eventually form the OT. We possess no original manuscripts called “autographs” today but only copies.
The books were originally written on scrolls by scribes.
When the scrolls began to show signs of wear, they were copied and reverently buried since they contained the words of God and particularly the holy name of God.
Old worn copies were put in a hidden place awaiting the proper burial and one of these manuscript tombs was found in an old synagogue in Cairo in 1890.
The scribes were meticulous in their work checking for mistakes or omissions by counting every letter of the Old Testament Hebrew from beginning to end to be sure it matched with the most original they had.
Transcribing the manuscripts was a labor intensive effort and Christians of all eras and cultures need to give thanks to God for the faithfulness of scribes and monks who meticulously copied the Word of God across the ages.
Many Christians, not to mention multitudes of agnostics and unbelievers, delight in making statements about the variants in the manuscripts implying that the Written Word we possess is in someway tainted and thus impure and therefore allowing the possibility that it is insufficient as the rule and guide for our lives.
The point of such drivel is that such an uniformed attitude relieves them of the need to conform to the truth they understand and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ whose word is holy. I would believe it to be a sin of the lowest order to defame and deprecate the accuracy and truth of the Written Word of God.
What is the truth about the copying errors in the manuscripts?
There are indeed copying differences in the manuscripts. These are called “variant readings,” which are found at the bottom of the pages in our Bibles. Old Testament variant readings occur in less than 1% of the entire text and of that 1%, NOT ONE of them change any point of doctrine.
In the New Testament, there are 400,000 textual variants. The most common difference is called a nonsense error, very similar to dropping the “N” before a word beginning with a vowel in English. We do not say, “A apple” but “an apple”.
Another reason for variant readings is the “roominess” of Greek. The simple sentence in English, “Jesus loves John” can be written sixteen different ways in Greek and not one of the sixteen ways affect the meaning of the statement that Jesus loves John.
What does this mean? It means this. Of the 400,000 textual variants in the New Testament alone, only 50 have any limited impact on the text and of the fifty, NOT ONE affects or alters any cardinal doctrine or essential truth in which you and I have placed our faith.
That is the affirmation made by William Barclay who agrees with Bruce Metzger of Princeton who is understood to be the premier textual scholar of the past generation whose NT text is used universally in every seminary regardless of denominational affiliation.
The transmission of the text over a 1200 year period was done either by dictation or copying by sight in candlelight. Its transmission is just as guarded by the inspiration of the Spirit as is the message in the text.
The Written Word is the gateway to the Living Word, Jesus Christ and it is holy and pure in word and thought and theology and text.
As Ragnor Bring states it: The Word of God has being with, in, through and under the words of the Bible. As Jesus of Nazareth participated in Christ as God, so the Written Word – your Bible – participates in the Truth and Divine Grace as the gateway to the Living Word.
The Scriptures are our inspired and authoritative rule which leads us to life – and guide us in living- by the Spirit in Jesus Christ.
“According to the Scriptures” is one of the two most powerful affirmations a Christian can make. And it is an affirmation a Christian must make. Salvation is not possible without the witness of the Written Word which, by the power of the Spirit, leads us to the Living Word, Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
(*WCF – Westminster Confession of Faith)
To You, Lord Jesus Christ, I humbly present this offering of praise and thanksgiving for your grace and goodness to us in the writing, preservation and providential blessing of your most Holy Word.