Questioning the Authority Behind Personal Beliefs

Now, we have discussed various topics of interest to students, but this morning I'm going to deal with one of the most important ones. You know, there are very few real atheists on campus. Some just like to argue, but you'll find the big question that keeps on occurring is: What is our authority for what we believe? A man once said to me, "Tell you what I believe, I believe if you do your best, God will do the rest." I said, "That's a very nice religion, but what's your authority for believing it?" Well, he said, "That's what I believe." I said, "Yes, but why do you believe that?" He didn't seem to think he had any necessity for quoting any authority.

Surely now, when I was in Northern Australia, I met some Australian aborigines, and they believed that God is a big green snake two miles long. If anyone is entitled to believe just what he wants to believe, it would be a chaotic sort of world. Edward R. Murrow some time ago ran a series of articles in the newspapers on "This I Believe," an article by Mrs. Roosevelt and an article by somebody else and somebody else, and it was just simply a hodgepodge of opinion, like a kind of bull session as they call it on campus. Isn't it a hen session as the female equivalent, where they all just talk and get nowhere?

I'm going to begin with a dogmatic statement. For the Christian, the supreme authority is Jesus Christ. I think that makes sense. If a man says, "I'm a Marxist, but I don't accept the authority of Karl Marx," then he ought in all honesty to change his title somewhat. If you call yourself a Marxist, you should accept the authority of Karl Marx and his famous Marxist manifesto. If a man says, "I'm a Christian, but I don't accept Jesus Christ," then he ought to change his title to a humanitarian or a vegetarian or whatever he happens to be. But why call himself a Christian if he won't accept the authority of Jesus Christ?

However, some of you may say that's very easy to say. How do you account for the fact that there are many different schools of authority in Christendom today? For example, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and the Protestant denominations. Well, I'm not here to discuss denominations, but I would like to discuss schools of thought. And I'm going to try and take them in their order and discuss them in a very simple way. There are those who believe in traditional authority. There are those who believe in rational authority. There are those who believe in evangelical authority. Those are the three main schools: traditional, rational, and evangelical.

Now, we ought to explain these things. What do we mean by traditional? That's the idea that the traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation have authority for us in what we believe. Now, of course, there are some good traditions. There are those that are very silly. It's a difficult thing to illustrate, but perhaps I could just tell you of some experiences of mine. I studied at Loyola University in Chicago for a while. I asked my professor there, Father Eugene Shields, "Why do you believe in purgatory?" Well, he said, "That's the teaching of the Church." But I said, "Why do you believe in it? I mean, what's your authority for it?" He said, "That's one of the traditions." But I said, "I can't find anywhere in the New Testament, the Roman Catholic New Testament, or the early Fathers any teaching about purgatory." Well, he said, "You mustn't think for one moment that all truth has been written down in the New Testament."

I said, "What about limbo?" Well, he said, "Limbo is a kind of twilight heaven where unbaptized babies go." I said, "Is it a kind of heaven?" "No," he said, "they don't see the face of God." I said, "Is it a kind of hell?" "No," he said, "there's no suffering or torment there." I said, "Is it a kind of purgatory?" "No," he said, "it's not a kind of purgatory either. It's a kind of twilight heaven." He said, "You see, not being baptized, they can't go to heaven. But the merciful God wouldn't send them to hell, little babies like that, so they go to limbo." Well, I said, "Where do you get the authority for believing this?" He said, "That's tradition of the Church." Well, I said, "That's not found in either Scripture or in the writings of the early Fathers for hundreds of years. In other words, it just started as a tradition and now it's got the authority of a doctrine."

