Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Guarding Your Mind
What is truth? Seemingly insignificant compromises can lead us dangerously astray. Jeremy Thomas delivers a compelling examination of biblical infallibility and the growing trend among evangelicals to claim that while Jesus never sinned, he might have made technical errors when speaking about science or history.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament Framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas. Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2:That sounds right. I mean, it's true. You've got the words of the Bible God revealed Himself to us there. We've got the record of nature God reveals Himself to us. There we know, and these two integrate. So what's our mission? To work rigorously to show how the two integrate into a harmony, right? Well, let's look at the next quote, Because see, this is the deception. You buy into this statement and you think, oh, this is good stuff. And before you know it, you're at the next statement.
Speaker 1:If I spent all afternoon baking brownies and presented them to you, would you eat one? What if I told you I mixed in a tablespoon of dog poop? Would you still eat them, even though I used the finest flour, chocolate, milk, eggs, took special care to make sure they were baked just perfectly, knowing that there was just a tablespoon of poop in there, would you eat them? Well, that's a ridiculous question, isn't it? Of course you wouldn't.
Speaker 1:And yet we consume false theology, false doctrine, false philosophy all the time. And the same principle is true there. It might be 90, 95, or even 99% true, but it is that 1% lie or 5% lie that pushes us off the truth of God and has us walking down a path of human wisdom, falsehood and lies. So we must be careful to weed out and think carefully about what we're putting into our mind. The old software programming conundrum and saying garbage in equals garbage out is true. Guard your mind, people. That's the message of today. And saying garbage in equals garbage out is true. Guard your mind, people. That's the message of today and be careful. This is why doctrine is important. The FBI doesn't train their agents to recognize counterfeits by looking at counterfeits. They train their agents to recognize counterfeit bills by looking at the real thing, so that they know when something isn't quite right. Let's focus on the Word, and today Jeremy goes through many examples of science and philosophy and theology to show why we need to be so very careful.
Speaker 2:You probably have a pretty good notion of what infallibility means, but I want to relate this to some of the things we've been talking about in the last several months. So, under the event we've called the life of the king, we've dealt with several doctrines. Actually, hypostatic union was under the birth of the king, but I'm bringing it forward because it's so closely related to kenosis and impeccability. But at any rate, just so we kind of have those in mind. This is the background for the infallibility discussion and we really just finished impeccability. But just to state these summary conclusions that we came to on the doctrine of the hypostatic union, jesus Christ is undiminished deity, meaning he's 100% God right. He's united with true humanity, meaning he's 100% man in one person, without mixture or separation, forever. So his divine nature is not mixed with his human nature, nor are they separated into two separate people. We're trying to state what the Scriptures say about his person in hypostasis. Then we moved on to kenosis, and this is dealing with the difficult struggle point of what did Jesus Christ give up in his earthly career, in the incarnation. What did he give up? Well, he didn't give up his divine attributes. He still maintained them. He was 100% God right, but he did give up the independent use of his divine attributes, meaning that the only time that he would utilize his divine attributes is by permission of the Father.
Speaker 2:So the key passage there is Philippians 2. It's dealing with the kenosis, what he gave up, and then the impeccability. And this doctrine is really tied to the question of was Jesus really tempted in all things as we? We know the Bible says he was tempted, but how exactly was he tempted in all things as we? Since if he's God and God can't be tempted, james 1, then how exactly was he tempted in all things as we? And this discussion through church history has come down in favor of basically a statement very similar to the one I have here that Jesus Christ was not able to sin in his divine nature. Emphasizing inability, able not to sin in his human nature, emphasizing he was able to and therefore, of course, temptable, but as a person not able to sin, because the divine and human natures are in one person. So you must look at him, finally, as a person and not two separate people. So, at any rate, the question of impeccability then is falling in favor of him as a person being not able to sin. But the next question becomes okay, we all agree that he didn't sin, most Christians would agree with this but the next question becomes infallibility, and that's the question of could he make technical errors in things that he spoke? And so this has actually become a very prevailing position in evangelicalism.
Speaker 2:So not outside of evangelicalism like among liberals, but among evangelicals, to claim that Jesus, while impeccable and never sinned, nevertheless did make technical errors with respect to historical and scientific details. And so I want to bring us into the discussion a little bit that has taken place now over the last 400 years, but which has really crystallized in the last 100 to 150 years. And so let me just state some things about this doctrine. First of all, then, the doctrine of infallibility is dealing with whether everything Jesus and the biblical author said was accurate. Most don't question whether everything they said was accurate when it comes to faith and ethics, but they highly question whether everything they said with respect to historical and scientific details was accurate. So they make a split see between things of what they call faith and morals or ethics, and then, on the other hand, issues of historical and scientific details, so infallibility. Then we want to embark on this discussion because it will explain how we got ourselves in such a pickle in the modern day evangelical movement throughout the world and why we have such a divergence among evangelicals.
