06. Structural Form in Scripture

Structural Form in Scripture

Chapter 5

“God is not the Author of confusion but of order.” Form is the embodiment and expression of order. It is a scientific term conveying the idea of a fixed model, a definite pattern, with certain dimensions and proportions in accordance with a plan and purpose. Form is therefore necessarily both inclusive and exclusive, embracing all that is essential to completeness, excluding all that is superfluous. To discover the Divine Builder’s design explains both what is present and what is absent, and interprets the meaning of every part. The Unity of the Scriptures reminds us literally of a structure with its architectural symmetry and mathematical proportion. As a Doric or Ionic column had a fixed relation of circumference to height, so, in the Word of God singular correspondences are traceable, as between the five books of Moses, the five poetical and five major prophetical books, the five historical narratives that begin the New Testament; and again the twelve minor histories, and twelve minor prophecies of the Old Testament. These correspondences can scarcely be accidental.

If we look into more minute matters, we shall find these signs of a mathematical mind pervading the individual books, as in a perfect building, even the smallest peculiarity, like a pinnacle, or a capital, conforms to the general design and belongs to the same order and style of architecture. The great Architect and Builder had before Him the finished Temple of Truth, before the first stone was laid; and so perfect were all the details of His plan that no sound of “hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was in building”—all being made ready beforehand, and needing no human agency to accommodate each part to its place, 1 Kings 6:7. To conceive of the Word of God as a structure, and so to picture it before the mind’s eye, the imagination is very helpful. It suggests many other thoughts which aid a fuller understanding of the character of the Scriptures as a whole. For example, every structure implies a constructor; one mind planning and designing behind the workmen who simply wrought upon successive parts and stages of the building but had no part in the plan.

It suggests also the originality and sublimity and universality of the divine design, the incorporation of divine ideas in sensible ideals and patterns; and the lines of proportion and harmony traceable throughout.

It suggests unity, symmetry and completeness; the variety and multiplicity of the various parts, all contributing to the perfection of the whole, the individual beauty of all subordinate features, and the structural law pervading, controlling, unifying all, and determining their mutual relations.

It suggests the progressive development of the building toward completion, the impossibility of either defect or addition when finished, and the inhabitation of the divine Spirit, as a temple, irradiating and glorifying it by the Presence of God. This thought of the Word of God in its totality and entirety we would fix in mind before examining its parts in detail.

Though a composite product of sixty-six different books, or, counting double books, and those which belong together, as one, of fifty-six, and by some forty human writers and prepared through fifteen centuries or more, the Bible is still one Book, as truly as though it had but one human writer as well as divine Author. This unity, of itself, is one of the strongest proofs of its superhuman origin. Like those great structures the pyramids of Egypt, or the cathedrals of Europe, that it took centuries and hundreds of thousands of workmen to erect, one original designer must have been behind all the work of the mere laborers: the building was not due to their brawn but to the architect’s brain.

Evidences of this pervasive structural law everywhere appear, as further study will show. For example, structural unity is seen first of all in the great ideas embodied in Scripture, somewhat as all architectural orders are the expression of certain conceptions—the Egyptian, of strength and massiveness, the Greek of symmetry and beauty, the Gothic, of aspiration and adoration. God’s Word is a Temple of Truth, in which supreme facts and forms of thought find the highest artistic expression.

About a few grand ideas or concepts all Scripture as a whole, centralizes and crystallizes; for example,

1. God;

2. Man, regarded as a whole—a race of humanity;

3. Man, regarded as an individual, alienated by sin, both from God and his fellowman;

4. The God-man, uniting in one person the two natures, divine and human;

5. Man, as reconciled to God, through the God-man and to his fellowman;

6. God in man, in the Holy Spirit, dwelling and working and transforming;

7. God over man, reestablished in His proper sovereignty and supremacy.

Here in seven simple and progressive conceptions is a complete outline both of biblical theology and of redemptive history from creation to the new creation. Under these few heads all else may be easily embraced. The idea of God suggests His nature, attributes and activities; the idea of man, his creation, original character and condition; and his fall, the origin of sin, its consequences and condemnation. The God-man hints the mystery of the Incarnation, Salvation by Atonement, God’s manifestation to man and the righteousness which is by faith; the Holy Spirit, the mystery of regeneration and sanctification, fitness for service, access to God in prayer, fellowship with Him and with saints, and the unseen spirit realm. God’s ultimate rule over a regenerate race gives a glimpse of the final consummation of His redemptive plan and of man’s redeemed estate.

Thus, whatever variety and diversity appear in Holy Scripture, the unity is more conspicuous, and to that all else contributes as many different musical notes and chords blend in one harmony or symphony. Or, better still, we may liken it to the solar system, with its one central orb, around which all else revolves—a Holy, Infinite Eternal God—then subordinate facts and truths, like planets with their satellites, smaller systems with their correlated interests, but all belonging to one larger system. Or, again, to find the center of unity brings order out of confusion, and shows all roads, from whatever quarter or direction converging toward one “golden milestone.”

Unity does not forbid multiplicity and diversity provided all parts combine in one and contribute to one end. “God in many parts and many ways spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets,” and “in these last days, by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1). But it was He who spake through all.

