This question, belief in what, might not be one that other people ask. Maybe it’s obvious to them, but not to me, at least not when I first thought about the question. It came up again today as I looked at a passage in James. His explanation in the second part of chapter 2 is that Christians must have some action that gives life to their faith. At one point he says, “The demons also believe and shudder.” Believe in what?
Well, his previous statement was this: “You believe in God, you do well.” So the demons, apparently, “believe in God.” And that causes them to react in fear, not in faith. So “believing in God” is not enough. Saying, I believe God exists. Is not enough. I believe that God is the supreme authority in the universe—that He is One—is not enough.
So, what are we to believe?
I want to say, We are to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because believing in Him sets apart Christians from other “faith communities.” In other words, from other people who believe something, but not that Jesus is Lord.
But what about Abraham and all the other saints of the Old Testament? Abraham is particularly easy to discuss because both the Old and the New Testaments say, And Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. He believed God.
But what about God did He believe? In the Old Testament context when the statement was first made about Abraham (Genesis 15:6), God had just promised him that he would have as many descendants as the stars of the sky, that he would possess the land upon which he stood. Then Abraham believed in the LORD. Abraham went from calling on God to believing in the LORD. I mean, he’d left his home back in Ur because God told him to do so, back when he was calling upon God.
Now, however, these years later, his belief is counted as righteousness. What did he believe? Not that God existed. He’d believed that before. But now he believed the promise of God, the word of God. He believed that God was telling him the truth, even though he clearly would not live to see all the things happen that God said would happen. He didn’t need to see God keep His promises. He believed He would.
God’s promises, essentially, can be boiled down to one: the coming of His Son, Jesus. No, He didn’t explain it all to Abraham. But He set in motion the coming of Jesus, born of a descendant of David, who was one of those many descendants of Abraham, which God promised.
So, believe in what? I guess I’d say, I believe in what God says, what He’s promised.
It’s really the fact that Adam did NOT believe in what God said that got him in trouble back in the Garden of Eden. God’s word is the thing Satan has attacked from that time until now. Further more, the enemy of our souls wants to bring God’s word in question at every turn. Has God really said ______. Fill in the blank. He even brought that same tactic to Jesus when he tempted Him. “If You are the Son of God. . .,” “If You are the Son of God . . .,” he repeatedly threw at Jesus. If You are the Word, he could just as easily have said, because that’s precisely what John told us about Jesus.
Hebrews reinforces this. God spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets, but in these last days has spoken to us in His Son. (See Heb. 1:1-2). We can essentially put in an equal sign: God’s Word=Jesus, God’s Word.
He is the promise Abraham believed. He is the promise we must believe today.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Rom. 1:16)
The gospel. The Good News the angels told the shepherds on the day of Christ’s birth. The Good News “which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son” (Rom. 1:2b-3a).
Believing God, believing in God, is taking God at His word that He would and did send His Son. John said it plainly in his first letter:
The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. (1 John 5:10-12)
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A Christian Worldview of Fiction 
You didn’t answer my response question yesterday regarding whether we have the original manuscripts that you said were “infallible in the originals”.
So I’ll try again. Do we have the original manuscripts that you say were infallible?
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OK, kiabooks, this is kind of rude and makes me think you have an agenda rather than a desire for a dialogue. I generally only check for and answer comments in the morning when I start work. I didn’t see your “Do we have the originals” comment until now, nor the follow up, nor this judgmental assessment of my “silence” until now. So, I’ll let you study this for yourself. Here’s a link that will tell you exactly what I believe and what you want to know, if you actually do want to know. https://www.gotquestions.org/original-Bible.html
Becky
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Asking a question isn’t rude. Your response was however.
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Asking a question three times and accusing the person of ignoring you, is rather rude. But I’m sorry if my confronting you on it seemed rude in return. That was not my intention. I want you to know that I don’t hang out engaging people in conversation here, as much as I might like to. Generally I answer questions once when I first sit down at the computer to start work.
Becky
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PS I don’t know that you have much grounds to call someone rude, considering all the outlandish comments you and your buddies posted at Ark’s site. THAT was rude, intentionally so. And yes, it was offensive. Not that I’m shocked or going to hold that against you or any of the others who mocked me. Kind of makes me chuckle, because Jesus said if the mocked Him, His followers should expect the same thing. So, you guys clearly just fulfilled some prophecy. And that’s pretty amusing in my way of thinking.
