Why Believe the New Testament?
Consider the alternatives. There are really only two. Either (1) the New Testament writers conspired with each other to create the biggest fraud ever, or (2) they were what they claimed to be—inspired of God (1 Corinthians 2:13: “which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit…”).
We must pause to consider a third alternative posed by enemies of the Bible and even some of our religious friends. They would have us believe that some of the New Testament is true but other parts are false. At one recent conference, scholars sat around and voted on which of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels were actually those of Jesus and which were not. (It is difficult to imagine such arrogance.)
But of all of the alternatives, the idea that the New Testament writers were basically good men who were overzealous and made a lot of mistakes is the least credible. Can you imagine, for example, Matthew being totally meticulous in documenting the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6 and 7 and then turning around and making up the miracles of Jesus in Matthew 8 and 9? But this is the type of thing some would have us believe.
The reason that they push this idea is that they are not willing to declare the obvious: if we cannot depend on the New Testament writers being under the influence of the Holy Spirit and writing exactly what God would have them (2 Timothy 3:16f), then we must declare them to be liars and deceivers, for they declared themselves to be writing the truth and nothing but the truth. For example, John 20:31: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” If we believe this and it is not true, then we are of all men most pitiable (1 Corinthians 15:19).
So that reduces the number of alternatives back to two, which makes it easy. Just ask yourself: were Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James and Jude liars or good men? Are they reliable witnesses? If they were called upon to testify in a court of law today and you were on the jury, would you believe them? Did they not see Jesus? Is the following not true, from 1 John 1:1-3: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
The only alternative to this is that they conspired to produce a fraud. But we know they worked independently (e.g., Gal. 1:15f), making this all but impossible. And what could have been their possible motivation? For most of these men died for their beliefs, unlike the many self-serving religious “prophets” of our day.
No, the only alternative left is that these good men wrote the truth, and that being the case, our eternal destiny depends on our learning it and conforming our lives to it (John 6:45). Evil men working independently from one another could never have written such a sublime, morally righteous and consistent document.
What about the Old Testament? Is it not also the word of God? Absolutely. While the New Testament teaches clearly (in the book of Hebrews and many of Paul’s letters) that we are no longer under the Old Testament law, the writers fully regarded it (as did Jesus—Matthew 5:17-18) to be the word of God that pointed to the Christ (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11). So, if you believe the New Testament you have to regard the Old Testament to be of God as well.