The Bible reveals to humanity the good news of a God of love, the only true Creator-God, and His dealings with humankind. In these dealings between God and humanity, the Bible teaches that certain events occurred which alienated human beings from the God of love. The bad news of the Bible is that the natural person is estranged from God, abandoned, dead in sin, and therefore lost and condemned to eternal destruction. According to the Bible, this is the condition of every human being on earth, regardless of how good he or she may appear to be. Worse still, the Bible teaches that there is nothing a person can do to restore this relationship with God.
Yet the Bible also contains exceptionally good news: because God is love, He has made it possible that the relationship between Himself and humanity can be restored. This restoration of the relationship with God is not only possible; it is an absolute requirement for salvation and for a new life of peace with God. For this reason, the Bible calls people to be reconciled to God, including in the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:20b:
“… we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”
God desires to restore the relationship, and therefore He makes provision by sending His Savior – Servant, according to Isaiah 52:13 – to make peace with Him possible for humanity. You are encouraged to read the whole of Isaiah 53. See especially Isaiah 53:5:
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.”
All of this, however, is meaningless if the Bible is merely a human writing – and that is precisely what Satan and his agents want people to believe. Throughout the ages, and even today, much effort has been made to undermine the Bible’s credibility as the Word of God. Already in the Garden of Eden, Satan – through the serpent – began sowing doubt in the human mind about the truth of what God had said, when he asked, “Has God indeed said, …” (Genesis 3:1) and declared, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4). Satan makes God out to be a liar and continues relentlessly to sow doubt about the reliability of the Bible as God’s Word. The Bible teaches in 2 Corinthians 11:14–15:
“For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.”
Just as Satan presents himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), so some of his servants – often highly educated theologians – present themselves as Christians while, in reality, they are liberal (free-thinking) unbelievers who leave no stone unturned in their efforts to undermine the authority of the Bible. These are people who know the Bible, but do not know the God who is revealed in the Bible.
In schools, universities, and other training institutions, the authority of the Bible is likewise undermined, among other things, by presenting the theory of evolution as gospel truth, as though it were a proven fact, while – apart from evolution that occurs within species – it is essentially an unprovable hypothesis. They find it easier to believe that something so small as to be virtually invisible exploded (the so-called Big Bang), and that the universe, with all its massive planets, star systems, and all the wonders on this earth, is the result of that event. “Nothing” therefore exploded, and everything that exists is supposedly the result.
No scientist can explain what this “something” or “nothing” is that exploded, where it came from, how it came to be, or what caused it to explode. It was simply “there” — is that science, or do they merely believe it? To believe this unscientific “science” truly requires an exceptionally large “faith.”
For them, it is more difficult to believe that an intelligent Being who has always existed created all these wonderful things out of nothing. If He decided that what He created should move away from one another, He – and He alone – could have accomplished it through an explosion, or simply by commanding it to happen, and it would have happened.
There are also numerous other religions – Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and a vast array of cults—each with its own ideas based on certain writings, all contradicting the Bible.
How can one be certain that the Bible truly is God’s inspired revelation to humanity? It is impossible to prove this scientifically. There are strong and valid philosophical arguments, but these are not proofs. Yet there is ample reason – enough for this writer and for millions of other believers to believe it. So much so that millions have been willing to be tortured and to die for it. This still happens daily in countries and regions where Bible-believing Christians are persecuted, tortured, and killed simply because they are Christians. Most of these believers had a choice: they could have rejected the Bible and the Christian faith and saved their lives, but they were so certain that they were willing to pay the highest price. Among the earliest Christian martyrs were the apostles, who personally knew the Lord Jesus and witnessed His life, His crucifixion, and His resurrection from the dead.
To acknowledge and accept the Bible as God’s revelation is not a blind leap of faith. The Bible is unique, and no other ancient writing even remotely compares to it in credibility and reliability. No one can be forced to believe the Bible, but when one considers the following facts (drawn from Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell and In Defense of the Faith by Dave Hunt), one would expect any intelligent person to give serious consideration to the Bible’s content and examine it more closely:
- Over a period of 1,500 years, more than 40 authors—including fishermen, shepherds, kings, physicians, and others—across three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe), writing in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), recorded God’s revelation to humanity in 66 books. They wrote on numerous potentially controversial subjects without contradicting one another, and in perfect harmony regarding the message of salvation.
- Of all ancient manuscripts that have survived, the biblical manuscripts are incomparably more numerous and far closer in time to the originals than secular manuscripts. The New Testament alone has 24,600 manuscripts, some dating to less than a century after the originals, while most are 300–400 years later. No ancient secular work has even 1,000 manuscripts; most have fewer than ten, and the time gap between the original and the oldest copy is often more than 1,000 years. This means biblical manuscripts are far more reliable. It also means that if the Bible cannot be accepted as credible, then no ancient manuscript can be accepted as credible.
- Throughout the centuries, critics have failed in their attempts to discredit the Bible. Many claims of corruption or distortion have been made, but no evidence has ever been produced.
- Archaeological excavations have never disproved anything in the Bible. On the contrary, archaeology has repeatedly confirmed the Bible and proven sceptics wrong. For example, there was once no archaeological evidence for the Hittites as a people in Canaan. Sceptics seized on this as proof that the Bible was unreliable. To their dismay, archaeological evidence began to pour in, and today there is an entire museum in Ankara, Turkey dedicated to the Hittites. This is only one of many examples. Because of the reliability of the Bible’s archaeological record, some archaeologists in Israel use the Bible to locate ancient cities.
- The prophetic record of the Bible is flawless. A vast number of prophecies concerning nations and individuals have been fulfilled exactly as written, including all prophecies about the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is certain that all prophecies still awaiting fulfilment will be fulfilled precisely as the Bible states. No other book has such a flawless prophetic record.
The Bible has brought millions of people into contact with the living God, changing their lives forever. They experience the joy and peace of God that surpasses all understanding, even in the direst circumstances and under severe persecution.
The Bible also claims to be the inspired revelation of the true Creator-God: 2 Timothy 3:16:
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God,”
And the Lord Jesus issued the following challenge in John 7:17:
“If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God …”
This remains true: whoever does the will of God, as set out in the Bible, will know that it is indeed from God.
Most people who do not accept the Bible as God’s revelation do so against their better judgment. They realize that it is the Word of God, but they cannot face the moral demands and standards of the Bible. They then look for faults in order to convince themselves and others that the Bible is not credible. In doing so, they attempt to soothe their own consciences – usually unsuccessfully – which eventually become completely dulled if they persist.
Just as the devil does everything in his power to discredit the Bible as God’s revelation, he also leaves no stone unturned in misleading believers and undermining their faith through false teachers and prophets, who often slightly distort great biblical truths in order to lead believers astray. These are often excellent preachers who sometimes do so out of ignorance, but often deliberately. The Lord Jesus warns in Matthew 7:15:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”
In Matthew 24:11 He also warns that before His return,
“Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.”
The apostles likewise warn repeatedly against false prophets and teachers (see acts 20:30; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1).
For this reason, every believer is responsible for personally getting to know the God of the Bible through prayerful Bible study; otherwise, he or she may be misled by false teachers. Believers owe it to themselves, for only there – in the Bible, prayerfully, and with the help of God through His Holy Spirit – is the new life of peace with God to be found.
Any serious student of the Bible will soon discover that the God of the Bible is the only true Creator-God, that He is a God of love, and therefore that there is hope for the natural person who is alienated from God and dead in sin.