Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
|
The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
|
The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
We’re picking up where the author is trying
to justify changing “breathed out” (what God did in the past to give us the
Scriptures) to “breathes out” (what God does in an ongoing way whenever anyone
reads the Scriptures). This changes the focus from the authority of the words
of God in Scripture to the impressions of the reader when reading. He is
replacing what Scripture says about “all Scripture is God-breathed” with a tale
of how it means that the writers were inspired. In our previous day’s journey,
we saw that Jesus and the Holy Spirit both show what it looks like when they
communicate words in Father’s authority. It was always clear that it meant the
words they spoke were from the Father, meaning they were his words and were as
binding as him speaking to us face-to-face. The same is true of the biblical
writers, that the Scriptures they wrote were “breathed out by God”. What we
have in the Bible has the same authority as what Jesus spoke because it is the
Father’s word.
However, with the author on the theme of
trying to convince people that “the writers were inspired” can replace
“Scripture is breathed out by God”, he continues, “How about this: the author
of Genesis, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exhaled a prophecy of salvation,
fulfilled in Jesus Christ7” (p. 64). Now, we already know that’s not
what the Bible says, so the “how about this” has no authority!
Let’s look at this claim next to what is
written in God’s word.
|
Brad Jersak’s claim |
The Apostle Peter’s Clarification |
|
“the author of Genesis, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exhaled a prophecy of salvation” |
The author of Genesis, “spoke from God as he was carried along by
the Holy Spirit” so what we have in Genesis is “breathed out by God”. |
In other words, “the author of Genesis” was
NOT “inspired by the Holy Spirit”. What is written is that “For no prophecy was
ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried
along by the Holy Spirit” (II Peter 1:21). This does not allow for those
“divine-human hybrid texts” BJ spoke about earlier (p. 64). What was written
had no component of “the will of man”. Even Jesus would not contribute
something of his own to what the Father had given him to say, so why would we
imagine God would let the biblical writers do that?!
Let’s look at the meanings of the words in
that Scripture to show how clear this is. This is again using the Bible Sense
Lexicon from Logos Bible Systems.
“No prophecy” is translating two words. The
first is “prophecy” which means, “Prophecy (God) n. — a representative
declaration of the mind, will, or knowledge of God; especially concerning past,
present, or future manifestations of the outworking of His will or other
events.” The second is “Passage (scripture) n. — a section of text from the
sacred Scriptures; especially the Old Testament.” Together they tell us that
the topic of Peter’s declaration is every passage of Scripture, no exceptions.
So, what does Peter say about how Scripture
came about? Peter says that NO Prophecy of Scripture was “Produced: to be
brought (state) v. — to be or become conveyed somewhere” by the “Will:
inclination (attitude) n. — an attitude of mind especially one that favors one
alternative over others” of “Man: person (finite) n. — any human being
considered according to their finitude in contrast to the transcendent
supernatural.” Sorry-not-sorry, but this does not allow for hybrid models of
God/man messages. These men were “Carried along: to be borne along v. — to move
along while one is being sustained, supported, propelled, or driven” by the
Holy Spirit.
BJ’s point is that we can think of Scripture
as a God-man-hybrid, but Scripture claims that “all Scripture is breathed out
by God” and was written down by men who were “carried along by the Holy
Spirit”. This simply does not leave room for the idea that God inspired men who
wrote down their best expression of what they heard but sometimes in ways that
BJ’s “another Jesus” needs to correct even though the examples he gave of his
Jesus correcting the Old Testament Scriptures were nothing like what he claimed.
This brings us back to a central point in my
countering of BJ’s counterfeit Jesus, that when there is poison in the pudding,
as they say, it doesn’t matter how many of the other ingredients are good, the
poison makes the whole pudding bad. And these are poisoned puddings that
suggest we change so much of what God said about his word to something that is
a joint effort of God and man. It is absolutely deadly to believe that, and
that may be why Peter’s next words are, “But false prophets also arose among
the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly
bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them,
bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (II Peter 2:1). This means that we
are not only to watch how we treat Scripture, as breathed out by God, but also
be aware of the false teachers that will come among us to lead people away from
God’s word. We can’t help it that the word “many” is associated with those who
will follow false teachers,[1]
but here’s to a few less by exposing these false teachings in the light of
God’s word.
Under the heading “Inspiration: Four
Assumptions” BJ now turns our attention to a list of “four ancient assumptions
that characterize the reading of Scripture and refocuses how we come to see
inspiration:” (p. 64) as presented by a Fr. John Behr of the Eastern Orthodox
Church. That should tell us enough of where BJ is coming from, but I will take
the time to examine these four points and see whether they support the author’s
claim that we can change from Scriptures that were God-breathed to writers who
were inspired. I was going to try to skim them and summarize, but there’s just
too much poison in the ingredients list, so we need to slog through this to
show the misleading claims. I know that they’re on the wrong track if they are
saying “how we come to see inspiration” since we are not looking at how men
were inspired, but on how Scripture was breathed out. That means that they may
have some pudding in them, but the “how we come to see inspiration (instead of
Scripture-is-God-breathed)” is the poison that makes them deadly.
