Can We Know What the Scripture Means? (Selected Scriptures) | John MacArthur | GTYtv

To me, life is all about the truth. We've  been moving phrase by phrase, verse by verse,   paragraph by paragraph, chapter by  chapter through these great truths. Open your Bibles with me. I was just reading an article this week in a  national Christian periodical uh that basically   uh conveyed the idea that getting to the meaning  of scripture is is very difficult and that reading   the Bible may lead you to reject the things you've  always believed because all of a sudden you're   going to see it in a new light and it's going to  take on new meaning and experiences are going to   happen and intuitive elements are going to rise  up and and you may find yourself having your   theology changed by reading the Bible and seeing  in it something you never really knew was there.   Now that raises the question that is often raised  by uh people who are critical of any strong   doctrine or any strong convictions and they say  well what makes you think you can know what the   Bible means when there are so many people who take  differing views. In fact that has actually become   a kind of hermeneutic. Hermeneutics is the  science of Bible interpretation. And this  

is called the hermeneutics of humility. And the  hermeneutics of humility says,"I am far too humble   to tell you I know what the Bible means by what it  says." And actually the assumption is that anybody   who tells you they know what the Bible means  is nothing short of arrogant because we really   can't know. received a letter this week from a man  who wrote me to thank me for my ministry and tell   me he prays for me and I appreciate that. This  is a man who said this and I quote, "Certitude   when it comes to the Bible is idolatrous.  I have been forced to give up certitude.   If there is a foundation in Christian theology,  it is not found in scripture. Theology must be   a humble human attempt to hear God and never  about rational approaches to texts." End quote.   Certitude is idolatrous. We can't know what  the Bible means. We can't draw theology out of   scripture. I've given up certitude. Approaching  the Bible is never a rational exercise.   Another popular emerging church  leader said, "Clarity is overrated.   Shock and ambiguity often stimulate  more thought than clarity."   And another writer, Leslie Nubigan, says,  "The gospel is not a matter of certainties.  

This is what's floating around in people's minds   and leads to the conclusion that not only  can we not know what the Bible means,   it really doesn't matter because it might lead  us to idolatry and to arrogance and somehow we   we might not be nearly as stimulated as we would  be with shock and ambiguity. Well, I think this   comes from a real source. And the real source is  this. The unconverted cannot understand the Bible.   That's that's correct. The natural man understands  not the things of God. They're foolishness to him.   They are to completely outside the realm of  his capability. And that's back to uh to uh 1   Corinthians 2. But if you go back into 1  Corinthians 1, you remember that it says   there that the preaching of the cross is to the  to the world of the perishing foolishness. So we   don't expect them to understand it. Uh perhaps a  a more notable portion of scripture that explains   the reason people come to these conclusions comes  to us from the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John   and verse 43. Why do you not understand what  I'm saying? Oh, here we're getting right to   the source. Why do you not understand what I'm  saying? It's because you cannot hear my word.   Our Lord is saying, "I know you can't  understand. And I know why you can't understand.  

You are of your father, the devil. That's  your problem. You're in the wrong family.   You're in the category of the perishing,  to borrow the language of 1 Corinthians 1.   And perishing people don't understand divine  truth. He, this is your father, the devil,   does not stand in the truth because there's  no truth in him. And you've inherited in a   sense his nature, his ignorance. Whenever he  speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature.   He's a liar and the father of lies. So because  I speak the truth, you don't believe me.   That's the problem. He who is of God  hears the words of God. For this reason,   you do not hear them because you're not of God. So  I agree it is [clears throat] a correct assessment   of reality to say that we cannot understand  the scripture. That is if we are of the devil,   if we are not of the family of God, if we're  among the perishing, if we're pursuing it from   the standpoint of human wisdom, that is correct.  In the 14th chapter of John and the 17th verse,   the spirit of truth is referenced there, whom the  world cannot receive because it does not see him   or know him. And [snorts] since the Holy Spirit  is the author of scripture and the resource  

that becomes our teacher of scripture and the  world does not know him, does not recognize him,   they too are blocked off from an understanding  of scripture. So I get it. The unbelieving people   who are in the darkness, who are blinded,  cannot understand the true meaning of scripture.   And because there are so many non-Christians  within Christianity, they give plenty of room   for the idea that the scriptures are basically  incomprehensible and you shouldn't feel like you   could be certain about anything at all. However,  on the other hand, did you hear what our Lord said   in that same passage? He who is of God hears  the words of God. Or in the language of John 10,   my sheep hear my voice. Or in the language of  1 Corinthians 1, we have the mind of Christ.

