By: Ben M. Bogard 1868-1951
First President Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary
of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
Little Rock, Arkansas
A DIVINE LIBRARY
Sixty-six Books
The Bible is not a book. It is a divine library of SIXTY-SIX books. The books are small pamphlets. Some are little leaflets, and they were written through a period of about fifteen hundred years. They were written by about forty different men. God revealed to these men what He wanted the world to know. They wrote as they were inspired to write. When God pleased, He inspired one man to write what we know as a book in the Bible, and then after a long period, He inspired another man to write another book. Sometimes the periods between the writing of these books were very long. For instance, there was a period of about four hundred years between the time the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament was written a little at a time, and Paul tells us how.
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." (1Co 13:9,10 ).
Perfect Revelation
Thus, we learn that God gave His Word to us by installments, and, as He inspired men to write, they wrote as the were moved by the Holy Spirit. This was kept up until "that which is perfect" had come - the complete Bible, the perfect revelation from God, and then the installments stopped. There was no further need of inspired writers for the "perfect will of God" was complete when the last book in the Bible was written. James calls it the "perfect law of liberty."
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. (James 1:25)
The Bible is a perfect revelation of God to the world, and we need nothing else for instruction.
DIVISIONS
In rightly dividing the Bible, we discover at once that there are two grand divisions, the Old Testament an the New Testament. It is surprising how many people do not know even this primary fact. But there it stands out very plainly before any student of the Bible.
There are subdivisions in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Lord Himself tells us what the divisions of the Old Testament are, and we should be careful to learn just exactly what these divisions are, for if we fail at this point, we shall be hopelessly confused in our understanding of the Scriptures.
Old Testament Divisions Stated by Jesus
Read Luke 24:44; " And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake 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." Thus, the Lord very clearly divides the Old Testament into the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms, just three divisions. There are not four or five, nor six or seven divisions, as many writers on the subject teach, but there are only three, the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms.
When we read the books that have been written on this subject, we find all of them, without exception, ignore this statement of the Lord and they tell us that the Old Testament is divided into the Historical Books, the Moral Law, the Ceremonial Law, the Poetical Books, the Major Prophets, the Minor Prophets, and the Psalms, completely ignoring what the Master Teacher says. We should not insult he Lord by ignoring His teaching on the subject. There are three divisions, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, if our Lord, the Master Teacher, know what He was talking about. The chart recognizes these three divisions, and for the best reasons refuses t recognize any other divisions.
New Testament Divisions
The New Testament falls naturally into three divisions, but we have no inspired statement that says so as we have for the Old Testament. The New Testament divisions are HISTORY, DOCTRINE, and PROPHECY. Mathew, Mark,Luke, John and the Acts are History. The epistles are Doctrine, and the book of Revelation is Prophecy. In the history division is some prophecy, but in the main, it is history. In the doctrine division there is some history and prophecy,but the main, it is doctrine. In the Revelation is some history and doctrine, but in the main, it is prophecy. I will not insist that these divisions must be observed because there is no inspired statement that forces us to it, but we will suggest that the New Testament naturally falls into three divisions. This observation is made because we should, above all things, be scriptural in our methods of Bible study.
INSPIRATION
Verbal Inspiration
The sixty-six books and all of the divisions - all parts of the Bible - were given by inspiration. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 claims inspiration for all the sacred writings and te Missionary Baptist Seminary teaches the full inspiration of the Bible. Every word in the Bible is what God wanted in, and that means verbal inspiration.
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." ( 2Ti 3:16-17).
Verbal inspiration does not mean that the writers of the Bible were mere machines like typewriters. The words were not dictated word for word, as some think, but the writers were so controlled, so superintended as they wrote, that no error is found in the Bible. The writers used their own words, but they were superintended by the Spirit in such a manner that they wrote no error. This can be plainly seen by noticing how Matthew and Luke use different words as they give what is commonly called the Lord's Prayer (see Matthew 6th chapter and Luke 11th chapter). They were allowed by the Spirit to report what the Lord said in their own words, for certainly the Lord did not use two different sets of words, but while using their own words they gave exactly the same ideas. In their own words,both of the writers reported what the Lord said correctly. One did not the slightest degree contradict the other.
