Those Pesky Bible Contradictions!

Mike Hosey, Elder

Through the years there have been many things that have strengthened my faith in the Bible and in God. Most of those things would seem normal to most people. For instance, seeing God work out healing and change in the lives of others, or seeing evidence of his handiwork in creation, or noting the archeological accuracy of the Bible, or experiencing his presence personally in my own life are all the kinds of things that one would expect to be strengtheners of faith. But some things that have convinced me of biblical truth are really quite counterintuitive.

One of those oddly counterintuitive things that has convinced me that the Bible is true is the number of apparent contradictions that exist within its pages. Whoa, hold on now! Wait a minute Mike Hosey!  Are you telling us that the Bible's contradictions increased your faith in the Bible. No. What kind of nonsense would that be? I'm telling you the Bible's apparent contradictions increased my faith.  Actually, it was my resolution of many of those apparent contradictions that did the trick. 

Take for instance Exodus 33:20 where God declares to Moses that no one can see his face and live, or John's gospel (John 1:18) declaring to us that no one has ever seen God. These verses seem to be in stark contrast to verses like Exodus 33:11 where we are told that Moses spoke to God "face to face," or when Manoah and his wife declared that they had seen God and not died  (Judges 13:22), or when Abram speaks face to face with the Lord, and even has a meal with Him (Genesis 18:1-33)!

So how do we resolve such contradictions. Well, we use the Bible to interpret itself. Take a closer look at the Abram passage above. In verse 1, The Lord is introduced as the Lord, then in verse two He is described as a man. Has God ever walked as a man? Well,  go to the first few verses of John that tell us that Jesus existed in the beginning, that he was with God, and that He was God, and that He became flesh and walked among us (John 1:1-14).

The Bible teaches that God exists in three persons, and that those three persons are all God. With that in mind, those apparent contradictions don't seem so contradictory anymore. In fact, they demonstrate a strong consistency within the pages of the bible. When a person has seen Jesus, he has seen God, but he has not seen God the father directly! So when all those Old Testament characters spoke to God face to face, well, in all likelihood, they were speaking to Jesus in harmony with those first few verses of the gospel of John. Simply amazing!