Apocryphal prophets and Athenian poets, non-canonical influences on the New Testament. This is a much more scholarly attempt at working through all of the background issues in the New Testament. Non-Jewish influences and Jewish influences, it's about 800 pages long. He works through these, that there's about almost 600 ways that non-canonical influences are present in the New Testament. Some of them are simply a recognition of the names of the kings, King Herod, or Pontius Pilate as the governor, or of coins or such things. But many of them, he works through them, he shows how influences from outside of the Old Testament, that's what he means by non-canonical, Influences from outside of the New Testament affect the text of the New Testament, what we read in it, and what we can learn from it. And I have found this to be tremendously helpful. You can see maybe I have many bookmarks in it. I don't mark up my books. because the next person that gets my book doesn't need all of my marks in it. But I use lots of bookmarks for my pages, and so I have lots of those. So those have been helpful. You'll see this one later on, I hope today, if not next week. The Bible theology and philosophy, we're continuing on. Last week we stopped right in the middle of our discussion of Sola Scriptura, so I want to pick up there. You remember I argued that sola scriptura is a Latin phrase and the best translation of it is by scripture alone, not scripture only, but by scripture alone. All right, let's get into this. Sola Scriptura. By Scripture alone, that's the phrase, refers to God's Word as the inspired final authority by which all else is judged. It is the norming norm. Now, that's an English translation of a Latin phrase that you see all over the place after the Reformation. What does it mean? Well, let me use a different phrase here. For norm, plug in the word standard. For norming, plug in the word standardizing. The standardizing standard. Most governments have a Bureau of Weights and Measures of some kind. If you Google it and you look it up, you'll find that there's an international Bureau of Standards. The United States has one. Some states themselves have it. And the Bureau of Standards job is always to make sure that the weights and the measures that are used are the same, they're consistent. So that, for example, let's say you want to go to the grocery store and buy a can of green beans. Let's say it's 10 ounces, and you pick up a Green Giant can that says 10 ounces of green beans, and then you pick up a Del Monte can that says 10 ounces of green beans. The Bureau of Weights and Standards wants to make sure that both of those give you the same amount of green beans. That helps us to get an understanding of what the norming norm is. And that's how, after the Reformation, all of the Protestant churches viewed what Scripture does. That is, it's not that theology is built only on words that we find in the Bible, or phrases, or verses. but rather that the Bible is the standard by which we judge anything that comes along. And that's why it's important to recognize that the translation of sola scriptura should be by scripture alone. It helps us understand that that's what the doctrine has been. We examine whatever we use, whatever conclusions we make, we go back to the Word of God and let the Word of God be the final judge, the final standard, the norming norm on whatever it is that we believe. That's really important, because I think that's one of the keys that helps us to understand what Sola Scriptura is. I was looking, just during the break, this is from a book called God Incarnate in Explorations in Christology. Scripture is the norm of norms, the rule that rules, a norming, adjusting, or measuring standard by which other measuring tools are to be measured. That's what Scripture is. You see, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura does not say you can only use the Bible. What it says is, if you use anything other than the Bible, you have to bring it back to the Word of God and let that be the standard to measure. Alright, so that's what we mean by Sola Scriptura. By Scripture alone, speaks of the Word of God as the final authority. And this applies to such as our translations. Look down on your laps if you have a Bible open. What do you see? Well, okay, you see your Bible. But probably you see an English Bible or perhaps a Spanish Bible. I don't think many of us, or maybe even not any of us, look down and see a Hebrew Old Testament and a Greek New Testament. Those are the languages it was written in, isn't it? So what you have on your lap is a translation of something that was written in Hebrew or something that was written in Greek. That creates a distance between you and what Moses or Isaiah wrote or Matthew and Paul wrote. You're reading someone's translation of that. Not always is the translation that we have in English exact. In fact, the whole theory of translation from one language to another is very, very difficult. except in highfalutin scientific words, words that are very specifically invented to define something in science or medicine or such, there is no exact equivalent between any Greek word and any English word. There's similarities, and we can often figure out what they are, but we have to be really careful. Let me give an example. Probably some of you have read books that over the years have argued, and this would be a mid-20th century thing, some of your older books, they'll say that there are four words in the Greek language that can be translated love. Only two of them are found in the New Testament. One of them, you probably have heard the word agape in its various forms. That's God's special kind of love. And then philos, phile, is a friendship kind of love. And so when you think about agape love, think about the love of God, right? Have any of you ever read that or heard that? You know what? It's not