Except for any of you who may be visitors among us this morning, all of you know that the Session of Elders is leading our congregation to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination into membership in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination. As a part of this change it is important that we, as a local church, know as much about the denomination we are hoping to join – the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the EPC – as we can so that we don’t merely move from the fire into the frying pan, but from an association of churches where we clearly don’t fit into an association that shares our understanding of the Scriptures, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, and the identity and freedom we have as saints and sons & daughters in the Kingdom of Heaven and the household of God.

To help us get to know the EPC I thought I would spend some Sundays preaching through their statement of faith, what they call “The Essentials of Our Faith”. A copy of those “Essentials” is printed as an insert in our Worship Bulletins, and will be each of the Sundays I’ll be preaching through it. You can pull it out right now and keep it in front of you, if you’d like. Today I’d like to focus just on the first paragraph…

“All Scripture is self-attesting and being Truth, requires our unreserved submission in all areas of life. The infallible Word of God, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is a complete and unified witness to God’s redemptive acts culminating in the incarnation of the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible, uniquely and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the supreme and final authority on all matters on which it speaks. On this sure foundation we affirm these additional Essentials of our faith: …”

There’s a lot of words here: Big words, far-reaching words; and they can jumble all-together to mean nothing when read through so quickly. But I think we can simplify it all to say, “The Bible is: Self-attesting, ?truth, ?infallible, ?complete, ?unique, ?fully-inspired, ?the supreme and final authority on all matters about which it speaks; and, it requires unreserved submission in every area of our lives.”

That’s still a lot, so let’s just start at the beginning: The Bible is “self-attesting”. Self-attesting is a theological word and a legal word that means “self-proving; a document that proves or validates itself”. And what that means when speaking of the Scriptures is that the Bible says it is the words of God, or proves itself to be the words of God, or validates itself as the words of God.

A variety of Scripture passages address this idea of “self-attestation”:

Let’s open our Bibles to 2 Peter 1:20… (pg. 953) Here the apostle Simon-Peter is encouraging believers that the Scriptures are the Word of God. He writes: ²⁰ “Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, ²¹ or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”

The prophet Jeremiah describes his own experience of this. Let’s turn to Jeremiah 1:9 (pg. 579)… Jeremiah writes: ⁹ “Then the Lord reached out and touched my mouth and said, ‘Look, I have put My words in your mouth!’”

But those whom Simon-Peter called “the prophets” included more than just those who wrote specifically prophetic books: The writers of the Psalms were considered to be prophets, as well. Let’s turn in our Bibles to 2 Samuel 23:2… (pg. 267) King David – who wrote at least half of the Psalms[1] – verifies this, and on his death-bed said: ² “The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me; His words are upon my tongue.” King David…

So Simon-Peter testifies, proves, validates that the psalmists and the prophets were “moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God”. But Peter goes on later in the same letter we just read to reveal something startling. Let’s turn back to 2 Peter, 3:15… (pg. 955) Here Simon-Peter writes: ¹⁵ “…our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—¹⁶ speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture.” (2 Peter 3, my emphasis) Peter testifies, reveals that Paul’s writings, too – not just the Old Testament writings, but the modern-day letters of Paul (they would have been “modern” in Peter’s day!) were also Holy Scripture: That Paul, like the prophets and psalmists before him, wasn’t just writing from his own understanding and by his own initiative, but “was moved by the Holy Spirit, and spoke from God.”

The “self-attesting” continues: Let’s turn to 2 Timothy 3:16… (pg. 929) The apostle Paul writes to Timothy, the young pastor of the Church in Ephesus: ¹⁶ “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” And that wraps together all of the Old Testament writings as being God’s words, and alongside Paul’s letters, eventually came to include all of the New Testament writings, as well.

So the Scriptures are self-attesting, that is, they say they are the words of God, they themselves prove they are the words of God, they validate across themselves showing they are the words of God. Now, because they are self-attesting doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone will believe the Scriptures are the words of God: There’s a big difference between self-attesting and self-evident. America’s founding fathers wrote in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. &c…” Our founding fathers, in saying these truths were self-evident were saying these truths were able to be readily understood and agreed upon by all. But that’s different from self-attesting.

