“But what are you going to do with the many wonderful Spirit-filled, Jesus-like prayerful believers who don’t go to church where we go, who weren’t baptized the same way we were baptized, and whose doctrine doesn’t line up exactly like ours? That was the crisis for me.” “He’s a man of utter holiness. A man in whom the Spirit works powerfully. A man of prayer. And yet, on the other hand, a man who didn’t share my understanding of baptism. Full of God’s word. Full of God’s Spirit. But different understanding of baptism.”[1]
Is the Bible understandable?
“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”[2] Jesus says that we shall know the truth. This certainly means that the Scriptures are understandable.
“(A)s also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand.”[3] Not impossible to understand, just hard.
Is it conceivable, my friends, that God would create the visible world, create man and give him life and understanding, put up with sin for countless centuries, even from his own children (Peter refers to it as “the longsuffering of our Lord”), send his only begotten son to die horribly to release us from death, and that Jesus would be willing to do it, is it conceivable that God can and would do these things, and that he then is unable, or worse, unwilling, to give us his word in such a way as we can understand it, and know that we know? And then to convict us if we fail to follow it? Of what do we convict God?
It cannot be stressed too much that Scripture is understandable; Paul wrote,
“For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.”[4]
There is a “breadth and length and height and depth” to the knowledge that a man can obtain. God has so fixed it that a man cannot learn what things are beyond this, what things he has hidden from us. As an example, consider eternity. I can understand that eternity is a fact, and I can conceive of there being no end (although the enormity of it is such that it is almost too much to think about). But I cannot understand there being no beginning; it is beyond comprehension. Yet it also is undeniable fact. That man exists is proof of there being no beginning: we know that whenever a thing starts, something has been before it. For example, the day began today, yet before it began, night was. Therefore, that we are here is proof that something came before us; which thing is God. But, how can nothing have been before God, how can he always have been? Yet, “Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am,’”[5] indicating he always is. But how can there have been no beginning? God has so fixed it that we cannot grasp it.
Yet what he has revealed to us, we can grasp. There is a “breadth and length and height and depth,” within which is “all truth.”[6] Again, “ 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 complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”[7] To be able to be complete, indicates limits, a point at which the thing is accomplished; this could not be accomplished, if man could not come to an understanding of what God says, yet God, who doesn’t lie, says, “that the man of God may be complete.” We may come to an understanding of what God teaches, and know that we know. And if a man lacks, doesn’t God say, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him?”[8]
Yet God himself does transcend this, for, “the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,” and, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”[9] The peace of God is a gift, as it were, that he gives to Christians. It is not a thing which we must search for, nor is it gained by knowledge; it is something he gives us. It is spoken of in the context of prayer, “ Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding…”
“The love of Christ which surpasses knowledge” is of the same. It is something which he has towards us, not something that we gain through searching and learning. But I also think that his love for us is beyond our capacity to understand, that it is meant in this sense also. I know that sometimes I wonder why he continues to put up with me; yet I am grateful that he does. But it also is something which isn’t in the realm of knowledge and learning; it just is.
But the other things, the commands and principles, are things which we are able to come to a proper understanding of; ignorance of them will not be excused.[10] Therefore, we, “being rooted and grounded in love,” are able to apprehend the meaning of all Scripture. Why, then, are there varied interpretations of some passages? Part of the problem may be compared to math: as there are simple things, i.e., 2 + 2, and hard things, calculus and the like, there is the ‘milk’ of the gospel, and the ‘meat’ of the gospel. Commentators and those of us who endeavor to write don’t know everything; advanced things can be hard to learn, and not everyone is careful enough in the way they handle Scripture. This accounts for some of the varied interpretations of deeper things (though we can’t discount theological prejudice towards certain beliefs, nor the men with “itching ears”[11]). But in the “2 + 2” things, the things that are easily understandable, the ‘milk’, as it were, in these things the varied beliefs may be accounted for by remembering the following, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”[12]
Jesus spoke, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him - the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.”[13] God is just, and good, and merciful; how could he be justified in condemning man, if his word were not understandable?
God wants men to be saved; it is easy enough to come to an understanding of how to gain that salvation.
“Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation – as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”[14]
Endnotes
[1] Mike Cope, quoted in “From the Woodland,” The Spiritual Sword (January 1998), p. 46
[2] John 8:31-32
[3] 2 Peter 3:15-16
[4] Ephesians 3:14-19 (NASB)
[5] John 8:58. I removed the capitalization from “am”, as in the Greek this is not a name of God, rather, it is a statement of being.
[6] John 16:13, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”
[7] 2 Timothy 3:16-17
[8] James 1:5
[9] Philippians 4:7
[10] “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead,” Acts 17:30-31 (NASB). Cf. Hebrews 5:11-14.
[11] 2 Timothy 4:3
[12] 2 Timothy 4:3-4. This, of course, applies to deeper things as well.
[13] John 12:48-50
[14] 2 Peter 3:14-18