I was in India not so long ago, and I was walking around a beautiful tropical garden with a Martoma clergyman. I said, "What kind of tree is this here?" He said, "That's a cashew nut tree." I said, "I've often eaten cashew nuts but never seen them grow." So I went over to look at it. It was a very beautiful tree. I said, "Tell me, what is this thing on the top of the fruit?" He said, "That's the seed." I said, "Outside the fruit?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Surely that's the only tree in the world with the seed outside the fruit. After all, the seed of oranges are inside the oranges and the seed of apples are inside the apples and so on." He said, "There are one or two exceptions, and this is one of the exceptions." He began to laugh. He said, "You know, among the Martoma Christians here in South India, there's a tradition that God did not make the cashew nut tree. Moses made it." I said, "Tell me more." Well, he said, "Moses went to the Lord and said, 'Lord, you've made everything. Why don't you give somebody else a chance?' So the Lord said, 'What would you like to make?' So he said, he'd like to make a tree. Of course, Moses wasn't acquainted with those verses that say, 'Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.' So he studied the other trees, see how they were made, and after working about 17 years on it, he finally produced a tree. And he brought it to the Lord for inspection. The Lord said, 'Where's the seed?' But Moses had forgotten about the seed. So he stuck the seed on it like a candle on a cake."

Now, that's a nice story, but I don't accept it. I'm going to tell you why. I have read all the books of Moses. I find no reference to Moses making a tree. I've read the Old Testament. I find no reference to Moses making a tree. I've read the New Testament. I find no reference to Moses making a tree. I've read all the literature that would have any authority in the matter, and there's no authority for everything that Moses ever made a tree. And of course, it doesn't stand a sense anyway, and so I don't accept it.

But now, let's take a tradition that would appeal to many people. This is a very simple tradition. Come right in, folks, there are seats here. This is a very simple tradition. Some people believe that the blessed mother of our Lord did not die and become buried as other people have experienced, but that she went straight to heaven. Now, I have a profound respect for the mother of our Lord. She was the most wonderful woman that ever lived, undoubtedly. And I wouldn't grudge her such an experience to go direct to heaven. In fact, if someone told me that Billy Graham was going to go straight to heaven, I would say good for Billy. I don't object to people going straight to heaven. Elijah went straight to heaven, and so did Enoch. But what authority is there for believing that the blessed Mary went to heaven?

Well, you read the Gospel of John. You'll find that when our Lord was hanging on the cross, his mother and some of his relatives were there, including the youngest disciple, John. And when the Lord saw his mother weeping, he said to her, "Woman, behold thy son," not referring to himself, but indicating John, who was to be a son to her. And then he said, "Son, behold thy mother." And from that day, the scripture says, John took her home to be with him. And according to church tradition, the blessed Virgin Mary lived with John until the day of her death. Now, Polycarp, St. Polycarp, wrote about 135 A.D. He was a personal friend of John. And he wrote about many things. Surely, if he had known about this miracle of the blessed Virgin Mary going straight to heaven, he would have recorded it. But no, he didn't know about it. Nor did anyone in the next century know about it. Nor did anyone in the next century. Hundreds of years, nobody knew anything about this. Then suddenly, it began to grow as a kind of story, like the story of Santa Claus or something like that. Until today, it is announced as a dogma. You must believe it. Now, you see, that's where traditions begin to contradict scripture.

I said that some traditions are good in themselves. They don't do any harm. If you were over in England, you'd find that they celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth on the 10th of June. Now, Queen Elizabeth was not born on the 10th of June. Why then do they celebrate her birthday then? Well, it's a custom in England. In the first week of June, they celebrate the monarch's birthday. George VI was born in November, but they celebrated his birthday in June too. Why? Well, because that's the only time of the year it doesn't rain over there. Of all these soldiers with their scarlet tunics, had their scarlet tunics ruined?

It costs $100, £100, just $280 to replace. So, by common consent, they deliberately pick the first week of June for the Queen's birthday or the King's birthday, as the case may be. It's a tradition, but it doesn't fool anyone. But now, supposing a Hollander were to emigrate to Canada, and supposing before he could be naturalized as a Canadian citizen, they told him, you have to swear that you believe that the Queen was born in June before we let you be a citizen. It'd be very hard on his conscience, wouldn't it?

I don't mind if you believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary went straight to heaven, but you've no right to make me believe it unless you have authority for it. So, when we talk about traditional authority, there is some authority in tradition, but all traditions should be subordinated to some higher authority. Because, you know, stories grow up. You've heard the story of George Washington cutting down a tree. That's one of the nice stories in American literature. Nobody can prove it. I heard another version of it just recently. He did that in Texas. Is there any Texan here, by the way? George Washington in Texas. In Texas, George Washington's father called the boys together and said, who cut down my favorite cactus? And two seats in the air. Who cut down my favorite cactus? And George Washington stepped forward and said, sir, I cannot tell a lie. I cut down your cactus. So, George Washington's father said, all right then, boys, let's pack up and go back to Virginia because Texas is no place to raise a boy that can't tell a lie. So, off they went again. Now, that's another story, but wouldn't it be strange if that was in American history books years from now? It's just a story?

