09 Inerrancy and the Teachings of Christ (2)
Inerrancy and the Teachings of Christ (2)
Picture the scene: the Lord on “Face the (Jewish) Nation” and “Meet the (Pharisaic) Press,” all in the same day. The Herodians had tried to trap Him by asking if it was lawful to pay the poll tax to Caesar. Then the Sadducees took their turn (Matthew 22:23-33). In that dialogue we have more clear evidence of our Lord’s faith in an inerrant and therefore minutely authoritative Scripture. The Sadducees believed in the authority of the Pentateuch. They denied, however, the existence of angels and other spirits and belief in the resurrection of the dead because they could not find them taught in the Pentateuch. Coming to Jesus, they immediately demonstrated their hypocrisy by posing a question about the resurrection. In addition they dreamed up an illustration based on the Pentateuch, to reinforce their question. It was the law of Levirate marriage (from the Latin meaning “husband’s brother’s marriage,” found in Deuteronomy 25:1-19). The law required the brother-in-law of a childless widow to marry her if he were able to do so. If not, then the responsibility fell on his next of kin as in the story of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 4:6).
It was on that basis that the Sadducees concocted a story about seven brothers, the first of whom married a woman and died leaving her childless. Then each of the other six married her in turn after each of his older brothers died. Finally, the seventh husband died, and last of all the wife. The Sadducees confronted the Lord with their question: “In the resurrection therefore whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her.” His answer was scathing. He charged them with error, with ignorance of the Scripture, and with ignorance of the power of God (Matthew 22:29). Then Christ evaluated the question and judged it irrelevant (Matthew 22:30). It was irrelevant because in the resurrection people do not marry. They are similar to angels who do not marry because there is no need to procreate baby angels. The number of the angels was fixed at the time they were created. Similarly, in the afterlife human beings will not marry because there will be no need for infants to be born. Christ was not saying that people become angels after they die, but only that like angels they will not procreate. Since that is so, there was no need to answer the Sadducees’ question. It was entirely irrelevant. The Levirate marriage law was designed to insure that children would be born to bear the family name of the first dead husband, but in heaven there will be no need for such a provision; hence the irrelevancy of the question. As if it were not sufficient to charge the Sadducees with error, ignorance, and irrelevance, the Lord proceeded to teach them some sound doctrine from an Old Testament passage (Exodus 3:6), which they considered authoritative. The lesson was simply this: contrary to your doctrine, your Bible teaches that there is life after death. Death does not end it all, as you teach.
Again our Lord used a very sophisticated argument. I expect that few of us would choose to use Exodus 3:1-22 to attempt to teach the doctrine of life after death. But our Lord did.
Notice too, just as in John 10:34, He based His argument on the written Word, not general concepts, but specific written words. Specifically, He based His case on how God identified Himself to Moses at the burning bush: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” That proves, the Lord went on to say, that God is the God of the living, which means that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still alive though they had died long before those words were spoken.
How does that identification prove the doctrine of life after death? Simply by the use of the present tense, “I am.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died several hundred years before God spoke to Moses. Yet God said that He was still their God at the time He was speaking to Moses. That would not have been possible if when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob died they ceased to exist. It was only possible if, contrary to the Sadducees’ doctrine, death does not end it all. Of course, the difference between I am and I was is a matter of verb tense. His argument was based on a present tense rather than a past tense. Christ used the present tense to support the doctrine of resurrection. The force of what Christ was saying can be illustrated this way: Often as a visiting preacher, I am invited home to dinner after the church service by one of the members. I have discovered that usually one of the appropriate topics of conversation is to inquire about the children in that family. Suppose I should ask, “How many children do you have in your family?” And the father or mother replies, “We had four, but one died, so now we only have three.” Faced with that kind of response I cannot be very sure about the spiritual condition or maturity of those parents. But if, on the other hand, to the same question another parent replies, “We have four; one is in heaven and three are here with us,” then I have a good deal of confidence about that family’s beliefs. I can be almost certain that they do not believe that death ends it all but that there is a resurrection coming. The difference is only in the tense of the verb used: We had or we have. I was their God or I am their God.
Observe carefully the ramifications of Christ’s statement here.
1. He assumed the historicity of God’s appearance to Moses.
2. He assumed that God’s revelation came in a propositional statement.
3. He assumed that every word of that statement could be trusted to be precisely accurate. 4. He assumed that doctrinal truth has to be based on historical accuracy. The Bible cannot be inaccurate in matters of history and accurate in doctrine.
5. He assumed that one could use even unlikely passages and trust their accuracy.
Later that same day, when the Pharisees had joined the crowd of antagonists, the Lord became the aggressor, asking a straightforward question of them: “Whose son is the Messiah?” (Matthew 22:41-46). Theirs was an immediate answer: “The son of David.” It was correct, but incomplete. Christ is the son of David as far as His humanity is concerned, but He also is the Son of God, and the Lord wanted the Pharisees to acknowledge that as well. So He asked them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him Lord?” and to prove that David did, He quoted Psalms 110:1. In that psalm, the Lord (that is, the Father) said to “my Lord” (the Messiah, who was David’s Lord), “Sit at my [the Father’s] right hand until I [the Father] put Thine [the Messiah’s] enemies beneath Thy feet.”
How could David call Messiah His Lord if Messiah were only David’s son? The only answer is because Messiah was also David’s God. In other words the Messiah had to be both God and man. As man He was David’s son; as God, David’s Lord. The pronoun “my” links David to his Messiah-Lord.
Perhaps an illustration will help. When Queen Elizabeth II dies or abdicates, the Prince of Wales will presumably become King Charles. Assume that Prince Philip, his father, is still living. I ask someone, “King Charles, whose son is he?” The answer would come back: “Prince Philip’s.” “But,” I might reply, “I saw the coronation of King Charles on TV, and I saw Prince Philip bowing and swearing allegiance to him. Why does Philip call Charles ‘lord’?” The answer is simple: King Charles is Philip’s sovereign-king even though he is also Philip’s natural son. He is both Philip’s son and Philip’s lord. So also Messiah was David’s son and, because Messiah is equal with God, He is David’s Lord.
Natural procreation links Messiah to David as David’s descendant. The pronoun “my” in Psalms 110:1 links Messiah to David as David’s Lord God. And the pronoun “my” is simply a yodh, that smallest of Hebrew letters, attached to the word “Lord.”
There is nothing more central to an orthodox Christology than the full deity and true humanity of Jesus Christ. If He were not the God-man, He could not have been an adequate Savior, high priest, or judge. Who of us would think of using Psalms 110:1-7 as our Lord did to emphasize the truth of who He is? But that is exactly what Jesus did, basing his argument with the Pharisees on the single Hebrew word “my Lord.” The seeming minutiae of Scripture can be trusted.
What have we learned from our Lord’s attitude toward the Bible?
1. The spelling of words can be trusted completely, and not one promise will be fulfilled in any way different from how it was spelled out.
2. The only way the Scripture can lose its authority is if it contains errors, but Christ taught that the Scripture cannot be broken. Thus He must have believed it did not contain errors.
3. The Lord built sophisticated arguments on single words and even the tense of a verb.
Again, I ask, who can say he fully follows the Lord without accepting His teaching concerning the inerrancy of the Scriptures?