Matthew,Mark, Luke and John were witnesses and a witness must express himself in his own words, else he would not be a witness. When four witness of what they heard and saw and yet not a contradiction can be discovered in their reports, it shows that they were not dictated to; yet, every word they wrote is just the word that the Holy Spirit wished written.
To dictate to a witness what he shall say destroys the value of the witness. If an earthly court should discover that the very words which the witness used while on the witness stand had been dictated by some interested party, his testimony would be thrown out as false. A witness must be free to tell his story in his own words. This is evident in the witnessing of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When we discover that there is not the slightest contradiction in what they say, it confirms the truthfulness of their testimony.
The superintendence of the Holy Spirit was such, that while the writers used their own words, if one should not have been strictly true, the Holy Spirit would have stayed his hand until he selected the word that would convey the exact truth. Thus, the result was that every word in the Bible is exactly what the Holy Spirit wanted to be in the Bible. The result is verbal inspiration, and yet it was not mechanical dictation. The variety of expression, the use of different words by the writers, gives beauty to the style and adds charm to the Bible, yet leaves us the fully inspired Word of God.
Proof of Inspiration
The inspiration of the Bible is proved by several methods. One is the fact that the forty writers who lived in different countries, and who wrote in different languages, did not contradict each other, but the writers were in perfect harmony. This would have been impossible if a Master Mind had not directed them as they wrote.
Another proof of inspiration is the fact that prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter. Things predicted thousands of years ago are being fulfilled, or have been fulfilled, right before our eyes.
Another proof of inspiration is that the Bible was written many hundreds of years before what we know as science, and the Bible writers had never seen a book on science. They had never studied under any science teachers, yet the Bible is in perfect harmony with every known fact discovered by science. The facts of science were known in the Bible long before the scientists discovered them. This cannot be explained except on the ground of the inspiration of the Bible. This does not mean that the guesses and working hypotheses of modern scientists are in harmony with the Bible, but it does mean that every established fact of science was in the Bible first.
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Scientific Facts in the Bible
1. Only in recent years
has science discovered that everything we see is composed
of invisible atoms. Here, Scripture tells us that the
"things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear."
2. Medical science has only
recently discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn
reaches its peak on the eighth day, then drops. The
Bible consistently says that a baby must be circumcised
on the eighth day.
3. At a time when it was
believed that the earth sat on a large animal or a giant
(1500 B.C.), the Bible spoke of the earth’s free
float in space: "He...hangs the earth upon nothing"
(Job 26:7).
4. The prophet Isaiah also
tells us that the earth is round: "It is he that
sits upon the circle of the earth" (Isaiah 40:22).
This is not a reference to a flat disk, as some skeptic
maintain, but to a sphere. Secular man discovered this
2,400 years later. At a time when science believed that
the earth was flat, is was the Scriptures that inspired
Christopher Columbus to sail around the world (see Proverbs
3:6 footnote).
5. God told Job in 1500
B.C.: "Can you send lightnings, that they may go,
and say to you, Here we are?" (Job 38:35). The
Bible here is making what appears to be a scientifically
ludicrous statement—that light can be sent, and
then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that
radio waves travel at the speed of light? This is why
you can have instantaneous wireless communication with
someone on the other side of the earth. Science didn’t
discover this until 1864 when "British scientist
James Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light
waves were two forms of the same thing" (Modern
Century Illustrated Encyclopedia).
6. Job 38:19 asks, "Where
is the way where light dwells?" Modern man has
only recently discovered that light (electromagnetic
radiation) has a "way," traveling at 186,000
miles per second.
7. Science has discovered
that stars emit radio waves, which are received on earth
as a high pitch. God mentioned this in Job 38:7: "When
the morning stars sang together..."
8. "Most cosmologists
(scientists who study the structures and evolution of
the universe) agree that the Genesis account of creation,
in imagining an initial void, may be uncannily close
to the truth" (Time, Dec. 1976).
9. Solomon described a "cycle"
of air currents two thousand years before scientists
"discovered" them. "The wind goes toward
the south, and turns about unto the north; it whirls
about continually, and the wind returns again according
to his circuits" (Ecclesiastes 1:6).
