WHAT ABOUT ALL THE CONTRADICTIONS IN THE BIBLE?
12.15.2002, The Bible Fellowship of Greater Washington, DC


As seen in the article Line Upon Line, God wrote the Bible in such a way that non-elect people are kept in blindness. While He has elected to save some, others are hardened by His Word. The spiritual nature and focus of the Scriptures exposes, and even intensifies, the hardness of people's hearts who are unregenerate. Thus, it is absolutely necessary that God give us spiritual insight and the desire to find Truth in His Word before we will begin to submit to it. When the unsaved read the Bible, they only see the historical setting because they are unable to harmonize the Scriptures, or they find what they believe to be contradictory statements. And this is God's intention. Again, God states in Isaiah 28:13,

But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, [and] there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

At first blush, many passages appear to contradict each another until they are carefully harmonized by comparing spiritual things with spiritual (Scripture with Scripture). The carnal, or natural, mind of man is at enmity with God and cannot perceive how these verses harmonize because they must be understood on a spiritual level. Since the carnal, unsaved person is unspiritual (they do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit), the spiritual harmony of the Scriptures appears as a contradiction to them on a physical level. The words of the Bible are multidimensional, so to speak, so that the natural mind cannot comprehend them properly without spiritual illumination from God. Unless God gives spiritual understanding and regenerates the heart, the carnal man will remain in spiritual darkness to this physical world and enslaved to sin and Satan, leading the individual to eternal death. Moreover, without a regenerated heart, the carnally-minded person does not trust the authority of God's Word, but rather looks for reasons to discount it as false in order to continue living in sin, and even in false Christianity. They will always reject God's Word (even if they claim to believe in it) and the true believers as nonsense -- they just don't "make sense" no matter how clearly, no matter how adamantly, carefully or passionately they testify of the Truth. I Corinthians 2:9-14 states:

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Only those who are of the Truth hear God's voice:

Pilate therefore said unto him [Christ], Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth hears my voice. John 18:37

The same spiritual Word that brings judgment upon the non-elect also gives spiritual life to the elect so that they begin to understand Truth and submit to God. When Jesus preached to the multitudes, He addressed this point:

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. Matthew 13:9-16

Since God is the sovereign King in Heaven and Judge of all the earth, He does as He pleases, and He always does that which is absolutely righteous. It's altogether right that He wrote the Bible so that it brings damnation upon some and salvation to others. The Word of God is a 2-edged sword, a savor of life unto life and a savor of death unto death. This is entirely fair because God is God, because God is holy, just and righteous while we are wicked sinners and children of wrath by nature. Since God Himself secured the redemption of His people by paying for their sins, it is altogether "fair" for Him to save those whom He pleases and to harden the rest. He was not obligated to save any of us had He chosen not to do so, even as He did not redeem any of the angels who had rebelled:

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. 2 Peter 2:4-10

And not only [this]; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac; (For [the children] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calls;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? [Is there] unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then [it is] not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore has he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed [it], Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? [What] if God, willing to show [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Romans 9:11-23

So God gives a precept here and a precept there in the Bible which must be studied, harmonized and understood on a spiritual plane in order to come to Truth. And He conceals spiritual truth in the pages of the Bible to be searched out by the true believers:

[It is] the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings [is] to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2

The kings who search out a matter are the believers who search the Scriptures. They reign with Christ who is King of kings and Lord of lords. They are seated with Him at the right hand of the Father. Only God's people understand that the Bible is absolutely harmonious and trustworthy, because God has given them spiritual eyes to see with eyes of faith. They are given understanding of the spiritual nature of God's Word, which is the God-breathed sword of the Spirit. And He alone receives all the credit and glory for their salvation, otherwise they would have continued under the same state of wrath as the non-elect.

But the rest are made to stumble. Those who are against God argue in their carnal wisdom that the Bible is contradictory. They are completely persuaded that the contradictions they've found are logically irresolvable, that there is an error in the Bible introduced by men. Others insist the Bible does not have a spiritual dimension underlying its historical accounts. Both reject the Heavenly wisdom God gives to His people!

An example of an apparent contradiction, one which appears to be a little simpler to resolve, is found in I Corinthians 10:8, which reads:

Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

Here, God is referring to an event that happened in Old Testament national Israel. He is using national Israel as an example for us, that we not commit fornication as some of them did and were destroyed of God. And in this context God says that 23,000 of them were killed in one day.

But when we read about that event in Numbers 25:1-3,9, we read:

And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel....And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.

Is this a contradiction? In the Numbers passage it says that 24,000 were killed as a result of their rebellion against God, but in I Corinthians it says that 23,000 were killed -- in one day. So there is no contradiction at all, you see. The key phrase that clears up the apparent contradiction is "in one day." 23,000 people died in the worst day of the plague, but a total of 24,000 people were killed in all. But God doesn't give us this information in a straightforward fashion. He simply tells us in one passage that 24,000 people were killed, and in another that 23,000 were killed in a day. And He guides His people to see with eyes of faith that there is no contradiction, but that God is giving us 2 different perspectives on this plague -- one perspective being the total number of people killed and the other being the number killed on the worst day of the plague.

All of the apparent contradictions in the Bible, like the one above, are found to be completely harmonious once we carefully compare scripture with scripture. However, on the surface there are apparent contradictions so that the carnal mind that is not in submission to Christ and not seeking the Truth of God's Word will stumble.

As we'll see in the next article, this blindness is not limited to those who are professing athiests or of some other religion than Christianity, but it has become especially pervasive within the Christian church itself -- even though they believe and insist that they trust the Bible. Just as the religious leaders of Jesus' day denied the Scriptures for their own tradition, so it is today in the very churches that profess to believe on Him. This brings us back to the original verse quoted at the beginning:

But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, [and] there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. Isaiah 28:13