true. Because in 1 John 2.9, or is it 19, John says, Love not the world, nor the things in the world. For the love of the world," and what's the rest of it go, is contrary to God, something like that. And he uses agape. So agape is not a word that means a special kind of love of God. It's a general word, and context determines how that word is to be understood, not some misunderstanding of vocabulary. When we look at our translations, this is the question, are they the word of God? The answer is yes and no. That's how all of the reformers answered that question, yes and no. Yes, they're the word of God insofar as they're faithful to what the Bible teaches, but no, in that they do not give to us the exact words of Isaiah or Paul. Our doctrine of God-breathed, has reference to the originals, not to the translations. There's no translation that's been re-inspired. They're all interpretations, in a sense. What does this word mean? What word in English can I use to render the intention of Matthew, or Paul, or Isaiah, or Moses? And sometimes that's not clear-cut. Let me give you another example. In Titus chapter 1, there are requirements for the eldership. And one of them is expressed in such a way that the Greek word can be translated in two different ways, and it often is used that way. Having blank children, okay? Having children that meet a certain qualification. Now, there are some pedobaptists who want to translate the word having believing children. And they argue that when you baptize your baby, the baby is to be viewed as a Christian, and therefore is a believer. And so you need to have children, and they need to be baptized children in the church. Now, you know what? It's a legitimate translation of the Greek word. But what are the implications of that? I've always said, what happens if a man, while he's a pastor, suddenly his wife has a baby? Does that mean that he has to step down if he doesn't hold the Moscow, Idaho view of what believing children are? Is that what it means? The other possibility, which is the possibility that I prefer, is having faithful children. You see, believing, faithful. Same idea, same family, isn't it? But very different sense. If you say having faithful children, what that means is that the children act their age. And they demonstrate that the rule of dad in the house is appropriate for whatever age that is. So a two-year-old acts like a two-year-old. And a 10-year-old acts like a 10-year-old. And if he's not wild and burning down the house, and properly is afraid at scary movies, that was a great illustration. Yes, that's what having a faithful child is. So that's what it's about. But the word can legitimately be read in both ways. So we have to struggle with this. And some translations, I think, say having believing children I think a better translation would be having faithful children. I think that's what NKJV and ESV have. What about our creeds and confessions? Are they faithful to the Word of God? We use language like it's a secondary standard, and it's important for us to keep that in mind. We do not argue that our confession of faith is identical to the doctrine of Scripture. There are some doctrines that I'm wholeheartedly committed to that I wait for the last day to find out if I'm right. I'm willing to acknowledge that I could be wrong. The big one is baptism. Now, I just did a seminar yesterday, three hours, defending believers' baptism. But I know a lot of godly, wise Christians who baptize babies. And when that day comes, one or the other of those groups will be right and one will be wrong. There's just, there's no other way around it. And so I'm looking forward to that day and expect that believers baptism will be the acceptable doctrine. If it isn't, well, I'll ask the Lord to forgive me. You know what Earl Blackburn says about the millennium? He says, if the millennium is true, I know what I'll be doing for the first 500 years. What's that Earl? I'll be baptizing all those baby baptizers. Our creeds and confessions. Why do we accept it? We accept it because we believe that the Word of God teaches these things, but we always bring it back to the Word of God to confirm the statements, don't we? Our reasoning. Well, when you read, when you write, When you do theology, and we all do theology, you have to ask the question, is my reasoning according to the Word of God? Am I thinking properly? Is the Word of God the governor, the standard, the norm, the norming norm for my reason? So we have to come back always. It's not that we look for a specific verse. but rather that we think through what the Word of God says, and we see that we conform to it. By Scripture alone, it was never intended to say that various kinds of helps are forbidden. There actually is a Latin phrase for this, nuda scriptura, and you get a sense just by looking at it what it probably means. That's what nuda scriptura is, and that's oftentimes what people argue for. I want chapter and verse. Well, I can't give you a chapter and verse on this one. It's according to Scripture. While our brother was preaching this morning, I was thinking about, you mentioned some quotation mark thing, you know, and that's a demonstration of interpretation too, isn't it? It made me think about how people come along to translations and don't want to think through full doctrine and they end up in heresy. The best example is Unitarianism. You know, Unitarians, at least originally, called themselves Christian Unitarians because 1 Corinthians 8, 4, there is one God, right? That's what made me think about it, reading that, there is one God. And they see verses like that, and then they come to conclusions, and they say, well, Trinitarianism can't be true because it's three gods, which it isn't, we know that it isn't. But that's what they'll say. And so, we believe in one God because the Bible says there's one God. And the problem with that