Each one of us has to choose. Each one of us has to decide whether the Bible is from man, or God.
Campbell Morgan lived from 1863-1945 and was one of the most powerful evangelists, and gifted teachers of the Bible there ever was. He has been called the “prince of expositors” by the English speaking world. But at the age of 19, after having been preaching for several years, he had what he called an “eclipse of faith”, where he wrestled with whether he really believed the Bible to be God’s Word. In his day there were skeptic organizations devoted to ruining the credibility of the Scriptures, and to proving that man cannot really know God. Morgan’s room was piled with books of these people, and then Christians arguing back. At 20 years old he said, “I am no longer sure that this is what my father claims it to be – the word of God.”
“At last the crisis came when he admitted to himself his total lack of assurance that the Bible was the authoritative Word of God to man. He immediately cancelled all preaching engagements. Then, taking all his books, both those attacking and those defending the Bible, he put them all in a corner cupboard. Relating this afterwards, as he did many times in preaching, he told of turning the key in the lock of the door. “I can hear the click of that lock now,” he used to say. He went out of the house, and down the street to a bookshop. He bought a new Bible and, returning to his room with it, he said to himself: “I am no longer sure that this is what my father claims it to be—the Word of God. But of this I am sure. If it be the Word of God, and if I come to it with an unprejudiced and open mind, it will bring assurance to my soul of itself.”
“That Bible found me,” he said, “I began to read and study it then, in 1883. I have been a student ever since, and I still am [in 1938].”
At the end of two years Campbell Morgan emerged from that eclipse of faith absolutely sure that the Bible was, indeed, none other than the Word of the living God.
Are you like G. Campbell Morgan before or after his eclipse of faith? It doesn’t matter if you identify as a Christian or not, if you are like him before and you’re not sure who the Bible ultimately came from, then shut yourself in your room and get a brand new Bible and do not leave that room until you emerge convinced whether it is God’s word or not. You have to decide what Ben Witherington says the Church needs to decide: “[it] must decide today whether it still believes in the concept of revelation or not.” Will we end up with Morgan that the Bible is God’s word? And with Francis Schaeffer who said, “He is there and He is not silent?” meaning God is not only there but He has spoken to us in the Bible. Or will we be with Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins and others who although have respect for the Bible as a cultural and literary foundation for society, it is still nothing more than myths and legends that convey the accumulated wisdom of man over the ages? In other words, we have to make up our minds, as Ben Witherington says, whether or not we believe “in the concept of revelation from God or not.” So what do you believe?
This was the challenge Paul put to the Galatians. Paul asserted to them that what he preached to them was what he received by direct revelation from Jesus Christ Himself. He told the Ephesians about “the mystery made known to me by revelation…the mystery of Christ which God did not make known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.” (Eph. 3:3-5). God was still in the business of speaking, and Paul lays it out for the Christians in Galatia that what they heard from his lips was what he heard from Christ’s lips. The reason this was important to the letter was that they were being led astray by a different gospel that did not come from Christ. It came from men – or worse. So by informing the Galatians (again, possibly) that his Gospel came from Christ himself it would serve to keep them from abandoning the Gospel he preached to them and keep them from being led astray by what they were hearing.
The key word in these verses is revelation. And while Paul’s point is very specific, it fits into the larger concept of revelation in Christian theology. Along the way of preaching verse by verse through the bible we are given opportunities to explain important doctrines or events or commands as we find them in our passages. Today we find the topic of revelation brought out for us to go over. The challenge for the Galatians really is our challenge today: they had to decide if the gospel Paul gave them really did come from God. And in the same way, we also have to decide if the Bible we have in our hands really did come from God.
REVELATION IS DIVINE KNOWLEDGE
The word “revelation” here is a Greek word that means “to uncover,” or “to make known.” With majesty God said in Isaiah, “I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.” (Isa 46:9-10). God reveals the future – something no man could ever know. Think of the very first verse to begin the book of Revelation where it says, “The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known…” “Revelation…to show…made it known.” No one would know it if God chose not to show it.
That’s what Revelation is: God choosing to open up and make known to us things that we would never know unless he revealed it. There would be no way to search the world over for it, to discover it, to intuit it, to feel it, to meditate and summon it, to think it up or to calculate it.
- Like Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:17, “this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.”
- Or, speaking of revelation, Jesus prayed in John 17 and said to the Father, “I have given them the words you gave me and they have accepted them.” Jesus gave the Apostles words and truth that they did not know and could not know had Jesus NOT given it to them.
- When we take Communion today we often read Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11, and he says in verse 23, “What I received from the Lord I have also passed on to you.”
Revelation is the knowledge of God’s likeness and character, His thoughts, His plans for all of history, His purposes that He is going to achieve, what is right according to Him and what is evil, His commands and more. All of this is as Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not yours. As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my thoughts higher than yours and my ways higher than yours.” The things we have that God has revealed are things that are too high for us to ever attain on our own apart from His making it known to us. Revelation is us being able to know what only God knows because he chooses to let us know.