Speaker 2:Infallibility, of course, is built on the doctrines of revelation, inspiration and canonicity that we all taught back at the historic event of Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai is where we hang those three doctrines, because that's where God spoke and over two million Israelites stood there at the valley of Mount Sinai and they heard the voice of God and they said hey, Moses. They were afraid. They said you go talk to him, find out what he wants to say and come back and tell us right. But that's a very visual scene at Mount Sinai, where over two million people actually heard God's voice and he's speaking from outside of history as the creator into history in the Hebrew language, such that if you'd been there and you'd had your iPhone or your Android, you could have recorded God's voice and captured it and played it back as long as that digital file existed. So that's what we mean when we say God spoke. We don't mean they had a feeling. We don't mean there was just some thunder and lightning and it sounded like a big God was there or something. We mean God spoke in human language and these people heard. So that's the doctrine of revelation and we also connect to that inspiration and canonicity inspiration.
Speaker 2:So I have a short, you know summary at the end of point b here that describes all three of these doctrines. God speaks. That's revelation through men. Thatines God speaks. That's Revelation through men. That's inspiration in the Bible. That's the canon, the canon of Scripture, the 66 books of the canon of Scripture, what we consider the rule or standard for all matters. So infallibility is going to add to that statement without mistakes, whenever it touches any area of life or any matter or subject to which it touches on. So God speaks through men in the Bible, without mistakes, whenever it touches on any area of life. That would be the doctrine of infallibility. It would add that dimension when it speaks to any area of life. That would be the doctrine of infallibility. It would add that dimension when it speaks to any area of life.
Speaker 2:So the real issue gets tied up in what we would consider the doctrine of inspiration. Because the question of infallibility and what many evangelicals are now saying is that, well, they did make technical errors when it deals with historical or scientific details, and so what they're holding to is a limited inspiration. The Bible is inspired, yes, on issues of faith and morals, but these people were men of their time and they espoused a worldview that had errors, and now we know better, we know more, and so they didn't mean to err, but you know, they were just products of their own time. That's sort of how the discussion goes. So infallibility, just as a word, if you look it up in Merriam-Webster, means incapable of erring, unerring, not misleading or deceiving. And the third is very interesting. I was actually surprised so I added it to the lesson Incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals. Incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals. In other words, even in Merriam-Webster's it limited the extent to which biblical doctrines don't err. It limited it to faith and morals. It didn't go beyond that in the definition to include historical data information as well as scientific information. So the question becomes well, what about doctrines that don't touch matters of faith and morals, such as scientific details like the length of days or a day in Genesis 1? What about issues the Bible touches on, like the age of the earth, which it most definitely touches on? These aren't just genealogies, many of them are actually chronology, because they give birth, of father, age at which the father gave birth to a son, and then the number of years that the father lived until he died gave birth to a son, and then the number of years that the father lived until he died. So it gives genealogy, but it builds it in many cases into a chronology as well, where you can't sneak more time in there. It locks things down, for example in Genesis 5. And the other thing is how many years do you think you can get in there anyway to make the Bible's timeline match that of the modern theory of evolution? How long have humans been around in modern evolution? About 200,000 years. Is there any way you can, without looking like an idiot, try to get that much time? I mean because in the Bible you're talking maximum 7,000 to 8,000 years that you can get in there. I mean, when does a genealogy really not be no longer a genealogy? Because you snuck 28,000 years in there or something between two people. So on the face of it, you know it looks silly. But other issues what about the fossil record? Would the Bible touch on that if it's talking about a global flood in Genesis 6-8? I mean, how are fossils made? Well, they have to be rapid burial and then sedimentary. I'm sorry, water has to pass through so you have mineral replacement so that the bone is now stone easy idea bone to stone. And this has to happen very rapidly. If the animal just dies and isn't buried rapidly, it's just going to deteriorate. In a few years there won't be anything left. So it's got to be rapid barrel mineral replacement and this is how they're made. Now, with the global flood of noah, like would that, would that cause any fossilization? Uh well, yeah, I mean I think there's a song that answers in genesis put out, it's called billions of dead things, you know, buried in rocks, you know, all over the earth. So I mean, this is on every continent, you know, this isn't that complicated, complicated to see the fossil record. So would the Bible have anything to say about that? Were Jesus and the biblical authors only infallible in areas when they spoke about morals and ethics? But they made mistakes, you know, when it came to historical and scientific details. Of course, not on purpose. These people will say but they were just products of their time and we now know more than them because we've made historical and scientific advances. So this is a limited infallibility view that is virtually overrun evangelicalism. And, to just put it succinctly, they would say the Bible is true in what it states about faith and ethics, but it errs when it comes to historic and scientific details. In other words, what they would say, if you just want to kind of put it bluntly we believe the Bible errors in all. That's basically what they're saying. They wouldn't state it that way, but that is what they are