You know, the story of the ride of Paul Revere? You look into that as history, you find he only rode half the way, and somebody else carried the message the rest of the way. These things are traditions that grow up, but they should not have the authority of doctrine. So, if someone comes along to you and says, well, you've got to believe this, or you've got to believe that, you've got to believe the other thing, you've got to ask why.

Now, we talk about rational authority. That's the idea that we won't believe anything unless we can submit it to our reason. If we can't see it happening now, why believe it happened at any other time? Thomas Jefferson, for instance, compiled a story of the Gospels called the Jefferson Bible, but it's really a selection from the New Testament, from the Gospels, giving the life of Christ. But because Thomas Jefferson was a deist, he left out all the miracles. He didn't believe in miracles. He left out all the supernatural. He left out the parts referring to Christ as deity, because he didn't believe that. And so he just took what appealed to him, and he put it together in the story of Jesus Christ, and it's called the Jefferson Bible. Now, I want to know, what right had he to do that? What right had he to say that such and such a thing happened, such and such a thing didn't happen, just because of the notions that took him?

If you're going to take this idea that it must be rational, all right then, take the first fact of all. Is there a God? Science cannot tell us. You remember what I said before about the existence of God? Supposing I said, let's try and find out whether or not God exists, what would you use? Litmus paper? Spectrograph? Geiger counter? What would you use? You see, it's hopeless to try and expect science to rule for us in the matters of faith. What about philosophy? Look how many philosophers contradict each other. One holds this, one holds that, and one holds the other thing. And as far as human reason is concerned, it's a strange thing that if a man keeps on sinning, his reason is warped.

I met a man in Illinois who could tell a lie and tell it so often, he finally believed it himself. And there are people like that. I met a fellow in the Philippines during the war who was living up the beach with a Filipina girl, without the benefit of clergy, as we say. And one day I saw him writing to his wife back in the States, so I said to him, I don't know how you do it. He said, do what? I said, write love letters to your wife, and you shack up the beach with this girl. He said, I don't like your attitude. I said, my attitude? Yes, he said, this is a perfectly lovely love affair. Oh, I said, he said, it's a friendship. I said, we call it adultery. It's ugly. Now there his reason was warped. So we can't judge ourselves. I think we've got to have a higher authority, and so I'm going to make a bold statement. The best school of thought, not ruling out tradition, not ruling out reason, but the highest school of thought is evangelical.

Now we must explain what we mean by evangelical. The word evangel is the Greek form of the word gospel, which is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning good news, and the word evangel means good news too. It just means the good news. And it's a very simple thing. If you want to know what Jesus Christ said and did, read the Gospels, the good news of Jesus Christ, because they tell the story of his life and teachings. You'll find that the life and teachings of Jesus Christ are contained for us in the Gospels. Now, what Gospels? Well, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are four Gospels, written from different points of view.

Someone may say right away, what do you mean by written from different points of view? Why do we have four Gospels? Well, you'll find that Matthew's Gospel is written from a Jewish point of view. Luke's Gospel is written from a Greek point of view. Mark's Gospel is telescoped, concentrated, and John's Gospel is in retrospect, looking back after a long time. So you find four different Gospels. You say, is that not a weakness to have four different stories? Well, they're not completely different, they just give you a different outlook on things. If you were to take me to court and sue me for damages, and you produce four witnesses who tell exactly the same story of how the accident occurred, the judge will throw the case out of court and say, it's a lot of collusion. Because nobody ever sees the same thing as somebody else. A policeman will see it from a different point of view than the bus driver. The pedestrian walking across the street who gets run over, he sees things a totally different way. You see what I'm getting at.

Now, here we have four Gospels, and they each give a different light on the life of Christ. And that strengthens them. It's like walking around a statue. You could take an elevation, you could take a plan, you could take a rear view, and so forth. In looking around the life of Christ, we find four great witnesses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and when we put them together, we get a complete picture of the life of Christ. Of course, not everything that he did was written down. As a matter of fact, the Bible says that if all the books that could be written were written, the world couldn't contain them.

