How does a person come to believe in the truth and authority of the Bible?

John Piper’s most recent book, A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness, addresses this question. The answer: We see its glory rather than infer its truth.

Seeing is central because saving knowledge is more than intellectual acknowledgment of truth claims. Saving knowledge includes loving God, treasuring Jesus, and staking your life on the Gospel. These don’t result from research that simply leads to inferences that the Bible is probably accurate. Furthermore, Scripture makes clear that such saving knowledge is available to all mankind, to the educated and uneducated, to the adult and the child, and not only to those with analytical minds and ability in historical research. So Piper writes:

The pathway that leads to sight may involve much empirical observation, and historical awareness, and rational thought. . . . But the end we are seeking is not a probable inference from historical reasoning but a full assurance that we have seen the glory of God. Thus, at the end of all human means, the simplest preliterate person and the most educated scholar come to a saving knowledge of the truth of Scripture in the same way: by a sight of its glory. (p. 15)

Does this even make sense? Note that this is the way Scripture speaks of salvation: Satan has “blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). But God is the One who creates light! He “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Furthermore, if “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), then the saving sight of God’s glory comes to us through the Word – through Scripture. There thus must be a similar shining of God’s light in our hearts to come to trust the revealed Word.

Piper argues that although seeing the glory of Scripture may sound strange to our ears, there are other times when we must see truth rather than infer it. In Chapter 9 he presents several analogies to help us have some idea of what that seeing by divine illumination consists of. Here we will look at two of them.

First, as C.S. Lewis writes, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” That is, “In Your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9). Piper writes:

Ordinarily when we seek to have a well-grounded conviction about some claim to truth in this world, we bring all our experience to bear on the claim and try to make sense out of it. . . . Does it cohere with what we know to be true? Does it make sense in the light of what we already know? What we know from experience is the standard, the arbiter, the measure of truth.

But what happens when we encounter a claim that says, “I am the Standard, the Arbiter, the Truth”? This claim is unique. It is not like other claims to truth in this world. When the ultimate Measure of all reality speaks, you don’t subject this Measure to the measure of your mind or your experience of the world. He created all that. When the ultimate Standard of all truth and beauty appears, he is not put in the dock to be judged by the prior perceptions of truth and beauty that we bring to the courtroom. The eternal, absolute original is seen as true and beautiful not because he coheres with what we know but because all the truth and beauty we know coheres in him. It is measured by him, and it is seen flowing from him. (p. 158)

Now, think: Jesus is “the true light, which gives light to everyone” (John 1:9). He is the standard. He is the measure. And He is the One who is the source of all knowledge:

He is one who can be known and the one who makes all knowing possible. He is a point of light—a point of truth and knowledge—that enters our minds, and he is the light by which we see all points of light. Thus we know him to be true, not because our light shows him to be so, but because his divine light shines with its own, all-enlightening, all-explaining glory. (p. 160)

And this provides us with an analogy for Scripture:

We know the Scriptures to be true, not because our light shows them to be so, but because their divine light shines with its own unique, all-enlightening, all-explaining glory.

The second analogy we will consider concerns Peter and Judas. Both lived with Jesus for about three years. Both saw Him, heard Him, spoke with Him, ate with Him. Jesus sent them both out to preach and to heal. Both are called disciples. Both are called apostles. Yet Peter saw Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Judas betrayed Him for a few thousand dollars.

What led to the difference between these two men? Why did one see, and the other did not?

Jesus Himself tells Peter, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). Peter would not have seen apart from the revelation of God.

However, Piper argues that it would be wrong to say Judas did not see because it was not revealed to him. He did not see because he was a liar, a thief, a covetous person.

Consider John 3:19-20 in this regard:

Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Commenting on these verses, Piper writes:

The root of our blindness is not that we are victims of darkness, but lovers of darkness. The root of our blindness is not that we are hindered from the light, but that we are haters of the light. We love the darkness of doing things our way, and we hate the light of the surpassing beauty of the all-authoritative, all-satisfying, sovereign Christ. And, therefore, our blindness is blameworthy—not, as the lawyers say, exculpatory. It does not remove our guilt. It is our guilt.

In this analogy, Judas represents people who approach the Christian Scriptures with a mind and a heart that are so out of tune with the music of its meaning that they cannot hear it for what it is. There is such a dissonance that the heart repels the revelation of God as undesirable and untrue. Peter represents the people who come to the Scriptures with a mind and a heart humbled by the Holy Spirit and open to the beauty and truth of God’s glory shining through the meaning of the text. What the analogy brings to light is that two people can be looking at the very same person (Jesus Christ) or the very same book (the Bible) and miss what is really there.

So the Scriptures are like Jesus in His essence  – the Light by which all is seen – and like Jesus in His humanity – the One who divides humanity into those who see His glory and delight in it, and those who are blinded by their own sin.

In our fallen state, we must see this glory – and our very fallenness blinds us to this glory.

Thus, there is no way we can have such sight unless we humble ourselves before God and His Word, unless we seek Truth from Him rather than establish ourselves as the arbiters of Truth. So may we approach God’s Word as supplicants, as needy people, as those thirsting in a desert – and may He satisfy us with His Truth, His Beauty, His Glory.

[The pdf version of the book is available as a free download at Desiring God. My approach to arguing for the authority of Scripture – as well as my personal story of coming to trust that authority – can be found in these blog posts from 2013: first, second, third.]