A servant of Christ Jesus called
to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised
beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning
his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh
and was declared to be the son of God in power according to
the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus
Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship.
to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his
name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong
to Jesus Christ. I will tell you, before we get
into this, that a lot of this material, a lot of what we're
going to go through today, I have taught before. It's been several
years. But I did want to tell you that
I am revisiting some of the things that I've taught before, just
in case any of my fans on the internet want to accuse me of
laziness. But I want to begin with a statement. It is that you do not get to
decide what God has said. And I don't intend this as a
rebuke towards any of you. When you say it like that, it
might sound like I'm accusing the body of putting words in
God's mouth, but I'm not aware that any of you claim to receive
revelations from God outside of the scriptures, and I'm not
aware that any of you make a habit of abusing what God has said
in the scripture. But I want to work from here
as a practical way of understanding what is one of the most important
tenets of our faith. That is that scripture is the
first and highest authority. And I hesitate to say that it
is the most important doctrine of our faith, not because there
are more important doctrines than our doctrine of scripture,
but because it occupies the same space as many other doctrines. The doctrines of the gospel of
grace, the doctrines of God, who he is and what he has done,
they are equally and immeasurably important, just as our doctrine
of scripture. Now, I'm careful to avoid saying
that scripture is our only authority. James and I were talking about
this last week. He made the statement that scripture is the only authority
and I said no, it's not. We agree that generally speaking,
scripture is not the only authority that we have and that we must
submit to. Right? I mean, we submit to the government
in some sense. We submit to our elders. We submit
to creeds and confessions insofar as they are true and faithful
to the teachings of scripture. But scripture is the only authority
in the sense that its command is unparalleled. Scripture does
not share its authority with anyone. No person, no church,
no creed, no confession has anything to say. beyond what scripture has said. This is the error of the Roman
Catholic Church, isn't it? The arrogant Roman church has
erected for herself a false god. We call it the papacy, the office
of the pope. Rome asserts that the decrees
of the church occupy the same space as scripture. That is,
just as God has said, let there be light, God decreed the creation
of the world, in the same way that God has said, let there
be light, Rome says, if anyone shall say that by faith alone
the impious is justified, so as to mean that nothing else
is required to cooperate in order unto the obtaining the grace
of justification, that it is not in any respect necessary
that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will,
let him be anathema. So just as scripture has told
us the truth of the gospel, Rome tells us that if you believe
the truth of the gospel, let you be anathema. And this is
not unique, right? As, you know, Calvinist reformed
Christians, we're aware of the context of Protestantism and
the Protestant Reformation, right? Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses
to the door of the church, rejecting the teaching of Rome. Unfortunately,
the teaching of Rome lives on, both in Catholic churches and
in Protestant churches. Right? Rome says that the will
of man is an essential feature of moving God to save you. In the same way, the heresy of
Arminianism maintains that the will of man is necessary for
moving God to save you. And we see this error, this heresy
taught in evangelical churches around the world, right? That you can pray a prayer, and
as long as you can look to that prayer that you prayed, you can
know that you are saved. But this all comes from putting
authority on something other than Scripture, right? And so I want to establish, with
Scripture, the authority of Scripture. And to do that, I'm going to
examine the teachings of Paul. I'm going to examine how did
Paul view his own authority? And to do that, I'm gonna look
at Paul's apostleship, right? There in Romans 1, Paul speaks
of Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we have received grace and
apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake
of his name. So in order to establish the authority of Paul's apostleship,
we're gonna review the nature of God's revelation to the church
after the resurrection. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
one. In Hebrews one, which I'm going
to assert was written also by Paul, he writes, long ago, and
at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the
prophets. But in these last days, he has
spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all
things, through whom he also created the world. So first,
we need to understand a distinction between God's revelation in the
Old Testament, before the incarnation of Christ, and in the New Testament,
after the resurrection of Christ. Now, there's not a distinction
in substance. The nature of God's revelation
is the same through all eternity. But there is a distinction in
method. There is a distinction in delivery. If you're familiar with the Old
Testament, you know that there's a big section of it where all
the books are names of people. These people were the great prophets
of Israel. Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel. And so we see in the Old Testament
that God is always speaking to his people by speaking only to
certain people. But we see here in Hebrews that
this is no longer the case. Paul declares that God no longer
speaks to individuals as prophets, but now he has spoken to us through
his son, Jesus Christ. And so we need to talk about
what that means in order to understand Paul's place in all of this. So Paul asserts that God created
the world through his son and that his son now speaks. He goes