is, of course, that it's damnable error to fall into Unitarianism. It's a terrible, terrible doctrine that denies the deity of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And so we have to be very careful. We don't believe in New Das Scriptura. And my fear is that some of our friends who do podcasts and have written books are advocating for nuda scriptura, not sola scriptura. Though over and over and over again, they'll use the phrase sola scriptura, but they've redefined it. They don't understand that it means by scripture alone, that scripture is the norming norm or the standardizing standard for all of the doctrines we believe. Let me suggest to you just some obvious helps that have come down to us that have been of real usefulness in our understanding of the Bible. That is external sources. that help us to understand and interpret what the Bible itself says. Archaeology is a start. There are books with titles like, Archaeology Demonstrates the Truth of the Bible, or Proves the Bible, or such and such. And you can Google it. I did that. I did a search for archaeology in the Bible, came up with lots of sites. There are a lot of suggestions. I mentioned one yesterday when I was talking about the mikvah, the ceremonial washing, purification pools, that have been uncovered in Israel. In fact, I showed a picture of myself standing in one at a place called Masada. And you look at it and you say, that's the size of a baptistry. It's about the size of a bathtub. Well, many of these have been uncovered in Israel, and I think that they help us to understand something of the mode of baptism along the way. if you go back 150 years, there was a huge debate over whether or not the Greek word baptizo, which is the verb form, actually means to immerse. James Dale did a three-volume set of books on the word, concluding that it doesn't necessarily mean to dip or to immerse. But then, archaeologically, You look at what was present in Israel during the first century, and you have to say, whatever their ceremonial baths were, they were immersed. That was a necessity for them. So archaeology has helped us. How about astronomy? No, not astrology. That's a pseudoscience, okay? Looking up at the zodiac and predicting the future. Not talking about that. I'm talking about real astronomy. Astronomy actually has helped to interpret the Bible because Do you know the story of Galileo? First Copernicus and then Galileo. And Galileo was one of the first to introduce Telescopes and the use of telescopes in looking at the universe around us. Galileo opened the door for us to do that. But you know, there were many in the 17th century. He was around 1600, around then. There were many, especially in the Roman Catholic Church. Now, it wasn't the official position of the church, but there were many who believed in what's called a geocentric universe. Geo, the world, this Earth, centric, Everything revolves around the earth. Now that's what we see, isn't it? We say the sun rises in the east and the sun sets in the west. And it seems like we're stable and the sun is moving through the sky. Well, the geocentric view of the universe puts our earth at the center of everything so that all revolves around us. There are a couple of verses in the Bible that people point to and say, well, that's what this means. But Galileo came along and he proved, scientifically, by his use of really primitive instruments, but still, he proved that the earth revolves around the sun and that the universes that exist are in motion in space. Now that helps us then. He was excommunicated from the Roman church because he held that view. But it's the right view. And now we can come back to passages where Jesus, for example, talks about the sun rising in the east, and we can say, that's accommodated language. You use that language. You might have said it this morning. Lately, we've been having beautiful sunrises, just magnificent colored sunrises from my house. And, you know, oh, look, the sun is rising in the east, and look at that beautiful sunrise. I know that the sun is not moving around the earth, but we use that language just because that's what appears to our eyes. So when the Bible uses it, we can say it's accommodating the language that we see, but not intending to teach us that that's the way that universe works, or the solar system works. It's not the way it is. So Galileo has actually helped us to understand the Bible and to rectify a false understanding of a couple of verses that use the kind of language that we use, but we know better. Right? So astronomy, properly speaking, now that's a science, something outside of the Bible, but it can be used to interpret places in the Bible. Strengthen it. If you have that doctrine of scripture only, you're going to have a hard time with this because you might want to insist in a geocentric universe as opposed to a helio, helio meaning sun, heliocentric solar system. That's what it is. We revolve around the sun. We all have done that X number of times in our lives. Our earth revolves every day for 24 hours. So in roughly three and a half hours, the sun will go down in the west because our earth rotated, not because the sun rotated around us. So astronomy has helped us. Linguistics. Linguistics has been a great help to us in understanding the Bible. Let me go back to that illustration. You look down at the Bible and what do you see? You see English, or you see Spanish, or you see your native language. You don't see Hebrew and Greek. The only reason that we're able to translate the Bible into English is because people have given their lives, devoted their careers to learning those things and giving us fruit of their learning. You know, this is the 500th anniversary this year, Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English. 