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“Bible Authority Must Be Respected”
BIBLE AUTHORITY MUST BE RESPECTED
Marvin L. Weir
The great battle that is being fought today is over the authority of the Bible. Bible authority must be understood, taught, and put into practice if we are to please the Lord.
God is the Creator and man is the created. The created is never greater than the Creator. Isaiah noted that man was created to glorify God (Isa. 43:7). The apostle Paul admonishes, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). One cannot glorify God by refusing to be guided by a “thus saith the Lord.”
Legion are the number of folks today who refuse to abide by Biblical authority because they desire to glorify themselves! So many people prefer to do what they want to do, and they fully intend to do it their way. This type of attitude spawns religious division and promotes denominationalism. It also produces liberalism and modernism within the Lord’s church.
The Bible plea is that “...ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). The Holy Spirit instructed the Colossian brethren in saying, “...whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Col. 3:17). Doing something in the name of Christ Jesus is doing what He has authorized us to do. All unscriptural religious division today is the direct result of people refusing to abide by the authority of the Scriptures.
God’s law has been absolute and binding in every dispensation of time. Those in denominations and liberal members of the Lord’s church absolutely abhor the principles taught in the Old Testament regarding Bible authority. They have nothing but disdain for Bible examples that clearly show the wrath of God upon those who reject and spurn a “thus saith the Lord.”
Since God is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34), we know He communicated with both Cain and Abel regarding an offering acceptable unto Him. God has respect for Abel’s offering, “but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect” (Gen. 4:4-5). Man has never been given permission to deviate from what God has specified! God expected folks to be submissive and obedient to His will under the Patriarchal dispensation.
The Mosaical dispensation reveals to us the story of Nadab and Abihu. The liberals and progressives detest such an incident because it vividly reveals that God will not approve that which has not been authorized. The Scriptures read, “And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD” (Lev. 10:1-2). There is no getting around the fact that Nadab and Abihu were killed because they took the liberty to do that which God “had not commanded them.”
God’s will is still to be honored and respected in the Christian age. It is not true that God’s authority was needed under the Patriarchal and Mosaical dispensations but is optional or unnecessary under the New Covenant. Jesus makes it clear that what we say must agree with what He demands that we do if we are going to be with Him in Heaven. The Lord warned, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). Again, the Master admonished, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say” (Luke 6:46)? Remember that the words of the apostle Paul in Colossians 3:17 were “whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
If we abide by the teaching of Christ, it does not allow us hear and do not! James clearly states that we are to be “...doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). Jesus teaches that the “wise man” who hears His word and respects and follows it will build upon the “rock,” but that the “foolish man” who hears and does not abide by His word will choose to build upon the “sand” (Matt. 7:24-27). It is said of the one who built upon the sand and refused to abide by a “thus saith the Lord” — “and great was the fall it.”
The standard of authority that we are to abide by is not majority rule (Matt. 7:13-14; Exodus 23:2;) nor is it the Pope of Roman Catholicism. Christ is the head of His church which is His body (Eph. 1:22-23), and He has been given all authority “in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18). This leaves no authority for the Pope nor any other man, woman, or creed. As the Scriptures teach “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psa. 119:89).
One who does not abide by the teaching of Christ and respect His authority does not love the Father or the Son. John makes this clear in stating, “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9). Neither can one fellowship, aid, support, or encourage the person who refuses to abide in the teaching of Christ without becoming a partaker of his evil works (2 John 10)!
All people will be judged by the Word of God — not the word of man. Jesus teaches, “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). It is true that Christ has become “unto all them that obey him the author of eternal salvation” (Heb. 5:9).
The great battle that is being fought today is over the authority of the Bible. Bible authority must be understood, taught, and put into practice if we are to please the Lord. Bible authority is not full of comfort for those who insist upon worshiping and living as they please, but for those who want to go Heaven, it is their refuge and source of strength. May we all choose to respect Bible authority!