The Epistles, of course, were written by the same sort of people. They passed on information to the Church, contradicted wrong ideas, and expanded doctrine. You say, what kind of people? They were written by the Apostles or their secretaries, or amanuenses is perhaps the word we should use. They were written in that way. Why by the Apostles? Well, the Apostles were witnesses of these things. They saw them. But if a question arose, was Jesus Christ glorified on the Mount of Transfiguration? Peter, James, and John could say, we were there. That gives some authority.

I was asked once, somewhere, I'm not sure where it was, is it true that Billy Graham spoke in tongues on the occasion on which he had the wonderful anointing of the Holy Spirit before the great Los Angeles crusade? I said, no, it's not true. How do you know? Because I was with him. I was talking to him at two o'clock in the morning, and I talked to him afterwards, too. In fact, I've asked him since, and he says it's not so. So what right have I to speak? Supposing 50 years from now, if I lived that long, and I were a very old man talking to a lot of students, and somebody said, well, I heard this about Billy Graham, that thus and so. I said, that's not true. How do you know? Because I was there. A witness, of course, is an authority.

Perhaps we could explain it a little further. I'm speaking at Cal Tech. You have to have an IQ of, what, 162, or something like that? But over at Cal Tech, a student said to me, now, sir, is it not a fact that there's a gospel of Thomas and a gospel of Peter? I said, yes. He said, why are they left out? I said, there's a book called The Shepherd of Hermas, and another one called The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. He said, why are they left out of the New Testament? I said, because they're not authentic. He said, but how do you know? Is it not a fact that 300 years afterwards, the church decided which books would be put in the New Testament? I said, that's true. Then he said, that means that the church is the authority. I said, just a moment.

Supposing World War III came and destroyed civilization as we know it, and supposing after the year 2000, the survivors, or the children of the survivors, emerged from the caves, and they decide to try and reconstitute civilization as they heard about it from their parents. So they appoint a committee on law, a committee on education, a committee on politics, a committee on commerce, a committee on industry, and naturally, a committee on religion.

The committee on religion decides the first job they have is to get together the sacred writings of the Christian faith, the most widespread faith of all time. One man says, well, here is a book I found in the ruins of Los Angeles. The front pages are burned, but it seems to be a life of Jesus Christ from different points of view, and a lot of letters at the back. Another man says, well, here's a book I found in London. It seems to be the same book, except that the back pages are burned. I don't know what the last book is called, but it says on the title page, the New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, we ought to compare those two. We'll probably find they're the same. Somebody else says, well, I found the same sort of thing in Paris, but it's of course in French. Somebody else says, well, I found one in Greek.

Another man says, here's a book called the Old Testament. Now, he said, that doesn't actually deal with Christ, but it seems to have some connection. Another man says, here's a book called the Bible containing the Old and New Testaments. Somebody says, here's another one called the Bible with the Apocrypha, some extra books in between the Old and New Testaments. Another man says, here's a book called The Robe by a prophet called Lloyd Douglas. That's all about Jesus Christ, and I sat up reading it all night. That ought to be in the Bible. Tells you all about Christ. Another man says, here's a book called Science and Health are the Key to the Scriptures by a prophetess called Mary Baker Eddy. That ought to be in the Bible, too. Somebody else says, here's another one that's called the Book of Mormon by a prophet called Joseph Smith. That ought to be in the Bible.

Where would they draw the line? Well, it would be a very simple thing. Let them get some old newspapers. They could find that The Robe was never heard of before 1925. Read it for what it's worth, but it's not an authentic apostolic book. Science and Health was not heard of before 1875. Read it for what it's worth, but it's not an apostolic book. The Book of Mormon was never heard of before 1825. Read it for what it's worth, but it's not an apostolic book.