500 years, or maybe it was last year, but it's just 500 years. He devoted his time to that, and then others have done so since. So linguistics has been incredibly helpful, and there's still work to do. If you're reading the Psalms, you'll notice that every once in a while there's words in the Psalms that are not English words. They're Hebrew words, and we're not sure yet what they mean. Selah. appears over 70 times in the book of Psalms. Now, I'm pretty convinced that it probably means pause and meditate, but I could be wrong. That's the standard view. How about miktam in the superscriptions, a miktam of David? Well, some of the translations will render that as an instruction by David. meaning the psalm was given to us so that we would be instructed about this thing. But we're not certain that that's what the Hebrew word miktam means. So the linguists still have to help us to improve our understanding of the Word of God. That's a good thing. It's not a bad thing at all. But it's something outside of the Bible, apart from the Bible. In fact, it's something that a lot of unbelievers are involved in that can be just as much help as a believer who is a linguist. In fact, much of the work of translation that has been done for us has been done not by those who are committed to Christ, but just by people who are interested in classical literature. And so they might just as well translate Homer from the Greek as translate Paul from the Greek, and they can do both, and they're both helpful to us. I hope you're seeing the point that I'm making here, that there's a lot of ways that general revelation, we haven't even got there yet, can help us to understand the Bible. Another one is history. History is tremendous help in things like interpreting the book of Hebrews. There's a great event that we can date with absolute certainty that helps us to learn things about the book of Hebrews, and that's the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the year A.D. 70. We know that that's the case. The Romans came in, they steamrolled through Israel, and the temple was destroyed by the Romans. In fact, you can go to Rome. I've seen it. There's an arch that actually depicts Jewish artifacts being brought back to Rome. We know that date. Now, what's not in the book of Hebrews? The destruction of the temple. The book of Hebrews writes as if the temple is still standing, which means we can date the book of Hebrews prior to the year AD 70. It's a great help to us. There's lots of what we might call secular history that can be verified that gives us insight into historical events in the word of God. If you go to the British Museum in London, They have a room, they have many rooms, of what my wife says, things that they stole from the Middle East. But they've got these long panels that came off of palaces or temples, and some of them depict the Jews in captivity and the Jews returning from captivity to Jerusalem. I mean, there's all kinds of these things that have helped us. The British Museum is not a Christian place. It's just a secular museum of history. Fascinating to go to. The Rosetta Stone is there. When I talked about archaeology, I could have talked about the Rosetta Stone. You know what that was. Westerners couldn't translate the hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt until this Rosetta Stone was found, because it has text in three languages, hieroglyphics, and then in Greek, and then in a third language. So people who could read Greek could go to the Rosetta Stone and translate what the hieroglyphics were saying, because the story is the same on both sides. And that was the key to unlock the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, which, of course, is an important part of the background of the Word of God. I was sitting here beforehand trying to just think about all the different cultures that are present in the Bible. And very quickly, I ran out of memory space to think about them. There's the culture of Eden, and then Adam and Eve are pushed out of Eden. And so you have a brief section, we don't know much about it, before the flood. Then after the flood, you have Noah and his family creating a new culture that ends up with the Tower of Babylon. And then we're introduced to Abraham, whose culture is really nomadic. in the ancient Near East, and then you have the three sons, the three patriarchs after him, and we end up in Egypt. After Egypt, after Israel comes out, then you go into Canaan, and you have a whole Canaanite culture, but you encounter the Moabites and the Ammonites and all the rest, and we can keep going. Come to the New Testament, you have the Jewish culture of Jerusalem. You have a different Jewish culture in Galilee, which was very different. Jerusalem was the hub and the center of intellectual life. Galilee was the hick state, right? Well, that's what Galilee is like. Nazareth was nowhere. It's one of the chargers. The mocking words that were spoken against Jesus. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? So you have that. Then you have the Roman culture. Then you have all of the different cultures as the gospel spreads around the Mediterranean. There are many, many of them. And all of them. are part of the Word of God, but in order to understand them, we need some understanding of history, and we need to think about each one of these. In fact, I'm going to make a big deal of this in a little while. Here's our confession helping us. The supreme judge. Let me change that. The norming norm, the standardizing standard by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest can be no other but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit into which Scripture so delivered our faith is finally resolved." I think that's exactly what I've been saying for the last half hour. It doesn't reject all of the helps. but it says we have to bring them back to the Word of God and let the Word of God be the standard by which these things are accepted or rejected or even partially