I. Introduction: How and What We Know.

Dorothy Sayers in her 1949 book, Creed or Chaos, described the troubles of the Church when it discards Christian doctrine. We are experiencing that chaos, and especially young people suffer from the results of what Amos called “famine of the Word” (Amos 8:11–13). We must “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). This survey will attempt, after facing the question of how and what we know, to cover the six main areas of Bible teachings concerning (1) God, (2) Man, (3) Christ, ( 4) Salvation, (5) the Church and (6) the Future.

1. The Preliminary Question: How and What Do We Know? The Saving Power of God against the Perversity of Men.

Paul introduced the gospel as “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). He gives the Bible’s most systematic presentation of its teachings (in an order copied by our Heidelberg Catechism’s “sin, salvation and service”). All need its “good news” because “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” They are “without excuse” because they know better than what they do. God’s “eternal power and Godhead is obvious in all His creation” (19–23; cf. 2:14–16). “As they reject His revelation, He gives them up” (1:24, 26, 28) to judgments.

2. Our Dependence on God’s Self Revelation.

The need for this gospel “power of God to salvation” and the way we must receive it from God is further shown especially in 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:16. (1) These are things which “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man” (2:9). If we have to depend on what people say, to know even what they think, how could we know what God thinks unless we listen to what He tells us (11)?

A further obstacle to our seeing these things of God is the fact that through sin we have become blind to them and instinctively reject them as “foolishness” (14). (How can you describe color to the color-blind?)

God reveals Himself and His salvation to us “through his Spirit,” who not only provides the revelation, but also enables us to see and receive it (10, 12).

3. The Holy Spirit Inspired Words a Covenant (“Contract” or “Testament”) Bible.

The Holy Spirit’s revelation is conveyed to us not only in feelings and ideas but in words, “not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (13). Through these inspired words we must receive it and also give it to others.

Amid opposition and deceptions, these inspired “Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” and totally equipped for His service (2 Tim. 3:13–17). They can do that because they, “never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Their teaching must be maintained against all self-chosen opinions (“heresies”—from the word “to choose”) of men (2 Peter 1:16–2:3). Since this is God’s Message, we must respect it as authoritative even in its words, even more than we do important human documents or contracts (Gal. 3:15–17; Rev. 22:18–19; cf. Deut. 4:2; 12:32).

4. Our Needed Confession and Creeds.

God’s Word instructs us to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). Thus we are to “confess Christ before men” (Matt. 10:32). When the Christian Church, facing destructive heresies, did that by carefully prepared statements, these were its “creeds” (from the word “I believe”). We must not regard them as additions to or improvements on God’s Word, but as faithful efforts to confess (or “say the same thing”) as God said (1 John 5:9–13). They are not infallible or perfect as the Bible is, but in the degree that they “say the same thing,” they faithfully testify to God’s Word. Our Lord promised to His followers, that His Holy Spirit would teach them all things, remind them of what He had said, and be with them forever (John 14:16, 17, 26). Guided by this Spirit and Word, they must hold the Gospel truth against all errors (1 John 4:1ff.), and teach and show it to all as “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”

   

Questions:

1. How does God reveal Himself to everyone? 2. Why do we need more than that? Why can’t people discover what they need to know from nature and experience? 3. Can we hold to a Bible inspired in message but not in words? 4. Why must we have and hold creeds?