Given by Revelation – Ephesians 3:1-6
In a couple of days we come to
Halloween, which is another way of saying All Hallows Eve, the day before All
Hallows Day, which among certain denominations is the day the church remembers
and celebrates the memory of the saints and martyrs of the church. It is unfortunate, in my mind, that we have
replaced the memory of saints and martyrs with goblins, ghosts, and
devils. But be that as it may, and
whatever one thinks of the current celebration of Halloween, something very
wonderful did happen on this day exactly 500 years ago – the beginnings of the
Protestant Reformation. It is generally
agreed by historians that the Reformation began when Martin Luther nailed 95
theses for debate on the subject of indulgences to the Castle Church door in
Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517.
In itself, the nailing of the 95
theses was not a very dramatic event, however.
Luther himself never expected the commotion that resulted from it. It has been said that Luther was like a blind
man in a bell tower who lost his footing and reached out for something to
steady himself. When he caught hold of
the bell rope, he was as startled as anyone else when the bell started
tolling. After all, just a few months
earlier he had nailed a previous set of theses for debate to the church door on
weighty theological issues and yet nothing came of it. You must remember that Wittenberg was a
university town and scholars posted theses for debate to church doors all the
time. In those days, the church door
functioned just as much as a community bulletin board as it did an entrance
into the church. So what Luther did that
October 31 was not a big deal, really.
What made it a big deal was the
fact that they dealt with indulgences and indulgences were very unpopular in
Germany at that time, which were seen by many Germans to be the Roman curia’s
way of lining their pockets with German money.
Thanks to the printing press and the fact that someone translated
Luther’s Latin theses into German, these particular theses soon set the entire
nation on fire and he became an instant hero in the fight for German
independence from Roman overreach.
However, the real dramatic event
in Luther’s life was not nailing the theses on the church door. The real dramatic event happened about three
and a half years later when he was summoned to appear before the imperial diet
at Worms in April, 1521. By this time,
everyone understood where Luther was headed, and it upset the Roman church and
the civil authorities. Luther also knew
that although he was given a safe conduct to and from the diet, so had John
Huss and they had burnt him at the stake.
Many of his friends begged him not to go. But Luther went anyway, and when told that he
must recant the teachings of his books, he finally replied, “Unless I am
convicted by Scripture and plain reason, I do not accept the authority of popes
and councils, for they have often contradicted themselves; my conscience is
captive to the Word of God. I cannot and
I will recant, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand.
I can do no other. God help me,
Amen.” Luther’s nailing the theses to
the church door did not make the Reformation inevitable. His continued stand, despite being outlawed
by the Roman church and the civil authorities, did.
What we hear in Luther’s famous
declaration before the emperor in Worms is that the authority of Scripture was
at stake. The Roman church did indeed give
lip service to the authority of God’s word, but in effect it had gutted the
influence of Scripture upon the church by replacing it with the authority of
the pope and church tradition. By
Luther’s time, the church had become thoroughly corrupt. Reformation was needed. But not just any reformation; what was needed
was a reformation that proceeded upon paths determined by Holy Scripture. And that is what Luther and the other
Reformers determined to do. This is why
I believe God blessed the Reformation, for all its faults. Because God blesses his Word and his blesses
those who honor his Word. At the end of
the day, the Reformers were men who were determined to follow and honor God’s
holy Word. Their consciences were
captive to the Word of God.
Every generation needs men and
women who are like Martin Luther, who are determined to follow and obey God’s
Word, no matter what others say or threaten.
Today, the church needs men and women of Luther’s caliber more than
ever. For we are living in a day in
which the church seems to be embarrassed by the Word of God. There is a great ignorance of the teachings
of God’s Word even in the so-called evangelical church. There is little true preaching of the true
gospel, even by those who claim to believe it.
I was told that here in our own community, at a recent Christian youth
event, the speaker never mentioned the gospel, and yet at the end gave an
invitation. An invitation to what? It reminds me of what Spurgeon said of some
of his contemporaries, who would shout at men and women to believe, and yet
never tell them what they were to believe.
We have replaced true gospel-centered preaching with emotionalism and
sentimentalism.
Which is why we need to hear what
the apostle is saying in the text we are considering this morning, Ephesians
3:1-6. You cannot become a Martin Luther
if your conscience is not captive to God’s Word. But you will never submit your conscience to
the authority of the Bible if you are not absolutely convinced that it is the
Word of God. You will not follow the
teachings of the Scripture to a point where you become an outlaw like Luther if
you think the Bible is just a nice collection of sayings by nice people who
ultimately just wanted you to be nice. You
will never be like one of the saints and martyrs commemorated on All Saints Day
if you think your 21st century intellect is too sophisticated for
the Bible.
Hear what the apostle is saying
in these verses. He says that he has
been given a stewardship of God’s grace – “the dispensation of the grace of
God” (2). The object of this stewardship
was to bring the message of the grace of God to the Gentiles, so that they
could be “fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in
Christ by the gospel” (6). At the heart
of the message he had been given was the “mystery” (3). The mystery was the fact that God was now
creating a new people composed of Jew and Gentile, and that door into this new
people of God was faith alone in Christ alone.