accepted. So that's what we need to understand as Sola Scriptura, not give me a verse. Chapter and verse, it's much more than that. I want to talk about the light of nature or general revelation or natural revelation. They all mean the same thing. That's why they're put together with the slashes. But the light of nature is the phrase that's used in our confession of faith, and I like it very much. Literally, it means nature's light, the light that nature gives to us. That's the whole idea. Here we have lights that are above us. If that one was nature, that would be nature's light. And as I stand under it with a book and I'm able to read the book in the darkness, that's the light of nature. That's all that it means, the light that nature gives to us. And it's all over the Bible. Psalm 19.1, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. So when you go outside and you look up at the heavens, I enjoy very much looking at the nighttime sky, and it gives me an opportunity to worship God. It tells me of His greatness. The light of nature is also, it refers to the things around us we learn about the world and our existence based on our observations. So the light of nature is, in a sense, increasing all the time because the world around us teaches us new things about God. When I teach this in my Symbolics class, I jokingly say, when I was a kid in the early 1960s, living in a third floor apartment up there in Massachusetts, we did not know that lead paint was dangerous. My grandfather had a painting business. My father was a painter. My older brother was a painter. I've worked summers as a painter. We didn't know that lead paint was dangerous. And it wasn't until later on in the 1960s that studies began to demonstrate that children who are exposed to lead paint have learning disabilities. It's my excuse for why I don't do better than I am. I lived in a house with lead paint. That's my excuse. But the light of nature taught us that. You won't find that in the Word of God. But it's right, isn't it? We want to keep our children away from lead and the poisoning effects of lead. That's why we don't even have lead gasoline anymore. You have unleaded gasoline because the lead in the air would have a negative effect upon all of us. Proverbs 6, 6 through 11, go to the ant, you sluggard. This is Solomon telling his son to look at nature. and to learn some things from nature. Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, overseer, or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, oh sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler and your need like an armed man." Solomon tells his son to go to the ant. He draws ethical principles for his son's life from an aunt. Sounds like the light of nature to me. Matthew 6, 25 through 33. Therefore, this is our Lord speaking. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? And Jesus could have simply said at this point, God is sovereign and in his providence, he will take care of you. But he didn't. He said this, look at the birds of the air. We feed birds in our backyard. I enjoy doing that very much. Now that we have four cats, we don't see quite as many birds around. I enjoy the cats more than the birds. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to a span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore, don't be anxious, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things. And your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Now, you know what Jesus is telling his disciples when he tells them to think about the birds and the lilies? He's telling them to do some natural theology, some theology based on the observation of the world around us. That's what natural theology is. It's just looking at the world around us and drawing conclusions. I think I'm coming to that soon. Not all natural theology is true. You can draw false inferences, but I would say this, not all supernatural theology is true either. like the Unitarians. They try to base their doctrine on the Word of God, but it's not true. It simply won't hold water. And so we reject that. Arminianism is another one that came to my mind as I was preparing. We view Arminians as brothers and sisters in Christ, but we have strong disagreements with them about how the Lord saves sinners, or how sinners are saved. They would say, of their own free will, their minds aren't darkened, they can decide for themselves whether or not they want to believe the gospel, and so we just present it to them and let them make the choice. We say, no, no, no, no. They're dead in trespasses and sins, and they must be made alive by the Word and Spirit. But they would go to some scriptures and they would make their case. There I'm saying some sacred theology or theology that's based on special revelation can be false. Some natural theology is true, but some natural theology is likewise going to be false. And so what do we need to do? We need to come back to the norming norm. and examine that natural theology. So we don't let it be the governor of what we do. We let the word of God make the decision for us. Does this fit the doctrine of scripture or not? And if it fits, then we ought to believe it. We ought to receive it. But that's what Jesus is doing here, and what Solomon is doing. He's talking about ethics, and this is talking about theology, but both of them are based upon the observance of things that we see in the world. What is the light of nature? This is a really good definition from our confession. The light of nature, that's the world around us, shows that there is a God, the heavens declare, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just, good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart and all the soul and with all the might." That's what our confession says, that the light of nature shows us these things about God. We don't have to go to the Bible to learn these things about God. He has lordship, he has sovereignty, he's good, he's just, and he does good to everyone. In fact, that's what Paul says to the Lycanians in Acts chapter 14, a text that I hope we'll get to, and we'll notice some things there are very interesting things. Now, the light of nature also is condemning. Romans 1, 18 through 23. