About Scripture

For the next couple weeks I'll be posting some of my class work for you all to read. It's coming from summaries of sessions here at Ellerslie, but the content is such that it's beneficial regardless if you have heard the sessions or not. This week's entry is talking about scripture, the divinely inspired Word of God. All of scripture pertains to Jesus Christ. On the surface it may not appear to be so, but because of the many layers that scripture has, every page reflects the person and nature of Jesus. If we read the Bible as we would any other book, we will only see the obvious facts. But if we humble ourselves before the Spirit of God and ask for spiritual understanding, the Holy Spirit will give us spiritual eyes so that we may troll the depths of scripture. Why? So that we may know the goodness and riches that are in the person of Jesus Christ.

Many people view the Bible as a book of good moral teaching, historical stories, and ancient poetry, but Scripture is much more than that. The Word of God is more than the words of men, it is the divinely inspired account of God’s agenda of redemption on this earth through the person of Jesus Christ. From the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, all of scripture tells of the person and nature of God. The problem when the world looks at the Bible is that they only look at the text as a work of literature. They see words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar, logical thoughts, metaphors, stories, and characters, they can only see the superficial layer of Scripture. One of the things that the world cannot understand is that the Word of God has an infinite number of layers. We cannot find these layers on our own, only when the Spirit of God gives us spiritual eyes and understanding can we then troll the depths of Scripture. As we go deeper, we see more and more of Jesus and we see that He is the key to unlock the Scriptures. In Luke 24, Christ told His disciples“. . . O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Though Christ may not be explicitly mentioned, all of scripture pertains to His nature and person. As an example, there are multiple stories showing the battle between the Flesh and the Spirit. Esau vs. Jacob. Saul vs. David. Ishmael vs. Isaac. First born vs. second born. First Adam vs. second Adam. All of these reveal the war between the two Kingdoms of Flesh and Spirit and show us a picture of the spiritual realm. It shows us that we naturally desire the first born, which is the Flesh, and it is our natural default to have the Flesh controlling our lives. With the Flesh on the throne we are slaves to its sinful desires. And then one day something happens, the grace of God opens our eyes and we see the second born, which is the Spirit. Now the flesh is always at enmity with the Spirit and through the Flesh’s eyes the Spirit seems weak, strange, foolish, and unappealing. But once grace starts its work, we begin to esteem and long for the things of the spirit. We try to reach out for it and find out that the Flesh is fighting to remain in control and keep us from the Spirit. What is needed is for us to come to the end of ourselves and realize that the Flesh must go, but find out that we cannot get rid of it by ourselves. We need help to dethrone the Flesh. We need an Intercessor to fight for us, and that intercessor is Jesus Christ, He is the one who came to conquer the Flesh and give us new life, a life controlled by the Spirit. All of this is exemplified through stories from the Old Testament, explained in the New, but the key to it all is Jesus Christ.