"Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things."
(1 Peter 1:10-12 NIV)
The Bible is a history book, which tells us of our need of salvation and a Saviour. It is full of prophecy that culminates in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. No other religion has the amount of prophecy that our Scriptures have. The writers and prophets in the Bible did not write just their own ideas, but they were divinely inspired by God through the Spirit and so essentially, it is God who wrote the Bible. The Bible, therefore, is not speculation and it's main theme is grace - the story of us, ill-deserving sinners, pursued and saved by God. This also makes the most perfect thing on this earth the Bible.
There are only three things that the Bible is about:
1. Salvation
2. by Grace
3. through the suffering and glory of Jesus
This is where the doctrine of Verbal Plenary Inerrancy comes in. This is the doctrine that means that you have to take the whole Bible, all it says and all the words and ideas, at it's word. There is not one part of the Bible that can be left out or thought to be useless. Some might think that the Old Testament is obsolete and useless, but we have to remember that when Jesus preached to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, the only Bible there was was the Old Testament and he showed them how it all spoke about his birth, death, resurrection and how God would save his people. Moreover, in this passage, Peter is referring to the Old Testament and saying that it was written by God because no-one other than God could know the future and bring it to pass.
Following is the summary of some of the prophecies about Jesus:
700 BC: Isaiah 7:14
The Lord will give you a sign - a pregnant virgin, who will give birth to a son.
700 BC: Micah 5:2
God will be born in Bethlehem, an inconsequential town, as a baby.
400 BC: Malachi 3:1
Before he comes, he will send a messenger - this we now know was John the Baptist. Also, God is coming to his temple, therefore, it had to have been before 70 AD when the temple was destroyed, which implies he has already come.
700 BC: Isaiah 35:5-6
God on earth would perform many miracles including healing the blind, deaf and lame.
500 BC: Zechariah 11:12-13
Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver and this betrayer would throw the money back into a specific part of the temple, namely where the potter was.
1000 BC: Psalm 22:16
A band of men would surround Jesus and crucify him by piercing his hand is feet. This is one of the more astounding prophecies because crucifixion was not invented until a few hundred years later.
700 BC: Isaiah 53:6-11
The end of Isaiah 52 and the whole of Isaiah 53 is packed full of messianic prophecies. The suffering servant would come, be sinless, he will bear all our sins, we have all wandered away from God, he would be buried in a rich man's tomb, and then he would be resurrected and give salvation to his people. If this isn't talking about Jesus, who does it describe?
Religious people tend to moralise the Bible, looking at it as a book full of inspiring stories that will enlighten us, but this takes us away from the hero of the Bible - Jesus! The Bible is not just information, it is about transformation. Informing ourselves and being intelligent is good, but the whole point of the Bible is telling us about Jesus and enabling us to love him. The Bible is all about Jesus and it is only about Jesus.
To believe in the Bible requires faith and this comes from God. A by-product of faith is holiness. So by faith, we will love him more and by loving him more, we will become more like him, therefore, we will be holy.
Another point is that the Old Testament was written by prophets, but the New Testament was written by eye-witnesses. The prophets were told about what the apostles saw and experienced. The New Testament is all about eye-witness accounts and so it was not made up. Peter says in 2 Peter 1:16-18 that what they wrote was not "cleverly invented stories". Along with this verse, there are other verses in the New Testament which back up the fact that the Bible was not made up - 2 Timothy 3:16 (scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, training and correcting), 2 Peter 1:20-21 (the prophet's were inspired and didn't make it up) and in 2 Peter 3:15-16 (Peter refers to Paul's letters as Scripture). Not accepting the truth of the Bible reveals a hardness of heart.
Finally, there are two ways to view Scripture:
1. You have authority over it and so you can pick and choose what you believe.
2. You are under the authority of Scripture and so you change your mind, repent and submit to it in humility.
Peter ends this section by saying that all this is so wonderful that even the angels long to look into it. Fallen angels have no chance of repentance, but we fallen humans have a chance to repent and be saved because of Jesus. They have no hope, but we have hope in Jesus. He has given us a way out of this life of sin and a way into an eternity in heaven with him. :)
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