Satan, on the other hand, cannot use the method of open investigation and inquiry. He would lose his case if he did. He doesn’t dare invite our questions, for the truth is not with him. And so throughout history he has used religion to silence inquiry. And then diabolically, he calls that willingness to believe without inquiry faith. Instead of evidence and truth, he substitutes force, fear, and ignorance. On top of that he piles miracles, excitement, feelings, pomp, majesty, ceremony, and mystery. And on top of all that he piles claim upon claim. All these things we must beware lest we be deceived. Let’s not underestimate his cunning. He deceived one third of the brilliant angels.

Of course, if we read the sixty-six books through, we will realize how often we have been warned to beware of such things. Jesus Himself warns specifically of Satan’s methods, in the familiar words of Matthew 24:24:

If anyone says to you then, “Look, here is Christ!” or “There He is!” don’t believe it. False Christs and false prophets are going to appear and will produce great signs and wonders to mislead, if it were possible, even God’s own people (Phillips)!

Also a little earlier in the same chapter, in Matthew 24:4-5, Jesus says:

“Watch out, and do not let anyone fool you. Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will fool many people” (GNB).

The most unusual Bible in my whole collection is The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as Revised and Corrected by the Spirits. It is the Spiritists’ Bible. It came out in 1861. What is so remarkable about it is that it thoroughly rewrites the New Testament in support of Spiritism. In the Introduction, it claims that Jesus came down from heaven, medium that He was, and the apostles came down with Him, and they corrected all the errors in the New Testament. And then it says, “Dear Reader, trust in God who made all things after the counsel of His own will. The Holy Spirits feel much interest in this work and the spirits who corrected this New Testament desire that the world will receive this correction as coming from them directed by God Himself, which is true. Signed, Jesus the Christ.” A diabolical fraud! But look at the claim. Anybody can make claims.

John warns concerning the use of miracles to deceive. Look at Revelation 13:13-14:

This second beast performed great miracles; it made fire come down out of heaven to earth in the sight of everyone. And it deceived all the people living on earth by means of the miracles which it was allowed to perform (GNB).

Speaking of that last period of human history, Paul gives the same type of warning in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10:

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth. . . (NIV).

They refuse the very thing God designed to protect them from deception. But most seriously of all, Paul warns that professed messengers of God will also be engaged in this work of deception.

God’s messengers? They are counterfeits of the real thing, dishonest practitioners masquerading as the messengers of Christ. Nor do their tactics surprise me when I consider how Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is only to be expected that his angels will have the appearance of ministers of righteousness (2 Cor 11:13-15, Phillips).

Paul’s reference to Satan suggests that the devil is still pretending to be Lucifer, the bearer of light and truth. This reminds us of Christ’s most serious words, spoken to a group of Sabbath-keeping, tithe-paying Bible teachers in His day. These Bible teachers had just denounced Jesus’ picture of His Father as satanic. Think of it! Sabbath-keepers, tithe-payers and Bible teachers were telling Christ He had a devil. And He turned to them and uttered those extraordinary words in John 8:44-45. And you can be sure there were tears in His voice when He said this:

The father whose sons you are is the devil, and you are bent on carrying out the wishes of your father. He proved himself a murderer at the very beginning, and did not loyally stand by the truth; in fact, there is no spark of truth in him. Whenever he gives utterance to his falsehood, then he gives expression to his real character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. I, on the contrary, speak the truth, and therefore you do not believe me (Kleist and Lilly).

Paul mentions forged letters being circulated, pretending to be from him and causing early Christians much distress. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3:

“We ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us. . . . Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way” (NIV).

From that time on Paul signed his epistles with greater care.

John also warns of false teachers who will arise, claiming to have the Holy Spirit, and yet their claim is a fraud. 1 John 4:1-2:

“My dear friends, do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere” (GNB).