on to say he is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact
imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word
of his power. So when I see Christ speaking, the creation of the
world, the glory of God declared in one place, it takes my mind
to the first chapter of the Gospel of John. John is going to give us a little
bit more understanding here and what it means for Christ to speak. He says, in the beginning was
the Word. The word was with God and the
word was God. He was in the beginning with
God and all things were made through him and without him was
not anything made that was made. He was in the beginning of with
God. So we see here in John 1 verse
3 that all things were made through Christ And we see John present
us with this word, the word of God. John tells us in verse 14,
who the word is, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory
as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. This word is Jesus Christ. We have seen his glory. We have
seen the exact imprint of the Father's nature. So this word,
the Son, the Christ, he is the one through whom God speaks. So now we wanna look at how God
speaks to us through Christ. To find that, we're gonna go
to the book of Acts. I'm gonna read through the experience
of Paul's conversion. Let's see, Acts chapter 9. I'm going to read a pretty long
section here. But Saul, I will tell you what one of my
pet peeves is. I was playing Bible trivia with my family the
other night, and the question was, what was Paul's name before
he was converted? The answer to that question is
Paul, also called Saul. Saul was his Hebrew name, named
after the king of Israel, Saul. And Paul, or Paulos, is his Greek
name. Saul, Paul, same person, no name
change. Anyway, Acts chapter 9. But Saul,
still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the
Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to
the synagogues at Damascus. so that if he found any belonging
to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly
a light from heaven shone around him, and falling to the ground,
he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting
me? And he said, who are you, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Rise and
enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. So
the men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing
the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and
although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him
by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days
he was without sight. He neither ate nor drank. Now
there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said
to him in a vision, Ananias. And he said, here I am, Lord.
And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight. And at the house of Judas, look
for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he is praying, and
he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias. Come in and lay
hands on him so that he might regain his sight. But Ananias
answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how
much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here
he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call
on your name. But the Lord said to him, go,
for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before
the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will
show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. So there's a lot there. And so
we're going to hit the important points and then focus on one
in particular. So we see Paul, also called Saul,
is breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the
Lord. Paul was a murderer. He murdered the people of God. He had letters from the government
saying, yes, that's cool. You can do that. He murdered Christ's sheep and
he hated Christ. I always think it's funny that
people talk about Paul or any person as a great hero of the
faith. I want to be like Paul. Paul himself admitted that he
was the chief of sinners. So Paul's on his way to kill
God's people because it was his job and he was good at it. And
then this light shines from heaven and he falls to the ground. And a voice cried out, Saul,
Saul, why are you persecuting me? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. So Paul's blind. The men who
were with him take him into Damascus. And the Lord says to Ananias that
Paul, this murderer, is a chosen instrument to carry the name
of Christ before the Gentiles and the kings and the children
of Israel. Now. One more thing we have to
do to establish Paul's authority as an apostle. So first we see
that God no longer speaks through individual prophets. He speaks
through a son, Jesus Christ, the living word, the radiance
of the glory of God become flesh. And we see that this Christ declares
that Paul is his chosen instrument. And then finally, from Paul's
words to a man named Timothy, we see the last piece here. 2
Timothy 3, chapter 16, Paul writes, all scripture is breathed out
by God. Paul not only writes as one appointed
by God to do so, but Paul's words here in scripture are breathed
out by God. These words have the same authority
as if they had been spoken to us directly from heaven, because
God has spoken them through his son, the Christ, and Christ's
instrument, Paul. Now, We mentioned earlier that
we would outline a distinction between the revelation before
and after Christ. So we've explained the nature
of revelation post-resurrection, but this distinction might not
be apparent. We said that in the Old Testament,
God spoke through specifically appointed men. And we saw that
Paul was specifically appointed to speak for God. What's the
difference? Obviously, in Hebrews 1, Paul
draws a contrast between the instruments of God's revelation
in these former days and the instruments of God's revelation
in these last days. And in both cases, the pure words
of God are delivered through the pens of sinful men. Indeed, everyone who wrote the
Bible is just as sinful as you and I. While we have drawn a connection
between the revelation of Christ described in Hebrews and the
written word of God given to us by Paul, we want to understand
the difference between this and the prophets despite this symmetry. The difference is Christ. We see in the Old Testament that
we do not see the fullness of the gospel of grace revealed.
