The Centrality of Scripture. It is all about Jesus.
Who is our authority over the importance of Scripture?
Jesus teaching
For Jesus, the Bible was God’s word to all people and it authority should never be doubted. Satan’s first attack on Adam was for him to question the authority of God’s word and it has remained the same chief temptation ever since.
“Did God really say . . .”
Satan then goes on to deny the truth of what God had said,
“You will not surely die . . .” Genesis 3:1-4
Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan and was asked to question what God had just said at his baptism,
“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:22
Satan began,
“If you are the Son of God, . . .” Luke 4:3
To each of the very real temptations, Jesus replies,
“It is written . . , It is written . . , It is written . . .”
For Jesus, the Scriptures were not be tampered with or used out of context. They are the Word of God. Jesus said,
“Scripture cannot be broken.” John 10:35
He recognised that the authors of Scripture were inspired by God himself.
“David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared . . .” Mark 12:36
After his resurrection Jesus emphasised the importance of the message of Scripture.
“Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. then he opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, ‘This is what is written . . .’ ” Luke 24:47
Jesus was very clear that he had come to proclaim the Word of God. Thus when he was giving his last talk to his disciples, before his crucifixion he keeps emphasising this point.
The Holy Spirit has been given to convince people to accept the message Jesus gave to the world,
“. . . in regard to sin, because men do not believe me, . . .” John 16:10
The Holy Spirit will guide God’s people to God’s truth. God’s truth is a message that Jesus and now the Holy Spirit will proclaim.
“I have much more to say to you . . . But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” John 16:12-14
The Holy Spirit has been given to the church for this very purpose, to proclaim God’s unchanging truth to the world, that Jesus ‘came from God’ (John 16:30).
Jesus then prayed. He saw that the work of preaching God’s message about God’s kingdom and how people may enter it through faith in himself, was nearly complete. He now had to become the means of our forgiveness by dying on that cross. He prayed,
“Now this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” John 17:3-4
Jesus is clear that passing on God’s words that his followers may live through obeying them was key.
“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. they are yours; and you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.” John 17:6
“I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.” John 17:7
Jesus recognised that the Scriptures were God’s word to the world. Referring particularly to his disciples, he prayed,
“None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” John 17:12
It is God’s message, that the church is to pass on, that is so divisive.
“I have given them your word and the world has hated them.” John 17:14
Jesus prays that in spite of the opposition, the church will stay faithful to God’s truth and keep proclaiming it to the world. They church is never to be a ‘holy huddle’, but must be out in the world as God’s messengers, proclaiming and living by God’s truth.
“My prayer is not that you will take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” John 17:16-18
There can be no misunderstanding. the church is primarily here to pass on God’s message or word to all people. It is no coincidence that Jesus is given the synonym of ‘The Word’.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” John 17:20
There have been many attempts to unify Christian denominations. It is a worthy aspiration but the only basis will be the acceptance of God’s word as the ultimate authority and the need to share the message of salvation through faith in Christ.
“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:23
The apostles’ teaching
This has always been the emphasis of the church. Paul wrote to the Roman church about the advantage Jews had in being trusted with the Scriptures,
“They have been entrusted with the very words of God.” Romans 3:2
Paul wrote to Timothy, shortly before his execution, this telling summary of what his life’s work was to be about.
“14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
1In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
The early church teaching
In the first century Clement of Rome referred to the Scriptures as,
“ . . . true utterances of the Holy Spirit.”
In the second century Athenagoras argued,
“God moved in the mouths of the prophets as if they were musical instruments.”
Augustine wrote,
“The authors of Scripture are free from error.”
This is in stark contrast to some modern religious leaders. Thus Steve Chalke, who used to be a Bible believing evangelical, has now argued that the Bible contains,
“ . . . numerous discrepancies, errors and downright contradictions,” as well as “oppressive and discriminatory measures.”
“The idea that . . . it is ‘infallible’ or even ‘inerrant’ – in any popular understanding of these words – is extremely misleading.”
“In truth, there is nothing in the biblical texts that is beyond debate and questioning.”
“Rather, in my view they (the Scriptures) are . . . written by fallible human beings whose work bears the hallmarks of the limitations and preconceptions and preconceptions of the times and cultures they lived in.”
It is not surprising that Steve Chalkes organisation, ‘Oasis’ has been asked to withdraw from even the broad Evangelical Alliance!
We each have a decision to make. Will we accept what Jesus and his apostles taught and obey him or will we maintain our independence? Jesus says that all Scripture is about him so is such a Christocentric approach the right way to view Scripture and the questions that are posed? The following article by Greg Boyd addresses this question.