Claims alone are no proof of the Spirit, the spirit a teacher carries needs to be tested. Paul surely agrees that we should test everything before believing. That familiar text is in 1 Thessalonians 5:21: “Test everything. Hold on to the good” (NIV). God is not afraid to be tested. That’s what is so believable about God. The reason He is not afraid to be examined is that the truth and evidence are on His side.

The question before us, therefore, is about authority. When we know how God exercises His authority and power, we will be better able to recognize Satan’s counterfeit. What does God want of us? Has He ever said to His children, “You either love me or I’ll have to kill you!” Did He ever say that? What about Satan’s charges that God is arbitrary, vengeful, and severe? Has God convincingly answered those accusations? How do we know if we are being told the truth? How does God seek to convince us of the rightness of His cause? In comparison, how does Satan seek to convince us of the rightness of his cause? Which method do we prefer? Which method do we find more convincing and more trustworthy? Under whose government would we rather live?

How do we settle these questions? Should we pick up our Bibles and begin to read God’s claims about Himself? If we do that, we will find, almost on page one, God’s statement, “Don’t do that! It isn’t safe. Anyone can make mere claims” (based on Gen 3:11 and the lessons found in the whole story). When God himself warns me not to accept mere claims, my trust in Him is immediately increased. In Deuteronomy 13 and 1 Kings 13 there were prophets who claimed to be prophets but who were lying. There were people who performed miracles, but at the same time they were not telling the truth. There are many other warnings in the Bible—remember the four hundred and fifty lying prophets of King Ahab (1 Kings 18:19, 22), and the lying prophets in the days of Jeremiah (particularly chapters 26-29). God has been very candid in warning us, “Don’t accept mere claims.” What we need is evidence and demonstration.

So when God was accused of being unworthy of the trust of His family, He humbly took his case into court (Rom 3:4). This is amazing! He’s the Infinite One. Yet He invites His children to investigate and to discover to their own satisfaction whether God is worthy of their trust. Imagine the Infinite One submitting His character and government to the scrutiny of His own creatures. Does that say something to us about God? Paul says in Romans, “God may you win your case when you take it into court” (based on Romans 3:4).

Has God already won his case? Of course! Throughout the rest of the universe. It is only down here that some of us are not too sure. He didn’t win His case by bribing the judge, or by intimidating the jury, or by hiding some of the evidence. He won His case because the evidence was on His side. He proved to the satisfaction of the whole onlooking universe that what He said about Himself was true. What evidence did He offer? The most costly and convincing evidence the universe will ever see or ever need. That will be the subject of the next chapter.

Some of us believe that the understanding of how God exercises his authority and power is the most important of all Christian beliefs. Every other Christian doctrine derives its importance, and even its meaning, from this essential truth about our God. To some of us, the most important information we have to share with our fellow human beings around this planet is the truth about the way God runs His universe and what He wants of His children. We need to share this more urgently than ever before as we face the closing events of human history. Before Christ returns, the Bible describes a time of confusion and deception such as the world has never seen.

This time of confusion will lead up to Satan’s final attempt to win the whole world to worship and trust him. Revelation thirteen says that when Satan’s campaign is over, the whole world will be worshipping him, except those few who have not been deceived (Rev 13:8). So it should not surprise us, if we are as near the end as we believe we are, that we find ourselves surrounded on all sides by conflicting claims to religious authority. Certainly the development of modern media has made us more aware of this than ever before. As we see and listen to all these conflicting claims, notice how often they are supported by position, power, miracles, or claims of special communications from the Lord.

How Satan would enjoy it if he could turn God’s friends on this planet against their Heavenly Father! Or even more seriously, how he would love to deceive God’s professing, commandment-keeping people. Such a deception within the “remnant” itself would be the most destructive of all. No wonder Paul said in Ephesians 4 that we should grow up and not be so easily swayed to and fro by every wind of doctrine (4:14). Again in Hebrews 5 he says we should grow up and have our faculties trained to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong (5:14). These are two passages we will take a closer look at in another chapter. But the crucial question in this chapter is: How do we train our faculties by practice, so as not to be deceived by conflicting claims to religious authority, particularly the claims of the adversary? And at the same time, how can we become more sensitive to the voice of true authority?

