Episode. 162 | Faith Of Our Fathers: What Do We Know….
Understanding the Truthfulness of the Bible: Key Insights on God, Free Will, and Salvation
This message explores common objections to the Bible’s truthfulness and provides clarity on critical topics such as God’s nature, human free will, and salvation:
God’s Nature is Consistent: The Bible portrays a loving, truthful God whose actions, including changes in plans (e.g., in response to repentance), reflect His mercy, not contradiction.
Human Free Will: The Bible teaches that humans are moral beings with the ability to choose. While sin impacts our hearts, we are still capable of turning to God and repenting.
Salvation Requires a Response: Salvation is not automatic. It involves God’s initiative—through His Word, creation, the Holy Spirit, and the influence of believers—but also requires our voluntary response in faith and repentance.
God’s Desire for All to Be Saved: Scripture affirms that God wants everyone to repent and be saved, yet respects human free will. True discipleship involves aligning our will with His through obedience.
The Role of Believers: Christians are called to share the Gospel and lead others to Christ. The Bible emphasizes the power of God’s Word in guiding people to salvation.
This message concludes with a reminder of the Bible’s clarity and reliability, encouraging all to turn to God, repent of sin, and embrace salvation through Jesus Christ.
Episode Transcript
We have been summarizing our consideration of objections to the truthfulness and accuracy of the Bible in connection with the question, what do we know about the truthfulness of God from the Bible?
We have seen that in the first place, there is nothing inconsistent in the manner in which the Bible presents the nature of God.
Secondly, when God declared that certain unconditional purposes or events would come to pass which did not, in fact, come to pass, the simple answer is that because of repentance or other considerations, God changed his mind.
In the third place, we saw that the use of anthropomorphisms or the reference to our physical characteristics in describing the actions of God are not misleading since the Bible expects us to use our common sense in such matters.
In the fourth place, we have seen that the concept of predestination which would render certain the future actions of men with a fatalistic paralysis is certainly not taught in the Bible as far as man's moral actions are concerned that determine his destiny.
In the fifth place, we have seen that depravity of heart is not so compelling as to coerce the human will, but that all of sin is reduced to a free choice of the pathway of selfishness contrary to the surrounding moral light that God has shed abroad.
A sixth objection which we considered is this.
Many affirm the Bible to teach that man's will is under such bondage to his depraved nature that he cannot break away from sin and obey the reasonable commands of God.
If this be so, then we can rightfully object against the consistency of the Bible, which everywhere sets forth what the Apostle Paul was instructed to preach, that God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, as recorded in Acts, Chapter 1730.
If the Bible commands all men to repent, and they are not able to repent, a very grave situation arises.
Our Lord Jesus preached that the kingdom of God was at hand in his manifested presence.
There was only one way to become spiritual members of it.
Repent ye and believe the Gospel, he proclaimed, as recorded in Mark, Chapter 1, Verse 15.
On another occasion, we have the record of these insistent words as falling from his lips.
Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
The Old Testament presents the same way of salvation.
For example, Isaiah declared in 55, 6, and 7 these words, Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found.
Call ye upon him, while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
This very specifically affirms that the embracing of salvation would have to be man's move.
Now, from what evidence we have of the love, wisdom, and integrity of God, the mere fact that the Bible so universally commands and insists that all must turn to God in utter repentance, if they are going to be saved, should be proof enough that men are able of themselves to repent.
If men are under such bondage to sin that they cannot repent, then what shall we think of the justice of God in commanding men to repent?
What shall we think of a God who would send men to perdition forever for sinning when they could not help it and for not repenting when they were unable to?
In all moral government, ability is the measure of guilt.
If man cannot help but sin, he cannot be guilty for choosing it.
If man cannot turn from sin, he cannot be guilty for not doing so.
But the Bible presents sin as a voluntary commitment of will to wrong conduct and a persistence therein in spite of all of God's efforts to induce us to turn from it.
Sin is a violation, not a pathetic situation.
The Bible reveals it to be an amazement to God that man has been so stupid and foolish to choose the pathway of selfishness and sin when relationship to his great being would be so profound and wonderful.
From the standpoint of God's perfect knowledge of the situation, man is exceedingly foolish.
But since the Bible presents man's sin as a voluntary state and insists that men can repent and turn from sin whenever he chooses, there is certainly no inconsistency here nor any basis for objection.
