In Exodus 3, God speaks to Moses
from the burning bush and tells Moses that he is going to deliver the people of
Israel from bondage and take them into the promised land (3:7-9). He then tells
Moses that he is sending him to Egypt that he ‘may bring my people, the
children of Israel, out of Egypt’ (3:10). Moses has a few questions, and the Lord
responds to those questions, telling Moses exactly what he is to do and say
(3:11-22). Then, Moses asks the question that is directly relevant to the issue
of apologetic methodology. Moses expresses concern about what to do if the Israelites
in Egypt do not believe he is speaking God’s Word to them (4:1). God responds
by promising to give evidence that will authenticate Moses’s claim.
Why is this significant? It is
significant because the Word that Moses is to speak to the Israelites is the Word
of the self-attesting God of Scripture. Moses will be speaking God’s very Word
to them. There is no standard of authority higher than God by which his Word
can be verified. There is no one greater by whom God can swear (Heb. 6:13). So,
what is Moses to do, he wonders, if the Israelites ask, ‘How do we know this is
God’s Word? How does God respond to Moses?
He doesn’t instruct Moses to use anything
resembling the method of presupposition or a transcendental argument. He doesn’t
instruct Moses to tell the Israelites that unless they presuppose him and his
word, all human predication is unintelligible and that they will be unable to
know anything truly. Instead, even though there is no higher authority than God
himself, God promises to provide Moses with corroborating evidence. This
evidence does not give God’s Word its authority, nor does it add to its authority
or conflict with its authority. It simply gives evidence to the Israelites that
what Moses is saying is, in fact, God’s Word.
This is not the only place in
Scripture where miracles or other corroborating evidence is provided to confirm
that God’s Word is, in fact, God’s Word. The prophets’ word from God is
corroborated by miracles (e.g., 1 Kings 17:24; cf. Deut. 18:21-22). The
apostles’ word from God is corroborated by various signs (2 Cor. 12:12).
Neither God nor his faithful followers ever show any hesitation about using
such corroborating evidence.
. . .
The reason God provides the kind
of verification he does has to do with the fact that anybody can claim to
be speaking the self-attesting and authoritative Word of God. God responds to
this situation by authenticating his Word with evidence that cannot be easily
duplicated by just anyone. Consider Jesus’ words and actions in Matthew 9:1-8,
for example:
And getting into a boat he
crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, some people brought to him a
paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the
paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.’ And behold, some of
the scribes said to themselves, ‘This man is blaspheming.’ But Jesus, knowing
their thoughts, said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is
easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or so say, “Rise and walk”? But that
you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he
then said to the paralytic—‘Rise, pick up your bed and go home.’ And he rose
and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God,
who had given such authority to men.
Jesus is God incarnate and
therefore speaks with the very authority of God. His Word carries that ultimate
authority above which there is no higher standard. But Jesus knows that it is
easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ than it is to say, ‘Rise and walk.’ He
knows that any lying false prophet can say the first. Jesus therefore gives
evidence that his Word is, in fact, God’s Word by doing something that it is
not to so easy for a false prophet to do. He does this so that they may know
that his Word actually is God’s Word. The authority of God’s Word is always
‘self-attesting,’ but knowledge of who is speaking God’s Word is not always ‘self-evident’
to human beings. Corroborative evidence is given to help people to distinguish
between those who are truly speaking God’s authoritative Word and those who are
merely claiming to speak God’s authoritative Word. (Keith A. Mathison, Toward
a Reformed Apologetics: A Critique of the Thought of Cornelius Van Til [Reformed,
Exegetical and Doctrinal Studies; Ross-Shire: Mentor, 2024], 135-36, 137)