saying in the bottom line. So here's Donald Bloch, just so you can see someone who's a scholar, who actually is presenting this. He says they, the scripture writers, including Jesus, did not err in what they proclaimed, but this does not mean that they were faultless in the recording of historical data or in their worldview which is now outdated of historical data or in their worldview, which is now outdated. So this is a scholar. I'm not making this up right, you have to see that this is actually the things that are being said, and so that's why I quote a few people here. Here's another one. I couldn't find the source, but I did this years ago, so it's got to be somewhere in my work. Natural revelation is the basis on which written revelation rests. We have to think about this one. Okay, this was written in 1846, so this is over 160, 170 years ago. Right, natural revelation. And we know God reveals himself in nature, right? I mean the Bible declares this. The heavens declare the glory of God. The earth is handiwork. We have no problem recognizing that nature reveals who God is, his power, his wisdom and so forth. But he says notice what's being said here. Natural revelation is the basis on which written revelation rests. So which comes first, natural or written? According to the statement? The natural, in other words. What is this statement really saying? What this statement is really saying is that what we do is we go out and we investigate nature through scientific efforts and once we draw our conclusions, then we turn to the written revelation and we interpret it accordingly. Did you see that we go out and we use the scientific method and we investigate nature and we come to certain conclusions? We come to certain conclusions about the age of the earth, the age of the universe and so forth and so on. Right, then what do we do Then? We come to the written revelation and we interpret it accordingly. In other words, we make the Bible fit accordingly. In other words, we make the Bible fit. So, if the universe is 14.6 billion years old, the earth and sun are 4.6 billion years old and men have been around 200,000 years or so. Then we interpret the Bible to fit this data, which is what we call an accommodation strategy. Now, is this the way it should be done? Here's Theodosius Dobzhansky. He's a Russian theologian, so this isn't just confined to the West. He says this is the way he says it. God has revealed himself to humanity in at least two ways the words of the Bible and the record of nature. Our mission is to work rigorously to integrate both of God's revelations into one harmonious picture. Now, most of us would read that, I think, and we'd say, okay, yeah, that sounds good, that sounds right. I mean, it's true, you got the words of the Bible. God revealed himself to us there. We got the record of nature. God reveals himself to us there, we know, and these two integrate. So what's our mission? To work rigorously to show how the two integrate into a harmony, right? Well, let's look at the next quote, because, see, this is the deception. You buy into this statement and you think, oh, this is good stuff, and before you know it, you're at the next statement. Are you ready? This is the same guy, russian theologian, theodosius Dobchansky. I am a creationist and an evolutionist and when I taught this at the previous church I was out years ago one of the younger guys I think, he was probably like 18 or 19 at the time and we went on this hunting trip and I remember him saying you were talking about this guy and quoted from him and he said why didn't he just call himself a crevolutionist? That's pretty keen, I'll use that. I'm a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's or nature's method of creation, which that's kind of interesting, isn't it God's or nature's? Does that mean that God equals nature, that God is nature, which is what Einstein believed. He said God doesn't play dice with the universe. Well, his whole point was that the only God there is is the universe and everything's determined by the specific rules of physics and so forth that are inherent to the universe. That's what Einstein meant. He didn't believe he believed in an infinite personal God by any means. He was talking about nature itself or the universe, which sounds like what Theodosius Dabshansky believes. Evolution is God's or nature's. Notice the capital N and the capital God. They're equally, they're equated. This method of creation Creation, he says, is not an event that happened in 4004 BC. He's using Bishop Usher's chronology from the Bible. He says it's a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still underway. He asks the question does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It's a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology and anthropology. Now, there's a lot going on in these statements. There's a lot going on in these statements. The last phrase we can all look at that and say, well, yeah, we know, the Bible's not a biology textbook or an astronomy textbook or geology, whatever. See, but this is what we call a straw man. I don't think any of us have ever said it's a biology textbook. I think what we're saying is that if it touches on something that relates to biology, it's true, if it touches on something related to astronomy, it's true, and so forth, right. So I guess our question would be should we pay attention to the Bible when it touches on these areas? And if it does touch on these areas, is it true? Because the new modern evangelicals are saying, no, jesus and the authors of the Bible erred when it came to those types of details and we know more now and so we know better. We know better, ultimately really than Jesus is what they're saying more now, and so we know better. We know better, ultimately, really than Jesus is what they're saying. So this is where his approach ends up. See, let's do some relevant texts that we might want to consider. Let's turn to Genesis 2, 1 through 3. So Shonsky says just to see his quote again he says that creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC. In other words, it's not a defined event that took place over six literal days, the seventh day of rest. That's what he's saying, right. He's saying, in fact, it's a process. Creation is a process that started some 10 billion years ago and it's still underway. So creation is a process that's been going on for billions and billions of years. It's still going on. So what does Genesis 2, 1 through 3 have to say