People think having faith in the Bible requires some kind of blind Kierkegaardian leap in the dark, but it’s really about objectively looking at the facts and examining them for exactly what they are.

Since The Da Vinci Code movie debuted several weeks ago, my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill. (www.graceimpact.org), has been using his Sunday sermons to show how the great proof of the Bible’s accuracy and infallibility is in its vast system of codes, or macro codes, that unify the whole Book, and are infinitely more fascinating than anything Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown could devise.

“Just as Brown's work has hidden in plain view a code to warn readers not to believe his story is more than fiction, so the Bible has hidden in plain view codes telling its readers they can believe it and what it says about Jesus Christ,” says Jordan. “God has put some codes in His Word that demonstrate conclusively, scientifically, beyond any possibility of the probability of a doubt existing, that the Book is the Word of God.

“It could not have been written by a human author. It’s a Book of extra-terrestrial source that could not have been written by anyone bound by the time-space continuum we live in. It had to have been written by someone outside of time who had the whole tapestry of history—who knew the end from the beginning.”

As Jordan explains, macro codes are what are called “types” in Bible study, hence the old term, “Bible typology.”

“In engineering, they’d call it a proto-type,” explains Jordan. “With cars, for example, they’re called ‘concept designs.’ It’s a projected, anticipated model of a car. A macro code is really a structure that anticipates a certain thing to come, such as a wizard built into a computer program.

“You’ve already got the structure of the behavior laid out ahead of time and the Bible is full of that kind of thing. When you come to the end of the Bible and look back and see the way history developed, you see how God knew it from the beginning and planted clues all through Scripture to tell you how things were going to work.”

A great illustration of this—used in nearly every Bible commentary ever written as an example of the 300-plus specific prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus Christ—is in Psalm 22, where David describes in profound detail Jesus Christ’s experience on the Cross. Psalm 22:16, specifically, reads, “For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.”

Crucifixion wasn’t invented until 700 years or more after this passage was written, meaning there was absolutely no way David could have anticipated these details in advance except by Divine guidance, which we see from the psalm extends to the even most subtle aspects of the recorded text.

“Notice how the psalm is dictated in the first person like it’s happening to the person writing?” observes Jordan. “In David’s day, crucifixion was not known; they stoned people in Israel. The first historical record of crucifixion was committed by the Persians in 90 B.C., less than 100 years before the time of Christ. The Romans took it from the Persians (the Persians were always great at inventing this kind of stuff) and spread it across the world. It didn’t come on the scene historically until the 1st century B.C. and yet there’s David hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of years before talking about crucifixion.”

In John 13:19, Jesus Christ says, “Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.” What He’s saying is, “How you can know it’s me and nobody else is by fulfilled prophecy.”

Jordan explains, “The great God-given apologetic is God telling you ahead of time what’s going to happen, so that when it happens you know it was God that told you. The reason fulfilled prophecy is the proof of God’s existence is not just that He knows what’s going to happen, it’s that He says, ‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ and then He makes it happen.

“That’s why Revelation 19 says ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’ God puts His reputation on the line and the line He puts it on is the ability to fulfill prophecy. The ability to fulfill prophecy is something that’s verifiable. It’s scientifically verifiable proof of His ability, wisdom and knowledge.”

One of the great challenges of God Himself regarding His prophetic ability is in Isaiah 41. Through Isaiah, God talks to Israel about all the other religions in the world and says, “You see all those religions out there in the world—they’re all false. You’ve got the only true religion. You’ve got the only God who’s really God. All the other gods out there are pretenders. They aren’t real and here’s how you know—I tell you ahead of time what’s going to come to pass.”

Specifically, Isa. 41:21-23 reads, “Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.”

Notice God’s reasoning with them, “Come now, let us think this thing through.” He’s arguing, “Let’s get the evidence on the table.”

“It’s a great study to go through the passages in Isaiah 41- 46 and over to 48 and see how God, over and over, challenges the gods; the religious systems of the world,” says Jordan. “He would stand in front of a Buddha or a Muhammad, Krishna, Kali, or any of the other gods of the world, and say, ‘I can and you can’t. And you can check me out because I wrote a book where I did, and it all comes to pass. Where’s your book?’ They don’t have one. He wrote a written record.

“In Isaiah 44 when He says, ‘You are my witnesses,’ He tells them in the verse prior to that, ‘Look, I told you what’s going to come to pass and it’s a witness.’ In other words, ‘The written record is a witness. There’s the book.’ ”

Editor’s Note: Just getting started on this one. More to come. . .