‘If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken’ (John 10.35).

By Pastor M. Harley, a Vice-President of the Society.

Breaking the law of our land is regrettably something which happens daily. Breaking the Word of God, for example the commandments, is also a daily occurrence, though with much more serious consequences. If I were to drive beyond the speed limit, I may earn trouble for myself, a fine perhaps or some other penalty. The law does not cease to have force because I have broken it; it is not thereby invalidated. Its authority is not reduced in any way by having transgressed it. People think that if they reject God’s Law and refuse to submit to it that it has no claims on them. But no matter how much they ignore it and break it, the authority of God’s Law remains. Adam and Eve broke God’s commandment but still were obliged to obey Him.

And that is the meaning of our text, though maybe just an aspect as there are many applications. The Scripture cannot be invalidated, because it comes with the authority of God Who cannot lie. The infringement of the Word of God comes with dire consequences. We immediately classify ourselves as sinners and the only escape is belief in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that upon repentance His blood cleanses from every sin.

Were I to break the law of God I would earn the wrath of God upon myself, but it would not invalidate the Scripture. We cannot break it with impunity; every disobedience has its recompense. But the Holy Scriptures remain unimpaired.

As early in the unbreakable Scriptures as Genesis 2, two longstanding laws of God are established which our modern generation feels free to break; not only as individuals but by the laws of the land. In Genesis 2.3 we read, ‘God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made’. In defiance of this, Sabbath breaking is widely legalised. Another example is in Genesis 2.24 where the marriage between one man and one woman is established. Modern laws of the land legalise the breaking of marriage and the blurring of the sexes. People may try to explain and interpret away clear commands of God on these matters but they cannot destroy their authority. The commandments are not invalidated; we simply heap up trouble for ourselves as the Apostle Paul makes clear in his epistle to the Romans:

‘Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds’ (Romans 2.4–6).

The Lord Jesus Christ takes it for granted that among the Jews of His day it was correctly accepted that the Scriptures cannot be broken—that is, they could not be invalidated. The point of His reasoning depends upon this very matter. It is proof positive. His contemporaries had objected to the Saviour calling Himself the Son of God. But the use of the expression ‘gods’ had Biblical precedent. It concerned lesser men than the Lord Jesus Christ. In Psalm 82.6 it is written, ‘I have said, Ye are gods’. Likewise ‘he judgeth among the gods’ (Psalm 82.1). They are the judges in the land, whether kings, princes as their deputies, or appointed judges and magistrates. They are placed there by God to uphold His Law, but they would die like men despite their exalted status. Whereas the Saviour is perfect, if the expression can be attributed to lesser men it can certainly with justice be attributed to Him.

Omission of certain texts, for example Mark 16.9–20 and John 8.1–11, does not render them invalidated. Those who dispute them simply disqualify the versions which omit them or support those omissions. Those who perpetuate and follow their leading simply heap up trouble for themselves. 

A very quick assessment of our standing before God is made by comparing our behaviour with the ten commandments of Exodus 20.1–17. Infractions, whether it be one or many, can only be atoned for by the blood of Jesus Christ, of whom we read, ‘when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Galatians 4.4–5). Not to come to Him is to verify His words of Proverbs 8.36, ‘he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death’.

The deteriorating days in which we live must not loosen our conviction, the Saviour’s conviction, that ‘the scripture cannot be broken’.