The Bible Isn't About You... Or Is it?

Many of us have probably heard the refrain:  "The Bible is not about you!" proclaimed from either the pulpit or the keyboard.  Just as many of us have probably wondered whether that is really true or not.

Unfortunately, the answer to that question really does depend upon the spirit and the context in which the words were uttered.  The answer to that question really can be 'yes', or 'no', just depending upon what the speaker in question meant. Usually when these words are spoken, they are not said in a positive way - or at least not clearly so.  And that's a real shame, because that is truly the meaning of them when spoken in a God approved way.  Let me explain what I mean by that.

I think one of the things that is meant by 'it (God's Word) is not about you', is really to say 'it's not a self help book to help you get what you want.'  And with that I would certainly agree, as I think any Bible believing Christian must.

God tells us that our purpose is not our own, but rather His.  Those of us that seek to keep our life in this world will lose it in the next.  Those of us that for Christ's sake lose our life in this world, will gain it in the next.  And the 'for Christ's sake' in that is key, lest we be supporting something like the Eastern Religion idea of achieving enlightenment through the denial of self.  God speaks of something completely different.  We give up ourselves to Christ, for the very reason that He is God and it is His rightful due. It is not simply that we are denying self.  It is that we are denying self for Christ's sake in personal obedience to Him, and in faith that He is Who He claims to be.

But sometimes, from the same source, this statement is meant to mean that Christians aren't to roam around between churches in an effort to 'find something they like'... Christians aren't to 'church shop' as it were.  With this I couldn't disagree more, as long as it's understood that my idea of 'church shopping' is God's idea of 'church shopping'.

See, we have a huge problem in our land in that many, many of our churches are spiritually dead.  They are led by spiritually dead pastors, directed by spiritually dead boards of elders, and peopled in large part by spiritually dead people.  This is not the type of church where a genuine Christian should stay.  It is precisely the type of church from which a true Christian should flee once they realize it truly is dead.  And here's a hint for you from my life experience:  the churches that make the most noise about being spiritual are often those that are not.

Remaining in such a church will only drag the true Christian down, while at the same time luring other unsuspecting people to the same hell hole by tacitly supporting the dead church simply by showing up.  It may or may not be the Christian's job to actively denounce it (God has not gifted everyone in that way), but it certainly is their job to get away from it and not support it with their presence or offerings.

Quite simply, Christian sheep will go to the places where there are true shepherds.  They will go to the churches where there is spiritual food.  Upon entering a dead place they will mill about for perhaps a few months, maybe a year, maybe a couple of years depending upon how well they can feed themselves - or how convincing the deception may be, but eventually they will have to admit they are in a dead place and they will leave for greener pastures.  When the poser behind the pulpit is finally made known, the sheep will flee.  This is good and right.

I have the feeling that some visible church leaders feel that just because they exist they somehow have a claim on those around them that claim Christ, and that just because they exist and have buildings that they are genuine.  Suffice it to say that centuries upon centuries of church history show this idea for the falsehood that it truly is, and laughably so.

So those comments aside, what of our main topic is about God.  And upon answering that what, if any of it, is about us?

The way I would answer this is to say that 'yes', the Bible is about God.  Duh.  It is His most precise physical manner of revealing Himself to us (the other less precise physical manner but just as true is His general revelation in nature - see the first part of Romans in the New Testament).

In His Word, God tells us about Himself - Who and What He is.  And He tells us about ourselves:  who and what we are and what He created us to be. 

The first part is all good news.  God is perfectly loving, holy, righteous, and just.  He is all powerful.  He is all knowing.  And there is nowhere that He is not. In other words, exactly the sort of person you would want for a Lord.

The second part, the part about us, is not so good.  God tells us that He made us with the specific capacity to choose to obey Him or rebel against Him, and we took the second path.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  And we all pay the price for it in suffering and death.

So we have gone from very good news (that God is both powerful AND good and loving - a combination rarely if ever found in people), to the very bad news that we rejected such a wonderful God in favor of a lie and a grasp at being 'gods' ourselves.

The Bible is all about God, and from God alone even though it was recorded physically through human agency.  It is and always will be primarily 'about God' because He is God and in everything He deserves the supremacy.  'Yes' a thousand times to these truths.  But this isn't the whole truth.  It is not the whole counsel of God.  Beware of those that would make it so.

It is about God, but because of this very fact, it is about us too.  God has intended this.