Hebrews 10, we see, for since the law was but a shadow of the
good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities,
it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered
every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would
they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having
once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness
of sin? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every
year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats
to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came
into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me. In burnt offerings and
sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold,
I have come to do your will, oh God, as it is written of me
in the scroll of the book. When he said above, you have
neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and
burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to
the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will.
He does away with the first in order to establish the second.
And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. So the difference
between the Old Testament revelation and the New Testament revelation
is the full revelation of the gospel of Christ. As Jesus breathes his last breath
in Matthew 27, we see that the curtain of the temple was torn
in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks
were split. This curtain in the temple separated
the people of God from the holy of holies. It separated the people
of God from the chief priests who had to go through all this
ritual and ceremony before they could enter. This curtain was
torn in two because there are no more shadows. Moses saw Christ as though through
a veil. He had faith in a promise, but
he did not have the full knowledge of the fulfillment of that promise. We do. We see the radiance of
the glory of God in Christ revealed in scripture. We see the fulfillment
of the promise given to Israel in the death of Christ. There are no more shadows. The
full radiance of the glory of God is revealed perfectly in
Jesus Christ as he has given it to us in his word. So that is the authority that
Paul writes with. And because of that authority,
you do not get to decide what God has said. And so I want to explore some
of the ways we use scripture. Because scripture has explained
to us what it's good for. Scripture tells us how it can and should
be used. And I'm going to situate this
in the context of elders and what their duties are, what their
qualifications are, because Every Lord's Day, one of your elders
or myself, an elder in training, stands before you and teaches
you scripture. We stand here and we read scripture and we
explain scripture to you. And so it is important to have
an understanding of what scripture says about itself and how it
is to be handled. And so our first and highest
authority is this word of God. Now remember I said scripture
is not the only authority, right? The elder has some measure of
authority over the church. But the elder is himself in submission
to scripture and the first and greatest task for the elder then
is his duty to scripture. And so we begin with Paul's declaration
of the authority and application of scripture. He writes in 2
Timothy 3, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. So I'm gonna explain this in
the context of elders, but this is broadly applicable to all of
us, right? We all need to understand how to use scripture, how to
read scripture. So the elders duty to God, the
elders duty to church is. His duty to scripture. Now Paulist told us exactly what
scriptures utility is. The duties of the elder. Our
duties to scripture as the people of the church. They are found
in applying these utilities. And so there are four things
that Paul tells us here in 2 Timothy 3, and they're represented by
two dichotomies, right? We have doctrinal instruction,
and on the other side we have practical instruction. And then
we also have positive instruction and negative instruction. And so with these distinctions,
we're going to look at these four tasks given to the people of
God in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. We have teaching, which is positive
doctrinal. We have correcting, which is
negative doctrinal. We have training, which is positive
practical. And reproof, negative practical. And there's gonna be some overlap
here. And so the first thing I want to address here is this
positive doctrinal teaching. This entails the stating and
the proving and the defending of propositions which are true.
This is where I say to you, you should believe this thing because
scripture says this thing. Much of the New Testament is
concerned primarily with teaching. And it might be the most significant
of these four uses for scripture. because this is the use which
contains the propositions that are the gospel, right? Believe in Christ. Believe in
who Christ is and what he has done. And since our salvation is not
of works, it is only by grace through faith in Christ Jesus,
These positive teachings of the word will contain all those things
necessary for salvation to everyone who believes. The significance of teaching
gospel truth is emphasized by Paul in Romans 1. He says, I
am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes. So this teaching of the word
of God is powerful, right? God says that the way I save
my people is through the gospel. This gospel is the power of God
for salvation. So I immediately think of one
of the objections to the gospel leveled by false teachers, right? Your salvation is predestined. If everyone who is going to be
saved is elected by God, why do we need to evangelize? Why
do we need to do anything if God's just going to handle it
all for us? Well, because God told us how he's going to handle
that. And that is through the teaching of the gospel of Christ. The way in which God saves his
people is through the teaching of the gospel of Christ. And so it is the responsibility
of the elders, and it is our duty as the people of God, to
engage in some way with evangelistic ministry. If we were to understand
that this gospel is the power of God, that this is the only
way that God has established the salvation of his people,
then we should be collectively engaged in some way with the
sharing of this truth of the gospel. And this does not mean
that you should go out there and stand on the corner of 280
and 301. Someone might be called and qualified
to do that, but not everyone is. But in some way, everyone is
called and commanded to express this gospel, to share this gospel. And all of God's people need
to be constantly reminded of the basic truth of this gospel. We should constantly reflect
on Christ's work on the cross, because it is in Christ alone
that we have salvation, and it is in Christ alone that we have
hope, and in him we have our righteousness, which is Christ's. I think of a, there's a very
old church father named St. Francis. He is often misquoted
as saying something silly like, preach the gospel at all times
and if necessary, use words. The words are always necessary. Right, because salvation is through
the declaration, the proclamation of this gospel. And in silence, you cannot tell someone that
Christ died for his people. In silence, you cannot tell someone
that God was propitiated by Christ on the cross. You can only say that with words. Now, this positive doctrinal
teaching has another purpose. Apart from the simple truth of
the gospel of Christ, there are other things which are good and
necessary for the continued faith of God's people. Paul says in
Hebrews 6 that we must teach people to leave the elementary
doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again
a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards
God. Once a person is saved, once
a person is regenerated and gifted faith in the gospel of Christ,
there are other things that they should learn. There are other
things that they need to know. And so it is the responsibility
of the elder. To teach these things and encourage the sheep.