The Holy Spirit has been given  to us to teach us all things.   In fact, at the end of the Gospel of John is a  statement that really covers the whole of the four   gospels. These things I have written to you who  believe in the name of the son of God that you may   know that you have eternal life and that you may  continue to believe in the name of the son of God.   Scripture is clear enough for the sinner  under the regenerating work of the Holy   Spirit to come to a true and saving  understanding. But let me talk about   this idea of clarity in the scripture for  a minute. If the sinner is held responsible   for the revelation of God in creation, and he  is so that he's without excuse, Romans 1 says,   "And if the sinner is held responsible for the  knowledge of the law of God written in his heart   and a conscience that excuses or accuses him based  on his response to that law, and he is according   to Romans 2, if the sinner is accountable for that  natural revelation in his own reasoning that leads   him back to God and accountable for that natural  revelation in the law written in his heart.   Then the sinner is also responsible for  the written and preached revelation of God   which is recorded in scripture. The sinner is  without excuse only if he is able to comprehend.   He is able to comprehend God and much about  God. He is able to comprehend the law of   God that is written in his heart. and he is  able to comprehend the content of the gospel  

which is revealed in scripture so that on all  fronts arguing from the lesser to the greater   the sinner is without excuse. In fact, it  isn't just a kind of a minimal reality either.   The sinner's knowledge of the law of God and the  sinner's accusing conscience are an ally to the   basic gospel because the basic gospel starts with  law and sin and judgment and punishment. Right?   The basic message of the gospel is you have  violated the law of God. You are guilty before   God. You will be justly condemned to hell forever  for your violations of God's holy law. The sinner   can grasp that. Why? Because the sinner has the  law of God written in his heart. That's why I say   that the evangelist has an ally in the  heart of the sinner, namely the law of God. In the Acts uh the book of Acts, the 24th chapter.  Um I'm just thinking there's an illustration of   this. Uh Felix arrives with Drusilla in verse  24 sent for Paul. heard him speak about faith   in Christ Jesus. So, here's a sinner, an  unconverted gentile ruler. He hears Paul   talk about the gospel. And as he's discussing  righteousness, self-control, and judgment,   which would be a discussion about sin, uh the  standard of righteousness, the inability of the   sinner to control himself, and the consequent  judgment to come, Felix became frightened.  

God is not compounding the difficulty by giving  a message that is virtually not understandable.   This is not cabala. This is not gnosticism.  This is not hopelessly confounding allegories.   These are not mythos. This  is logos. This is clear word.   The problem with understanding is not  due to the ambiguity of the scripture.   The problem with not understanding is due  to the willful rejection of the sinful soul   for which every sinner is morally culpable.  The fault, listen, is not with God's word. It's not going to work for the sinner to show up  before God someday and say, "I I really I wanted   to understand it. I just didn't get it." The  sinner gets it. And then you saw with Felix, a man   who is a wicked gentile who is literally brought  to the point of sheer terror because he is so   convicted by the law and the conscience that's in  his own heart under the preaching of righteousness   and judgment by the apostle Paul as he endeavors  to lead him to faith in Christ. Scripture is plain   enough to make the sinner responsible, inexcusably  responsible. Well, that is why Hebrews 10 says,  

"The more you know about the gospel, the worse  your punishment is going to be. Of how much   sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who's  trotten underfoot the blood of the covenant and   counted an unholy thing." Then the if you know the  full story of the gospel, which is comprehensible,   which is understandable, and you reject  that, there is a greater condemnation.   The sinner's problem is not that the message is  muddled, that God mumbled. That's not the problem.   Here's the problem. John 3 verse 19, here's the  divine judgment. This is the verdict God gives.   This is the judgment that the light has come into  the world. Okay? What does the light symbolize?   Clarity, understanding, truth. The light  has come into the world. Here's the problem.   Men made a choice. They loved the  darkness rather than the light   because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does  evil hates the light. Doesn't come to the light.   For fear that his deeds will be exposed. He  that practices truth comes to the light. So   here's the problem. The light shines.  In fact, John 1:9 says, "Christ is the   light that lights every man that comes into the  world." The light shines. Men love the darkness.   It is even light to those who hate it. It  is even light to those who run from it.

