Scripture and Truth

Carson, D. A., Woodbridge, John D., D. A. Carson, John D. Woodbridge

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 1992
• Print ISBN: 9780801010309
• eBook ISBN: 9781441206312
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

From a biblical, historical, or theological perspective each essay examines a challenge to belief in the integrity and reliability of Scripture. What emerges from these essays is a full-orbed restatement of this evangelical doctrine.

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Scripture’s Self-Attestation and the Problem of Formulating a Doctrine of Scripture

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Wayne A. Grudem

Wayne A. Grudem

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Wayne A. Grudem is professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a graduate of Harvard University (B.A.), Westminster Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and the University of Cambridge, England (Ph.D.). He was assistant professor of theology at Bethel College, St. Paul, Minnesota, for four and one-half years, and then served in the New Testament Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has written The Gift of Prophecy in I Corinthians (1982), The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (1988), First Epistle of Peter (TNTC, rev. ed. 1988), and numerous articles; he has co-edited (with John Piper) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1991). A volume on systematic theology is forthcoming. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, the Institute for Biblical Research, the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research, and the Society of Biblical Literature.

SCRIPTURE’S SELF-ATTESTATION AND THE PROBLEM OF FORMULATING A DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE

In what sense is the Bible the Word of God for Christians today? And in what way should we perceive the nature and character of the Bible as we read it today? More specifically, how should we today think of the truthfulness of the Bible?

In order to answer those questions it will be profitable first to look at the Old Testament text on its own terms, asking initially not the theological question, “What should we believe today?” but the literary and historical question, “What views of God’s word(s) are presented in the Old Testament text itself?” Then we can ask, “What views of the Old Testament text and of the emerging New Testament writings are found among the New Testament authors?”

After those questions have been answered in some detail, we can go on to attempt the formulation of a doctrine of Scripture, asking whether or not it it possible to decide what Christians today should think about the nature and character of the Bible, with particular focus on the question of the truthfulness of the Bible.

OLD TESTAMENT REPORTS OF DIRECT SPEECH FROM GOD TO MEN AND WOMEN

The Old Testament records several instances of speech from God to individual people. The most familiar instance is probably the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai:

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a graven image . . .” (Exod. 20:1–4).[1]

But there are many other examples, such as the speech by God to Adam and Eve both before and after the Fall (Gen. 1:28–30; 3:9–19), the call of Abram (Gen. 12:1–3), subsequent lengthy conversations with Abram in which God’s covenantal provisions are established (Gen. 15:1–21; 17:1–21; note also Abraham’s remarkable conversation with the Lord in Gen. 18:1–23), the extensive dialogue between God and Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:1–4:23), the revelation to Samuel concerning the doom of Eli’s house (1 Sam. 3:10–14), the conversation with Elijah at Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:9–18), God’s detailed (and poetic) response to Job (Job 38–41), and frequent conversations between God and the prophets (Isa. 6:8–13; Jonah 1:1–2; 3:1–2; 4:1–11, et al.). In addition, large sections of the legal code found in the Pentateuch are represented as words spoken directly by God to Moses (see, for example, Exod. 20:22–23:33).

This list could be greatly expanded, especially from passages in the Prophets, but enough examples have been given to establish two points. First, the Old Testament frequently portrays God as communicating with people by using actual spoken words, not simply by communicating ideas or thoughts somehow apart from individual words. This concept of verbal communication from God was quite often opposed by scholars of a previous generation,[2] so much so that James Barr in 1963 said in protest:

Direct verbal communication between God and particular men on particular occasions . . . is, I believe, an inescapable fact of the Bible and of the OT in particular. God can speak specific verbal messages, when he wills, to the man of his choice. . . . If we persist in saying that this direct, specific communication must be subsumed under revelation through events in history and taken as subsidiary interpretation of the latter, I shall say that we are abandoning the Bible’s own representation of the matter for another which is apologetically more comfortable.[3]

Second, these passages never view human language as a barrier to effective communication by God. There is no hint that some inadequacies inherent in human language may be used as a legitimate reason to disbelieve or to disobey anything God has said. The appropriate response, according to the Old Testament writers, is, “All the words which the LORD has spoken we will do” (Exod. 24:3). Similarly, Abram’s belief in God’s seemingly impossible promises is commended: “And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

So the Old Testament text speaks frequently of direct verbal communication from God, communication that demands absolute belief and absolute obedience. God is viewed as the Creator and Lord of human language (“Who has made man’s mouth?” [Exod. 4:11]), who is able to use language however He wills in order to accomplish His purposes.