about this? Why don't you underline every time in verses 1 through 3, at least mentally, if you won't write in your Bible the number of times that it sounds like it's complete and it's not an ongoing process, like it's over, it's done? Thus, the heavens and the earth were completed. Does that sound like it's ongoing or that it's done? And all their hosts? By the seventh day, god completed his work which he had done, completed, had done. Was he still doing it? Was there an eighth day of creation, a ninth day, all the way down to our own day, or is it done? Verse uh he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he what Rested, which means he's not doing anything in terms of creation. He's resting from that work of creation, from all his work which he had created and had made right? So if you count, there's about seven verbs in there that all indicate he's not doing any more work of creation. That that's done, it's completed. It's not an ongoing process. Okay. So did Moses get it wrong? This is the question we'd ask. Did Moses get it wrong when he said that the creation processes were turned off by the seventh day? Did he not know? Did Moses not know that creation is a continual process that's been going on for billions of years? Poor Moses, he just didn't have the modern insight that we have. If these processes were turned off on the seventh day, here's a question how can we know what those processes were? How can we know? How could we investigate? Can anyone go back. Do you have a time machine? This is what we would need, right? You need a time machine. You need to be able to go back to creation week and actually make observations and do experimentation, right, in order to find out what the processes that god used to make were. And you, you'd even have to go back there and to find out what process, what the biological processes in the world were, what the chemical processes were, what the physics processes were, because we, just frankly, we, we don't know, do we? There's always the question which came first, the chicken or the egg? I always conclude the chicken with the egg in it, you idiot. But I concluded that because the text also says on the third day, when he made the dry land and all the plants, it says he made plants with seed in them. Which came first, the seed of a plant or the plant? Yes, yes, the seed was in the plant. In other words, we would also go further and say in a state of maturity, wouldn't we? Did God create like an infant creation or did he create a mature creation? In other words, did he create a creation that looked like it was brand new, or did he create it with apparent age? Apparent age. Now some people say, well, that's a deception because it gives the appearance of time passage. Yeah, but he told us that, didn't he? He said I created it with seed in it, so it's not a deception. He told us these things, so he creates. This is all very interesting stuff, but the point here is that those processes that were at work during creation week, we have no idea what they were. No amount of scientific investigation can ever take us back there and tell us anything about any of the processes at all. Could it have been very different? Yes, it could have been very different. Did the oxygen to nitrogen percentage in our atmosphere have to be the same then as it is now? No, didn't have to be. Could have been wildly different. We just don't know. People don't like that that. We don't know right, and so they have techniques to try to explain the distant past, but you just can't go in there. Another issue, very, very modern issue gender marriage and the universe. Did you know you could put those three words together in the same sentence? Gender marriage, yes, but the universe? Mark 10, five through eight, let's go to Mark 10. What I'm trying to show you is because you may be asking yourself why are you bringing up these texts? I'm trying to show you that texts that deal with very what we might call issues of faith and morals, like marriage and gender, are tied up with scientific texts. What we might call issues of faith and morals, like marriage and gender, are tied up with scientific texts or texts that touch on scientific issues that relate to the universe. And by showing you that, it shows you that it becomes. It's very difficult to say yes, jesus was always right when he spoke to faith and morals, but he made technical errors over here when it dealt with issues of history or science, because they're tied together in the Bible. So Mark 10, 5 through 8, and this is a quote from Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. So one of the passages he quotes is Genesis 1, 127, and the other is Genesis 24. So let's see what he said. They're asking a question about divorce, right? May a man you know permit, or would God permit, a man to divorce his wife for any reason? So in verse 5, jesus said to them because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. That's Moses wrote a commandment, verse six but from the beginning of creation, god made them what Male and female. That's from Genesis 1, 27. And then he says for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and the two shall become one flesh. So they shall no longer be two, but one flesh. What, therefore, god has joined together? Let no man separate which verse 7 and 8 there is from Genesis 2.24. Here's the question. Did Jesus not know that there is no such thing as male and female, but gender is fluid? Well, he was just a man of his time. He didn't realize that gender is a choice that you make. In fact, that choice can change just as night follows day, because gender is fluid. Poor Jesus, and you know, the worst thing about it is, jesus built this whole doctrine of marriage and divorce on it. Oops, but that's just a blunder. Jesus just made a mistake. He was a man of his time. Well, evidently Jesus believed in cis or binary genders, didn't he? But they say well, that was just an error. Another one age of the human race. Let's go to Matthew 23, 35. Matthew 23, 35. This is a quote from Genesis 4. So I did one from Genesis 1 and then a 2, and now we're jumping 3 over to 4. We could do something from 3, but we don't have time to do everything. Matthew 23, 35. Where it says so that Jesus says so, that upon you, that's, the Jews of that generation that he came to, first century Jewish people, upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakai, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. All these things, I say, will come