As a matter of fact, the Bible, the Holy Scriptures, say – they self-attest – that it takes faith to accept the Scriptures as being from God. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 2:13… (pg. 919) The apostle Paul in his letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, writes: ¹³ “…we never stop thanking God that when you received His message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very Word of God—which, of course, it is. And this Word continues to work in you who believe.” It takes faith.

We had to focus a lot on “self-attesting”, but agreeing there, the rest of what this Essentials statement calls us to endorse is relatively straightforward: That the Bible is truth, infallible, complete, unique, fully-inspired, the supreme and final authority on all matters about which it speaks. Some of these we’ve already covered while showing the Scriptures to be self-attesting.

But if you want to turn to Nehemiah 9:8 you’ll read Governor Nehemiah saying to the Lord, “…You have done what You promised, for You are always true to Your Word.” And Psalm 33:4 says, “…the Word of the Lord holds true, and we can trust everything He does.” And Proverbs 30:5 proclaims: “Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to Him for protection.”

Now perhaps as we’re nodding our heads that we believe this Essential, perhaps we’re remembering some of what we just read through in Leviticus, about the Lord calling His people to slaughter all the men, women, and children of the unbelieving nations around them. Perhaps we’re challenged to think, “Well, I’m not sure I believe that those were God’s words.” But let’s always read the words of God in their context: Leviticus doesn’t say the Lord’s calling us to slaughter our unbelieving neighbors today. And if we are horrified simply by the reality that God may ever have asked anyone to commit such acts, perhaps we can have some humility in our relationship with human history. If nations can exist and thrive that practice human sacrifice and child sacrifice (as the Bible clearly tells us these nations did) perhaps we can give our loving Father in Heave the benefit of the doubt that perhaps there was loving-justice in such a command in that day…

But that’s just one example of the challenging things the Bible can say. But as we read we need to let poetry be poetry, and let similes and metaphors be similes and metaphors. It’s not that hard to tell the difference between historical narrative and word-pictures, between letters being read and actual events being described… And when you are confused, the Lord’s given you people like me and others to help!

Of course the foundational rule for our reading and understanding of the words of God – to know the fullness of their truth, their infallibility, their completeness, their uniqueness, their inspiration, their authority – is to remember that they all point to Jesus. In John 5:39 the Lord is debating with the Jewish religious leaders, and He says to them: ³⁹ “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to Me! ⁴⁰ Yet you refuse to come to Me to receive this life.” The sacrificial system we read about is about Jesus; the holy-days and festival celebrations are about Jesus; the “thou-shalts” and the “thou-shalt-nots” tell us about Jesus; the wars and struggles against idolatry and the enemies of God tell us about Jesus; the promises of liberation and victory and judgment are telling us all about Jesus Christ…

This introduction to The Essentials of Our Faith also says that the Bible “requires unreserved submission in every area of our lives”.

I can’t speak for all of you here, but I can tell you that I’m a creationist – I believe God created all that is in six 24-hour days and rested on the seventh because that’s the way the Bible says God did it. I’m glad to know there’s good science supporting creationism, and that evolutionary principles are being shown to be more and more flawed every day. But my supreme authority isn’t the science, it’s God’s words. Why do I believe in the equality of the races? Because the Bible says all humanity is descended from common ancestors: Adam and Eve. Why am I faithful to my wife in my thoughts, my words, and my deeds? Because the Bible – God’s words – tell me that that’s Christ’s relationship to us, His Church, and that it’s His desire for my relationship with my bride, as well. Why do I believe God loves me? Because the Bible tells me so… Why do I believe God has forgiven me my sins through Christ’s death on the cross? Because that’s what the Old Testament promised and what the New Testament verifies actually happens. Why do I believe I am living a new life, free from the control of sin and death? Because the Bible says I’ve been given God’s Holy Spirit and that through Him that I’ve been reborn from above, a new creation! Why is my goal in life to show others the same kind of love God has shown me? Because the Bible tells me that that’s how God wants me to show Him my love for Him, by loving others, and especially other Christians.

“All Scripture is self-attesting and being Truth, requires our unreserved submission in all areas of life. The infallible Word of God, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is a complete and unified witness to God’s redemptive acts culminating in the incarnation of the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible, uniquely and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the supreme and final authority on all matters on which it speaks.”

 Ascription of Praise

Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand His decisions and His ways!

For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give Him advice? And who has given Him so much that the Lord needs to pay it back?

For everything comes from Him and exists by His power and is intended for His glory. All glory to Him forever! Amen?