05.03.06 - The Divine Authority of Scripture
(6) The Divine Authority of Scripture This authority is that of truth, and the power of truth is that it is a message from God, the Word of Him Who is Truth, and which commands by virtue of its divinity, and wins acceptance by its reality and worth.
If the thoughts and actions of men, if their faith and conduct are properly and legitimately influenced and determined by mental and moral worth wherever found; and if the Scriptures be from God, the Fount of truth, the highest and noblest Source of mental and moral worth, and they declare to us His mind and will, then should they, and must they, control, wholly and absolutely, the faith and conduct of men, because their superiority and worth are incomparable and in disputable. Moreover, if it is always reasonable and right to defer to the opinions of those best qualified to judge in the matters concerned, then is it highly reason able and just for man in his limitations humbly to bow to the revealed and declared will of the Supreme and Holy God, in all that concerns God and truth, faith and conduct, religion and life. Whenever and where ever we meet with the Divine, that must be to us absolutely authoritative because it is Divine, and therefore the highest authority known to us. When God speaks man must hearken, when God commands man must obey, when He leads man must follow on. It is this Divine element in the Scriptures which gives them weight, which makes them authoritative on all questions of faith and morals when they have definitely spoken, and their authority must be accepted as final. This conclusion respecting authority and finality in the Scriptures is only reached by the individual soul through the witness and demonstration of the Spirit by believing and trusting. It is not a matter of criticism, nor even of argument and reason, but of assurance through believing; nor is it altogether of study and inference though the Scriptures must be devoutly and intelligently studied but it is by the demonstration of the Spirit through the belief of the truth as in Jesus; it is not altogether a matter of intellectual apprehension and conviction but of Divine certainty, which says, “I know whom I have believed.”
Dr Robertson Nicoll has told us that if we could only see the Invisible, the triumphant Church in Heaven, the Church of the First-born, “ we should see much, And what should we see? That the living in Christ, that those who have heard in the written Word the true voice of God and obeyed it are that Church; and it is to them and them only that the conviction of the divine riches of the Word of God is assured.”