Point one:
The Scriptures10 are cryptic: That is, the meaning of the Scriptures often needs to be opened to us. There is a veil that needs to be lifted. Before the passion of Christ, many people read the Scriptures, but nobody could actually see how the relevant passages pointed to this event. As the Scriptures are opened up to us, so Christ is opened to us. (p. 64)
Does “the meaning of the Sciptures often
need to be opened to us”? That depends on what we mean. Do we mean that the
people who originally read the Scriptures as they were given needed the further
revelation of Scripture to unfold what they meant? Sure. That’s what we have
throughout the Bible. That’s why Matthew repeatedly told us what an event was
fulfilling from the prophets. So now we have a later revelation of Scripture
opening up the meaning of the earlier revelations in Scripture. That is good.
However, if it means that we can take “all
Scripture is God-breathed”, change it to “the biblical writers were inspired”,
and make that mean that it is the opening of people’s minds in the reading of
the Scriptures that was the focus, then we’re dealing with a lot of poison that
is going to make a lot of people SICK!
When this John Behr says that people reading
about the passion of Christ in the prophecies couldn’t fully understand how
they were to be applied it means nothing about whether the prophecies they read
or heard were breathed out by God. In fact, I love to watch Jewish believers in
Jesus Christ sharing Isaiah 53 with their fellow Jews and showing them
something their Rabbis have deliberately hidden from them, a prophecy breathed
out by God in one way 700 years before Jesus came that spelled out in detail
the suffering and death of the Messiah as the penal substitute who atoned for
our sins (BJ utterly failed at denouncing that one!), and then put alongside
the Scriptures that were breathed out later to show how Jesus fulfilled all
those prophecies. God breathed out both those Scriptures in those different
time periods so we today would have the authoritative word of God showing us
what God said beforehand, what he said during Jesus’ lifetime and the beginning of the
church, and what he said afterwards in teaching the church how to live by “the whole counsel
of God”.
My point in this is that I deny any
suggestion that the Scriptures God gave at earlier times were any less breathed
out by God than those that came later. It was by God’s authority that his plan
unfolded as it did, and every part of it is authoritatively from the Father in
his words so that the combined collection of Scripture breathed out through 40
different men over a period of 1500 years shows that we now have a document
that could only have been created by the same word of God that called light to
existence in the material realm.
Point two:
The Scriptures are contemporary: The narrative of Scripture is not merely recorded history. According to Christ, what was written has implications for us today. Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me” (John 5:46 NET). Not, “Moses wrote about things that happened ten thousand years ago, and now we’re in the next stage of the master narrative.” No, says Behr. No, says Jesus. “He wrote about ME.” The apostle Paul would add, “These things are written for our benefit upon whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor 10:11, my paraphrase). About Christ. For us. (p. 65)
Again, in the truth that all Scripture is
breathed out by God, we can say that what was written earlier in Scripture was
also speaking of what was to come. Of course God breathed out the words that
were needed by his people in each age of history, and in benefiting the church
that would come from the work of Christ.
However, if this is changing God’s focus
from the Scriptures that are already breathed out by God and authoritative into
some fanciful ideas of inspiration that takes place when we read the word,
we’re dealing with poison in the pudding.
Also, there is a HUGE contradiction between the "No, says Behr" and the "No, says Jesus." Absolutely false. I understand that the author is again using a loaded question, throwing in 10,000 years just to mock what Scripture says about creation 6,000 years ago. However, Moses wrote about Jesus in the Scriptures God breathed out through him at that time, and God breathed out others words for other generations to show how it all comes together in Christ. Behr can say "no" all he wants to what God breathed out in his word, but he cannot claim that the true Lord Jesus Christ is saying "no" along with him.
Point three:
The Scriptures are harmonious. Can we find contradictions across the Bible? Of course. But the Emmaus claim—Jesus’s claim—is that all the Scriptures speak about the One who opens to us their meaning. Moses, the prophets, and other biblical authors all wrote about how the Son of Man had to die to enter into his glory11 (p. 65).
Of course the Scriptures God breathed out
would be harmonious since they are the “every word that proceeds from the mouth
of God” Jesus was talking about.
However, when the author asks, “Can we find
contradictions across the Bible?” and he answers, “of course”, we know we are
dealing with a false teacher. I have heard so many people claim to have
found contradictions in the Bible but I have not had one stand up to scrutiny.
I know that BJ needs us to believe there were contradictions so his “another
Jesus” can correct them. However, as we have already seen, BJ’s track record in
handling the Scriptures is a 100% failure rate at explaining what they mean. Anyone
can search for themselves and find that all the claims to contradictions are
answered quite adequately. So I absolutely disagree with this statement and
point out that BJ has yet to show us one contradiction in the Bible! His point
is not only poorly presented since it lacks evidence, but it flies in the face
of what it means that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” and so has the
same authority to us today as what Jesus spoke to the crowds in his day, and
Moses and the prophets spoke to the people in their day.