See, because of Who God is, and His nature of love and goodness - He has not left us in the predicament in which we find ourselves: dead in sin and rebellion against Him and with no hope of ever being with Him again. God tells us that when we do what we are supposed to do, we actually achieve fulfillment and true purpose - the very things men and woman run around trying to find.  Is the Bible a 'self help book'?  Yes, if it is used as God intends.  This is the very reason why He gave it after all.  As the Apostle John tells us in His gospel concerning the things the Holy Spirit led him to record:

30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.
31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:30-31 (NIV)

Flee fast and far from any pastor, preacher, or author who does not understand this core truth God has communicated.  If you don't, you will find yourself slowly blocked off from God's truth and eventually you will be no better than the corpse to which you are listening.

 

So did God give us perhaps a rule book that we can follow to achieve this life?  Did He merely come and do some miracles so that somehow recognizing those as validating Him that we can then somehow achieve true life?  No.  'No' to those ideas a thousand times.

Listen to what God says about His rules (my comments in parentheses):

Romans 5:20 (A) The law was added so that the trespass might increase. 

(and this not because God desired for there to be more sin, but so that we would realize just how sinful we are; and this so that we would then cry out to be saved.  One does not cry out for salvation if he or she doesn't believe they need saving.  But when our death in sin is made clear and we accept God's message, we cry at the top of our lungs for mercy).

7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”
8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.
9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
Romans 7:7-10 (NIV)

(God had to show us that we don't have any righteousness of our own.  He does this by showing us His righteousness as it pertains to humanity (His laws), and then proceeds to let us discover that we cannot ever fully meet them.  Thus the clear distinction between His true righteousness and our false sense of personal righteousness is made complete).

21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.
22 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.
24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
Galatians 3:21-25 (NIV)

(The purpose of the law was to show us the only true righteousness, which is God's and God's alone, and that we can't attain it by our own attempts to fulfill God's law.  It was put into place to force the rebel to see himself truly, and then to drive said rebel to Christ).


Romans 3:20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 

So how then is anyone saved?  How then does anyone achieve this true life which the Bible calls righteousness?  How do we get this true life after which each and every one of us run?

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  
22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,  
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished  —
26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:21-26 (NIV)

And each and every one of us has this opportunity for reconciliation with God only because of Him.  It is because of and through His very nature, His very plan and efforts, His very desire and preparation that each and every one of us can have a personal, saving relationship with Him.  And it is this true 'knowing of God', this true 'intimacy with God', that is indeed the very life after which everyone strives.

As the Apostle John explains for those who will accept it:

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,  but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

(William Temple writes this about John 3:36 in his wonderful book:  "Readings in St. John's Gospel"

"We have always reminded ourselves that this 'belief' is the personal trust of complete self-committal.  That committal of ourselves does not earn eternal life; rather it IS eternal life."

Consider Jesus speaking in John 17:3 

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

 (Knowing the Father and His Christ IS eternal life)

William Temple continues with some words about the one that rejects the Son:

"it is not only that he cannot enter into it or possess it (eternal life); he can never know what it is so long as his disobedience lasts.  The presentation of the Gospel to the worldly minded always suffers under this disability, that the world confidently believes it to be something quite different from what it is.  It cannot 'see' it.  So the deepest truths, such as the predestinating grace of God, are perverted and become the source of inferences contradictory to their real meaning.  So men think of eternal life as the everlasting happiness of a still self-centered soul.  But it is nothing of the kind.  It is fellowship with God in which our souls, so far as they are self-centered, can find no happiness.")

 

So although it is 'about God', God has seen fit to also make it 'about us' too.  Given that truth, who are we to say things, purposefully or accidentally, that deny His truth?  It is both, each in its own proper context and understanding.  God with the supremacy, us subordinated as we should be.  But in no way has God left us out of the picture.  He cannot because of Who He is.

When we serve Him as He has indicated we should, by dying to ourselves - meaning giving up all of our hopes, desires, fears: all of us to Christ, He then blesses us with every spiritual blessing in and through Christ.  And it is these types of things that are eternal:  they last.  Even when the world around us is literally on fire, we can have peace and rejoice always, because our souls are at peace with God.

So who is it about?  It's about God. And because of that very reason, it's about us too.

Don't ever let anyone rip the 'good' out of God or His 'Good News', the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Don't ever let anyone rip His universal love and goodness out of John 3:16-21.

And never let anyone interject a God dishonoring philosophy between you and the God Who loved you enough to first become man for you, and then to die in agony and blood for you, raised to life to show that He was God the Son so that you can believe, so that you can be saved, so that you can be adopted as one of His very family.

Never forget what God has done for you.  He took thousands of years and multiple human authors to tell you.  Believe what He says and trust Him with your life.

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