Lou: Here’s a question that speaks poignantly to where many of us hurt and wonder. “’The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.’ I have a cousin, age thirty years, who has a malignant brain tumor; and he is awaiting death. There is nothing medically that can be done for him. Everyone tells him, ‘God’s will be done.’ Now the question is, does God will for one to die? I don’t think so. I believe that sin has contaminated the world and as a result we have disease and death. So please elaborate on this concept, and what’s more, what do you say to such a person? How do you talk about God’s will?”

Graham: That’s too sad to give a snap answer to. I think at times like that we draw from everything we’ve learned and experienced about God through the years. One needs to fall back on the things one is sure of. One thing I am sure of, God wants us to be well. He created us perfect. Disorder, disease–these are not of His doing. These are all part of being caught up in the consequences of this revolt. But we also know that God could heal, that’s true. And if He doesn’t seem to be healing at this time, we might wonder why. And it’s OK to wonder why. There is abundant evidence in Scripture that God is not offended when we ask why, not for a moment!
But why is God willing for this person to die? Is He a destructive God? An experience like this really tests the kind of person we believe our God to be. But even when things are not too clear, if one has learned that prayer is conversation with God as with a friend, then those who are wondering feel perfectly free to kneel down and really talk to God about this. We can say, “God, this is not clear. It looks as if You are like this, but that’s the devil’s picture of You.” Or “It looks as if You are like that. You couldn’t be, could You? Or are You?” God would not be offended by such a question. Actually, He honors such questions. There is great peace that comes from realizing we have a God toward whom we can direct such questions, even in times of great agony. The short answer to this question is this: Learn the good news about God. And there’s one more thing I am sure of, if the Lord were visibly present in your moment of suffering, how sympathetic He would be! More than anything else He would want to clear up the impression that He is the cause of that suffering.

Lou: Here’s a related question: “Can you give a reason why a loving God would allow a good Christian woman to be murdered? She was a good help in her small Church. The last Sabbath of her life they had a consecration service at the church. She dedicated herself anew to God, and she was murdered that afternoon at her house. She was the treasurer, and she had money at her house, and apparently that was the reason that someone broke in and she was killed. The reason I know about this is that she was my sister.”

Graham: Again, happy is the person who knows God very well at a time like this. It doesn’t mean that we would know the specific answer to the situation. I don’t think Job ever found out why those awful things happened to him. All he knew was that his theologian friends were wrong. They came to Job and said, “You cannot be asking God about this.” Job was crying to God with intense feeling and saying, “God, how can You do this to me? I’ve been your good friend all this time, and now You won’t even speak to me. You won’t explain this.” And his friends kept repeating their legalistic explanations. None of their explanations were helpful. Finally Job said, “I wish you brethren would be quiet. I appreciate your coming, but you’re not helping me at all. If only I could talk to God, I’m sure I could clear this up” (Job 16:2; 31:35). Eventually the boldness of his inquiries reached such a level that those three men were worried that God would surely zap him on the spot for daring to inquire. Instead, God broke in and said, “Job, you have said of Me what is right” (based on Job 42:7).
So if a person is wrestling with a tragedy like this, we may not find out why. I’m sure we won’t find out the answer to every unfair thing that happens on this planet during this emergency. But some things we know for sure; the kind of person God is, and His willingness to receive our questions. He welcomes us to lodge our inquiries with feeling, and hopefully we will trust Him enough to wait for the answer. And I’d like to think that that sister was such a saint you don’t need to worry about her. She will arise in the resurrection and say, “What am I doing here?” She will have no complaints. She’ll be looking for her sister.
In the next chapter we will deal with the whole question of authority, which is really the essence of the great controversy. The way God speaks to this is just magnificent. He is infinite in authority and power, but He would never think of intimidating or overwhelming us.

