If It's Just a Good Book, Then It's Not God's Book
| by | Eric Lyons, M.Min. |
Some time ago, I read an article by a college professor who stated that “the best thing that could happen to the New Testament has happened to it.... Within the University, at least, the Bible has become simply another ‘great book.’” Many in the world today consider the Bible to be a “good book” containing moral teachings written by noble men, yet reject the idea that the Bible was “given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Many college professors today teach that the Bible simply is a “good book” that is no more inspired than Homer’s Odyssey or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It is the mere result of natural genius characteristic of men of unusual ability.
Common sense, however, compels the honest person to reject such illogical notions. If the Bible is a “great book,” but not inspired of God, it makes either liars or lunatics of the biblical writers, who claimed the Holy Spirit as the ultimate source of their writings. The honest person surely will admit that the Bible—a book that has been studied and examined more than any other book in human history—definitely is not a product of insane men. Its unity, fulfilled prophecy, historical accuracy, and scientific foreknowledge testify to an intelligent source. Thus, the Bible was written either by the honest or the dishonest. Logically, no other choices exist.
Moses either lied or was truthful when he recorded: “And God spoke all these words, saying: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me’” (Exodus 20:1-3, emp. added). Moses claimed such inspiration literally hundreds of times. Was he a liar, or did he tell the truth? In the New Testament, Peter wrote that “prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21, emp. added). Did Peter tell the truth, or was he lying? This same question can be asked of all the writers of the Bible who claimed inspiration. To say that the Bible is simply a “great book” written by “good men” makes liars of the biblical writers who repeatedly claimed that God was the ultimate source of their documents (cf. 2 Samuel 23:2; Acts 1:16).
The Bible is either a product of God or a product of liars. There are no other options. If these men were liars, then they “insanely” pronounced their own destruction, for they claimed that lying was wrong and that all impenitent liars would burn in hell (cf. Exodus 20:16; Colossians 3:9; Revelation 21:8). If these men were liars, it leaves as inexplicable the mystery of why modern man, with all his accumulated learning, has not been able to produce a comparable book to make the Bible obsolete. Finally, if these men were compulsive liars who filled an alleged historical work with thousands of lies, pray tell, why do so many unbelievers still call it a “great book”? Non-Christians who profess an admiration for the Bible should consider the foolishness of their position.