To search and study the scripture to learn these things, it is
the responsibility. Of each of us. To share with
one another. What we learn from the Word of
God. Paul gives a simple, clear command
to Titus, a pastor on Crete. Teach what accords with sound
doctrine. The doctrine taught must be consistent
with the sound doctrine of the scripture. Paul tells Timothy
and Titus that overseers or elders must be able to teach and able
to give instruction in sound doctrine. It's not just that you be a good
orator, that you be able to come up here and motivate you guys. with some fancy hand-waving and
some convincing philosophies, sweet-sounding words, but we must hold firm to the
trustworthy word as taught. The elder must be a theologian. which might have some stigma,
right? We think of theologians as being
these lofty, intelligent, academic thinkers. One such theologian made the
claim that everyone is a theologian, and he's right. Everyone has
a doctrine of God. But the elder in particular must
know the word. He must know the scripture. He
must know who God is and what he has done. And he must know
these deeper things, these further instructions from scripture that
are not themselves the gospel so that he can instruct you on
these things. On the other side of this, we
have correction. We have positive doctrinal teaching
and we have negative doctrinal correction. Correction is instruction
against what is false. I did this earlier when I talked
about the false gospel of Rome and the false gospel of evangelical
churches. Now I will tell you that correction
needs to be second place to this positive doctrinal teaching.
Because it does no good for me to tell you what is wrong if
you don't know what is right. I must establish first what is
correct, what is true, what is taught in scripture, because
it is from there that we apply that knowledge to understand
what is false. We recognize what is false by knowing first what
is true. If the positive doctrinal instruction
is done thoroughly and correctly, you'll be equipped to defend
yourselves against most errors. One author said, the theologian's
task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen
consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable. But still, errors come up in
the assembly from time to time, right? One of us gets an idea,
we think it's really cool, we tell our friends, we tell our
brothers and sisters. And it's the responsibility of
the overseer and it's the responsibility of all of us to correct these
errors according to sound doctrine. when we hear them. Paul writes to Titus, there are
many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially
those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they
are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain
what they ought not teach. So among the church in Crete,
there were many who did not submit to the authority of the apostles'
teaching. They were empty talkers and deceivers. These were men who spoke and
taught a vain gospel, a gospel of works, a gospel that looks
to the will of man to move God. Paul would say in Galatians that
there were people in the churches who were turning to a different
gospel, not that there is another one. They taught a powerless
gospel and they deceived the people of God. And Paul calls
out specifically this circumcision party. And so we can assume that there
are people in Crete who share these same ideas as the people
in Galatia who spoke about circumcision being in some way necessary for
salvation. So in Romans 2, we have a good
example of this negative doctrinal correction. Paul says, for circumcision
indeed is of value. if you obey the law. But if you
break the law, which is you, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.