Lou: Was there not enough evidence in Old Testament times for people to recognize God’s true character, or did they have to wait for the New Testament in order to understand?

Graham: Oh, I like that question very much. When you read all the way through, the picture of God in the Old Testament is the same as in the New. It’s the same God, the same Spirit communicating, the same Christ leading them in the wilderness. What impresses me in the Old Testament is how well people did know Him. God’s best friends in the Bible are in the Old Testament. The man that Paul uses to suggest what God wants most in us was Abraham, in the Old Testament (Romans 4; Galatians 3). Moses is called a friend of God (Exod 33:11). And look at Job, Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah and Isaiah. Apparently the message in the Old Testament is clear enough for some people, at least, to get it. In fact, Jesus grew up with the Old Testament and learned the truth about His Father from it. So I think the Old Testament is magnificently clear but only when it is read as a whole. I find no break between the Old and the New, except that in the New Christ is here in human form to confirm everything that has been described and anticipated in the Old. Even His Sermon on the Mount is already in the Old Testament (see Exodus 20:17 and Psalm 51 as examples). So the Bible is a complete package, all sixty-six books.

Lou: Let’s take two or three questions that are slightly different. “You spoke about sanctification. What is this? If we sincerely accept Jesus as our Savior, how can we ever be lost? Once we are saved, aren’t we always saved?”

Graham: “Sanctification” is, of course, one of those heavy Latin terms. I prefer to use “set right” and “keep right,” rather than “justify” and “sanctify.” We can understand those words. Putting it in that way, one can be set right with God, and one can be kept right for quite a while, but one is still free to leave. And Lucifer proved that by leaving. He was right with God before he left. There was no rebellion in heaven at the begnning. And so a million years into eternity, we may have been right with God for a long time, but we are still free to go.
The once saved, always saved idea belongs to a very legal model. I’m paid up, and I’m still paid up, and I have a right to be there. I’d rather say that I’m only safe to have around if I’m willing to listen, to trust God, and to accept instruction. And I’ll always be free to turn into a rebel. That makes it even more wonderful that God’s children will choose to remain loyal. Then their loyalty means something. Their expression of love to God means something. They haven’t been reprogrammed. They haven’t been turned into robots. The price that God has had to pay to settle the questions indicates how absolutely opposed He is to programming us and making it impossible for us to go some other way. God took quite a risk, but evidently freedom means that much to God.

Lou: Graham, here are a couple of questions that are somewhat related. “If God is a God of love and acceptance, why then did He demand animal sacrifices? Couldn’t the children of Israel just have asked for forgiveness rather than going through that sacrificial ceremony?” And let me tie that together with another one. Someone writes about their daughters who are now eighteen and twenty-two. They have been vegetarians since they were young because they love animals too much to have them killed for their benefit. But they run into trouble when they go to the Old Testament, because there you have the sacrifices for God’s benefit. “We know it has something to do with the sacrifice of Jesus, but why does God have to be appeased by poor little animals dying?”