Now, that's exactly what the early fathers did regarding the books of the New Testament. In order to form a canonical New Testament, they put each book to the test. For instance, do you know that in the writings of the early fathers, that's of the second century, the century following Jesus Christ, that every part of the New Testament is quoted in the writings of the early fathers, with the exception of eight verses? If some communist dictator were to take over the rule of our world and destroy every copy of the New Testament in existence, supposing he ordered that every New Testament were to be destroyed, including all the Greek manuscripts, we could nevertheless reconstruct the whole of the New Testament from the writings of the early fathers. For instance, Polycarp, whom I quoted, knew John the Divine, and he quotes from these books. And so, if you make a cross-reading of them, you can find whether or not they were accepted from the first century. And that's how we know that our New Testament as we have it today is authoritative, that it's acceptable.

Some people say, what about the Old Testament? At the risk of being misunderstood, I'm going to say that the Old Testament's an unfolding revelation of God, where the New Testament is a final revelation of God. Now, some people may not like that. I do not say for one moment that the Old Testament is not inspired. I believe it is fully inspired. But the Old Testament's an unfolding revelation of God's dealings with men, whereas the New Testament is a final revelation. It has never been surpassed.

Let me illustrate. When I was in Tunisia, I found that if an Arab there didn't like his wife and wanted to trade her in for a later model, all he needed to do was to clap his hands three times and say, I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee, and she was divorced. You say, that's pretty rough on women? Kindly, yes. But in the days of Jesus Christ, that's what the custom was. All a man need do is to tell his wife, I'm tired of you, and he'd give her a bill of divorce, it was called, saying, this woman is no longer my wife. And if he had witnesses to it, she was divorced. All she had to do was to go back to her father, and he would simply, shall we say, give her an overhaul, and then try and marry her off to somebody else.

What did Jesus Christ think of it? He didn't like it a bit. He said, Moses allowed you easy divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. But I tell you, it was not so from the beginning. How did he know? Because he claimed to have been there from the beginning. And so he established the rules of Christian marriage. And you'll have to admit that the New Testament standard of marriage is infinitely superior to the Old Testament standard of marriage.

Take the law of retaliation. Jesus said, you've heard it said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you to love your enemies. Now Old Testament law was based on this premise, that if somebody did you an injury, you were entitled to get damages to that extent. English law that we have here in America is based on the same premise. If somebody punches you in the nose, you don't punch him back, but you take him to court and you get damages equivalent to that damaged nose. That's an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But the Christian law is higher than that. We are told to love our enemies and to do good to those that persecute us. So you could say that the New Testament has never been surpassed because it's a final revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

You say, what about literature that comes since? I have read the Koran and I've read the Book of Mormon, but neither of them compare to the New Testament. So we have in the Old Testament the revelation of God. What attitude should we take to the Old Testament? I think the best thing to do is to take the attitude of Jesus Christ. He quoted it as having authority. He said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. It is written. He quoted this as having authority. When the apostles quoted the Old Testament, they quoted it as having authority. It's rather interesting that none of them quoted the Old Testament exactly as we have it today. Isn't that an interesting thing? Where you find an Old Testament quotation in the New Testament, you'll find the words slightly changed, but the ideas are there. Well, it'd been translated from one language to another. I want you to keep that in mind. It's worth thinking through.

I certainly believe in plenary inspiration, but I'm not quite so sure that I accept everyone's exact theories of this. Well, we have then the Old and New Testaments. We've got to have a doctrine or teaching of inspiration. And the best thing to do is to look to the New Testament itself. It says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. All scripture, not parts of scripture. Now in the revised version, the American revised version of 1901, I think it is, it says every scripture given by God is profitable for doctrine. That's not quite the same thing. But in the revised standard version published a few years ago, it returns to the evangelical position that all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Now you may be interested to know that the word inspiration doesn't occur in the Greek New Testament. The word inspiration is a Latin word, from spirio, to breathe. But it does say in the New Testament Greek, all scripture is God breathed, breathed of God. I was speaking at Gordon College in Boston when a student stood to his feet and said in a foreign accent, may I say a word? I said, yes sir. He said, the oldest translation of the Bible into a vernacular language is the Armenian. I come from Armenia in Asia Minor. And he said, it is interesting that the title of the Bible was taken from the Bible. The translators into Armenian had no word such as Holy Bible. It was not known then. So they looked for a title for the Bible and they called it as Duadze Shunch, the breath of God. You know the way for instance, an author sometimes takes a punch line out of a book and gives the book that title. Like for instance, Gone with the Wind was taken from the actual narrative of Margaret Mitchell's book. And there are some books like that, you'll find the title somewhere in the text. Or someday a publisher looking through will find a certain word there and say, that would make a good title.

