TLC: The Doctrine of Scripture

January / February 2019

Schedule:
January 13 Session 1: Divine Revelation / Immediate and Mediate General Revelation (Vincenzo)
January 20 Session 2: Paradox, Mystery, and Contradiction / Special Revelation and the Bible (Russell)
February 03 Session 3: The Law of God (Russell)
February 10 Session 4: The Prophets of God (Vincenzo)
February 17 Session 5: The Canon of Scripture (Vincenzo)
February 24 Session 6: Interpreting the Bible / Private Interpretation (Russell)

Session 2: Special Revelation / Paradox, Mystery, and Contradiction

I. Introduction

II. Special Revelation

A. The Necessity of Special Revelation

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?” This is reasoning by the apostle
Paul in a series of questions. “And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not
heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach
unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:14–15).

In John 6, when many disciples left him, Jesus asked Peter, “Why don’t you go also? Come on,
go ahead. Everyone else is going away from me.” We read, “Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’” (John 6:68). No one else has it.
Everyone else lies. Kings and presidents and chief justices all lie. How true are Paul’s words:
“Let God be true and all men liars.”

“Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”
(Matt. 4:4).

B. Inspiration: The Bible as the Word of God

What is inspiration?
B.B. Warfield writes, “Inspiration is defined as a supernatural influence exerted on the sacred
writers by the Spirit of God.” 1

2 Tim 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed”

III. Paradox, Mystery, and Contradiction

1
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield., The Biblical Idea of Inspiration (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1988), 140.
TLC: Special Revelation (Paradox, Mystery, Contradiction) Session 2

A. Contradiction
It is a combination of statements, ideas or features of a situation that are opposed to one another

B. Paradox

Is apparent contradiction that under close scrutiny yields resolution

1. Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

2. 2 Cor 12:10 – “When I am weak, then I am strong

3. Why four Gospels?

C. Mystery

With regard to mystery, it can be defined as: something that is difficult or impossible to
understand or explain.

God created us rational creatures and when we look to the Trinity; we say “God in one essence
and three in person” Three in One.

IV. Implications for Life

1) God is a God of communication, he communicates through his word, and because of
that we hear God every Sunday morning, He is a living God that speaks to us
2) Because God is sovereign our all, we can be confident when we do pray or obey, as we
walk in faith with our respective responsibilities.
3) Because of the paradox of the Cross, we can see that God is not author of confusion we
may not get every little detail that God prescribes, but there is a created order in which
governs God. Things have a purpose, you have a purpose, God does not operate
arbitrarily.