Graham: There’s a lot implied in there. But one thing is for sure, Who is the One who sees the little sparrow fall? I mean, if it upsets these daughters, how do you think it upsets the Lord? And yet He gave that whole sanctuary system. It must have been important for Him to do it. These questions are important enough that we have a whole chapter on what I call “God’s Emergency Measures.” Things like the sanctuary and the Flood were serious emergency measures because there was a serious emergency on this earth. We see God pointing to a larger picture in the prophets. “I don’t really want your sacrifices apart from the meaning. I hate them” (Amos 5:21-22; Hos 6:6).
Think of all the blood and all the suffering! God loves the animals. And yet to make a very important point, He asked Adam and Eve to kill that first lamb. So we need to consider carefully the meaning of these sacrifices. Because if we just learn about them and don’t think of the meaning, we are as ceremonial as the people in the Old Testament who missed the point. So we must ask all the way through, how could God do something which He Himself did not like? And yet it needed to be done, and we will revisit that in future chapters.
One more thing, I heard the word “appease” in one of those questions. Were these sacrifices to appease God in some way, to make Him more favorable toward us? One could get that impression from the word “propitiation” in some translations of Romans 3:25. The word “propitiation” suggests appeasement, a gift offered to change a god’s mind. But that’s not the word that’s there in the original. That’s a regrettable translation. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor 5:18). Nobody had to win Him to our side. So the implications of that are well worth some serious study, and in the chapters on “God’s Emergency Measures” (Chapter Eleven) and on why Jesus had to die (Chapter Eight), we will have an opportunity to deal with those thoroughly.

Lou: This next question is similar. “If God’s character is love (1 John 4:8) and God loves us so much (John 3:16), why was pain and death so prevalent in the Old and New Testaments? And is it God who will actually destroy man in the end? Or is it sin and Satan that causes destruction? If God does destroy, then is that contrary to His own Word?”

Graham: I too couldn’t live without an answer to those questions, and one should work on them. But I’m glad the Bible does not settle for just claims. “These questions you will find answered on page 721, lines one, two, three, four, five and six.” Those are just claims. It has actually cost a great deal to answer those questions.
Now on the violence in the Old Testament, we know we’re all caught up in the consequences of this war. We also bring a lot of this on ourselves, to be sure. God sometimes disciplines those He loves. And the devil is also at work. There are many causes of trouble and difficulty. We plan to look at them all. But I don’t expect a neat answer to a question like that.
The biggest question, however, may be, “Will God destroy us in the end?” If all God asks of us is love and trust, and if we don’t give it to Him, is He going to destroy us in the end? This would be like God saying, “You either love Me, or I’ll destroy you.” And if that’s the way He is, I cannot trust Him. I do not care to live with Him. I do not believe He’s that way; but it cost the death of Christ to prove it. So to answer that question we have to watch Jesus die. Did the Father destroy His Son? The cross is the central answer to all of this, and we will look deeply into that answer in Chapter Eight.

Lou: Let’s shift gears to a question about the Flood, which is still in a similar vein: “On the subject of the Flood, it is apparent that God didn’t do things right the first time. So He had to send a Flood and start all over again.” What would you do with that?

Graham: That question makes a lot of sense, since the text says, “It repented the Lord that He had made man. . . (Gen 6:6, KJV).” Or as some versions say, “He was sorry that He had made man” (RSV). As you go through the sixty-six, you run into several places where God is pictured as if He were not too aware of what is going on and certainly not having as much foreknowledge as we think. For example, when He comes to the Garden of Eden, He says “Where are you?” And Adam says, “We’re over here.” “Oh, thank you. I didn’t know” (based on Genesis 3:10-11). Another time He came to Abraham (before the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah) and said, “Abraham, I’ve come down to check out the reports I’ve received, to see if they are correct or not” (Gen 18:21). Now we’ve all assumed that God is getting very good reporting. Apparently not; He had to come down and say, “I’m checking this out Myself.”
There are many places in the Bible like that, where God talks in very human language. And so in this case with the Flood it grieved God that He had made man (Gen 6:6, NIV). My understanding would be that He foreknew all of this, and He had now come to the time when there were only eight people left on this planet with whom He could communicate. And the answers to the questions in the great controversy had not yet been given. So God, as it were, turns to the universe and says, “I’m really going to test your faith in Me. The next thing you see will stun you.” And He drowned all but eight to preserve the one remaining point of contact He had with the human race. It was the only way He could go on unfolding His plan.
I’m sure the devil cried, “Foul! I told you He’s that kind of a God. You either love Him or He’ll drown you, or He’ll burn you, or have you stoned, or swallow you up.” The risk God ran in arranging the Flood suggests just how important it was to do what He did. The risk was that great. Had He not done that, everything would have ended at that time. And the answers to the great questions had not yet been given. The Flood has to be put in the total setting that includes the cosmic perspective with the angels watching. God ran a great risk of being misunderstood at that time. But I believe it was all in His plan.