upon this generation. Now it's interesting. Two people are mentioned as being murdered here, right, abel and Zechariah. And he's saying you're guilty of all the blood from Abel to Zechariah. In the Jewish canon of scripture they arrange it a little differently than our Old Testament is arranged in the first. Their first book is Genesis, though like ours, and who's ours? And who's the first person murdered in the Bible? Abel. He's the first person in history. This is what Jesus is saying. The first person in history that was murdered, abel. You're guilty of that blood. Now, in their Bible, the last book is what we would call 2 Chronicles, and the last guy in the Old Testament who's murdered is guess what? This guy, zechariah. So what does Jesus say? He's saying you're guilty of all the blood from the beginning of history up to where we are now in canonical history. Okay, you're guilty of all that blood. Now, how long has the human race been around? When did Abel live? Did Abel live? Modern people truly modern, really intellectual, very wise academic will tell us that we've been around for 200,000 years or so. Well, wouldn't that mean that there was some blood shed before Abel, who was only about at this time, 4,000, 5,000 years before? I mean, was anybody murdered for the first 190-something thousand years of human history? Do you think any humans may have killed other humans? I guess Jesus was just ignorant about that. Jesus just didn't know. What an idiot. We know so much more than him. See, we've advanced the bible. It won't permit that type of chronology. 200,000 years, and the Bible is insistent that this is the first murder. But according to other people who are many evangelicals would have to admit that there were murders before that. So it's inconsistent. It has problems with the text. How about the global flood of Noah and the fossil record which I mentioned to you earlier? Matthew 24, 37. I'll just turn one page over 24, 37 in Jesus' Olivet Discourse. In verses 37 to 39, he's describing the global flood as a model for what it will be like when the second coming transpires. So he says in verse 37, the coming of the Son of man will be just like the days of Noah, whereas in those days, before the flood, they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. And they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. So will the coming of the son of man be now? In other words, did Jesus build his doctrine of the second coming on the flood of Noah? Yes, and he said there's an exact parallel. He says it'll be just like in verse 37, which is a term of identity. It'll be identical in the respect that he's describing. So maybe Jesus just made a mistake by building the doctrine of the second coming on the flood. What do you think? I mean, are we just going to? Well, if you wipe away the global flood of Noah? Right, and you say well, in these modern times we know better that there's been many local floods, you know over the course of time, and that explains the fossil record, which is what they basically say, then you're denying the global flood. But if you deny the global flood of Noah, as an evangelical, which many do, how can you hold on to the second coming? How, in fact, those who have already denied the local flood, or a group known as preterists? They say that the second coming already happened in AD 70. You say Jesus came back in AD 70? Yeah, they say yeah, he came back through the Roman army and that's all the second coming there will ever be. That's their belief. Why? Because they realize you have to have the flood and the second coming. The events have to go together. They said, since Genesis 6-8 is a local flood, then the second coming was a local second coming. It came through the Roman armies. That's all the second coming ever is. He's never coming back. You didn't know. You were already in the new heavens and new earth. What's wrong with you people? That's what the hyper-preterists believe. You are in the new heavens and new earth right now wild stuff. But you can see that there's a connection between the universality of these two events. If you've got a global flood you know, actually Peter universalizes it then you've got also a universal second coming. But the point is I'm tying a spiritual truth, the second coming coming of the Messiah, in with physical reality. He's coming in space and time. He's going to set up his kingdom, moses. We didn't mention this one, but maybe we should have, before we got too far into this. Luke 24, 27. Luke 24, 27. Who wrote Torah? Who wrote the Torah? Who wrote the first five books of the Bible? Well, you all say Moses. But sorry, but you're not an academic, you're not an intellectual giant if you believe that, because, starting with Wellhausen and the Germans in the 1700s on up to our own day, they've come to realize that Moses didn't write it. Jesus, then, must have been wrong. Who wrote it? J-e-d-p, you say. Who's that? Well, they all stand for different so-called authors the Jehovah author, the Elohim author, the Deuteronomistic author and the priestly author. That's who they say. They divide the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy up and say these sections were written by some author J, and these by E, and these by D and these by P, and so forth. It's a collocation or culmination of writings that have come together. So now we know, see, by the brilliance of our analyzing text, that the Torah couldn't have been written by one individual named Moses. But what did Jesus say in Luke 24, 27? Then, beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures, beginning with Moses and with all the prophets. He explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures, beginning with Moses, which would be the Torah. Well, I guess the biblical authors were just wrong here. They didn't know everything that we know about texts and linguistics and analysis of languages. Poor people in the first century and that poor Jesus. So let me ask you a question Do you see where this is going in the first century? And that poor Jesus. So let me ask you a question Do you see where this is going? This is where this is going. Gc Burkauer. Okay, now this guy, before I let you read the quote GC Burkauer was an evangelical. Okay, probably 97 to 8% of what GC Burkauer wrote is good stuff. Good stuff, you know, rat poison 99% of rat poison is food, 1% is poison and it's the 1% that'll kill you, right? Oops? So, gc Burkhardt, just say, for sake of argument, 99% of what he writes is