Modern Theologians and the Centrality of Christ: Greg Boyd
May 18, 2017
During the twentieth century the development of a Christocentric reading of the Scriptures—which is crucial to understanding what I argue in Crucifixion of the Warrior God—surged in the wake of Karl Barth’s publication of his Romans commentary in 1916. It was justifiably described as a “bombshell” that fell “on the playground of the theologians,” demolishing the anthropocentric and rationalistic approaches of 19th century liberal theology and replacing it with a relentless and all-encompassing Christocentric focus.
Thereafter, an ever-increasing number of theologians from a variety of traditions have espoused theologies that could be broadly classified as “Christocentric.” And the last several decades have witnessed a virtual explosion of works in hermeneutics, homiletics, and systematic theology that have been categorized as Christocentric. To illustrate this Christocentric orientation among recent theologians and biblical interpreters, it seems appropriate to begin with my former professor at Yale, Brevard Childs. This pioneer in the field of biblical theology held that Christ is “the subject matter, substance, or res” of all Scripture. For this reason, he argued, the “fundamental goal” of biblical theology must be “to understand the various voices within the whole Christian Bible, New and Old Testament alike, as a witness to the one Lord Jesus Christ…”[1]
Arguing along similar lines, Leonhard Goppelt eloquently portrays Jesus as the “the focal point” of Scripture “that gathers all the rays of light that issue from Scripture.”[2] Peter Leithart holds that “Scripture is about Christ,” adding that “[t]he Christ who is the subject matter of Scripture is the totus Christus,” while Scott Swain has recently pointed out that even with all of its remarkable diversity, “God speaks the same Word” throughout Scripture, and that word is “Christ.”[3] All the literary forms of Scripture, he contends, “constitute a harmonious witness to the glory of the Word made flesh.”[4]Vern Poythress poignantly reflects the same orientation when he contends that “[t]he alternative to a Christocentric understanding of the Old Testament is not understanding it rightly…”[5]
In the same vein, Treier sums the conviction of most who comprise the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS) movement—which I employ in Crucifixion of the Warrior God—over the last two decades when he states that, “whether one is reading the Gospels or … the Old Testament … all Scripture requires interpretation with the reality of Jesus Christ as the center of its narrative world.”[6] Similarly, Miroslav Volf writes: “For Christians, Jesus Christ is the content of the Bible, and just for that reason the Bible is the site of God’s self-revelation.”[7]
Nor is this revival of Christocentric hermeneutics a strictly Protestant phenomenon. There could be no better representative of a Christocentric approach to Scripture than Pope Benedict when he boldly states that “Christ is the key to all things …. [O]nly … by reinterpreting all things in his light, with him, crucified and risen, do we enter into the riches and beauty of sacred Scripture.”[8]
Yet, so far as I can see, no contemporary scholars go further in reflecting an intense and consist consistent Christocentric orientation than Thomas Torrance and Graeme Goldsworthy. Torrance exemplified an approach to Scripture that was “deeply and carefully Christological” and that emphatically displayed the conviction that “the heart of Scripture is Jesus Christ.”[9] Christ was for Torrance “the living text we read in the Bible.”[10] The most fundamental challenge for all theological interpreters of Scripture, therefore, is to “interpret it in terms of its scopus or goal, Jesus Christ, thus seeing it in its relation of depth with its truth in his incarnate person.”[11]
Similarly, Goldsworthy has consistently maintained that the most fundamental presupposition for Christian interpreters of Scripture must be that “… all texts in the whole Bible bear a discernible relationship to Christ and are primarily intended as a testimony to Christ.”[12] Goldsworthy has argued that if Jesus is “the one mediator between God and man,” then he must function as “the hermeneutic principle for every word from God.”[13] Hence, Goldsworthy has concluded, “the prime question to put to every text is about how it testifies to Jesus.” [14]
In fact, Goldsworthy and Torrance along with several others have argued that, as the mediator, redeemer, head and goal of all creation, Jesus must be regarded as the hermeneutical key not only to all Scripture but to all reality.[15]
[1] B. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, 80, 85.
[2] L. Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New, 58;
[3] P. J. Leithart, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture, 173; S. Swain, Trinity, Revelation and Reading, 25.
[4] Swain, ibid., 60.
[5] Poythress, God-Centered, 60.
[6] Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture, 67.
[7] M. Volf, “Reading the Bible Theologically,” in Captive to the Word of God: Engaging the Scriptures for Contemporary Theological Reflection, 6.
[8] Quoted in S. W. Hahn, Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, 82.
[9] T. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, lix.
[10] Op. cit. xxx.
[11] Torrance, Atonement, xxxiii
[12] Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible, 113
[13] Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, 21. See Torrance, Atonement xxx.
[14] Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, 21.
[15] Goldsworthy, ibid., 251.BVP