And in the same way, the Armenian translators found the words, the breath of God in this very verse. And so they gave the title to the Bible as Duadze Shunch, the breath of God. All scripture is God-breathed. Now some of you say, what does that mean? Well, I'm sorry, I can't answer. I don't know. I just don't know. But I can give you an analogy.

Way back in the Old Testament, it says that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul. I don't know how God did that. I suppose there are some naive people who think that God took his mouth and put it over Adam's nostrils and puffed and blew until he started breathing in a kind of artificial respiration. Well, that's a very fantastic idea to hold. I don't believe that God breathed into man's nostrils that way at all. But I see the results of whatever it was. Man is completely different to all the other creatures. Completely different. As Thomas Huxley said, between man and the higher mammals is a great gulf fixed. Practically immeasurable.

Now in the same way, between the Bible and profane or secular literature, there's a great gulf fixed. This is living. It changes lives in a way that no other literature does. One of our planes crashed west over a field and I had to go to the little girl who'd lost her husband in that crash and break the news of her husband's death. Her father had died five months before. Her mother had died at her birth. And Jill was all she had and now I had to tell her that her husband was dead. She cried and I wanted to comfort her. So I took out my New Testament and Psalms and I began to read from the 23rd Psalm until I came to the phrase, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me. And she was comforted.

Why did I read that? Why didn't I read from Omar Khayyam or William Shakespeare? This is living literature. It's inspired of God. I said we've got to have some theory of inspiration. One of my friends who described himself as a modernist said to me very cheerfully, of course, he said I believe the Bible's inspired. He said I read it and it inspires me so I know it's inspired. I said where would you draw the line? Would you say that Shakespeare's inspired? Rudyard Kipling's inspired? I said some people would say that Frank Sinatra was inspired. I remember during the war all those girls used to scream when he sang. They were inspired, thrilled to death. Well, who's going to be the judge? No, no, you've got to have a more objective theory of inspiration than simply say well now, isn't that lovely? That inspires me. But then you come about some part which says that God will punish evildoers. That doesn't sound so thrilling, so that's not inspired. No, no, you've got to draw the line somewhere in that.

On the other hand, one of my friends who was an extreme fundamentalist said I believe every word in the book is inspired from Genesis to Revelation including the inscription of King James from cover to cover. He really was a thorough fundamentalist. I can't accept that either. Let me take for a moment one of the popular theories among fundamentalists. It's a kind of verbal dictation theory that God dictated every word the way I talk to my stenographer. Just take 1 Corinthians 1:14 to 16. Paul is complaining about the divisions in the church at Corinth. He says I thank God I baptised none of you. That's a bold statement. Then his first afterthought. You see, he was writing a letter. You know the way something occurs to you and you write and you say I shouldn't have said that or correction or something like that. So he said I thank God I baptised none of you except Crispus and Gaius. Then an explanation. Lest any should say I baptised in my own name. Then another afterthought. I also baptised the household of Stephanus. And then another comment. And if there are any others I don't remember. Now that's the scripture. Read it for yourself. You'll read the authorised version. Read Phillips or any of these translations you'll find. That's the gist of it.

Now listen. Could you actually hold the view that God Almighty dictated that to Paul? That God wasn't sure either? Oh no, no. Paul was using his memory. Therefore you'll find although the scripture is inspired there's a great latitude left. People drew on their memory. So you see it's not dictated. Although there is dictation in it. For instance, God did tell Moses write these words on tablets of stone. And God told Ezekiel you tell them thus and so. And he said the word of the Lord came unto me the second time saying. That's dictation. But not all of it is dictated.

What theory do we hold then? Well, I have to call it something myself. I believe in dynamic plenary inspiration. Dynamic means that the power of God is in it. Plenary that is fully inspired. That we don't make a choice for ourselves subjectively. But don't forget that the Bible has latitude. It's a divine book but it's also a human book. It has human style. Everyone has human style. My boy David for instance when he wants to tell me something he says Daddy do you know what? If I were to say proceed my son. He would say Daddy do you know what? I have to say what? And then he tells me. That's his way of recounting something.