Before our Lord’s first advent, if you wanted to be a part of the OT church,
you had to submit to all the regulations of the Mosaic Law. Now, faith in Christ is the only prerequisite
for admittance into the NT church.
However, notice that at the heart
of Paul’s ministry was the fact that he had received revelation from God. The content of his message was determined by revelation. The mystery which he preached was given to
him by revelation. He says this in verse
3: “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery.” And then again in verse 5: “Which in other
ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his
holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”
Paul is claiming that he didn’t discover his message; it was given to
him, it was made known to him, by revelation.
In fact, the very word he uses to describe his message – mystery – implies this idea of
revelation. In our day, if something is
a mystery, it means that you cannot understand it. We talk about the mystery of the human mind,
by which we mean there are aspects to the human mind we cannot fathom. Something may be a mystery until you
understand it; then it is no longer a mystery to you. However, in the NT, a mystery is something
which cannot be known unless it is revealed.
For example, in Romans 16, Paul also writes about “the revelation of the
mystery, which was kept secret since the world began. But now is made manifest, and by the
scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting
God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:25-26). The gospel is a mystery, not because we cannot
understand it but because it could only be known by revelation. Even after it is known it does not cease to
be a mystery, because the gospel never loses the property of being Divine
revelation.
The apostle is thus reminding his
readers that he is not preaching his own message. The gospel he preaches and writes about is
not his own. It has been given to him by
God. It has been communicated to his
“holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”
He is delivering the words of God.
He is an ambassador, not declaring his own message but that of his
king. He is an apostle, one sent by
Christ himself to preach good news to both Jew and Gentile.
Now that phrase “by the Spirit”
is also very important here. Because
there are some who might say that yes, God has revealed the gospel to the
apostles, but then they communicate it to us with their own words which are not
always without error. There are those
who believe that the Bible is God’s word in the sense that it contains God’s
word, but it also contains error, and it is up to the church to discern between
the truth and the error. Those who argue
this way will often point to what they think are historical inaccuracies in the
Biblical narratives.
However, when Paul says that the
gospel was revealed to him “by the Spirit,” he is essentially saying that not
only was the content of the mystery determined by revelation, but the
communication itself was safeguarded by the Holy Spirit so that the revelation
is not intermixed with errors. Remember
what the apostle Peter said: “Knowing this first, that no prophesy of the
scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophesy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20-21). Peter is saying that God didn’t just give the
prophets a general idea of what they were to speak and then they were on their
own. No, he guided them in the very
words they used to communicate God’s truth: “holy men of God spake as they were moved [carried along,
ESV] by the Holy Spirit.” The very words
of the Bible have been safeguarded from error by the inspiration of the Spirit
of God.
Again, the apostle Paul tells
Timothy, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16). The word “Scripture” literally means
“writing.” So when Paul says that
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, he is not just saying that the ideas
are inspired, or that the doctrines behind the Scriptures are inspired. No, he is saying that the writing down of the
doctrines and ideas in words onto the pages of Holy Writ is inspired. And not just some Scriptures, but all Scripture, every last word.
The uniform testimony of the
authors of the Bible is that their words are not their own; they were given to
them by God. When we read Paul’s letter
to the Ephesians, we are not just reading Paul, we are reading God’s Word to
them and to us. Thus, when Paul writes
to the Thessalonians, he gives thanks because “when ye received the word of God
which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in
truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1
Thess. 2:13). The difference between the
Bible and the Koran, or between the Bible and the Book of Mormon, or between
the Bible and the Vedas, is not one of degree but a complete and utter
difference of kind. The Scriptures of
the Old and New Testaments is uniquely God’s Word to man. Nothing else even comes close.
Now there are all sorts of
objections to this. Some will argue that
it is arrogant to claim that Christians have the word of God and other
religions don’t. However, think about
this a bit. Why do they say this? They say it because they believe it is a
matter of humility to believe that you don’t have all the truth and pride to
believe that you do. Relativism is
hard-wired into the way our culture looks at and thinks about things. People will often give the analogy of the
blind men and the elephant. One blind
man touches one of the elephant’s legs and says that an elephant is like a
tree. Another blind man touches his
trunk, and says that an elephant is like a snake. And so on.
People who use this analogy will apply it to religion: we are all
talking about the same God although we describe him in different ways. No one has the whole perspective; we are all
describing God from our limited point of view.
Both blind men are right; in the same way, all religions are right even
though they describe God in different ways.
However, this analogy fails. Do you see why? It fails because in order for the analogy to
work, the person telling the story has to have the whole perspective, has to
see the entire elephant. The only way to
come to the conclusion that both blind men are telling the truth is that
someone has to have seen the elephant trunk to tail, head to foot. In the same way, people who say that all
religions are telling the truth although from different perspectives are
essentially saying that they have the whole perspective. How else could they say that? Those who confidently affirm that the Bible
is just part of the truth are just as guilty of the arrogance that they claim
the Christian to be guilty of. For they
cannot make their claim unless they have assumed a position of absolute
knowledge about the truth of God.