Lou: You say that everything would have ended at that point. Do you mean that the whole human race was so evil that it would self-destruct?

Graham: Well those eight that got on the boat weren’t that good, you remember. Ham wasn’t too virtuous, and his father hadn’t taken the temperance pledge yet. Those eight weren’t saved because they were obedient. I believe they were saved because they got on the boat. But we can’t compare that with the salvation at the end. It’s not quite the same. The Flood was an emergency measure. At the end, God will be determining who is safe to save.

In the original lecture series done in 1984 at the Loma Linda University Church, Graham Maxwell spoke for about a half hour each Friday night following by written questions and answers from Lou Venden and also from the audience. The next several posts contain questions and answers from the fifth presentation, “The Record of the Evidence.”

Lou: It seems that you are asking us to do a lot of thinking and studying. There’s a bumper sticker around which says, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it for me.” That sounds refreshingly simple. Why wouldn’t that be the appropriate way to go?
Graham: The difficulty is that people pick the passages from the Bible that they want to label in that way, and they don’t read all the others. For example, “Take the tithe and buy strong drink with it, and rejoice before the Lord” (Deut 14:24-26). God said it. Do you believe it? Or take another passage, “Give wine to the poor, that they may forget their misery” (Prov 31:6-7). Does that settle it for you? “God has said it. I believe it.” You really can’t do that. On the surface, it sounds like an expression of humility and teachableness, which would be very commendable. But no one can really follow that if they read everything God says. Because when you read all of Scripture, you discover the hazard of plucking pieces out like that.

Lou: So you are pushing us at the point of meaning. We just cannot simply jump around here and there and think we understand what it means. If we are serious about God’s Word, there’s no easy way around the context.
Graham: The Bible says, “All Scripture is inspired of God.” So if that bumper sticker means I’m reading it all, then I’m comfortable with the idea.
Lou: Would you suggest a better bumper sticker, perhaps?
Graham: How about this: “Thank you for the evidence. Thank you for making it so clear. And thank you most of all for what it cost.” It would take a big bumper, wouldn’t it!

Lou: We have quite a backlog of questions. “Using the model of the larger view, how does one fit together the apparently violent God of the Old Testament, the friendly God of the New Testament, and the destructive God of Revelation at the end of this earth?” Put that all together.
Graham: Ah, that’s very well stated. That assumes, of course, that God is always severe and violent in the Old Testament. Yet some of the most gentle and moving statements are in the Old Testament. For example, in the parable of the vineyard, “What more can I do for you than I have done” (Isa 5:4)? “The Lord is my Shepherd” (Psalm 23). So the Old Testament is not entirely violent, nor is the New Testament entirely gentle. When Ananias and Sapphira cheated with their offering, they died right on the church floor (Acts 5:5, 10). So I actually find a consistency running through all the Bible, and the real question would be, why is there a varied picture running from Genesis to Revelation, culminating in the third angel’s message, which is so violent (Rev 14:9-11)?
I wouldn’t know how to handle it, except by taking it as a whole and finding the same God dealing with a great variety of people. When we are irreverent, there may be she-bears, thunder and lightning, or an earthquake. And yet I see the same gentle One behind it all, grieving when those people had to be treated that way. But what else could He do?
I don’t think a quick answer like this would ever satisfy someone who has raised the question so thoughtfully. The best response would be to sit down together and go through all the sixty-six books. It takes a little time, but there are no shortcuts to this. And it would be wise to keep that larger question in mind as one reads every book in the sixty-six.

