Christ's Inspiration of Scripture

Christ's Interpretation of Scripture

One of humanity's most sacred obligations is reading and interpreting the inspired word of God. That was Paul's reason for telling Timothy: "Give diligence to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). The New American Standard renders that last phrase: "Handling accurately the word of truth." The Greek word translated "handling aright" "or rightly dividing" literally means to cut straight. The word may be taken from the responsibility of stone masons' cutting the stones straight or of a farmer's ploughing a straight furrow. The expression requires all who handle the word of God to do so honestly, accurately and fully. Aquila and Priscilla took the Greek preacher Apollos aside and "expounded unto him the way of the Lord more perfectly" (Acts 18:26). How careful we must be in our interpretation of scripture!

The Tennessean (Wednesday, November 22, 2000) published an article with the title, "Florida must include hand recounts." The article summarized the Florida Supreme Court's evaluation of the recount of votes in several counties in Florida. The Court called "the right of the people to cast their votes...the paramount concern overriding all others." The Florida Supreme Court said it was guided by "the will of the people, not by a hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions" (p. 1-A). Do you understand what the Florida Supreme Court was saying? They were going to depend on the will of the people and not on the law of Florida. There was no way under heaven the Supreme Court of Florida or anyone else could know the will of the people except by the way they voted. No one can determine intentions except by actions. The way the Court interpreted the law in Florida is the way some theologians and preachers interpret the Bible. Many Bible interpreters are not going to rely on the plain words of scripture. They will and do interpret the Bible in the way that pleases them, just as the Florida Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution of the state of Florida. Professor Rothstein of Georgetown Law School further muddied the waters when he affirmed that there is a very thin line between interpreting the law and making law. In other words, the law is what the judges say it is--not what it actually is.

Most of you have probably heard that former president Jimmy Carter has severed his lifetime association with the Southern Baptist Convention. According to The Tennessean (Saturday, October 21, 2000), Mr. Carter says his father and his grandfather were Southern Baptists for many years. But he could no longer remain in that fellowship. One of the main reasons he and his feminist wife left the Baptist Church was their belief in the equality of women." He admits to becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the specificity of the Baptist creed. He thinks there ought to be room in the Southern Baptist Convention for people with slightly different commitments. Now please listen to this statement: "I have always felt and feel very deeply that the ultimate interpreter of scripture is Jesus Christ" (p. 2-A).

Please understand that I am not for one moment questioning Jimmy Carter's sincerity or commitment. I have absolutely no reason to think he is being hypercritical or wanting to gain attention for his change of denominational affiliation. But he makes precious little biblical sense in affirming that "the ultimate interpreter of scripture is Jesus Christ." How has our Lord Jesus Christ interpreted scripture for Jimmy Carter? Has the former president been in secret communication with the Lord? For example, what does Jesus Christ have to say about the relationship of the sexes? Can we know the will of the Lord except as we read what Paul and Peter said on this very vital topic? Were these apostles of Christ teaching in harmony with his wishes or were they operating independently of his revealed will? Do you remember what our Lord said to his apostles as he was preparing them for his return to the Father?

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away: for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you....Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you all things" (John 16:7, 14).

Did Jesus Christ send the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles into all truth? When the apostles preached and wrote scripture, did they leave out any truth Jesus wanted them to preach? Did they preach any ideas Jesus did not approve? According to Jude, we have been blessed with the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). The apostles preached only what the Holy Spirit guided them into preaching. So that we can safely say: "Whatever Paul preached is the very word of God." To put that truth even simpler: What Paul said is what God said. Is that the way Jesus viewed the word of God? Did he believe that what Moses said or what David said and what Isaiah said was what God said?

But did not Jesus criticize the Old Testament scriptures? My friends, he objected to the way the Jews handled--or rather mishandled--the Old Testament, but not one time--not one time--did he dispute the truth of the Old Testament. Please listen to what he said to his own disciples. "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you to observe, that observe and do; but do not after their works: for they say and do not" (Mt. 23:1-3). Jesus strongly objected to the traditions the Jews had added to the word, but he never one time denied the relevance or truth of any Old Testament book.

Mr. Carter says that the Southern Baptists have "become increasingly demanding in the specificity of their creed." I am not speaking for the Southern Baptist Convention, but are the Baptists any more specific in their teaching that Jesus was? I wonder if Jimmy Carter knows that Jesus built an argument on the tense of a verb? Was he really that strict in his interpretation of his Bible, the Old Testament? Matthew 22 tells of a confrontation between Jesus and some Sadducees. The Sadducees, like many modern theologians, were antisupernaturalists. They did not believe in the resurrection (Mt. 22:23). They sought to entrap Jesus by reminding him of the Old Testament practice of levirate marriage. Moses had taught that when a man dies, having no children, his brother is to marry his wife and raise up seed to his brother. Suppose a woman marries seven times. In the day of judgment, whose wife will she be (Mt. 22:24-28)?

Jesus rebuked the Sadducees by arguing: "You do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Mt. 22:29-32). God said. "I am the God of Abraham," not I was the God of Abraham. Does Jimmy Carter know how strict Jesus was in his interpretation of scripture? Does Mr. Carter believe modern men should be that strict in their interpretation of the New Testament? If he does not, how can he claim Jesus as the ultimate interpreter of scripture? I have no doubt Jimmy Carter was honest in making that statement, but he has no biblical ground on which to stand. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter does not imitate our Lord's respect for and his interpretation of the word of God.