OLD TESTAMENT REPORTS OF PROPHETIC SPEECH (GOD’S WORDS SPOKEN BY MEN)

PROPHETS ARE VIEWED AS AUTHORITATIVE MESSENGERS OF GOD

The Old Testament prophets are most frequently pictured as messengers sent by God to speak God’s words to people.[4] James F. Ross lists several discernible characteristics of a “messenger speech” (Botenspruch) in the Old Testament narratives:[5] an introductory formula (“thus says Yahweh”), a standard conclusion (“says Yahweh”), the frequent use of the verb šālaḥ (“send”) to indicate that the prophet is sent by God,[6] and a commissioning narrative in which Yahweh tells the prophet, “Go and say to___________, ‘Thus says Yahweh. . . .’” Ancient Near Eastern parallels, especially those found in the Mari and Ras Shamra texts, provide additional examples of prophets as messengers of a god. (However, the evidence from such sources is not completely unambiguous.)[7]

It is characteristic of this kind of messenger that his words possess not merely his own personal authority but the authority of the one who sent him. So it is with the Old Testament prophets: their words carry the authority of Yahweh Himself, because He has called them as authoritative messengers who will speak for Him.[8]

Lindblom is no doubt correct when he points to the “council [sôd] of Yahweh” as a reference to the source of a prophet’s speech: “That the prophets are in possession of the divine word depends on the fact that they are admitted to the sôd of Yahweh. . . . Thus the words of the prophets are words which they have heard directly from Yahweh.”[9] But more basic even than this council to Old Testament thought is the simple hearing-speaking pattern Lindblom describes: “Yahweh speaks to the prophet, the prophet hears what Yahweh says, and then he pronounces what he has heard to the listening people.”[10]

The Old Testament text, then, together with parallels in Ancient Near Eastern literature, portrays the prophets as messengers sent by God and bearing God’s authority in the message He has given them to deliver.

“THUS SAYS THE LORD” AS A ROYAL DECREE FORMULA

The frequent use of the introductory formula (“thus says Yahweh [or the LORD]”) or its equivalent is a further indication of the high degree of authority and reliability claimed for the words the prophets spoke in God’s name.[11] This formula is one that would have been used in the Ancient Near East to introduce an edict issued by a king to his subjects.

An extrabiblical parallel to this phrase is seen by J. S. Holladay in the Neo-Assyrian phrase “Amāt šarri ana ___________” (“Word of the king to _______________”). This phrase is “almost invariable in the letters of the king to his subjects,” says Holladay. “That amāt šarri is an especially authoritative, compelling mode of address (equivalent to ‘edict of the king’) is shown (a) by the fact that it appears as an introductory formula only in the king’s letters . . ., (b) by the fact that, when the king addresses his letters to presumed equals . . . he invariably uses the introductory formula normally reserved for more personal or familial communication.”[12]

In the Old Testament text itself, this royal decree formula is used in an interesting conflict between Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, and Yahweh, the king of Israel, in Isaiah 36–37. The Rabshakeh’s statement: “Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria . . .” is set against Isaiah’s statement: “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel . . .” (Isa. 36:4; cf. 36:13–14, 16; 37:6, 21). The “messenger verb” šālaḥ is used several times (Isa. 36:2, 12; 37:14 of Rabshakeh; cf. 37:21).

On another level, Hezekiah is the king who sends (wayyišlaḥ Isa. 37:2) messengers to Isaiah saying, “Thus says Hezekiah” (Isa. 37:3).

Royal messengers from Ben-hadad also use this introductory formula in 1 Kings 20:2 (3), 5: “Thus says Ben-hadad.” There is a response in kind to Ahab the prophet (1 Kings 20:13, 14, 28). However, once Ben-hadad has been defeated, he cannot use the royal decree formula, but instead sends messengers who say, “Your servant Ben-hadad says” (1 Kings 20:32)!

The formula is also used by Pharaoh’s taskmasters to report Pharaoh’s edict to the people (Exod. 5:10; note that the LORD sends messengers to speak to Pharaoh in the same way: Exod. 422; 5:1, et al.). In Jeremiah 282, 11, however, a false prophet uses the formula with disastrous consequences (v. 17).

The formula “Thus says the LORD,” appearing hundreds of times in the Old Testament,[13] is a royal decree formula used to preface the edict of a king to his subjects, an edict that could not be challenged or questioned but simply had to be obeyed. God is viewed as the sovereign king of Israel, and when the prophets speak, they are seen as bringing the divine king’s absolutely authoritative decrees to His subjects.