Now, I understand the work of the  Holy Spirit brings about salvation.   All I'm talking about is the fact that the law,  judgment, righteousness, sin, that's clear.   And that's clear in the heart even with those  who do not have the scripture or the written   law. Romans 2 says and the gospel that's  clear. The story is clear. It is perceivable. And the problem is man's love of the darkness.  The message is not ambiguous. People don't   reject it because they can't figure it out. They  frankly reject it because they can figure it out. Scripture is clear because God intended it to be  clear so as to hold people accountable and guilty   before God. Another way to look at it would be 1  Corinthians 16:22. If any man love not the Lord   Jesus Christ, let him be damned. It's clear that  you better love the Lord Jesus Christ. That's not   hard to figure out. And the consequences of not  doing that are not hard to figure out either.

And when you look at the teaching  of Jesus on this issue of clarity,   when you look at his conversations with  people and his disputes with people,   in all of the conversations of Jesus,  and we've been through all of them   in our studies of the gospels through the  years, he never responds to anybody's question about any of the divine revelation. when they  come and ask him questions about things related   to divine revelation and divine will and God's  intent so forth. Never does Jesus say, "Well,   I understand the Old Testament is really  unclear." He never says that. Never.   He is speaking to first century people who  are a thousand years removed from David. 1,500 years removed from Moses and  about 2,000 years removed from Abraham.

But he still assumes that such people are able  to read and rightly understand the scripture. He doesn't say to people, I understand how your  problem arose. H the Bible's really an old book.   Wow, it's it's a couple thousand  years old, that stuff about Abraham.   Such a different world. How could  you be expected to understand that?   He never says that. Whether he's talking to  scholars, rabbis, or untrained common people,   he says this to them. Have you not read? Have  you not read? Matthew 12:3, Matthew 12:5,   Matthew 19:14, Matthew 22:31. Have you never read  the scriptures? Haven't you read? He even said   you you're wrong because you know neither the  scriptures nor the power of God. Matthew 22:29.   And in every case, that's an indictment. You ought  to know. You ought to know. It's there. Haven't   you read it? The assumption is that if you read  it, you would understand it. This is not mystery.   This is not hidden truth. The the rabbis got  all caught up in that. Not any scripture in   the Bible anywhere is intended to be a mystery   only to be unfolded by certain Gnostics  who have some secret elevated knowledge.

Old Testament scripture is  made fully clear in the New.   And we can't understand all of it  without the new. As first Peter says,   the prophets that wrote what they wrote looked  into the scriptures they wrote to see what   person and what time these things would be  fulfilled. Obviously, not the whole story   is there in the Old Testament. But what is  there is comprehensible and understandable. And then when you come into the New Testament, the  epistles are written. And I I think sometimes we   think that the New Testament was written for  seminary professors. It wasn't. In fact, um   seminary professors are a dangerous lot to turn  the New Testament over to. Not ours, but most   most of the New Testament epistles are  not written to church leaders even.   They're not written to pastors. Timothy and Titus,  yes, but the rest, they aren't written to pastors.   They aren't written to scholars. How about  this? To the church of God which is at Corinth.   How about this? To the churches of Galatia. To all  the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi.   All the saints. And so it goes. The  assumption is this is for everybody   and everybody needs to read this and  in reading it they will understand it.

The book of Romans, which seems to  some people to be so very complex,   is addressed to all who are beloved of God in Rome  called saints. That was mostly Gentiles who had no   knowledge of the Old Testament at all. When uh  Paul closes out the book of Colossians, which is   that's a pretty weighty book,  isn't it? the book of Colossians.   He says this, "When this letter has been read  among you after you've read it there in Colossae,   send it over and have it read in  the church of the Leodiceans."   And then, by the way, I wrote a letter  to the Leodiceans. Make sure they send   you that letter and you read it to the  Colossians. These letters were written to   plain old ordinary first generation  believers and they were understandable. You know, I I don't think the New  Testament is that hard to understand.   I think part of the problem is we have  so much bad interpretation over the last   2,000 years to muck up the  waters of what is pretty clear.

The first century Christians understood it and  they were largely Gentiles. They had no previous   background in Christianity. They didn't come  out of a Christian culture, Christian society.   They had no prior understanding of Israel, no  prior understanding of the Old Testament, the   history of Israel, divine revelation in the Old  Testament. And yet the New Testament writers show   absolutely no hesitancy in expecting the gentile  Christians to be able to read the Old Testament or   a New Testament letter in their own language and  get it. Think about the argument in Romans 4.   Paul's writing to Romans and their Gentiles and  he makes this case in the fourth chapter about   Abraham 2,000 years ago. The whole  fourth chapter is a critical illustration   of the reality of justification by faith  alone as illustrated in the life of Abraham.