So if a man who is circumcised keeps the precepts of the law,
will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then
he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn
you who have written the code. And circumcision but break the
law. For no one is a Jew who is merely
one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew
is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by
the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but
from God. So Paul is teaching against this
Jewish practice of circumcision, within the broader theological
context that Jews and Gentiles are all condemned. Christ has
fulfilled the righteousness of God and been put forward as the
satisfaction of God's wrath for all who believe. And so we should follow the apostle's
example when we make correction. Paul does not simply condemn
the circumcision party. He does it within the context
of a more important truth, the truth of the gospel, which the
circumcision party is undermining by their teaching. So this correction
should always come with the context of the truth, the positive teaching. Paul describes these false teachers
in more color in 1 Timothy. He says, if anyone teaches a
different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of
our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,
he is puffed up with conceit and he understands nothing. He
has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels
about words which produce envy, dissension, Slander, evil suspicions
and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and
depraved of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of
gain. False teaching in the church
produces among God's people envy, dissension, slander, and evil
suspicions. These have no place among the
body of Christ. For that reason, they must be
silenced. Paul leaves us with an instruction
in graciousness towards false teachers. He's
gracious, and then he leaves them to condemnation. Paul tells
Titus, avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and
quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
As for a person who stirs up division, After warning him once
and twice, have nothing more to do with him. Knowing that
such a person is warped and sinful, he is self-condemned. And really we see here that Paul
is more strict with church discipline
in matters of teaching than Jesus is with matters of general sin
in Matthew 18. But why? We see in the general
instruction of church discipline in Matthew 18 that first, if
your brother has sinned against you, you go to him. And you tell
him, and if he repents, you have gained your brother. And if he
does not, you bring two or three of the brothers with you. And
if he then does not repent, you bring him before the church.
And if he then does not repent, he is to be expelled from the
fellowship of God's people. But we see here with Paul giving
instruction on false teaching, he says, warn them once and twice
and then have nothing to do with them. It is often the case that while
one person partakes of grievous sin, that the rest of the assembly
sees it as sin and is not led astray by the sin, right? If one of you engages in One of these sins that we think
of as being so heinous, the rest of us are gonna see that and
be like, yeah, that's bad. We're not gonna be convinced that murder
is good because our brother murdered someone. But, as Paul teaches here and
to the Galatians, sheep are easily led astray by false teaching.
So the apostle gives us a command to be more strict when it comes
to disciplining false teachers within the assembly. If they
continue to teach falsely, they are to be cast out. There's something else I want
to talk about here while we're talking about correction. Paul
says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, 14, says, remind them of these
things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words,
which does no good but only ruins the hearers. One of my, sort of my mottos
when it comes to dealing with false teaching is that words
are not heresies. Heresies are heresies. And so when your brother or sister
uses a word or phrase in place of something, we ask them what
they mean. We don't assume, right? You cannot
be a heretic because you have chosen one word to refer to a
doctrine if that doctrine is true, right? And so as we talk
about the words that we use to refer to doctrines, we can talk
about what is wise and what is helpful. We can agree that certain
words are good and helpful in certain contexts, and that others
are not good and not helpful in certain contexts. But if your brother believes
the truth, And you just don't agree with the word he uses for
it. You cannot condemn him for the use of that word. And this
is what Paul is talking about here. Don't quarrel about words.
It does no good. It ruins those who listen to
it. Instead, do your best to present yourself to God as one
approved. a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling
the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble,
for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness. Their
talk will spread like gangrene. So I'm going to pause there for
this week. I'm going to be teaching again
next week. So we will wrap up this examination
of 2nd Timothy 3. Next week. But I want to leave you with
an encouragement. Continue to read the word. Continue to search. The scripture. But don't do so alone. Don't
do it by yourself. Do it with your brothers and
sisters. Do it with your family. As we do this together, we learn
together and we can build one another up as we study the scripture together. The next week we will get into
practical. Teaching. How do we handle the
instructions of scripture? When it comes to? What should
you do about this? What are you supposed to be doing?
What are you not supposed to be doing? We will examine some
of the errors. That come with that and we will
examine the position that works has for us. Because we said at the beginning
that Rome says that you've got to have some works. You have
to examine your works and decide if they're good enough, which is not true. But there
is some sense in which scripture gives us commands, gives us assignments,
things to do. So we'll look at that next week. I will pray and then we will
take the Lord's table. God, we thank you for your word
that in it we can see the radiance of your glory. That we can look upon Christ
through the words of your disciples. And that by this word alone,
we can know that we have salvation. God, we thank you for the work
of your son that you saw fit to accept his death in place
of ours. God bless us as we remember that
as we partake of this little wafer
and little drop of juice. We pray these things in the name
of Christ. Amen.