IT IS THOUGHT THAT EVERY WORD THE PROPHET SPEAKS IN GOD’S NAME MUST COME FROM GOD

The distinguishing characteristic of a true prophet is that he does not speak his own words or “words of his own heart,” but words that God has sent (šālaḥ) him to deliver (Deut. 18:18–20; Jer. 14:14; 23:16–40; 29:31–32; Ezek. 13:1–19; cf. Num. 16:28).[14] Throughout the Old Testament there is an emphasis not simply on the general content of prophetic speech as coming from God, but on the very words themselves. God says to Moses, the archetypal Old Testament prophet,[15] “I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (Exod. 4:12; cf. 24:3). The same is said of other prophets: “I will put my words in his mouth” (Deut. 18:18; cf. w. 21–22); “I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer. 1:9); “The word that God puts in my mouth, that I must speak” (Num 22:38; cf. 23:5, 16); “You shall speak my words to them” (Ezek. 2:7; cf. 327).

This emphasis on the actual words spoken by the mouth of the prophet indicates something more than a conviction that ideas have been given by God to the prophet, who will then express the ideas in his own words. Not just the general message but also the very words in which it is expressed are seen as coming from God. Any prophet who spoke a word “not from the mouth of the LORD” (Jer. 23:16) was a false prophet. And “the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak . . . shall die” (Deut. 18:20). The people refused to listen to “the words of the LORD which he [the LORD] spoke through [beyad] Jeremiah the prophet” (Jer. 372). Many similar examples could be given (see 1 Kings 16:34; 2 Kings 9:36; 14:25; 17:23; 24:2; 2 Chron. 29:25; Ezra 9:10–11; Neh. 9:30; Zech. 7:7, 12, et al.), but the point is clear: When a prophet speaks, the people are to think of the words as words that God Himself is speaking to them.

WHAT THE PROPHET SAYS IN GOD’S NAME, GOD SAYS

One more indication of the absolute divine authority attributed to prophetic speech is seen in the frequency with which God is referred to as the speaker of something a prophet said. In 1 Kings 13:26, “the word which the LORD spoke to him” is the word the prophet had spoken in verse 21. Similarly, Elijah’s words in 1 Kings 21:19 are referred to in 2 Kings 9:25–26 as the oracle that “the LORD uttered . . . against him,” and Elijah is not even mentioned. To obey “the words of Haggai the prophet” is equivalent to obeying “the voice of the LORD” (Hag. 1:12; cf. 1 Sam. 15:3, 18).

An Old Testament Israelite listening to the words of a prophet, then, viewed the words as not merely words of a man but also words that God Himself was speaking through the prophet. The Old Testament text indicates that these words were to be accorded the same status and character as direct speech from God. For God to speak through a prophet was to use a different means of speaking to people than when He spoke directly to the people with a voice out of heaven at Mt. Sinai (Exod. 20:22; Deut. 5:22–26). But the speech that came forth was exactly the same in terms of its character and status. Whatever could be said about the authority, power, truthfulness, or purity of one form of divine speech could also be said about the other.

PROPHETS OFTEN SPEAK FOR GOD IN THE FIRST PERSON

If the Old Testament prophets are seen as God’s royal messengers, and if they speak as though they are delivering unchallengeable edicts from a divine King to His people, and if it is frequently claimed that the very words of their messages have been given them by God, then it is not surprising that the prophets often speak for God in the first person (2 Sam. 7:4–16; 1 Kings 20:13, 42; 2 Kings 17:13; 19:25–28, 34; 21:12–15; 22:16–20; 2 Chron. 12:5, and the Latter Prophets, passim). The manner in which the prophet’s words are so completely identified with Yahweh’s words is seen when the prophet says things like, “You shall know that I am the LORD” (1 Kings 20:13), or, “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5). Clearly no Israelite would have thought that the prophet was speaking his own words in such cases; he was simply repeating the words of the one who had sent him.[16]

GOD IS OFTEN SAID TO SPEAK “THROUGH” THE PROPHET

This identification of the prophet’s words with Yahweh’s words is so strong in the Old Testament that often we read of God’s speaking “through” a prophet. That is, the prophet himself is speaking, but his words are also thought to be words that God is speaking to the people. Israel mourned for Jeroboam’s son, “according to the word of the LORD, which he [the LORD] spoke by [beyad] his servant Ahijah the prophet” (1 Kings 14:18). Zimri destroyed the house of Baasha, “according to the word of the LORD, which he [the LORD] spoke against Baa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface to the New Edition
• Preface
• Part 1 Biblical Essays
• Part 2 Historical Essays
• Part 3 Theological Essays
• Notes
• Abbreviations
• Index of Persons
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Scripture