We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Christ the Center
The center of the Christian faith is not anything we believe; it’s the person of Jesus Christ. The foundation of my faith is a person, not a book and a set of beliefs about that book. Rather than believing in Jesus because I believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, I came to believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God because I first believed in Jesus.
Whereas Islam has always presented itself as a “religion of the book,” the kingdom of God has been from the start a movement that is centered on a person. The only foundation that can be laid, Paul says, for example, is “the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:11). Peter also referred to Jesus as the “cornerstone” (1 Pet 2:6).
While the earliest disciples believed the Old Testament was inspired, they never based their faith in Christ on this. They used it extensively, but only as a means of pointing people to Jesus, whom they already believed in for other reasons. This is the role the Bible should play in our lives.
But, in contrast to many, I do not think the Bible can bear the weight, nor was it ever intended by God to bear the weight, of being the foundation for why we believe in Jesus.
Instead, our belief in Jesus is the basis for belief in the inspiration of Scripture. On the basis of historical, philosophical, personal, and spiritual considerations, I believe that Jesus is the definitive revelation of God (See Lord or Legend for more on this). Yet the identity of Jesus is inextricably wrapped up in the Scriptures. He is the center and culminating point of the narrative. It’s actually impossible to understand who Jesus is apart from this story.
As a part of this story, Jesus promised that he would be present in his corporate body by the power of the Spirit to continue to guide it (Matt 28:20; Jon 14). And under his spiritual guidance, the community he dwelled among quickly came to acknowledge that both the Old and New Testaments were “God breathed” (1 Tim 3:16). As a part of this community, therefore, I feel compelled to submit to this discernment.
My faith in Christ therefore compels me to embrace all of Scripture as the inspired Word of God. It seems unfaithful to Christ, as well as to his corporate body, to do otherwise. I trust the Bible because of the endorsement by Christ of the Bible. Even though I have many other reasons to support this trust, they are all much less important by comparison.
It is primarily on the authority of Jesus that I rest my conviction regarding the inspiration of Scripture. Christ is the center, and my beliefs are secondary to that center.
Hence, I don’t see beliefs rooted in Scripture as an end in and of themselves. They rather point us to Jesus and help bring us into, and strengthen us in, our relationship with Jesus. The moment we begin to think that Scripture or our beliefs are ends in and of themselves, we are in danger of making an idol of Scripture and our beliefs.
Knowing Jesus Christ is the end to which all beliefs point. This relationship is what gives significance to everything we believe. This center is the one and only source of the life that is the heartbeat of the kingdom to which we belong.
—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 159-170
Photo credit: Thomas Hawk via Visual hunt / CC BY-NC
Related Reading
Atonement: What is the Christus Victor View?
Most western Christians today understand the atonement as a sort of legal-transaction that took place between the Father and the Son that got humanity “off the hook.” The legal-transaction scenario goes something like this: God’s holiness demands that all sin be punished, which in turn requires that sinners go to eternal hell. The trouble is,…
Do the Gospels Fabricate Prophetic Fulfillment?
Skeptically-inclined scholars, and especially critics of Christianity, frequently argue that the Gospel authors created mythological portraits of Jesus largely on the basis of OT material they claim Jesus “fulfilled.” In other words, they surveyed the OT and fabricated stories about how Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. In response, it’s hard to deny that there are certain…
Revelation 13:8 refers to “everyone whose names have not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life.” How does that square with open theism?
Three possibilities exist in terms of reconciling Revelation 13:8 with open theism. 1) First, the “from the foundation of the world” clause can attach to either “everyone whose names have not been written” or to “the lamb that was slain.” For example, the TNIV translates this passage “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the…
Faith in the Midst of the Storm
This last weekend Greg was in Michigan preaching at Mars Hill. If you’d like to download the audio of the sermon click here. Greg continues his thoughts on faith and doubt in this sermon, focusing on the gospel account of Jesus walking on the water. What does it mean to have faith?
Is Jesus Really God?
While it is true that Jesus Himself never comes out and explicitly says He is God in the Gospels, He is everywhere portrayed in terms that lead us to conclude to the same thing. He says things like “If you see Me, you see the Father,” “Honor Me even as you honor the Father,” and…
Loving a Twilight Zone God?
David D. Flowers posted this insightful reflection over on his blog about an episode of The Twilight Zone and what it says about some pop views of God. Can we really love a God that exercises this kind of random control just because he can? We can certainly fear a God like this, but can…