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Now notice what's in red. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Now he's not talking about Israel at this point. He's talking about Gentiles. He's talking about all the people of the world. By inspiration of the Spirit, these words come to us. What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, is creative power. the one who made the world, the sun and the moon and the stars and all the rest, that tells us that there is a God. His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived. Unbelievers, clearly perceive. Ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. And he goes on, he says, for although they knew God, They did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." And this is the beginning of the downward spiral. But what Paul says is they knew God. and the things about God are clearly seen by them. They're clearly revealed to them. You know, you have a friend in evangelism, when you're talking to someone about Christ. And the friend is what Paul says right here. Even the most strident atheist, when he closes his eyes and puts his head on his pillow at night, he knows that there is a God. I think one of the reasons why atheism is so aggressive, modern atheism is really aggressive, and they do everything that they can to convince you that there is no God, that the Bible is a myth, et cetera, et cetera. Why is that? Well, the reason is because they have to constantly reeducate their own minds to convince themselves that there is no God, that the Bible is a myth, that Christianity isn't true. It's all around. It's clear and plain, and yet they don't believe it, and so they reject it. But that's your friend to say to that person, when you're alone by yourself and you close your eyes, you know that there's a God. No, I don't. Yes, you do. You know it. You can't deny it. No, I don't. Yes, you do. Just keep pressing that. Because it's true. They know. That's what Paul tells us. They know that there is a God and they know certain things about him. Listen to what Calvin says in his comments on Romans 121. Man was formed to be a spectator of the created world. He was endowed with eyes for the purpose of his being led to God himself, the author of the world. This clearly proves how much men gain from this demonstration of the existence of God, namely, an utter incapacity to bring any defense to prevent them from being justly accused before the judgment seat of God. On the last day, when they stand before God and they're the goats, they'll have no excuse. Because the world in which they were placed, in which they were born, in which they lived, was a constant testimony of God. Now listen to what Calvin says as he goes on. No conception of God can be formed without including his eternity, power, wisdom, goodness, truth, righteousness, and mercy. You know what he's saying? He's saying this is what the light of nature teaches us about God. You can't have a conception of God without these ideas. Then he goes on and explains them. His eternity is evidenced by the fact that he holds all things in his hands and makes all things to consist in himself. So the meditation that you are to have about how the world consists points you to God. His wisdom is seen because he has arranged all things in perfect order. His goodness, because there is no other cause for his creation of all things, nor can any other reason than his goodness itself induce him to preserve them. So we have creation and we have providence here. Both of those things point to the reality of God. And if you think about some of the things that Paul says to Gentile audiences in Acts 14 and Acts 17, these are two of the most important points that he makes. God is the creator. God is the one who provides. His providence is real. His justice is evident in his governing of the world because he punishes the guilty and defends the innocent. You'd almost think that Calvin was reading Stoics here. We're going to get to Stoics, but that's a Stoic doctrine. and yet Calvin recognizing that it's necessary to be drawn from what God says. His mercy because he bears the perversity of men with so much patience and his truth because he is unchangeable. Those therefore who have formed a conception of God ought to give him the praise due to his eternity, wisdom, goodness, and justice. Wow, that's John Calvin. Calvin got it right. He understood what the light of nature was to teach us. Now, we may call this natural theology. I've already anticipated this. Natural theology refers to those things we may learn about God and about ethics from the light of nature. That's my definition of it. Those things we may learn about God and about ethics from the light of nature. It is limited in what it teaches us, but it is nonetheless true. So, it can't teach you that God is triune. It can't teach you that the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed a human nature, lived a life of perfect obedience to the law of God, offered himself up in death, paid the price against sinners, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. The light of nature won't teach you that. You can't be saved. The gospel doesn't come by the light of nature. You can't be saved by the light of nature. But it sure can tell you a lot about who God is, and it will condemn you at the last day if you don't believe what it says. Right? So that's what natural theology is. It's limited in what it teaches us. That's why we need the Holy Bible. But it's nevertheless true. And this is what the Scripture teaches us. This is