The Scriptures
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
We have noted in the past five weeks of Theology 101, given the divine inspiration of the Bible, we have truth that can be trusted; given the divine revelation in the Bible makes God known, we should treasure it; given the divine instruction that comes to us from the Bible, we should believe and obey it; given the divine illumination of the Holy Spirit making God’s truth in the Bible understandable, we give ourselves to reading and studying it in order to understand God’s revealed truth; and given the divine authority residing in the Bible, we seek to receive it as the supreme standard by which all truth claims are to be evaluated.
In this final session concerning the Holy Scriptures, we give attention to what we may term the divine intention of God’s word. That is, its message should be taken to the ends of the earth. After all, the Bible is God’s love letter to His world.
The prophetic vision voiced by Isaiah expresses the divine intention in these words, “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9b). In similar words Habakkuk 2:14 expresses the same vision, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
‘In all the world’
Jesus connected the divine intention for the gospel to be taken to all the world by declaring, “This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). Christ clearly commanded that the preaching of the gospel should extend to all nations, telling His followers in every generation, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19a).
Hence, it is the duty and privilege of every believer, as well as the mandate to every church, to seek to make disciples of everyone everywhere. God’s intention has always been that the earth should be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. The whole inhabited world is the object of God’s saving love (John 3:16). The coming of Christ into the world and bearing the sin of the world is the focal point of that saving love.
The good news of salvation through faith in Christ is the most needed news a waiting world will ever hear. Since God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9), the saving message of the Bible must be shared in all places to all people.
Bad and good news
The bad news of the gospel is that sin separates everyone from God. Consequently, apart from saving faith in Christ every person is spiritually lost. The good news of the gospel is that God in His love is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance from sin and to personal faith in Christ as Savior.
The Bible, in fact, ends with the reminder that the Church is the bride of Christ in order to end its message with the declaration in Revelation 22:17, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’”
God’s ongoing intention is that His people (the bride of Christ) take His word of gracious invitation to all the world (under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit).
EDITOR’S NOTE — Jerry Batson is a retired Alabama Baptist pastor who also has served as associate dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and professor of several schools of religion during his career.
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