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Of the Law of Moses Jesus said:
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 5:19).
If the Lord’s displeasure was clearly upon those who would break even the least command of the inferior covenant (which the Lord knew was soon to pass away), how much more shall His wrath be upon those who disrespect the superior Covenant of Calvary? The Hebrews writer makes this very argument:
For if the word spoken through angels proved stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? (2:2–3).
Unmistakably, the Lord’s approval is only upon those who faithfully obey and teach His Word. No less unmistakably, His wrath is upon those who treat His Word with disdain and disrespect. There really is no other criterion for measuring faithfulness to Christ: “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). Show me someone who is flippant, careless, superior, and disdainful in his attitude toward the Sacred Page, and I will show you someone possessed of the same attitudes toward its Divine Author, regardless of his claims to the contrary.
How strange—and tragic—that we have come to the day in the church of God when His Word is hardly even considered before some new program is launched, some new gimmick is adopted, or some new doctrine is taught. We should not be surprised that secular, atheistic, humanistic, and hedonistic worldlings despise God’s Word. They have always done so and will always do so. The amazement is almost overwhelming when those among the people of God disdain the Holy Book.
For at least four decades, the voices of liberalism among us have been seeking to silence those of us who have remained “set for the defence of the gospel” (Phi. 1:16, ASV). Let them charge us with “bibliolatry” (worshiping the Bible). We take refuge in the foregoing Paul’s behavior, which they obviously eschew for themselves and in others. We further gladly emulate the Lord’s own unblushing respect for the written Word. Every word He ever said concerning or quoted from the inspired writers, whether in the law, the prophets, or the psalms (Luke 24:44) demonstrated His absolute confidence in the Sacred Text. This respect includes the accounts of creation, Jonah and the great fish, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Moses and the burning bush—all of which modernist theologians (including some “enlightened brethren”) and other assorted infidels so enjoy classifying and ridiculing as “myths,” “fables,” and “legends.”
Faithfulness to God and His Son absolutely demands our confidence in His Word, likewise. When one surrenders undaunted faith in the Holy Word, he has surrendered confidence in all that really matters. “To the law and to the testimony” (Isa. 8:20) is the consistent cry of God’s faithful people through the ages.
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in The Lighthouse, weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, September 14, 2014, of which I was editor.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
