Jesus revealed four testimonies of His identity (John 5:33-47):
1. John the Baptist;
2. His Works;
3. God the Father;
and
4. The Scriptures.
The verses in this portion of the book point to His works.
Jesus told the unbelieving to believe in the works He did even if they did not believe in His person (John 10:38).
It is like a military officer telling his subordinates to respect his rank even when they do not respect him as a person.
John the Baptist is long dead.
We do not have Jesus in human form performing miracles.
God the Father is not speaking audibly.
What we do have are the scriptures and the indwelling blessed Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9, 1 Corinthians 3:16).
He testifies to the truth and God’s Word is the truth (John 17:17, 1 John 5:6).
And that puts everyone on equal footing. Everyone has access to the Word of God.
At one point in Church history, the Word of God was confined to a “special” group of people. And the masses could only rely on this “special” group to learn the truth. That resulted in much manipulation and exploitation.
All Satan had to do was to warp the minds of this “special group” and the masses would be misled.
According to the Bible, there will be a reversed trend in our days.
3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold, 4 and will turn their ears away from the truth and will wander off into myths and man-made fictions [and will accept the unacceptable].
—2 Timothy 4:3-4
The movable-type printing press was discovered sometime between 1440 and 1450 by Johann Gutenberg. This made possible the production of the Bible and books in large quantities within a short period of time.
The first English language Bible in print was the William Tyndale Bible. In the 1500s, it was shocking and subversive to even think of an English language Bible. For centuries, the English Church had been governed from Rome, and services were conducted in Latin by law. However, most in Europe at that time were unable to speak Latin, and therefore could not understand the Bible directly. As a result, the Church acted as the mediator between God and the people, with the priests interpreting the Bible on behalf of their congregations.
In Tyndale’s day, Bibles written in local languages were available in parts of Europe, where they added fuel to the fight for the Reformation, a political crisis that resulted in the splitting of Christianity into Catholic and Protestant Churches. But in England, it was still strictly forbidden to translate the Bible into English. However, Tyndale believed that ordinary people should be able to read, or listen to, the Bible in a language they could understand. But his Bible was highly illegal. Eventually, the English Bible was banned and Tyndale, executed.
This snippet of Church history goes to show Satan’s onslaught against God’s beloved children and his fear of them reading the word of God for themselves (Revelation 12:17).
Why is that so?
It is because the Word, which is the Truth, will expose the lie (Satan).
As we have seen earlier, Christ crucified is the receipt of the payment for our sin debt. He is also our title deed to abundance. We need to read the Word of Him to be convinced to the point of actually taking hold of it as our legal rights.
People have died to make the Bible so readily available today.
Why let the Bible collect dust?
The above is an extract from the book entitled "Her Seed".
Grab your copy of the book HERE!
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