10. Science expresses the
universe in five terms: time, space, matter, power,
and motion. Genesis 1:1,2 revealed such truths to the
Hebrews in 1450 B.C.: "In the beginning [time]
God created [power] the heaven [space] and the earth
[matter] . . . And the Spirit of God moved [motion]
upon the face of the waters." The first thing God
tells man is that He controls of all aspects of the
universe.
11. The great biological
truth concerning the importance of blood in our body’s
mechanism has been fully comprehended only in recent
years. Up until 120 years ago, sick people were "bled,"
and many died because of the practice. If you lose your
blood, you lose your life. Yet Leviticus 17:11, written
3,000 years ago, declared that blood is the source of
life: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood."
12. All things were made
by Him (see John 1:3), including dinosaurs. Why then
did the dinosaur disappear? The answer may be in Job
40:15–24. In this passage, God speaks about a
great creature called "behemoth." Some commentators
think this was a hippopotamus. However, the hippo’s
tail isn’t like a large tree, but a small twig.
Following are the characteristics of this huge animal:
It was the largest of all the creatures God made; was
plant-eating (herbivorous); had its strength in its
hips and a tail like a large tree. It had very strong
bones, lived among the trees, drank massive amounts
of water, and was not disturbed by a raging river. He
appears impervious to attack because his nose could
pierce through snares, but Scripture says, "He
that made him can make his sword to approach unto him."
In other words, God caused this, the largest of all
the creatures He had made, to become extinct.
13. Encyclopedia Britannica
documents that in 1845, a young doctor in Vienna named
Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was horrified at the terrible death
rate of women who gave birth in hospitals. As many as
30 percent died after giving birth. Semmelweis noted
that doctors would examine the bodies of patients who
died, then, without washing their hands, go straight
to the next ward and examine expectant mothers. This
was their normal practice, because the presence of microscopic
diseases was unknown. Semmelweis insisted that doctors
wash their hands before examinations, and the death
rate immediately dropped to 2 percent. Look at the specific
instructions God gave His people for when they encounter
disease: "And when he that has an issue is cleansed
of his issue; then he shall number to himself even days
for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his
flesh in running water, and shall be clean" (Leviticus
15:13). Until recent years, doctors washed their hands
in a bowl of water, leaving invisible germs on their
hands. However, the Bible says specifically to wash
hands under "running water."
14. Luke 17:34–36
says the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur while
some are asleep at night and others are working at daytime
activities in the field. This is a clear indication
of a revolving earth, with day and night at the same
time.
15. "During the
devastating Black Death of the fourteenth century, patients
who were sick or dead were kept in the same rooms as
the rest of the family. People often wondered why the
disease was affecting so many people at one time. They
attributed these epidemics to ‘bad air’
or ‘evil spirits.’ However, careful attention
to the medical commands of God as revealed in Leviticus
would have saved untold millions of lives. Arturo Castiglione
wrote about the overwhelming importance of this biblical
medical law: ‘The laws against leprosyin Leviticus
13 may be regarded as the first model of sanitary legislation’
(A History of Medicine)." Grant R. Jeffery, The
Signature of God With all these truths revealed in Scripture,how
could a thinking person deny that the Bible is supernatural
in origin? There is no other book in any of the world’s
religions (Vedas, Bhagavad-Gita, Koran, Book of Mormon,
etc.) that contains scientific truth. In fact, they
contain statements that are clearly unscientific. Hank
Hanegraaff said, "Faith in Christ is not some blind
leap into a dark chasm, but a faith based on established
evidence." (11:3 continued) |
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IMPORTANCE OF RIGHT DIVISION
It does not follow that a book in the Bible or a passage of Scriptures applies to us in this age just because it is inspired, because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit for the benefit of those for whom it was intended. It does not mean that the words of the devil and the words of wicked men, as for instance, King Pharoah and King Herod, and the words of ungodly Pharisees and Sadducees, are true. It is true that they said what the Bible says they said, but the Bible only reports what they said. The Holy Spirit wanted us to know us to know what they said but does not tell us to do what they said. Hence, the importance of knowing how to rightly divide the Word - being able to see what is spoken by the Spirit and what is spoken by others. The study of the chart will enable you to see who is speaking and and to whom he is speaking, and thus, enable you to know what applies to us in this age.
To be continued... This Age Not Under The Law And The Prophets
To be continued... This Age Not Under The Law And The Prophets