The content of the Bible came from God. “All Scripture is God-breathed…” 2 Timothy 3:16 says – which asserts the divine origin of the Bible. We see it asserted again in 2 Peter 1:21, “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
APPLICATION: The Bible comes from God. Do you believe that? Are you like the Thessalonians, of whom Paul said, “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God…you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God…” (1 Thess 2:13).
REVELATION IS THE RULE
Second, we see Revelation is the Rule. What Paul was teaching the Galatians was that God’s revelation is the rule to follow, not man’s rules. Do not follow a gospel from man or rules from man when God has revealed His will for you.
If God’s revelation is the rule then we are accountable to it. Whatever God has shown us we are responsible to believe it and live by it. Neither are we co-creators of its content where we get to add to what God gave us. “Whoever adds to these words, Jesus said in Revelation, the plagues of this book will be added to him. Instead, we are stewards of what we’ve received – and faithfulness means we give it to others as it was given to us from God. “What you heard from me,” Paul told Timothy, “keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim 1:13).
APPLICATION: Do we live our lives in line with what God has revealed in the Bible? Or do we live by consensus? Or by our feelings? Or by our experiences? Or by tradition? Or “how its always been?” Or do we conform our beliefs and our lives to what God has said? To echo Charles Spurgeon, if we are not ready to put our foot through any belief or practice that is opposed to God’s Word then we need to humbly reevaluate if in fact we mean it when we say that we live for God.
REVELATION ESTABLISHES
The Galatians needed their Apostle to establish them more firmly. They were wobbly and easily moved. But this letter was a pastoral effort to establish them more firmly in the faith.
There were people who were trying to enslave the Galatians (2:4-5). There were people trying to win them over to their teachings (4:17). There were people “cutting in on them to keep them from obeying the truth” (5:7). The Galatians were susceptible to these people and were not yet strong enough to resist them. They needed to be more established.
Every new believer needs to be established in their faith. Building our lives on God’s revelation is what establishes us. Jesus said, “Everyone who hears my words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Mt 7:24). The words of Jesus (revelation) establish us (built on a rock that withstands life). Like Colossians 2:6-7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ROOTED and built up in him, STRENGTHENED in the faith…” Or like Ephesians 4:14, where after describing how we are built up in the knowledge of the Son of God (revelation), it says, “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by th waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and the cunning craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” Being established in the faith requires revelation.
Paul was doing that with the Galatians. That was why he went back to check on them multiple times and why he wrote to them. Roots need to be put down, they need to be watered, they need to be encouraged, they need to be protected and they need to be led. No one but Paul’s co-missionaries and Christ knew the number of hours Paul didn’t sleep because of his concern for the churches he founded – were they being seduced by Satan? Were they fighting each other? Were they living in sin? Were they divided up? Second Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, and other books have Paul expressing his deep worry over how they were doing. That is a shepherd – not some hired hand!
APPLICATION: Get established! It is not big productions and programs that establish you in your faith. It is devotion to God’s word – devotion to knowing it, learning it, and living by it. Be devoted to knowing your Savior, Christ, and being like Him.
REVELATION BRINGS TRUE TRANSFORMATION
In addition to being established, God’s revelation is the single power for our spiritual transformation. I was reading the early Church Father, Chrysostom, and his and he pointed out that Paul gave proof to the Galatians that the Gospel he gave them was indeed from Christ. You know what it is? He says its Paul’s own testimony, which Paul immediately begins telling in verse 13. What he means is that Paul pointed the Galatians to look at his own conversion and transformation as proof that Christ indeed revealed the Gospel to him. Read verse 13 with me, then jump to verse 22-23…. The point is this: Paul’s life has been utterly transformed by the revelation Jesus gave him, and the Galatians were to see this was an entirely different man than before, and therefore he has indeed given them the true Gospel to believe and hold on to.
APPLICATION: Have you been transformed? Accept God’s word today as revelation to you, and believe it. Believe in His Son, Jesus, and you will be transformed.
Its not just salvation, but its sanctification – which is a word that simply refers to your spiritual growing after your saved. You want your life to increase in fruitfulness, maturity, knowledge, obedience, strength against sin and temptation, and likeness to Jesus Christ. For that to happen you have to be turning to God’s Word – which is the single source for ongoing spiritual transformation.
CONCLUSION:
The first response to God’s revelation is repentance. True life transformation begins with true repentance. You are hearing the true revelation of God, the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God in the flesh, and He came as the visible image of the invisible God. He spoke the words of God, did works that only God could do, and He is the one and only way to know God. Apart from him there is no knowing God. Apart from Him there is no seeing God. Apart from Him there is no forgiveness from God. But He came, and He died on the cross for you. And the cross is the greatest revelation of God. There God demonstrated His holy wrath against the evil of sin, and He satisfied His own justice in demanding payment for all our sin, and He proved His own love for us, by providing someone else to die in our place. That someone else was His own Son, Jesus Christ. God revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, crucified, buried and risen. For you.