By: Rev. Brian Murray
The Moderator’s challenge this year is based on the theme of “advancing the Gospel” from Philippians 1:12. Our focus this month will be the central place of the Word of God to our task of advancing the Gospel. 2 Timothy 3:16,17 is one of the most concise statements in the Bible on the nature and work of God’s Word in salvation. These extraordinary verses state that the 66 books of the Bible are “God breathed”; that is, the origin and contents of the Bible originate from God Himself and therefore comes to us with the absolute authority of God. God tells us exactly what we need to know in His Word to live pleasing lives before Him. This most certainly is why the Apostle Paul is declaring the Bible to be profitable (we can read this word as indispensable) to teach us what to believe and how to live. For this reason, the Bible is central to the Church’s task of advancing the Gospel and building the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. In this brief reflection we want to get a basic understanding of the message of the Bible by looking at the three great purposes of God in giving us the Bible. We will focus on God’s purpose of Creation, God’s purpose of mankind and finally on God’s purpose in Jesus Christ.
As we think about the ultimate author of the Bible we are reminded that at the very center of all reality is the One True Living God and that all of creation exists to bring glory to His name. The Bible opens with the ultimate truth claim: “In the beginning God”. Here, the Holy Spirit speaks to us of the fact that before there was anything that has been made there was the infinite, eternal and personal God. This God lacked nothing, needed nothing and is the fountain from which the entire created order originates. It is no wonder that the Bible tells us ever so clearly that God’s purpose for all of His creation was to magnify the glory of the One who made all things. After giving an exhaustive list that represents every aspect of the created realm the Psalmist can say “Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven” (Psalm 148:13). One of the great marvels of the Bible is that it is “breathed out” from God Himself and; as such, it teaches us that all things exist for Him and for His glory. As we realize and embrace this fact we sit up and pay careful attention to what He has to say to us. The first great purpose of God in giving us the Bible is to teach us that He made the entire universe to praise His most glorious name.
As we look at God’s purpose of Creation it is interesting that amongst the vastness of all that God created, He made us as human beings unique and central to His desire for praise. As Father, Son and Holy Spirit contemplated creating mankind God said “Let us make man in our image after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). One of the many implications of our being make in the image of God is that we were created with the ability to intimately know God and truly understand and respond to our calling to bring glory to Him in all things. We were created as the pinnacle of all of creation because we as human beings are most able to exemplify the glory of God. Knowing this purpose of God for us makes the entrance of sin into the world the greatest tragedy to ever occur. The result of sin is that man catastrophically shifts from the cry of “Blessed be God!” to one of utter selfishness in the cry of “Blessed be me”. Though the verses that precede our text are warning of false teachers they serve as a sober reminder of the effects of sin on all mankind. Paul states,
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
It is true that Paul wrote these words long ago but he could have easily written them after watching the news, coming back from a day of shopping or watching the latest movie on Netflix. Our world is bound and determined to serve and praise self. It is precisely for this reason that the Word of God is needed for “reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. Left to ourselves we are, as the Psalmist describes us, fools (Psalm 14:1). God tells us in His Word that He alone must be worshipped but we as the pinnacle of His creation defiantly tell Him we most certainly will not! It isn’t the most pleasant aspect of the Bible’s message for us to embrace but thankfully God is gracious enough to tell us what our hearts are truly like.
As we allow all this to sink in, the first two great purposes of God in giving us His word seem to be at cross purposes to each other. Everything about God demands to be worshipped yet, because of sin everything about us refuses to do so. This problem is precisely why the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world. In His person and through His work God reconciles to Himself all who come to the Lord Jesus in faith. The revelation of God in Christ Jesus is God’s greatest purpose in giving us the Bible. Without Christ, we are left in the impossible situation of knowing what we were created for but having no desire or ability to do it. In the verse right before those that we are considering Paul can tell Timothy to continue in the Bible because its message is “able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:14-15). Whether we are speaking about the initial heart change of a sinner in regeneration or whether we are speaking about growing in evangelical obedience, everything centers on the person of Jesus. It is in Christ that our sinful hearts are able to begin to cry out “Blessed be God!” and it is out of Christ Jesus that those same hearts are fine-tuned more and more to live all of life to the praise of God’s glorious grace. It is in this way that we see so clearly that the Gospel is not merely cold propositions but the very person of Jesus Christ Himself.
To advance the Gospel is necessarily to advance the knowledge of the Son of God in a sinful and fallen world where human beings are naturally unable and unwilling to do that for which they were created. As we read 2 Timothy 3:16,17 we can rejoice that God has given to us in the Bible divinely inspired answers to who He is, who we are, and who the Lord Jesus Christ is. God has not only given us the duty to advance the Gospel but has told us very specifically what that Gospel is in His Word. Praise be to God for the precious gift of His Word!
Rev. Brian Murray is one of the associate pastors at Grace ARP in Woodstock, Ontario Canada and is the principal of both Gillespie Academy and Gillespie Divinity School.