The posts below are too pessimistic and nostalgic to leave by themselves for Holy Week, so I will give you something better to contemplate from a great Christian writer who is strangely not known as well as he should be by Christians today:
“Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.” Blaise Pascal
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[…] God or Not? wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptA thought for Holy Week March 18th, 2008 — Christ The posts below are too pessimistic and nostalgic to leave by themselves for Holy Week, so I will give you something better to contemplate from a great Christian writer who is strangely not known as well as he should be by Christians today: “Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor o […]
But without God’s Word, do we really know God or Jesus Christ? There are a lot of Jesus Christs being preached today. How many of them are the Christs of personal opinion rather than the Jesus Christ of the Bible?
Manxman,
I don’t think you would have gotten much argument from Blaise Pascal about the importance of the Bible. But one ought to remember the Bible only exists to point us to Jesus. And He is very right in what he says about Jesus.
Bror Erickson
Without the Bible, Old & New Testaments, to tell us what happend during Holy Week and to put it in its overall context of how the Father ordained our salvation, we would have no proper appreciation for Jesus. The events of Holy Week depend on the Bible for their truth and significance.
Dr. Veith, if you hadn’t supplied the attribution for that quote, I’d have guessed that they were Luther’s words.
Manxman,
I am not sure what set you off here. Thought I was more or less agreeing with you. Oh well. Now it is time to tell you you are completely wrong. The Bible depends on the events of Holy Week for its truth and signicance not the other way around. May seem like splitting hairs, but seriously we have nothing, the Bible has nothing with out the events of Holy Week. NOTHING! We come to the Father Only through Jesus Christ, we do not come to Jesus Christ through the Father. And if the events of Holy Week had never happened then the Bible will be nothing but fables and fairytales.
Think of all the reporting on 9/12 it would be nothing but lies if 9/11 never happened. So it is with our Bible. IF Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then the Bible is nothing.
Right on, Bror. We believe in the bible because we believe in the risen Lord not the other way. It is only in light of the resurrection that the Bible can be recognized as God’s written Word. Apart from Christ, the bible is a veiled book in which God is hidden and not known.
I’m with you also Bror. The point Pascal was making is that it is only because of Christ’s propitiation that we can know God. Without Christ, there is a great gulf fixed between man and God because of our sin. Without Christ, our lives are meaningless and end in eternal damnation. Holy Week is about remembering and celebrating God’s incredible gift to us through the sacrifice of His Son the Christ.
The Bible points to Christ and reveals God’s plan of salvation to us, but it should not be the object of our worship. We study it so that we can know God, not merely so we can know the Bible.
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