The Divine Standard
Enter the need for God to speak to the world. The Church rightly understands that God sent Jesus to save us from our sins and restore us to Him. This is a precious and beautiful truth that we deeply cherish. But Jesus the Savior isn't just limited to the washing away of our sins, He also saves us from the darkness in our souls by enlightening our hearts¹.
We are not robots that have every action pre-determined by a master programmer. God gave us Free Wills. But the decisions made by our wills are limited to our understanding of right and wrong. In the malaise and confusion of our inner atmosphere we make choices and have beliefs that seem right to us at the time but are later seen to be foolish after God has revealed Himself to us.
Jesus declares in John 8:12 that He is the "Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of Life." The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity - the very act of the Eternal God putting on flesh - was not just done so He could live a perfect life, die and unjust death and pay the penalty of sin. But in addition to this another aspect of His Coming was to perfectly reveal God.
Hebrews 1:1-3a says "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature."
The exact representation of the Father's Nature is truly a paramount truth to consider. Jesus perfectly showed us who God is. Furthermore Jesus appointed 12 apostles to plant and steward the growth of the Church. He declared that the Holy Spirit would "bring to your remembrance all that I said to you" (John 14:26) and that the same Holy Spirit will "guide you into all truth" (John 16:13).
While these verses have an indirect application to us personally in that Holy Spirit is always opening up the Word to His people so that they greater understand Truth - these verses in their truest sense were prophetic declarations of the writing of the New Testament and the completion of the Biblical Canon. The same Holy Spirit who called to recollection the important events and teachings of the Life of Jesus also inspired the apostles to pen the New Testament Epistles. This same God also guided the early Church to bear witness to the authority of these books and to Canonize them into the compilation we now know as the New Testament².
The New Testament further atests to the legitimacy of the Old Testament³. And as such we have the 66 books of the Bible. The reliable, inerrant, authoritative source for all Revelation.
In short because of the Fall the whole world sat in darkness, blinded by our lack of the Presence of God upon our souls. But God in His Goodness chose to establish a reliable Testimony of Himself by sending His Son to the world. And after all of these events took place we were given the Holy Bible.
Scripture is the Light that we look to in the darkness of the world and even of our own souls that is to be used as a standard and a litmus so that we can interpret and discern all of life. Thus this Divine Standard gives us the ability to sort through the various thoughts and emotions that come through our inner atmospheres. Like 2 Corinthians 10:5 says we are able to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." Whether these thoughts have come from our upbringing, the spiritual atmosphere we live in or the presence of sin in our flesh - we are able to discern these thoughts and by the Grace of God correct them with Truth.
It is truly a wonder to consider how God has created our hearts. They are like gardens that either are beautiful and flourishing in the Presence of God or are unkept and overgrown with weeds because we have not fought the internal battle against sin. A fascinating truth to consider is that the current state of our heart becomes the lense by which we think. This lense affects how we hear from God and how we view Scripture.
We are not robots that have every action pre-determined by a master programmer. God gave us Free Wills. But the decisions made by our wills are limited to our understanding of right and wrong. In the malaise and confusion of our inner atmosphere we make choices and have beliefs that seem right to us at the time but are later seen to be foolish after God has revealed Himself to us.
Jesus declares in John 8:12 that He is the "Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of Life." The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity - the very act of the Eternal God putting on flesh - was not just done so He could live a perfect life, die and unjust death and pay the penalty of sin. But in addition to this another aspect of His Coming was to perfectly reveal God.
Hebrews 1:1-3a says "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature."
The exact representation of the Father's Nature is truly a paramount truth to consider. Jesus perfectly showed us who God is. Furthermore Jesus appointed 12 apostles to plant and steward the growth of the Church. He declared that the Holy Spirit would "bring to your remembrance all that I said to you" (John 14:26) and that the same Holy Spirit will "guide you into all truth" (John 16:13).
While these verses have an indirect application to us personally in that Holy Spirit is always opening up the Word to His people so that they greater understand Truth - these verses in their truest sense were prophetic declarations of the writing of the New Testament and the completion of the Biblical Canon. The same Holy Spirit who called to recollection the important events and teachings of the Life of Jesus also inspired the apostles to pen the New Testament Epistles. This same God also guided the early Church to bear witness to the authority of these books and to Canonize them into the compilation we now know as the New Testament².
The New Testament further atests to the legitimacy of the Old Testament³. And as such we have the 66 books of the Bible. The reliable, inerrant, authoritative source for all Revelation.
In short because of the Fall the whole world sat in darkness, blinded by our lack of the Presence of God upon our souls. But God in His Goodness chose to establish a reliable Testimony of Himself by sending His Son to the world. And after all of these events took place we were given the Holy Bible.
Scripture is the Light that we look to in the darkness of the world and even of our own souls that is to be used as a standard and a litmus so that we can interpret and discern all of life. Thus this Divine Standard gives us the ability to sort through the various thoughts and emotions that come through our inner atmospheres. Like 2 Corinthians 10:5 says we are able to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." Whether these thoughts have come from our upbringing, the spiritual atmosphere we live in or the presence of sin in our flesh - we are able to discern these thoughts and by the Grace of God correct them with Truth.
It is truly a wonder to consider how God has created our hearts. They are like gardens that either are beautiful and flourishing in the Presence of God or are unkept and overgrown with weeds because we have not fought the internal battle against sin. A fascinating truth to consider is that the current state of our heart becomes the lense by which we think. This lense affects how we hear from God and how we view Scripture.
¹I use heart and soul here as interchangeable terms to refer to the entire inner atmosphere
²A good reference for this is https://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/new-testament-canon/
³See John 10:35, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21 - note that the word "Scripture" when written by the New Testament writers refers to the Old Testament
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