really good, it's evangelical. I want you to read this statement. I want you to think about this statement and think do you see anything wrong with this statement? Or is there anything in this statement that bugs? Want you to think about this statement and think do you see anything wrong with this statement, or is there anything in this statement that bugs you a little bit? This mystery is the uniqueness through which Holy Scripture in all its humanity was distinguished from all other human writings. Is there anything there? Would you state it this way in all its humanity, all its humanity. You see, it's like now if we were to follow this statement, if this was the doctrine of this church or doctrine of most of the churches, you'd think that when you went to the bookstore or you ordered a bible on Amazon, that instead of saying God's word on the front, it would say man's Word. Because that's what this statement is about. It's about the humanity. Now, what Burkauer was doing you have to understand. Even in theological academia, those who are in this field want to be published and recognized among their peers. You want to be in good terms with your peers. In academia, it's publish or perish. I don't know if you've heard that, but publish or perish, and so you have to. And all these are peer-reviewed articles and journals that you'd be writing and publishing in. Burkhauer wanted to remain in step with the mainstream thinking. So, while he was, as I said, probably 99% correct in the things that he taught, on this point. What he's doing is he's writing in such a way to appease his academic peers so that he can publish and be accepted on a large scale in academia. Academia can be so enticing. I remember standing before uh, charles ryrie, listening to him speak one time, and one of my, one of the few times irie listening to him speak one time, and one of the few times I got to listen to him speak and he said that he was introduced. He was speaking at Cambridge and he was introduced as a scholar by the professor who gave the mic to him and he said I basked in that too long, someone calling me a scholar. You know, academia is powerfully dangerous to us because it can totally erase your humility and bring in all sorts of arrogance and pride. And so you have to be so careful that you're not concerned what people think. You're only concerned with what God thinks right, and he's the one who we are on display before All the world's a stage right, and God. You know he's watching us, and if we live our lives that way, even in academia, we'll be okay. But if we're asked, will I get the accolades of my fellow peers? We're asking the wrong question, a very dangerous question and Burkhart, to the point of denying virtually the divinity of Scripture, emphasized its humanity. He also said this very dangerous the purpose of the Bible and Jesus is not at all to provide scientific gnosis. Notice how we got to throw a few words like gnosis in there, greek words and stuff like that to make us sound so smart. It's not at all to provide scientific gnosis or knowledge in order to convey and increase human knowledge and wisdom, but to witness to the salvation of God unto faith. You see what he's saying. Now, there's nothing wrong with the last part of that. We all agree that the Bible contributes to the salvation of God unto faith, right, sure. But what's he doing? He's making the split, right. He's splitting between issues of faith and morals and issues of historical and scientific detail. And he's saying, ah, it's not at all the purpose of the Bible, see, to provide any kind of knowledge that might relate to science. It's just a book that's related to salvation and spiritual issues. So if Jesus erred on scientific details, for Burkhardt, see, that's no big deal. He thinks he can hold on to a Jesus who provides salvation for the world on one hand but errs in technical details of science and history, see, but he's got to do that to keep his academic status, or he thinks he does. What do we do with some claims like Jesus made in John 3.12? Let's look at John 3.12. All this time I've been basically just trying to bring you into the discussion on infallibility and help us have a good understanding of it. In John 3.12, in the discourse with Nicodemus, right, he tells Nicodemus in verse 12, if I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? This has always been one of my favorite verses because my background was science, right, biology and chemistry mainly, but some physics and whatever else thrown in. If I tell you of earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe me when I tell you about heavenly things? In other words, if I tell you details about things that you can investigate, they're on earth. You can, you know, check them out. We would say, and you can't believe me about what I say about that. How are you ever going to believe me about things in heaven, like things like if you believe in me, you're forgiven Anybody got a rocket. You're going to go to heaven and check to make sure that in heaven you're forgiven anyone. How can you know that's true if you don't even believe the things that he tells us that relate to this earth? That can actually be investigated. See, for jesus, like these two things were tied together earthly and heavenly things. Whatever he, he said, it's true. Right, it wasn't a split between faith and morals, the spiritual things and, over here, scientific and historic details. Jesus wouldn't be willing to make that split. Let's go on to Colossians 2.8. To one of the warnings that were given by the Apostle Paul, galatians, ephesians, philippians and then Colossians Colossians 2, verse 8. He says See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ, which he goes on then to describe in hypostatic union in verse 9. The fullness of deity in bodily form. Static union in verse 9. The fullness of deity in bodily form. How or has the church been taken captive by human philosophy by allowing this concept of erring on scientific and historical details to creep in? I'm bringing this up because this is exactly what has happened. Human philosophy, as I'm about to show you, crept in. It got its foot in the door, so to speak. And now we're in a load of trouble. Where we are today in the church. What are the 11 most attacked chapters in the Bible? Genesis 1 through 11, right, we all know the whole evolutionary creationist discussion that's transpired now over 240 years. Why do we have a divide in evangelicalism? Because of Colossians 