Becky
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The short answer I wanted you to honestly admit is that No, we do not have the originals that you said were inflalible or inerrant. The earliest scrap is p52, a credit card sized small portion of the gospel of John from the late 2nd century.
All we have are copies or copies of more copies with demonstrable errors, either copyist or otherwise.
Not even the TR, which the kjv is based on, has escaped corruption.
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And there it is. The agenda behind the apparent “innocent” question. Reminds me of the Pharisees asking Jesus questions with the intention of trapping Him.
If you would read the article, then you’d know why the Bible is still infallible and inerrant. There is no phantom corruption, which of course no atheist can prove exists (If you had the originals and could point out how the copies have strayed, then we can talk about corruption). It’s just a false assertion, and in contrast Christians have much evidence to indicate that God has not only inspired His word but preserved it.
Becky
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Now this is an interesting and, to my mind, somewhat sweeping assertion.
I would be more than a little interested to see some of the evidence you refer to.
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Ark, this is an area I’ve touched on briefly in another post, but rather than linking to that one, I think there’s a more comprehensive one, which is actually only a part of a book on the subject, by Canadian Tim Challies. There are other articles by other people too, but clearly Tim has done his research. This article reads in under 10 minutes and is very clear: https://www.challies.com/articles/has-the-bible-been-preserved-for-us-today/
I think the comparisons with other ancient manuscripts make the point of God doing something to preserve His word. I’m aware, atheists probably have another explanation. But I think that’s just another “sweep the evidence under the rug” moment.
Becky
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The point Christians miss is this.
Unfortunately in the pursuit of evidence, comparisons with other texts are meaningless.
It is demonstrating the veracity of the content that is crucial for your assertion to stand.
Unfortunately this is where your arguments do not measure up.
We only have to look at something such as dinosaurs and humans co-existing.
There is no evidence for such a claim.
In fact every piece of evidence contradicts this.
There are numerous other examples but this one even old earth creationists have refuted time and time again.
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Ark, this comment is a bit of a switch in the middle of the discussion. The point we were talking about was the preservation of Scripture. So comparisons with other ancient texts are absolutely meaningful. The show how the current texts have a clear path to uncorrupted accuracy. This does not give evidence that the Bible is truth, but it does give evidence that what we have today is not some radically “changed down through the centuries” text. In other words, that God preserved His word in a way that no other text has ever been preserved.
Becky
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Once again, you seem not to be understanding the point.
It matters not if there were a million copies of the bible. Neither does it really matter if they were discovered to be contemporary accounts and my KJV is exactly the same as the very first manuscript found at Nag Hammadi.
What is crucial to your argument is demonstrating the veracity of the content.
And from this perspective the bible fails spectacularly.
From the HGP to Revelation and everything in between the bible can and has been demonstrated to be myth and historical fiction and the evidence supports this throughout.
Once more —- this is an unsubstantiated claim that has no evidence to support it.
And as pointed out above, is nothing more than myth and historical fiction.
In fact ,the claim by young earth creationists that dinosaurs and humans coexisted less than 10,000 years ago is the perfect example of such nonsense and has been refuted at every point.
And please do not insult me and come back with the soft tissue/dinosaur bone claim.
Ark
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Ark, you changed the topic. The question was evidence that God had miraculously preserved the Bible so that it has not undergone the corruption some atheists claim. That’s the question on the table. That’s the one I answered. It’s disingenuous to now claim that the question was actually something else. In truth, I gave you the evidence that no other book has been preserved in the same way that the Bible has. You are simply dismissing it. I don’t know why you keep going on about dinosaurs and fossils in a discussion about God preserving the Bible! It’s a diversion tactic I’ve seen from other atheists and does not contribute to this thread.
Becky
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There is NO evidence.
Furthermore, it has been corrupted and is rife with every inaccuracy across most major disciplines and includes interpolation(forgery).
But this is immaterial as the content contains mostly myth and historical fiction.
I am not claiming the question was something else, but merely extrapolating to show how ridiculous the entire suggestion that the bible was inspired by your god, Yahweh.
I included the dinosaur / human coexistence rubbish as this is so often used as an example to demonstrate the age of the earth – as YECs claim is demonstrated in the god-inspired bible.
Certainly one of your fellow YECs, Ken Ham thinks so.
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