My wife's sister is what you call a contractionist. Is that the word? Abbreviationist? She doesn't write BEFORE. She writes B4. Which annoys me no end. That's her style though. She just loves abbreviations. Now you'll find in the Gospel of Mark there's an abbreviated style. Have you ever noticed it says on straightway Jesus did this and immediately? That's the key word of Mark. He had that kind of mind. He just loved to see things like that. See he did this and he said this and it happened like that. My sister Evelyn doesn't have a style like that. It takes her twenty-five minutes to tell a story that would take anybody else two minutes. But if you interrupt her she gets very annoyed. She likes to spiel it out. That's her style.

The Apostle Paul has a style of his own. Have you ever read it? He begins with a statement then a parenthesis then a footnote then an explanation then he goes back to the statement again just like a professor at university. Why? Well, that's what he was. A professor. They've got their style haven't they? You'll find that Peter the great big fisherman had his own simple style. And whoever wrote the epistle to the Hebrews, nobody knows who wrote it, had the best Greek of all.

Figures of speech are permitted. For instance, if I were to say to you where did you spend your holidays? You say in Canada. I say where? You say way up in the Peace River country. I know that place so I say any mosquitoes? You say millions of them. Were you bitten? You say a hundred thousand times. That's hyperbole. That's a figure of speech. But if the dean of your school says how much money have you in the bank to see you through school? You say a hundred thousand dollars. That's a plain lie. That's not hyperbole. But there's hyperbole in the New Testament and the Old Testament. For instance, it says that John the Baptist went down to Judea and all Judea went to hear him. Every man, woman, youth, maiden, boy, girl, baby, babysitter, everybody else they all went down to hear. No, no, it doesn't mean that. It means a lot of people went. But it says all Judea went to hear him. Just as you could say that London was stirred by the Billy Graham campaign whereas actually only one person in ten went. If that. But that's permitted in the scripture. That's a figure of speech.

There are other figures of speech too. Symbols are permitted. For instance, it says that when Christ comes again out of his mouth shall come a two-edged sword. Could you take that literally? Yet there are people in our church naive enough to say I believe every word literally. How could they believe it literally? For instance, the 144,000 in Revelation, the book of Revelation. The Jehovah's Witnesses took that literally until very recently. They said they were the 144,000 that were to be saved. Until their numbers passed that figure. Now they've got a different explanation. But why 144,000 in the first place? Well, anyone will tell you. Just as X in Latin represents ten and V represents five. Twelve in Hebrew is the number of perfection and a thousand is the number of multitude. And to say that 144,000 would be saved is a thing that Jewish people would understand right away in that day. It would mean a perfectly perfect multitude of people will be saved. So I don't worry whether I'm 139,762 or what my number might be. I just say it's a figure, it's a symbol.

It speaks of the four horsemen in the apocalypse. Do you think there could be four mysterious horsemen, one called death, a rider called death? No, that's a symbol. There's personification. It says wisdom cries in the streets. Could you take that literally? That wisdom would go out crying in the streets like a boy selling newspapers? No, no. Allegory, yes. Proverb, doctrine. It contains all these things. And some people say, how am I to know what's what? Ah well, Saint Augustine said, Scripture is what Scripture means.

Therefore, we study it for ourselves. Now, I'm going to take just a few other points because I've got to rush off. There are different kinds of inspiration in Scripture. For example, direct revelation. In Exodus, it says God spoke to Moses saying, write these words in a book on tablets of stone. On the other hand, you'll find a different kind of inspiration in the first chapter of Revelation where John the Divine heard a voice behind him. This was some kind of dream or vision. That was inspiration with revelation. It came through John. It came through his mind. It wasn't merely that he was dictated to.

On the other hand, do you know that there's part of the Bible with inspiration without revelation? You say, where does that come? In the introduction to Luke, Luke says plainly, for as much as many have taken hand to compile an account of things believed among us, I also, most excellent Theophilus, decide to write an account for you. How did Luke write his gospel? He went round the people in Palestine that knew and compiled it the way we write a term paper or a thesis. Was he inspired? Of course, he was inspired to do it. Isn't it interesting that Luke's account of the birth of Christ is the most sympathetic? Well, you see, he was a medical doctor. That's why he wrote so sympathetically of Elizabeth and Mary in their pregnancies. He was an inspired man, but he didn't hear a voice from heaven saying, now this is what happened. He went and collected the material, but he was inspired.

