Because the Word of God exposes Satan's lies, while replacing the
tyranny of sin with the light and hope of the gospel, the forces of
hell have long struggled to discredit the Bible, while trying to create
confusion as to what it says. Men have been forbidden to read it, told
that they would not understand it, and even put to death for teaching
it to their children. Cults seek to change it or replace it, while
pulpit traitors stoop to discredit it. Moreover, many are presently
enduring persecution because they believe what it says. Yet, in spite
of such unreasoning antagonism, the work of God goes on, and God
reveals Himself daily to those who acknowledge their sin and receive
His promise of forgiveness in Christ.
Of all attempts to discredit God's Word, one of the
most foolish is the claim that the Bible cannot be true because it
seems contradict itself. That claim is rooted in a faulty understanding
of truth, for truth, by its very nature, often seems to contradict
itself. In fact, the world around us is full of seeming contradictions.
Not because the truth actually does contradict itself, but because
man's puny mind is so limited in its perspective. For example, doesn't
the fact that a bird can fly seem to contradict the law of gravity? It
does on the surface! However, we do not think of that as a
contradiction because we understand the principles of aerodynamics that
enable the bird to defy gravity.
Another example can be found in the fact that heat
rises, yet ice forms on the top of a pond. Have you ever wondered why
the ice doesn't form on the bottom of a pond? Scientists still do not
fully understand it, yet if a pond did freeze from the bottom up all of
the fish would die.
Every school child has held the like poles of two
magnets together and marveled to discover that they push each other
apart. Yet, as adults we see nothing unusual in that because we have
been taught that like charges repel. Nevertheless, the nucleus of an
atom consists of positively charged particles all clustered together,
and no one really understands why those particles do not repel each
other. What we do know is that those two facts seem to contradict each
other.
Some experiments seem to prove that light is a wave,
while others seem to prove that it consists of particles. Which is
true? The results of those experiments seem to contradict each other.
However, we would be foolish to reject the facts because they seem
contradictory to our puny finite way of thinking. Instead, we
acknowledge that both facts are true, and conclude that light has the
characteristics of both a wave and a particle.
While I believe that I have made my point, let me
mention some other seeming contradictions in the world around us. First
of all, the fact that helium rises seems to contradict the law of
gravity. Likewise, the fact that the earth does not fall into the sun
also seems to defy the law of gravity. The fact that sunshine makes
grass grow appears to contradict the fact that it makes grass wither.
And, the fact that the Mississippi River flows north in places
contradicts the general rule that it flows south. Although you may have
never noticed these seeming contradictions, as with the alleged
contradictions in Scripture, the real test of wisdom lies in
understanding how those bits of truth fit together, and why no real
contradiction exists.
Since nature is full of facts that outwardly seem to
contradict, even though they do not, we can expect a book that contains
truth, rather than a man-made abstraction of the truth, to also contain
statements that seem contradictory to our puny finite minds. Yet, in
spite of some surface contradictions, there is no absolute proof that a
contradiction exists. Instead, various statements are simply being
interpreted to contradict each other, when they could be interpreted to
agree.
Consider for example the doctrine of the Trinity. On
the surface, the fact that only one God exists seems to contradict the
fact that Father, Son and Holy Ghost are each God (Deuteronomy 6:4, 1
John 5:7). Nevertheless, that only seems like a contradiction if we
ignore the fact that God exists outside of our universe, and for that
reason is not limited by the paradigms that we regard as absolute. In
short, God is not like man because He is not a man, and His nature is
far different from man's nature.
The two great doctrines of Scripture, Law and
Gospel, seem on the surface to contradict one another. The law says,
"The soul that sinneth it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4) while the gospel
says, "whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John
11:26). Which statement is true? Are we going to die, or aren’t we?
Although those two statements may seem to contradict there is no real
contradiction, for one statement is directed at the unrepentant while
the other is God’s Word of comfort to those who repent. In short, such
statements were never intended to agree, yet they are perfectly true.
[For other examples compare Habakkuk 2:4 with 1 John 3:7, Romans 3:28
with Romans 2:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9,10, with 1 Corinthians 6:11,
Galatians 2:16 with James 2:14, and Matthew 19:17 with Acts 16:31.]
Even if such statements are interpreted to
contradict each other, because they could just as well be interpreted
to agree, the contradiction exists in the mind of man, not in the realm
of reality (See Proverbs 26:4,5).