In the seventh place, we have seen that from this state of supposed inability, some have affirmed that salvation is all of God, or that God is able by His own agency and power to awaken a sinner from spiritual death and grant to him newness of life.
In other words, God is in no sense limited in His sovereign operations.
If He wants a man to be saved, He simply causes him to be saved by His own fiat of power.
Now, if this be so, the Bible presents a very grave inconsistency.
It affirms many times and everywhere implies that it is the will of God that every single individual in the whole world should be saved and live happily in the truth of God.
For example, we might read 1 Timothy 2, and verses 3 and 4, where the Apostle Paul makes this positive statement.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
What could be more specific than this?
And in 2 Peter 3 and verse 9, the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some man count slackness, but is long suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
At the same time, the Bible affirms what is everywhere evident that only a minority are actually being saved and reconciled to God.
Thus, on this supposition, there is an inconsistency between God's declared will and His actual operations.
But again, the Bible relieves itself of these problems by the simple presentation of the fact that salvation is not all of God and that God's will is not being done.
This should be too obvious to need comment, but because theology has so involved the question, it has become a problem to be answered and a defense to be affirmed from the standpoint of the Word of God.
This is the very acknowledgement of our Lord in His earnest prayer, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, as recorded in Matthew 6 and verse 10.
Our Lord was speaking about the moral kingdom of God, holding complete sway over the hearts of men, not some earthly, materialistic kingdom.
The kingdom of God is within you, said Jesus, as recorded in Luke 17, verse 21.
The simple answer is that the kingdom of God did not hold sway in men's hearts because it was not within God's power to cause it to be so.
Man was created in the image of God as a moral being with a free will that would be responsible for his own actions.
When God created such wonderful beings, he involved himself in limitations.
Man may or may not choose to conform to his way of life or to God's will.
As has been discussed somewhat at length, salvation is a cooperative enterprise.
It is not all of God, nor within God's power to accomplish, since salvation involves man's voluntary response to God's appeal and the force of truth.
First, then, we may say that the Bible reveals the tragic fact that although man is able to seek after God, and indeed ought to do so, no one is doing so.
Salvation or the reconciliation of a sinner to God is therefore the result of God's initiative.
God takes the initiative by stirring up men's minds to the force of truth or exerting a moral force to awaken them to obligation.
He uses the evidences of his created wonders that surround man.
The truth revealed through the Bible also becomes a great force.
Wherever this is known, his dispensations of judgment upon sin also are a great force, and the direct convicting power of the Holy Spirit.
There is a true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, wrote the Apostle John in his Gospel, chapter 1, verse 9.
This moral influence or persuasive force exerted by God is universal according to God's impartial love toward all men.
Then secondly, all of God's true children are agents of the Gospel, and exert a personal force on others to persuade toward repentance.
They are such vital and free agents in determining who are saved that the Apostle Paul actually said that he gave birth to spiritual children by his Gospel efforts.
In Christ Jesus, I have begotten you through the Gospel, he wrote to the Corinthian Church in his first epistle, chapter 4, verse 15.
He was in a true sense their spiritual father.
They owed their salvation to him as well as to the author of salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The same word, to beget, is used concerning man's agency, therefore, as is used concerning the agency of the Holy Spirit in the new birth.
This important matter should not be forgotten.
Then thirdly, salvation involves the agency of the one being saved.
The Lord Jesus becomes the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him or are obeying him.
We read in Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 9.
Salvation then is man's response in a revolutionary repentance to the persuasive operations of the Holy Spirit and the prayers and testimonies of the servants of God.
There is one instrument that is used, at least in the culminating persuasions of salvation, the Bible, the Word of God.
Peter wrote that we are born again by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever.
1 Peter 1, 23.
But we shall have to continue these remarks in our next visit.
How thankful we are that God has caused such clear instruction to be incorporated into the Bible.
Our Heavenly Father, with great thanksgiving, we worship Thee and praise Thee this day.
Thank Thee that Thy Word is a light unto our feet and dost illumine our pathway.
We pray that many may have respect unto Thy Word, may repent of all sin, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, be reconciled to Thee, be forgiven, go on to serve Thee in happy fellowship now and forever.
In Jesus' name, Amen.