Many modern liberal theologians deny virtually every concept Jesus taught. Most of them claim allegiance to Christ, but do not accept Jesus as a reliable interpreter of scripture. Joseph Fletcher said that philosophically speaking that Jesus was no more sophisticated than a guinea pig. Most liberal theologians would say the same of his approach to interpretation. Please understand that I am not placing Jimmy Carter in the category of the ultra liberal theologians. But his rejection of the relationship of the sexes in the home and in the church betrays a serious lack of respect for the teaching of the apostles and of Christ.

Matthew 19 records a conflict between our Lord and some Pharisees. The Pharisees asked Jesus, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" I wonder why Jesus did not respond to the Pharisees by saying: "We must be careful lest we be too specific or too dogmatic in our interpretation of scripture." Instead, he quotes these words from Genesis 1 and 2. "Have you not read, that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they two shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mt. 19:4-6).

You cannot avoid seeing that Jesus was very specific and dogmatic in his interpretation of the Old Testament. He did not for one moment question what God has said about the beginning of the human family. He taught that God made us male and female. He also taught that the marriage arrangement came from God. The male and female were to leave their parents and cleave to each other. He even taught the indissolubility of the marriage bond. "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." Does Mr. Carter think Jesus too demanding in the specificity of his teaching? Has not Jesus in this passage set the tone for our interpretation of the scriptures?

Both Paul and Peter commanded wives to be in subjection to their husbands. Paul encouraged Christians not be drunk with wine, but to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18). How does a wife who is filled with the Holy Spirit conduct her life in reference to her husband? My friends, we do not have to speculate about the answer. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing" (Eph. 5:22, 24). "Likewise, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without a word be won by the conversation of the wives" (1 Pet. 3:1). Mr. Carter and all others who object to such teaching must ask themselves: "Were Paul and Peter writing by the direction of the Holy Spirit?" If they were not guided by the Holy Spirit in these verses, how can they decide which passages are of divine origin? Maybe Paul did not mean what he said when he wrote: "For by grace are you saved through faith."

Mr. Carter and other modern interpreters of scripture do not like and do not accept what Paul wrote about women preachers. Paul specifically forbad women's praying in public over men. "I will therefore that men (that is, males) pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting" (1 Tim. 2:8). He further argued: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to learn in silence" (1 Tim. 2:11-12). When we teach that women are not to lead in public prayer in the presence of men and they are not to teach over the man, are we interpreting scripture contrary to the example of our Lord? Is that the way he would have interpreted Ephesians 5 and 1 Timothy 2? Incidentally, that is the way most scholars and theologians interpreted these passages until the modern women's movement came along. Are we going to compromise the teaching of God's book to satisfy a movement as radical as the Women's Liberation Movement?

No one who ever walked on this earth had more respect for the word of God than did Jesus Christ our Lord. He did not twist the scriptures to prove a point. He quoted scripture to establish his deity, to show how men and women were to live, and to point the way to God almighty. As I have already indicated, not one time did he ever question the inspiration and authority of one single verse from the Old Testament. He unquestionably gave his total endorsement to every section of the Old Testament. He told his disciples: "These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me" (Lk. 24:44). The three divisions of the Old Testament Jesus mentioned--the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms--constituted the whole of divine revelation in the Old Testament. Jesus accepted every word of his Bible as coming from God.

But what about some of the disputed books and passages of the Old Testament? Did you know that many liberal scholars dispute the Mosaic authorship of the book of Deuteronomy? Many of them no longer accept the inspiration of that great book. Is it significant that when Jesus was tempted by Satan that he quoted from Deuteronomy to show just how wrong Satan was? For example, Satan said to Jesus: "If you are the Son of God, command that these stone be made bread" (Mt. 4:3). Our Lord reached back in his mind and quoted these words from Deuteronomy 8:3: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4). In response to the other temptations Satan presented, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6:16 and 6:13-14. Would he have quoted from a book that was not inspired and authoritative--a book that was questionable in any way?

For many years liberal preachers and theologians have made fun of the little book of Jonah. Everybody knows, these liberals reason, that a fish could not swallow a man and that a man could not live in the belly of the fish for three days. But apparently Jesus Christ, the Son of almighty God, the one who made the world and keeps it operating, did not know that. When some scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign, he answered: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; but there shall be no sign given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Mt. 12:38-40). If the story of Jonah were not true, Jesus would have had plenty of opportunities to explain the true meaning of the story. He accepted the story as being true and based a powerful response to the Jews on that story.

The book of Daniel is a line of demarcation between true Bible believers and liberal theologians. If the book of Daniel was written by Daniel, an exile in Babylon, the whole paper playhouse of the liberals comes tumbling down. Liberals reject Daniel because of the great miracles in it and because of predictive prophecy. But Jesus did not have any doubts about Daniel. In the Olivet discourse, he stated: "And the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso reads, let him understand); then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains" (Mt. 24:14-16).

There is more I would like to discuss with you if time permitted. But it ought to be meaningful to every Bible believer that Jesus Christ loved, endorsed and used the Old Testament in his teaching and preaching. He knew it came from God almighty. He knew it was inspired and authoritative. Do you honestly think anyone can do better than to approach scripture with the same reverence we see in the life of the teacher who came from God?

I do not know what Jimmy Carter had in mind when he affirmed that the ultimate interpreter of scripture for him is Jesus Christ. But I know this, that Jimmy Carter does not have the same reverence for scripture that Jesus had. If he did, he would not seek to alter the scripture to suit his feminist and liberal leanings. It is a serious matter to twist the scriptures to suit our preferences. We do so at our own peril (2 Pet. 3:15-16). And, dear friends, God does hold us accountable for the way we interpret and apply his word.

Winford Claiborne

The International Gospel Hour

P.O. Box 118

Fayetteville, TN 37334

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