One alleged contradiction has to do with the fact
that 1Chronicles 21:1 tells us that Satan provoked David to number the
people, while 2Samuel 24:1 says that God moved him to do it. However,
there is no reason why both statements could not be true. The fact that
God wants people to “be fruitful and multiply” does not contradict the
fact that Satan often gets them to do it in a sinful way. In fact,
Satan often gets people to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, or
with a wrong attitude. In addition, God sometimes uses what Satan does
to His own advantage. [For examples see 1 Samuel 16:14-16, Genesis
45:4-7, Romans 8:28 and Job 1:8-12]
Another alleged contradiction has to do with the
fact that 2Samuel 24:24 tells us that “David bought” Araunah’s (Oman’s)
threshing floor and oxen “for fifty shekels of silver,” while
1Chronicles 21:23 says that David “gave” six hundred shekels of gold
for the place. However, as with the previous example, there is no
reason why both of these statements could not be true. In the first
place, Araunah wanted to give the threshing floor to David. Therefore,
the fact that David persuaded him to accept the fifty shekels he had
with him does not mean that David could not have “given” him more
later. You will notice that 1Chronicles 21:23 does use the word “gave.”
In short, we know so very little, that it is shear arrogance for any
man to assume that the Bible has erred, especially when his entire
knowledge of what took place comes from the Bible to begin with.
Another alleged discrepancy has to do with the fact
that the sea (tank) that Solomon had prepared for the temple was ten
cubits “from brim to brim,” yet only thirty cubits around (2Chronicles
4:2). If we assume that the distance “from brim to brim” was the
diameter, then the distance around should have been at least thirty-one
cubits. But there is no reason for anyone to make that assumption. In
fact, we are told that the brim was like the “brim of a cup,” and the
kind of cups in use at that time had a flared brim (2Chronicles 4:5).
Therefore, as with the first two examples, there is no reason why both
statements can not be true.
Those who insist on interpreting passages of
Scripture to contradict each other, violate two key rules for
interpreting Scripture. The first of those rules is given in Isaiah
8:20, and tells us that any interpretation that contradicts what the
Bible says elsewhere is false. The second, found in John 8:31, makes it
clear that we are not to read unscriptural ideas into the text. In
fact, one evidence of the unity and inspiration of Scripture has to do
with the fact that, when these two rules are followed all that the
Bible says fits together perfectly to form a unified body of doctrine.
Before going on, let me reemphasize the fact that
just because two statements appear contradictory to our puny finite
minds, does not mean that they actually do contradict. On the surface,
the statement “Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980” seems to
contradict the statement “Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1984”
yet both statements are perfectly true. Not only that, but those who
insist that various statements of Scripture contradict each other are
being just as unreasonable as someone who insists that Ronald Reagan
could not have been elected in both 1980 and 1984. It is arrogant for
anyone to assume that they know more about the events recorded in
Scripture than the people who were actually living at the time — the
people who wrote the text.
While Satan can always find non-Christians to attack
the Bible, he knows that his attack will be more effective if he
utilizes traitors within the church. He also knows that traitors are
less likely to be exposed as such, if they draw attention away from
their own error by attacking another error. That is why he raised up
both Pharisees and Sadducees prior to Christ’s advent, and that is why
he is doing the same thing today. At the time of Christ, the Pharisees
were the legalists, while the Sadducees were the rationalists. Today,
the cults and Papists are the legalists, while the “liberals” are the
rationalists. Therefore, things have not really changed at all. Just as
the Sadducees condemned the Pharisees, the “liberals” condemn the
legalism and tyranny of the inquisition. Nevertheless, there is not a
dimes worth of difference between them, for the “liberals” and
inquisitors both try to keep people from reading and believing God’s
Word. [The inquisitors kept the Bible from the people, while even
sentencing men to death for teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer
in English. The “liberals” discredit the Bible by portraying it as a
book full of myths and errors, while mocking and discriminating against
those who believe it.]
[Note: Within these two groups, Satan also works to lead people away
from the truth of Scripture by leading them to look outside of
Scripture for spiritual truth, to tradition, the opinions of men, or
“new revelations.”]
While the scientific method utilizes both
observation and experimentation, the gradual development of one species
from another (evolution) has never been observed and cannot be verified
by any experiment. However, there are experiments that disprove certain
key aspects of evolution, such as the assumption that life
spontaneously arose from non-living matter.
For example, at one time it was believed that maggots spontaneously
generate in meat. In order to test that "hypothesis," Francesco Redi
(in 1660) devised an experiment, consisting of two jars that both
contained meat. One jar was open, the other jar had a piece of
cheesecloth stretched across the top. While maggots only appeared in
the open jar, flies were actually observed laying maggots on the
cheesecloth, thus proving that the maggots were not generated
spontaneously.