2.8. If you allow human philosophy to come in, as I've been demonstrating it has, so that now what we're doing with the Bibles, we're saying, yeah, it's true in the spiritual things, over here the heavenly things, but over here in the earthly things, technical errors, things like that we can allow that After a while. If you realize what you're saying, that the Bible does have errors over here, why believe any of it at all? I remember my mentor, charlie Clough, became a believer. He grew up in the Bronx. I remember my mentor, charlie Clough, became a believer. He grew up in the Bronx, brilliant mind and he went to MIT. He got a degree in mathematics, kind of smart guy. He became a believer when he was on campus there. But when he became a believer he was in considering it, considering becoming a Christian. He was like he came to this very logical conclusion. He said well, I mean, if this really is God's word. There can't be any errors in it because God doesn't err. So this is all true or none of it's true, and don't mess with it, it's a waste of time. That's what he meant and of course he became convinced that the whole thing is true. And that's the way it is. You can't split and say well, the things it says about science and history. When it touches on that, that's false. But the rest of the spiritual things are true. That dog won't hunt, as Stanley Toussaint used to say, that dog won't hunt, as, uh, stanley tucson used to say that dog won't hunt. Um, how do we do independent investigations and stay true to second corinthians 10, 3 through 5 turn back to the left, second corinthians. What do I mean that by this? Uh, independent investigations? I mean you start with just yourself and your human reason, independent of God's Word. Isn't that what Dobzhansky, the Russian, said? He says we've got the Word of God in the Bible and we've got God's book of nature, and we start with the book of nature and we find out through scientific investigation various things about the earth and nature, and then we fit the Bible, we interpret the Bible to fit that. Now can we do that and actually maintain our fidelity to God, our faithfulness to Him, according to 2 Corinthians 10, 3-5?. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but they are divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. What are we destroying? He says we are destroying speculation and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we're taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. What are we doing? We're destroying speculation. We're taking every thought captive to Christ. Where do we start with our knowledge? Do we start to build knowledge with what we call, in modern days, the scientific method that stems back from Francis Bacon and others of that era in the late 15th and early 1600s Is science? Does it have the? What do you say? How do you say it? Does it have the monopoly on knowledge? Is it where we start? And then we read the Bible to fit that? Well, we all know where you're going to end up if you start that way. But can you maintain your fidelity to these verses? See that you're destroying speculations and everything that's lifted up against the knowledge of God and taking every thought captive to Christ. Where do we start to gain knowledge? Knowledge, it's called epistemology, but again, we don't need five dollar words, right, but how do you know what you know is true? Do you start with yourself in some investigation, or do you start with god and his word? That's the real issue. One of my friends calls it a bible. First, epistemology. You start with the bible. This because the bible is revelation from a god who already knows everything. It doesn't mean we know everything, but we start with him and what he has revealed. And if anything he has revealed touches, let's say, on biology, like you know, there's two genders called male and female. That's the starting point for knowledge. What happens if we deny that and we move to fluid gender? Do we have knowledge? No, this is imagination. It's the sinful flesh run into all sorts of imaginative schemes. That's all it is. It's rebellion against God is what we would say at the imaginative schemes. That's all it is. It's rebellion against God is what we would say at the heart of it. It's rebellion against God. So we start with the Bible for knowing. I don't think you can maintain your integrity and fidelity to God, as described in these verses, and then start with science. Now look, I want to show you how this trickled into doctrinal statements. This is our doctrinal statement. It was the same, basically, as the doctrinal statement on this point where I came from. Nothing critical. But look, we believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be A God-breathed amen. Plenary. That means full, verbal in the words themselves. Every word inerrant, without error, in the original writings. We're talking about the original writings. They are the supreme authority and faith in life. How did that get in there? I'm not being critical, I'm just saying how did that get in there? And just at that point, do you see a limitation? At the end, yeah, you should see a limitation. It's just a matter of faith in life, like, what about other issues, historical, scientific, etc. This leaves the door open. Now I'm going to do another quote right here. This is from well, dewey beagle. Now dewey beagle. This guy was southern baptist. He broke with the Southern Baptists over this point. He believed no, the Bible can err in these scientific and other areas like history. He said it can err. Here's what he said the Bible is true in all essential matters of faith and practice. Are we any different than him? No, no, in fact, this is what they're wanting us to put in statements, because it will leave the door open for what? For all sorts of interpretations of the Bible that could be consistent with evolutionary theory. That's why. That's why you say this can't possibly be the game. Oh, this is the game. This is the whole game. This is the whole game and it's been going on for four centuries and it snuck into all the seminaries, it snuck into all the churches because we're like, yeah, I mean, if you read that statement, you say, yeah, that sounds good, it is it. Because we're like, yeah, I mean, if you read that statement, you say, yeah, that sounds good, it is. It's essential for all matters of faith and practice. You can't disagree with that statement, but you do also have to agree that it does leave the door