Lou: This one ties in with that as well. “Satan held that God was not able to be just and merciful at the same time. Today He offers us mercy, but will He not kill us finally? Are we not to be consumed in His fire? If we are, how then do we call Him a God of love? Why did Jesus have to die? Was not God’s mercy sufficient?” That’s another one of those full message questions.
Graham: Yes. These are the really important questions, the kind that have to be answered for the universe to be secure. That’s why we see that theme running all through Scripture, culminating in the death of Jesus. And that’s why we have a whole chapter in this book on the most costly and convincing evidence. There was no other way to answer those questions than for God to come in human form and die as He did. So the great controversy view doesn’t make light of the death of Christ. It makes it infinitely more significant. Because there is no other way to answer those questions, and we will deal with those at length in Chapter Eight.

There are plenty of challenging texts in the Bible, when they are read out of context. When Paul says, “It’s all right to marry if you must, but I wish you could be as I am,” does he mean that married people are second class saints? No, put that statement it in its context. Similarly, why did Paul say, “I won’t allow a woman to speak in church” (1 Cor 14:34-35; 1 Tim 2:12)? And why does the Old Testament say, “You cannot boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (Exod 23:19; 34:26; Deut 14:21)? And then you turn to Judges and read about Samson, filled with the Spirit, killing a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass (Judg 15:15-17). You read about that fat king and the dagger that was thrust into him (Judg 3:15-28). And the dreadful story of the Levite and his Concubine (Judg 19:1-30).

One of the worst illustrations of reading the Bible out of context is a book called The Bible Unmasked. A man who’s avowed purpose was to destroy confidence in the Bible and in God, collected every unpleasant story of immorality and cruelty in the Bible and laid them end to end with the preface, “Would you mothers let your children read this sort of thing?” When I mentioned this book in one of my classes, a student came back with the best answer to this I have ever heard, “If you took the medical book and cut out all the pictures of disease and all the symptoms of disease and printed them all by themselves, it would be a useless, repulsive publication. The only justification for printing those things is that they are always presented in the setting of the remedy.”

The Bible is very candid in its depiction and description of sin. But it always presents sin in the setting of the remedy. Otherwise the Bible would not be fit to read. But that’s why we must read it as a whole. For example, did you know that there are two books in the Bible that don’t even mention God once? Not once. But if you take those two books, Esther and Song of Solomon, and put them in the larger setting of the Bible as a whole, they say wonderful things about our God. You see, to be fair with the evidence we must read it as a whole. After going through the Bible more than a hundred times, this is a summary of my firmest convictions about its purpose.

The great purpose of the Bible is to reveal the truth about our heavenly Father that we may be won back to Him in love and trust. This truth, this everlasting good news, is to be found in every one of the sixty-six books. But to discover this truth we must learn more than just what happened to Samson and Delilah, to David and Bathsheba, to Gideon and his fleece. The all-important question is, what do these stories tell us about God?
If one does not ask this question, much of the content of Scripture may seem unrelated to the plan of salvation, even perplexing, sometimes even contradictory. But when one learns to view the Bible as a whole, there emerges a consistent picture of an all-wise and gracious God who seems willing to go to any length to keep in touch with His people, to stoop and reach them where they are, to speak a language they can understand. And the further one reads on book by book, the more one is moved with love and admiration for a God who would be willing to run such risk, to pay such a price, in order to keep open the lines of communication between Himself and His wayward children.
God will save all who trust Him. But He has not asked us to trust Him as a stranger. The Bible–all of it–is a record of God’s revelation and demonstration of infinite trustworthy-ness.

This statement of principle will continue to guide the rest of our twenty conversations (chapters) about God. We want to look at all of the biblical evidence in this way.