However, instead of completely rejecting the idea of spontaneous
generation, a number of “scientists” continued to believe that bacteria
would spontaneously generate in broth. In order to test that
hypothesis, Louis Pasteur (in 1859) devised an experiment utilizing
several long-necked flasks that contained beef broth. After the broth
was boiled, the necks on some of the flasks were heated and bent in an
s-curve. As predicted, bacteria only infested the broth that was in
straight-necked flasks. When it entered the flasks with curved necks,
it wound up sticking to the side of the neck, and never reached the
broth.
Although such experiments, coupled with the
invention of a dust-free box at the end of the nineteenth-century,
convinced the scientific community that life does not come from
non-life; those who have made evolution their religion ignore the
scientific evidence, preferring to believe that once upon a time, long
long ago, a teeny weeny bit of matter did come to life, and that all
other living things have evolved from it.
AN EXPERIMENT
At the time Darwin wrote his book, people imagined
that one-celled life forms were very simple in their makeup, mere blobs
of matter that could easily slosh together by chance. However, we now
know that that is not the case at all. In fact, we now know that a
single cell is as complex as the entire human body was thought to be in
Darwin's time. There are one-celled plants that have a little tail
which they use to swim around, and an eye-spot that lets them know
which direction the light is in. Such creatures could hardly slosh
together by chance. However, in order to demonstrate how silly it is to
believe that such life forms could come together by chance, I would
like to propose the following experiment. We will take a single cell,
break it down into its component parts, and then wait and see if the
parts come together again.
Since a common chicken egg consists of only one cell
(an egg cell), it would be convenient to start with an egg. We can then
divide that egg into its component parts by placing it into a blender.
Once that has been done, we will have all of the ingredients needed to
form a single cell. If evolution is true those ingredients should come
back together to form an egg. However, if evolution is not true,
instead of coming back together, time and chance should cause those
ingredients to break down and decay even further. That being the case,
how long do you think it will take for the parts of that egg to come
back together? One hour? One year? How long? If those ingredients will
never recombine to form an egg, isn't it absurd to believe that
nonliving ingredients could come together to form a single cell?
[NOTE: A hen’s egg is much larger than other single cells because it
contains a great deal of stored food. In fact the most complex part of
an egg is the part you cannot see, the part that could eventually grow
into a chicken. That is why Ripley's "Believe It or Not" lists the
Ostrich egg as the largest single cell.]
While evolutionists make a lot of empty boasts about
the fossil record, claiming that extinct life forms have evolved into
something else, they conveniently fail to mention the fact that about
forty percent of all fossil life forms are not extinct. Furthermore,
those that are not extinct have not evolved into anything else, thus
proving that life is not evolving.
The silliness really gets out of hand when grown men
attempt to apply the scientific method to a discipline such as history.
Since science deals with both observation and experiments that are
repeatable, while past history can be neither observed nor repeated;
history is outside of the realm of science. For example, while the
historical evidence that Henry the eighth was king of England in 1530
is incontestable, there is no experiment that can prove he was king at
that time. The same holds true for any historical event. Yet, when
rationalists examine the books of Moses, they ignore the historical
evidence as to the authorship of those books, while coming up with
fanciful “theories” as to their authorship. The problem with that
approach lies in the fact that such “theories” are not scientific
because they cannot be tested experimentally. And, because they are not
scientific, they are more akin to childish conjecture than responsible
scholarship.
For example, because some parts of the Pentateuch
usually refer to God as “Elohim,” while other parts usually refer to
Him as “Jehovah,” somebody came up with the idea that there were
originally two separate religious groups, one worshipping “Elohim” and
the other worshipping “Jehovah.” However, not only is there is not one
scrap of evidence that such groups ever existed, but there is much
historical evidence to the contrary. Therefore, even though the
advocates of that “theory” claim to be using their reason, they are
actually throwing it out the window (Luke 1:51).
I might also add, that since reason itself tells us that every design
has a designer, it is unreasonable for anyone to assume that the One
who designed the universe and all that is in it, setting the laws of
nature into motion, cannot override those laws in order to work a
miracle.
There is not one scrap of hard, objective evidence
that the Bible has ever contradicted itself. Those who insist that it
has are reasoning from a faulty concept of knowledge (epistemology),
for they assume that whenever two statements appear to contradict each
other, they actually do contradict, and I have shown that assumption to
be false.
For further reading I recommend, "Evidence That
Demands A Verdict" by Josh McDowell.