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Skepticism and the Word

July 4, 2019 Daniel Cook

In Questions and Answers: Open Forum, by Guy N. Woods, he wrote: “Ours is predominantly a skeptical and questioning age . . . Today, in many circles, it is regarded as the smart and sophisticated thing to appear skeptical.” This book was published a little over four decades ago, but this observation could have been rightly made today.

When it comes to the Bible, I had a teacher one time who summed up much of contemporary, liberal, biblical scholarship’s view of the miracles recorded in the Bible in this way: “If it doesn’t happen, it didn’t happen.” Virgins do not have babies; therefore, Mary could not have actually been a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. The dead are not raised today; so, it cannot be true that Lazarus was actually raised from the dead. Jonah couldn’t have really been in the belly of a fish for three days and lived, because that just doesn’t happen. What this means is that, according to them, the Bible is not actually the Word of God. They come to the Bible with the assumption that it is only the product of man, filled with errors and superstition, having no more authority over man than what man assigns to it. They approach it with a high degree of skepticism. This is considered by many today to be a “smart and sophisticated” approach to the Bible.

Either the Bible is from God or it isn’t. There can be no middle ground. Some try to take the position that the Bible is the Word of God, but it has many myths and ancient superstitions mixed in with it, but this will not do. Brother Woods also said in his book: “more than 2,000 times the Scriptures assert the fact that they issued from God.” So, either the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, or it makes false claims for itself, not once, but more than 2,000 times. Either it is the Word of God, or it is not at all what it claims to be.

The true believer accepts the Bible’s claims for inspiration. Jesus and the apostles did too. The unity of the Scriptures, written by 40+ writers over the space of 1,600 years confirm its divine, supernatural authorship. The prophecies made and fulfilled by it confirm its divine origin. Archeology also confirms it. Still, skeptics refuse to accept that the Bible is from God.

In an online article titled, “In Defense of . . . the Bible’s Inspiration,” Bert Thompson wrote: “Like the blacksmith’s anvil—which wears out many hammers but itself remains unaffected—the bible wears out the skeptics’ innocuous charges, all the while remaining unscathed. . . . Governments come and go. Nations rise and fall. People live and die. Jesus warned that ‘heaven and earth shall pass away” (Matt 24:35), but went on to note that “my words shall not pass away’ [cf. Isa 40:8].”