Biblical or not biblical?

What does it mean for something to be biblical? 

First, it is not just that it is in the bible. This is one major way the devil sponsors false teachings. Remember that he used the very Scriptures to tempt Jesus. And my LORD didn’t just say, “oh yes, that’s in the bible, I’ll do it, it is biblical” No. He will not fall for that deception and you should not fall for that neither my friend.

To be biblical is for a teaching to manifest the purpose of God, to bear the approval of God and to uphold the unity of Scriptures. Jesus knew the will of God for Him, so no one, even the devil, could sway Him out of God’s purpose by using genuine Scriptures, but wrongly and deceptively applied, against Him. A teaching is biblical if it harmonizes with the thoughts of God and if it aligns with the whole counsel of God.

How do we know this?

Christ is the last Word of God to man and it is by Him that all earlier utterances of God is understood (Hebrews 1:1-3). He is the full manifestation of the whole counsel of God. All acts, performances, principles and persons in scriptures must be brought under the lens of the completeness of Christ. Whatever comes out on the other side is that which God updates us with by Christ. This is how the shadow gives way to (the arrival of) the substance. The shadow being the law, prophets and all observances stipulated in the old testament and the substance being the revealing of the Son of God, in the New Testament, Who gives meaning to all former things and permanently replaces every shadow. That is what it means to be biblical.

Test every teaching with God’s full purpose

So, you must test all claims of men, even when scriptures are copiously quoted, with the full purpose of God. For instance, there are many things we are still doing today that only shows we have not fully acknowledged the Substance that has been given, even after 2000 years. While most of us Christians know that Christ has been offered once for all for us and there is no need to bring goats and bulls again for sacrifices, we still hold on to many other things of the old, as if Christ has not yet come, as if we are still in Judaism, and as if Christ is not enough!

This is the kind of dishonesty (or may be just ignorance) that keeps us out of fully experiencing the New Covenant. One mark of the old covenant is that obedience does not always include desire to obey and love for righteousness. Even if you hate the law, if you act accordingly, it was OK. But not in the New Covenant! Simply doing what God says is right without loving it and desiring to do it is not acceptable. It is dead works (Hebrews 9:14). In the New Covenant, we LOVE to do first before we actually DO because it is God that is now working in us, unlike the old covenant where we are the ones working without His help.

Philippians 2:13 KJV

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Hebrews 8:10 KJV (Jeremiah 31:34)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

Christ is our only High Priest

Although it is in the Bible that men could be high priests like Aaron and Eli e.t.c, it is not biblical to call a fellow man today our high priest. In fact, it is treasonable and forbidden. We only have one High Priest now, which is Christ (Hebrews 3:1, 4:14). That system of priesthood has been totally discarded because of the unprofitableness of it and Christ has been “…made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.” Hebrews 7:16 KJV. Please confirm also from Hebrews 7:18, 22 – 8:2

All the rest of us who have been saved by Him have been made priests (Revelation 1:6, 5:10; 1 Peter 2:9) and Christ alone is the High Priest among us (Hebrews 10:21). So, you see, something is not biblical simply because it is in the bible or because you have examples for it in scriptures. We must read the word of God in the context of the full revelation of God that we now have in Christ, then we will know what is biblical and what is not.

John 5:39 KJV

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

Image credits:

centre for leadership and spiritual formation.org, evangelical outreach.org, cwblueprints.blogspot.com