cracked and allow all these other things to come in. Now here's the number one thing that destroys people's faith. Are you ready? Genesis has errors. Genesis 1 through 11 has errors. It's wrong on the age of the earth. It's wrong on the geological column. It's wrong on all these things. So when you go to the university, what happens? They start telling you all these other things that you probably never heard. But you're thinking all along this doesn't fit with Genesis. If you're a Christian, so you're thinking well, I guess Genesis is wrong. And then guess what happened? The rest of your faith just erodes. It erodes Because if you can't trust the first 11 chapters of the Bible, are you really going to tell me that you can trust the rest of them? You'd be an idiot to think that you could. If it's wrong on page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, what makes you think it's going to be true on page 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, all the way through Jesus and the cross? See it's dumb. Anybody who's even thinking for a split second will realize. If my parents raised me in this church to believe all these things and now they're not really true, I'm not going to believe all these things. It is that simple. It happened to me. I'm a prime candidate. I could teach you the doctrine of evolution. I could teach you accretion theory of planets. I could teach you all sorts of amazing things that I think are so interesting. But it's all a lie. It is all a lie. I did teach it to people. I did. I was a TA for courses. I held study sessions. I trained people to believe in evolution. I explained the details to them so they could make good grades on tests. And then it took years of undoing by studying radiometric dating and all these methods and techniques, the presuppositions under evolution and all the philosophy that was underneath these systems. No, I mean you can do all that yourself, or we can sit down for years and we can talk about it years and we can talk about it. But this has crept in and it has totally destroyed the church. The church today is so fragmented I mean it's unbelievable, right, but it's this little point right here that it's all it's like. Once you crack that door, a flood just came through. It's what's happened. Now, this is endemic because most in the church had not been evaluating the language, both in the seminaries and local churches. It slipped in and once it got in, see what tends to happen is it just gets copied and pasted down, you know, through time, without careful thinking. So this is in virtually every doctrinal statement, even the most sound Bible teaching churches. It shows that the church has removed itself from the public square of ideas. That's a very important point. We have retreated. The church has retreated from the public square of ideas, you and I, because we believe in things like a young earth and a global flood, are considered total kooks, total crazies. I mean, you're never going to be heard in the public square. You're just not. We're not why? Because the Bible is true only insofar as it deals with spiritual things. The church is where you go for your spiritual things, but for knowledge of the real world you go to the academic university, don't you? Because they have a monopoly on that knowledge. Do you see how we've become irrelevant to most people? We're just little obscure people in a corner. The church allowed this. The church allowed this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II. After World War II it was mostly over. It retreated. It said yeah, the church is all about religion and spirituality, but we have nothing to say about the age of the earth. We have nothing to say about death and fossils. We have nothing to say about that stuff. Well, sorry, but the Bible has a lot of things to say about those things. It has a whole lot to say. So next week, what I'll do is we'll get, we'll go a little bit further. I want to take you back to francis bacon and his book novum organum, which is where this all came from? Okay, because he said something critical and if you just read the statement, the second line, you'll see a key word. In 1620, francis Bacon published Nova Morgana. In this work, bacon claimed that all knowledge is gained exclusively through experience and experiment. How much knowledge All? Where's the Bible in that? It's not there at all. Experience and experiment. I'll trace this down for you to a guy named John Dewey. Do any of you know John Dewey? How many of you have been to a library and you checked out a book back in the day when they had the card catalog and the system that was called the Dewey Decimal System? That's the best thing John Dewey ever did. The rest of it is the nightmare of American public education. The rest of it is the nightmare. Between 1930 and 1950, he published 50,000 articles that were circulated to every public school system in the United States of America and he went around and conducted seminars in all the major cities of the United States of America. There's not one single person who's had more impact on public education than John Dewey. And John Dewey is the logical conclusion to Francis Bacon. This man believed that if you did not directly experience something, it's not true for you. Total relativism All truth is relative. If you did not experience what happened between, let's just say, in 1943 at Auschwitz, it didn't happen. It's not true for you. You have to have directly experienced it. He was an ultimate logical person, very, very logical. I agree with his logic. If your starting point is all knowledge comes from experience and experiment, then you have to end up there. You cannot escape it. And this is the birth of relativity and no absolute. And this is what has destroyed our country. It's just literally utterly destroyed it. Now you can talk about Jesus till you're blue in the face with people because from their point of view, that's just true for you. You had an experience and that's true for you, but I didn't have that experience. And they're not even convicted of anything until they have their own personal experience and it becomes true for them. You see, this is what's making it so hard to evangelize people today, so so difficult, because we're talking about something that's true. Their concept of truth is true for you. So from the get-go, you can't get anything through.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app, and until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.