I will also say that whatever Moses, the
Psalms, and the Prophets spoke about Christ in a prophetic way, there are no
contradictions in how Jesus fulfilled what was written about him. The
Scriptures are very harmonious from beginning to end, but the BJs are
completely discordant to that harmony and playing quite a different song. Not
impressed.
Point four:
Finally, the Scriptures are inspired. This fourth point—inspiration—flows out of the other three. I had been taught to believe that inspiration was something that happened as an episode in history. For example, I would think, “Isaiah beheld the Lord in his temple many centuries before Christ. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and then he wrote down his oracles.” Behr challenges this perspective: “We have no idea what was in Isaiah’s mind while he was writing. But we do know for a fact that no one was reading Isaiah as speaking about a crucified Messiah born of a virgin until after the event.” Therefore, we cannot separate the inspiration of the Scriptures from their opening/unveiling by Christ. Likewise, we can’t separate inspired writing from the inspired reading (illumination) of Scripture (p. 65).
No, the Scriptures are not “inspired” in the
sense BJ is claiming, but are “breathed out by God”.
So, what BJ was taught sounds like the
biblical meaning, that Scripture was breathed out by God at the time it was
given to the biblical writers. That’s what the Scriptures say!
When Isaiah saw the glory of God in his
prophetic vision, NO, he was NOT “inspired by the Holy Spirit, and then he
wrote down his oracles.” Instead, he was “carried along by the Holy Spirit” so
that he wrote down the breathed-out words of God.
Do we know what was in Isaiah’s mind while
he was writing? Yes. What was in his mind were the words God was breathing out
through him.
Did Isaiah’s readers understand they were
hearing about a Messiah who would be born of a virgin and die as a penal
substitute who would atone for their sins? No. But not because the prophecy of
Isaiah was not breathed out by God. It was because there was more to come. Just
like the first chapter of a book is not less a part of the story than the last,
so the early Scriptures are not less breathed out by God than the Revelation of
Jesus Christ.
What, then, do we make of the author’s conclusion, “Therefore, we cannot separate the inspiration of the Scriptures from their opening/unveiling by Christ”? Simply this: that the poison of making this about “the inspiration of the Scriptures” instead of the Scriptures as breathed out by God denies the authority in the Scriptures as God’s words. That leaves minds open to the idea that it is what happens to people when they read the Scriptures that is authoritative not what happened when God breathed out the words of Scripture. This then requires an “opening/unveiling by Christ” that explains what those old writings meant, and how they need to be corrected to fit BJ’s “another Jesus”.
Do we always need the Holy Spirit’s ministry to
understand Scripture? Yes, absolutely. But in the sense that he is teaching and
reminding what the breathed-out Scriptures mean because we are accountable to
every word that comes from the mouth of God.
In the same way, the author’s claim that “Likewise,
we can’t separate inspired writing from the inspired reading (illumination) of
Scripture” (p. 65) is a distortion that continues separating the Scriptures
from their “God-breathed” reality. In this view we merely have “inspired
writing” that requires “inspired reading” explained to us by the “another
Jesus” puppet over the hands of the false teachers who created it. Instead of
Scripture that is breathed out by God and so is authoritative to guide God’s
people and call us to meditate on the words of eternal life, we have that
poisoned hybrid that makes both the writing and reading of Scripture at the
mercy of the human element that could very well ruin what God was trying to
say.
So, in conclusion, let’s dissect the
ingredients list to BJ’s conclusion. He says, “So, the act of inspiration
brings together the writer and the reader, and both turn upon Christ, who opens
the book to the reader to show how the writer spoke about him” (p. 65). All I
will say is, because “the act of inspiration” has moved from what God does to
the writer to what happens between the writer and the reader, we are no longer
talking about what the Scripture says about all Scripture being breathed out by
God.
Do we need the veil to be removed from our
eyes? Yes, that happens at salvation. Do we need the Holy Spirit to teach us
all things and remind us of things we were already taught from Scripture? Yes,
all the time. But nothing in these four points gives us a conclusion that rests
on an “act of inspiration” between writer and reader when the Scriptures were
talking about the act of God in breathing out the words of Scripture so that
what we now have is the authoritative word of God that is the final authority
for the church over all matters of faith and practice. And that obviously
includes the testing of false teachers and exposing their deceptions just as
the apostles were already doing way back in the day.
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems
[1]
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads
to destruction, and those who enter by it are MANY. 14 For the gate is narrow
and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are FEW” (Matthew
7:13-14); “For MANY will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they
will lead MANY astray” (Matthew 24:5); “And then MANY will fall away and betray
one another and hate one another” (Matthew 24:10); “And MANY false prophets
will arise and lead MANY astray” (Matthew 24:11); “And because lawlessness will
be increased, the love of MANY will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12); “For there are MANY who are insubordinate, empty
talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party” (Titus
1:10); “For MANY
deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of
Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (II
John 1:7).
No comments:
Post a Comment