You'll find there's illumination only in the New Testament. So what does that mean? Now, the Apostle Paul, writing to married couples, says, defraud not one the other, lest it be by consent and only for a short period that you may pray and fast and so forth. That's good advice. It's just straightforward advice to married couples regarding the relation one to another. But he says in that chapter, I give this by permission and not of commandment. And further on down in the chapter, he says, as far as unmarried people are concerned, because of the present distress, it is far better for you to remain as you are. Like for instance, if some member of my family came to me just as World War III were declared by an atomic bombing of the United States and said, well, I'm thinking of getting married, I would say, now look, listen, it might be better to wait for a little while because we may all be refugees out in the Mojave Desert next week. And so the Apostle Paul says, if you're unmarried, stay that way. But he says this by permission and not of commandment. He says, I give my opinion as one that's worthy. That's not revelation at all. That's illumination. If his heart was illuminated, he gave his opinion, but he was inspired so to write.

You'll find illumination with inspiration in 1 Corinthians 2:13, and you'll find inspiration without any illumination. You say, what does that mean? Some people who were inspired to write didn't understand what they wrote. That's what it means. You say, that's difficult to understand. Peter actually says so. He says that the Old Testament prophets, when they wrote about the coming of the Messiah, didn't understand the time or the place or the persons concerned. In other words, when Isaiah wrote, he was wounded for our transgressions. He didn't even know the name of Jesus, and we know that today. These things were reserved for us.

Now you say, why do you give us those things to confuse us? I could give you six varieties of inspiration, but the reason I do is to show you can't be very dogmatic as to your theory of inspiration. It's far better to say that the scriptures are inspired, instead of trying to say, well, they were inspired this way or that way or the other way.

Now for a closing point. Is the Bible then enough when it comes to authority? Well, if you want to know what to believe, you read the Bible. But is that enough? No, it's not enough. Have you ever had an argument with a Jehovah's Witness? They can quote scripture, and yet they deny the deity of Christ and deny the deity of the Holy Spirit. Yet they quote scripture that suits them. No, I think there's another factor involved.

I was walking along the corridor of Seattle Pacific College. I heard a bunch of students having an argument, so I stopped to listen. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I just wanted to hear what they were saying. So they were talking about me. One says, now listen, Joe, I'll tell you what Orr teaches on sanctification, and he told them with a very Methodist flavor. The other fellow says, now Jim, I've heard Orr five times too, just the same meetings that you were at, and I'll tell you what he teaches on sanctification, and he gave it with a very Presbyterian flavor. Then we heard the voice of authority, a sophomore. Sophomores know more than anybody else. He said, pipe down everybody. He said, I'll tell you what Orr teaches, and he told them, and he was totally off the beam.

I thought it was time for me to intervene, so I said, hi fellas. Oh, Dr. Orr, just talking about you. I said, really? Yes, he said, could you settle an argument? I said, I possibly could. Well, it depends what it is. He said, well now, what do you mean in your book, Full Surrender, by positional, critical, and progressive sanctification? I said, well, take a moment to explain this. We've all eaten. I said, well, now by positional, I mean this. I explained it. By critical, I mean this. By progressive, I mean this. The Methodist was satisfied. The Presbyterian was satisfied. But the sophomore said, are you sure you meant that, Dr. Orr? I said, yes. He said, are you sure you're sure? Well, I said, I'm certain.

Well now, he says, Jim, you've had your say, and Joe, you've had your say, and Dr. Orr's been kind enough to explain, but can I say a word? Does anybody object? He said, go ahead, go ahead. He said, let me tell you what Dr. Orr must have meant when he wrote that book. But I know what I meant because I wrote it. And the Holy Spirit who inspired Moses, who inspired David, who inspired Paul, knows the meaning. And we've been given that promise that he will guide us into all truth. So we have a book, and we have the Holy Spirit to interpret the book, and we don't need to go astray. Thank you.