No wonder many people don’t know what to do with the Old Testament. No wonder one of Jesus’ own disciples didn’t. Philip said to Jesus, “Tell us about the Father and we will be satisfied” (John 14:8). Jesus replied, “Have I been with you so long Philip, and you don’t know me” (John 14:9)? What Philip seems to be saying is “We aren’t asking about You. We worship You as the Son of God. And to our great surprise we are not afraid of You. What we want to know about is the Father. We want to know about the One who drowned all but eight and said, ‘If you disobey Me, I will kill you.’ We want to know about the God who killed the firstborn in Egypt (Exod 11:4-7) and the 185,000 Assyrians (2 Kings 19:35). The God who killed Uzzah when he touched the ark (2 Sam 6:3-8) and turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt (Gen 19:26). The One who swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (Num 16:1-35), and burned up Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:1-3; Num 3:2-4), and sent the she-bears against the boys who mocked Elisha (2 Kings 2:23-24).” And so on down the list. “Jesus, could the Father possibly be like you?”

Jesus replied, as in John 14:9, NIV: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Since the account in John 14-16 is quite condensed, Jesus could well have continued at this point, “And Philip, as for those difficult stories in the Old Testament, don’t take them to mean that the Father is less gracious and less approachable than you have found Me to be. It so happens that I am the One who led Israel in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:4). The command to stone Achan was Mine. Philip, why don’t you ask Me why? I’d love to tell you. I would almost put off the crucifixion if you disciples would only ask Me.” But according to the record, they never asked Him.

He went on to say something extraordinary to them. In John 16:26, He spoke words which most Christians have not yet incorporated into the good news. Jesus said, “I. . . will tell you plainly about my Father” (John 16:25, NIV). Goodspeed helpfully translates what follows:
“I do not promise to intercede with the Father for you, for the Father loves you himself” (John 16:26, Goodspeed). I consider these the most astonishing words in the Bible; we will spend much time on them later.

What a shame they didn’t ask Him what He meant by these words (John 14:9; 16:25-27). Instead, they wanted to argue about the positions they would hold in the kingdom. Since they didn’t ask, then it’s really left with us to ask. “Jesus, why did you order the stoning of Achan? How could you, the gentle Jesus, do that? And Jesus, why did you set up the whole priestly system of intercession and mediatorial work, when you said there is no need for anyone to intercede with the Father, for the Father Himself loves us?” I wish they would have asked Him these questions, because then the biblical record would hold the most incredible information from the Lord Himself. Well, we had better ask now. If we ask, what important answers may come as we ask of every story, teaching, and event in the Bible, “What does this tell us about God?”

Fortunately, some Pharisees asked Jesus a difficult question which gives us some idea as to what He might have said on those other occasions. When they asked Jesus about divorce, they said, “Jesus, you know the texts that say we may divorce our wives. Moses gave us permission. What is your view on the subject?” Matt 19:7. And Jesus explained why He had given Moses directions as to how the people could (if they wished) divorce their wives in Matthew 19:7, 8:

The Pharisees asked him, “Why, then, did Moses give the law for a man to hand his wife a divorce notice and send her away?” Jesus answered, “Moses gave you permission to divorce your wives because you are so hard to teach. But it was not like that at the time of creation (GNB).”

You see in Moses’s day when you tired of your wife, you simply sent her home. You didn’t even have to give her camel’s fare to get there. All you had to say was “Out! I have a new one moving in this afternoon.” Through Moses God said, “If you’re going to do it, do it in a more humane manner.” But God’s real feeling is expressed in Malachi, “I hate divorce” (Mal 2:16, RSV). Most people do.

Jesus’ reaction to the Pharisees is the key to so many other places in the Bible where God seems to recommend something strange or wrong. God is not contradicting Himself in those places, He’s meeting people where they are. The Matthew 19 passage illustrates a fundamental principle of interpretation, which we will use throughout the rest of our conversations, the principle of context. It was the context, the setting, that determined the meaning of a passage when it was originally written. To the extent that we can recreate and recover that original context, we are in a position to recover the original meaning.