The expectation was that they would  fully understand it, fully grasp it.   Paul writes to the Corinthians, and we all  know what the Corinthians came out of, right?   In the 10th chapter of First Corinthians, was  reading it just today. And he says, "Do you   remember the story of the Exodus?" And he goes  all the way back to Moses 1500 years before. And   you remember what happened to those people in the  Exodus who decided to get a little overconfident   and start to live on the edge of their liberty.  You know what happened to them? They fell into   idolatry. They fell into immorality. They fell  into grumbling and complaining. They even fell   into testing God. And guess what? They died.  3,000 of them, 23,000 of them, 70,000 of them. And these things, he says, have  happened as examples unto us.   You can understand that. That's  not difficult to understand. Look, it is not arrogant to say you know  what the Bible means. It is not arrogant.

It is to be expected to know what the Bible means.  Does that mean we can understand absolutely every   nuance, every tiny detail, every interpretation  of of every obscure aspect of scripture? No.   No. Even Peter said there were things about  Paul that are hard to understand. Remember that?   Peter said there's some things Paul wrote that are  really hard to understand. And I will agree with   you. There are some things hard to understand,  but we know what those things are that are hard to   understand. And I'm not talking about the things  that that that are impossible to understand.   That's another category like the Trinity. You  have to stop at some point and leave it alone   because it's you're not going to help yourself if  you just keep chasing that inconceivable reality.   But but it is true that there are some things  that that are hard for us to fully understand.   But please do not connect conviction about a  true interpretation of scripture with arrogance.   And do not connect uncertainty  with humility. That is ridiculous.   We need humility where we need humility. But we  don't need some kind of false humility that says,   "I'm so humble. I I don't I would never say what's  true about the Bible." That's not humility. That's   just stupidity. Actually, to deny the clarity  and certainty of scripture is not humility.   It is arrogance of the worst kind. It  is a kind of blasphemy that accuses God   of having the inability to communicate what he  wanted to say in a way that could be understood.  

Look, God holds people accountable with regard  to their eternal destiny for their understanding   of his revelation both in nature and in scripture.  Is God unfair? Is this so uh obscure and ambiguous   a revelation that God is unfair in holding men  accountable for understanding it and rejecting it?   I don't think so. Scripture does have  its heights and depths of truth. I agree.   There are things in the scripture that my mind  can grasp as to the facts but not the reality,   the full reality of it. There are some things in  the scripture that we can't always be sure about.   I remember many years ago I preached  a sermon on a Sunday night many many   years ago when we first came to grace  on why the antichrist will be a Jew.   The next week I preach on why  the antichrist will be a gentile   because in the middle of the week I thought  that really wasn't right. So for a long time   we left both of them in there so you could take  your pick. Actually he might be a Jew, he might   be a gentile. There's some things that we don't  know until they come to pass. The prophetic things   and there are things in scripture that that  are hard to understand. But if you do your work   and you let the scripture be its own interpreter  and you bore down into the text of scripture,   you can come to understand with a measure of  clarity everything that God has revealed to us  

in some way. Look, I went through an exercise uh  when I went through the study Bible of having to   interact with every single verse on the pages of  scripture. Okay? Every single verse on the pages   of scripture. every verse, every phrase, every  paragraph. What does it mean? What does it say?   Where is it going? And obviously, there were some  things so obvious that I didn't write any notes   because it was apparent. There were other things  that I came to understand by my careful study   of the word of God. And the study that I did was  primarily within the context of scripture itself,   letting scripture interpret itself. Once you  put together some of the linguistic things,   getting to the original language and the  historical things, reconstructing the setting,   because whatever the Bible meant when it was  written is exactly what it means now. Okay?   You hear people say, "We got to bring  the Bible into modern times." No,   please don't do that. You can't bring the Bible  into modern times without tampering with it.   What you have to do is take the  modern reader into Bible times.   You got to go back because what it meant in its  context is what it still means. That is why,   and you know this if you're here at Grace Church,  every sermon is in some measure a history lesson.   Every time we go into a passage of scripture, we  wind up back somewhere other than where we are   because you have to reconstruct the  setting in order to get the meaning   in its original context. You know, sometimes  I kind of feel like I'm out there on my own  

because I'm saying things that others aren't  saying in this society, but I can always find   a whole long line of dead people who did say it.  And I can stand on the shoulders of those people. the those who who take a stand in the pulpit  today for the truth against the grain of this   kind of contemporary ambiguity. They might be uh  kind of out there on their own in today's climate,   but historically speaking, they're not on their  own. They're preaching what faithful men have   always preached. They're teaching what faithful  men have always taught. And there's a vast vast   array of men through all the generations  of the church who taught the same thing. [music]