In our current series we’ve been going through an old list of questions and answers contained in the Westminster Larger Catechism published in 1648. This week I want to start looking at how the Bible shows itself to be the word of God.

Firstly we can see that the Bible is the word of God by its majesty. The Psalmist says that God’s word is beyond perfection: ‘To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless’ (Psalm 119:96). And anyone who has examined the Bible carefully can see how majestic it is, even when taken from a strictly literary point of view. There is nothing like the Bible known to man.

Secondly we can see that the Bible is the word of God from its purity. The Psalmist says: ‘And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times’ (Psalm 12:6). The Bible is without error which means it must be written by God for we all know that to err is human.

Thirdly we can see that the Bible is the word of God because of its connectedness in all its parts. A big book written by many different authors over a long period of time would have disagreements between those authors. But the Bible doesn’t. Instead it is in agreement with itself, even when things are predicted in the future. Paul says when he is on trial that he is teaching nothing that conflicts with the Scriptures: ‘I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen-that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles’ (Acts 26:22-23). So we see that the Bible must be a divinely inspired book. It is hard to get one author to agree with what he has written ten years earlier, let alone try to get many authors to agree with each other over thousands of years. But in the Bible we see a book written by one divine author who never makes mistakes.

Next week we’ll look at some more reasons why the Bible is evidently the word of God. But for now, have you recognised that the Bible is the word of God because it is so majestic, so pure and so connected together that it must have been written by God himself?

Joel Radford.