Another objection to the claim
that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God is that science has made
the Bible irrelevant. Many today just don’t
feel a need for the Bible because they look to science instead. Unfortunately, a lot of modern people think
that as science expands, belief in God will shrink. Not too long ago, a famous author claimed
that belief in God would disappear in the next few decades. In other words, it is thought that the reason
for God lies in the places that science cannot explain, a “God of the
gaps.” So as our need for God as an
explanation goes away, our need for Scripture disappears, too.
But this is folly. One problem with this is that it confuses
different types of explanation. Science
is powerful as an explanation for the mechanisms behind the material processes
in the universe. But to say that because
we understand the science behind certain aspects of physical phenomenon
therefore we don’t need God as an explanation for the universe, is like saying
that because we understand the physics behind the internal combustion engine
therefore we don’t need Henry Ford as an explanation for the automobile.[1]
This kind of thinking is also
problematic because it overestimates the power of scientific explanation. Science cannot explain everything. In fact, science cannot even explain
itself. The affirmation that we can only
arrive at true knowledge through science is a statement that is not testable by
the scientific method and so is self-defeating.
In fact, science does not explain the really big questions. It cannot tell you why you are here, where
you came from, or where you are going.
It cannot give you a reason for your existence. More importantly, science cannot give you
access to the mind of God concerning salvation.
It cannot tell you how sinful men and women can be reconciled to a holy
God. In order to know that, we must hear
God speak to us. That does not come from
science; that comes from Scripture.
Another objection comes from the
apparent discrepancies and historical inaccuracies of the Bible. It would take me too far afield to address
these all. However, let me say this. When you hear someone say that the Bible
cannot be true because of this or that apparent discrepancy, be very careful
that you don’t just swallow the claim hook-line-and-sinker. Neither should we be afraid of facing up to
them. But caution is the order of the
day when it comes to such claims. For
years, it was thought that the Bible contained errors because in Daniel it says
that Belshazzar was the ruler in Babylon when it fell, when there was no
evidence outside the Bible that such a man even existed. In fact, everyone knew that it was Nabonidus
who was ruler when Babylon was conquered.
For many years, believers in the inerrancy of Scripture had no proof
that the Bible was telling the truth.
But eventually archeology turned up independent evidence for
Belshazzar. This has happened over and
over again. So be careful. The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many
hammers. Even when evidence is lacking,
history tells us that over and over again the Bible is eventually
vindicated. We have every reason to
believe that it will emerge victorious over all who dispute its truthfulness.
But the ultimate proof in the
trustworthiness and authority of Scripture comes from our Lord Jesus
Christ. What did Jesus say about the
Bible? He affirmed the authority of
Scripture and its truthfulness, down to the very words. For example, in John 10:35, he defends the
position he was taking in a controversy with his opponents by appealing to
Scripture, and then by saying, “And the Scripture cannot be broken.” What is so significant about this is that
Jesus’ argument hinged on a single word in Psalm 82:6. He was saying that Scripture down to its most
minute details cannot be broken, annulled, or denied. What’s interesting about this is that the
word “Scripture” had a very definite meaning in his day. It meant the entire OT as we have it
today. So when our Lord said that Scripture cannot be broken, he was
appealing to the fact that all of the OT from Genesis to Malachi is
authoritative and true.
In Matthew 19:4-5, our Lord
quotes Gen. 2:24, and says, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the
beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one
flesh?” What is interesting about this
is that when you read Genesis 2:24, it is not explicitly said that God said these
words. In fact, it appears to be the
words of Adam, or Moses’ commentary on the events of woman’s creation. But when our Lord quotes these words, he
ascribes them to God. Why? Because what Moses wrote were the words of
God. Genesis is not just Moses’ version
of early history; it is the word of God to man.
But our Lord did not only affirm
the authority of the OT, he also affirmed the authority of the NT. Because he commissioned the apostles to go
speak his words to men. He promised them
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the apostles when he said, “When he, the
Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he
will shew you things to come” (Jn. 16:13).
This is why the early church rejected all documents as canonical that
were not either written by apostles or by those directly connected with the
apostles (like Mark and Luke). The
reason is because it is the apostles to whom God revealed the mystery, as Paul
puts it to the Ephesians.
The resurrection is not just
proof that God the Father accepted the sacrifice of God the Son. It is that, primarily and gloriously. But it is also proof that the claims of Jesus
during his earthly ministry were true.
The resurrection is God’s imprimatur upon the claims of Christ. And one of those claims is that the Bible, OT
and NT, is the Word of God. We can
believe in the truthfulness of the Bible and the authority of the Bible because
our Lord rose from the grave.
Now what affect should this have
on us? Do we truly believe that the
Bible is the Word of God? Then my
friends, let us hold fast to it with all our might. Let us not neglect it or despise it. Let us not turn from it for the chaff that
passes as wisdom in our culture. As God
told the prophet Jeremiah long ago, “The prophet that hath a dream, let him
tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the
LORD. Is not my word like as a fire?
saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh in pieces?” (Jer.
23:28-29). This word is not something to
be ashamed of; it is our glory (cf. Eph. 3:13).
It is that which changes us from glory to glory (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18).
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