what the scripture teaches us. Let's go back to the confession. The light of nature shows that there is a God who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just and good and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the might. Our fathers understood this doctrine. And they put it here in the confession of faith in chapter 22. You remember what that chapter is about. It's about worship. And this is how they begin their chapter on worship, by talking about natural theology. Brothers and sisters, well, this is a quotation from one of those sermons that you may have listened to this week. The principle of sola scriptura requires us to recognize and accept the importance of the light of nature and the truths it teaches us. If you're going to be true to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, you have to recognize a proper place for natural theology. If you deny natural theology, you are denying a doctrine of the Word of God. The norming norm teaches us this. There's a lot of places we could go to in the Bible that turn us to the world that God has created, either for theological lessons about who God is or ethical lessons. And this is one of the things that troubles me the most when you get stomped on. Sola Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, Sola Scriptura. Well, this is what we need to say. The principle of Sola Scriptura itself requires us to recognize and accept the importance of the light of nature and the truths it teaches, because the Bible teaches this, you see. That's where we must go. Let me begin to get into some important examples from the Word of God of how cultural or philosophical systems inform what it says. And I want to talk first You'll notice the title here. Where may we see this principle applied in the Old Testament? And you're looking at the red and you're saying, what does that mean? Ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties. Well, let me explain it to you. Ancient is going to be pretty obvious. These treaties are attested in the historical record. Now, this is where history helps us. All the way back to about 2500 BC. Moses, the exodus took place about 1450 BC. So these things preceded Moses by about a thousand years. In fact, they preceded Abraham by about 500 years. Abraham lived around 2000. They precede them. So that's the ancient. The Near Eastern is what we would today call the Middle East. When you live in England or you live in Germany, you've got the Far East, which would be China, Japan, Malaysia, such places. Then you have Asia. What they view Asia as is India and Pakistan. I was with one of my friends one time over there, and he had a call. Somebody from his business was calling him. He listened to the call. It was in a car, and it was on the speaker. And he hung up, and he said, that's one of my Asian workers. And I said, sounded to me like somebody from India. He said, well, that's Asia. Well, what do you call Asia? I said, Japan, China, places like that. That's what I think of when I think of Asia, but not necessarily in Britain. So you have the Far East, then you have Asia, then you have the Near East. So that would be Egypt, where now all the conflict is, all the way over to Iran. Babylon is Iran on a modern map. That's where Babylon would be. And up into Turkey. That's the ancient Near East. Suzerainty. What's that mean? From ancient, from 2500 BC through 750 BC, Near Eastern, from Egypt to Babylon and Turkey. Suzerain is the conquering lord. Nebuchadnezzar was a suzerain. By his power and his might, he conquered cities. And so we see those frequently in the Bible where Gentile powers conquer others. And then vassal, vassal's not in it, but the vassal is the one who is the other part of the treaty, and the vassal is the conquered subject. You know what a treaty is, all right? So you have a suzerain, a conqueror, and you have a vassal who has been conquered, and the conqueror imposes the treaty on the conquered. He forces the one who has been conquered, the vassal, to agree to this treaty. They're attested in the history of the era before Christ from about 2500 through 750 BC. You know, I was confused. I was reading something and it was giving dates and I was confused by it until I realized that you go backwards when you go before Christ. I was thinking, that guy wasn't born in 52. Oh, wait a minute. He was born in 76. And so he was alive in 52 and he lived until such and such. I just got confused by that. I want to show you how this works. Let me say one more thing. I believe, I am convinced, that there are many who go way too far with the ancient Near Eastern documents and impose them on the Word of God. I am not at all advocating that. I know of one Old Testament professor in a seminary west of here, far west of here, not Fort Worth, who says that you can't really understand the Old Testament unless you learn some of the cognate Semitic languages like Ugaritic and Akkadian. And I want to say, that's nonsense. There are reflections of stories that we read in the Bible in some of this literature. For example, most of the ancient cultures had some kind of flood story. And so the liberals come along and they say, well, you see Moses just copying the legend of Gilgamesh. Where I would say, no, Moses is telling us the truth and these others are the pagan interpretations of them. So again, the scripture is the norming norm. on the ancient Near East. But take a look at this. I find this fascinating and very helpful. What do we notice about the ancient Near Eastern suzerain treaties? Well, there are six things that we can say. First, as they're written and as they've been discovered, there's a preamble always that identifies the suzerain. That's the first thing that you see. I am so-and-so, conqueror. Then there's a historical prologue. There's something that describes what the suzerain has done. Then you have stipulations, what is expected of the vassal, of the one who's been conquered. Then there is a requirement in the treaty that it be regularly read to the subjects of the vassal so that the big guy gets his due. Then there are witnesses who are called in to prove that this treaty has been enacted between the suzerain and the vassal. When I say suzerain, you understand what I mean, the conquering lord, right? And then sixthly, there are blessings and cursings that are attached to the suzerain treaty. Those are the six most common, frequently found elements of these treaties in the ancient Near East that cover this whole span from, let's go the right way, from 750 BC all the way to 2500 BC. So a long period of time, all right? Turn to Deuteronomy chapter five in your Bibles. What do we see? Deuteronomy 5.6. I am the Lord your God. The suzerain is identified. Again in verse 6, who brought you out, and I've just abbreviated here, but brought you out from the land of Egypt. The historical prologue. The suzerain identifies himself. The suzerain gives a prologue reminding them. Stipulations. You have then the Ten Commandments. If ever there were stipulations, there they are. Then you have a requirement for regular reading in chapter 6, you shall teach them diligently to your children and put them on your house, and all of those things. And then again later on in the book of Deuteronomy, this is commanded once more. The law of God is to be read. Then in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19, the Lord calls heaven and earth to be witness to the treaty between Israel and God, between the Lord and Israel. And then in Deuteronomy 17 through 28, long chapters, That's the two hills. When the people come into the land, they cross the Jordan, they go into the land. They're to go onto two mountains. And there are curses and there are blessings that are spoken. It's like an antiphony, a response of reading. But all of those things are there. Now that's just taken right out of the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, there are some who argue that the whole book of Deuteronomy is actually a suzerainty treaty between the Lord and the Israelites. Now it exactly matches the pattern of these ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties. So I do want to ask questions like this. Do these violate Sola Scriptura? If one of the most important parts of the Bible is modeled on ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties that were around for about a thousand years before Moses received the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. By the way, that's another thing that's typical of these treaties, is that there were two copies that were made. So that two tablets of stone, some people think that each tablet had all Ten Commandments on it. So you had one for the suzerain and one for the people. That's just by the way. To me, this stuff is really fascinating, though. So, do these violate Sola Scriptura? Well, who did it? It was the Lord who did this. See? It can't violate Sola Scriptura. But we ought to ask the question, why did the Lord employ this? I was going to write a story and read it to you. I can speak English as well as I can speak American. So when I go to the UK, I pretty much know that it's a car park and an automobile has a boot and a bonnet, all of these things. I was going to write you a story and see if you could figure out what I was saying, because sometimes they have weird words like hob. Do you know what a hob is? It's the top of your stove. I remember being there once and they said, put it over by the hob. And I said, what is a hob? common word for them. It's the top of your stove. It's the burners that you have on your stove. I'm using this as an illustration to say, why would the Lord employ this? It's because he used something that was familiar to teach his word to his people. It's not that he was unable to do so otherwise, and so thought, well, yeah, I'll just use this ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaty as a pattern. No, no, no. This is something that would have been understood by the Israelites, and it would have helped them to realize that this is someone greater than Pharaoh. who's imposing these things on us. Pharaoh could be a suzerain, but this is not Pharaoh. This is the Lord himself, and he gives this to us. So it's in a form that can be recognized by the Israelites to help them understand what they're doing. That's why the Lord does this. It's not because the suzerainty treaties are the best way to communicate to the people. It's that he uses language or forms that are familiar to God's people. And that's what we have here in the Old Testament. Here is an example of Scripture employing an important legal and cultural method. That's what we have in the book of Deuteronomy and in the Ten Commandments. We have a suzerainty treaty. And the Lord is the conquering king. And the Israelites are the vassals who owe these things to the Lord God. Where may we see this principle applied in the New Testament? We have to wait till next week. Does that help? Is that clear enough? I know some of these words are big words and I didn't know what they meant at first. In fact, I'll tell you this, the first time that I ran into this idea of ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties in the Bible, I just had a hard time accepting it because it seemed so strange and so out of the normal to me. How could that be? How could God do that? But then the more that I thought about it, the more I realized he was using a common form to impart the truth to his people. So that's what we see in one of the most important texts in the Bible, the Ten Commandments. But next week, God willing, we'll come back. If you want to prepare for next week, read Acts 17 and read it carefully because that's where we'll start in Acts chapter 17. Paul's encounter with Greek philosophers in Athens.