Structure, so far from forbidding multiplicity and variety of parts, rather implies them. The word, from Struo—to build—suggests materials of different nature, size, shape and pattern, brought to one site, and arranged and combined into one harmonious whole, which we call a “building.” An ideal structure therefore will have certain prominent characteristics: first of all, it must be the embodiment and expression of some idea or conception; then it must have definite form; must also have a purpose or specific end, and variety of parts; otherwise there is no structure for there is nothing with which to build; and all this implies a thinker, designer, builder. An idea, embodied, insures beauty; form, consistency and symmetry; a purpose, serviceableness and utility; variety of parts, adaptation to the end; and a builder as the source of all. On some of these peculiarities of biblical structure we have already commented, but as we advance to the consideration of the materials of which the Bible is made up, we need to understand intelligently their contribution to its unity and completeness.

Let us not forget the two ideas that are implied in form, namely, inclusiveness and exclusiveness; it includes all that is essential to its perfection, and as rigidly excludes all that is superfluous and needless. If anything necessary to completeness be absent, there is a lack—the defect of insufficiency; if anything unnecessary be present, there is an excess—the defect of excrescence. To illustrate this, take the human hand, which in its perfection is one of the most remarkable of the Creator’s works. Sir Charles Bell, one of the famous eight distinguished men selected to write the celebrated Bridgewater Treatises,[1] chose The Hand, its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design. He finds over eight thousand words insufficient to describe the construction and adaptations of this one member of the human body. Consider one peculiarity of the hand: it has four fingers of unequal lengths, and one thumb; and the thumb so placed as to be in opposition to the fingers; and these five subordinate members so arranged that, when the ends of fingers and thumb touch, they form, within, a hollow sphere, and would just meet about a small ball. Were there one finger less or more, no thumb or two thumbs; or were the fingers of the same lengths, or differently arranged on the hand, all this perfection of adaptation and cooperation would be forfeited, and what is now a perfect structure would be imperfect and deformed, that is, without form, in its true and technical sense. And this is but one feature out of many which evince creative design. Again, if the fingers and thumbs be outspread, it will be found that from the center of the palm, the same radius would describe a perfect arc of a circle about the ends of thumb and fingers, another evidence of a symmetry and proportion which few ever observe.

[1] A set of eight treatises (12 volumes) commissioned by the Earl of Bridgewater and published in 1829, to offset the rise of Darwinism.

Now transfer such correspondences as these to the structure of the Word of God. Here all that is, is necessary, and there is nothing superfluous. We do not find here much that men might have desired, because it is not essential to the end for which the Holy Scriptures were designed. For example, there were great nations of antiquity of whose history we should be glad to have fuller records, such as Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Assyria, Greece and Rome; yet in God’s book they are scarcely mentioned, while one obscure people, for whose annals the human historian cares but little, occupies twelve whole books, and is the nucleus of all biblical history. But the reason is that the Bible is the book of Salvation, and because the Jew figures so largely in the redemption of the race, Jewish history is made conspicuous, and other nations are referred to only as in some way connected with the Hebrews.

Again, mankind craves knowledge upon matters connected with science. Yet the Holy Scriptures touch scientific mysteries only incidentally, never disclosing the hidden laws and facts that it has taken centuries to bring to light. And all this is to be accounted for by the fact that form excludes what is superfluous. The Bible was not meant as a scientific textbook, but a spiritual guide—to teach man what he cannot find out for himself otherwise—the way of salvation. To have made the Word of God an encyclopedia of general information would have not only obscured its greater design, but diverted human attention to minor issues. The perfection of Holy Scripture is found in part in its absolute singleness of aim.

But, on the other hand, whatever contributes to this supreme purpose is found in the Scriptures, as in the hand there is a marvelous combination of bones and joints, muscles and tendons, blood vessels and nerves, all that is needful or helpful to the end in view.

Nothing but minute examination and careful consideration can make this apparent. We need to separate the various parts of the Bible, for individual examination, then set them side by side for comparison, and then combine them again, to understand their mutual relations, as we can best appreciate a skeleton by taking it apart, studying all its hinge-joints and ball-and-socket joints, its cervical axis and vertebrae, and then once more restoring each to its place. This is the method we propose in these Bible studies; both the analytic and the synthetic; the examination of the individual parts, and then of the collective whole.

One result may be confidently reckoned on in advance: We shall find nothing lacking and nothing excessive. As in any true structure, timbers meet and join with mortise and tenon, and stones fit each other in shape, size and angle; pillars are set on bases and crowned with appropriate capitals; so, in the Holy Scripture, all parts contribute to each other and to the whole. Every book serves some end not answered by any other; every historic event or personage; every rite or ceremony; every action or utterance, have something to do to fill out the grand central design.

Another result may be predicted: We shall discover new and unsuspected consistencies and harmonies; even where there is apparent contradiction at first, there will be found real coordination and cooperation, afterward. It is one of the marked characteristics of the Inspired Word that its agreements, like other deep things of God, lie beneath the surface, like the hidden watercourses that connect far separated springs, or the great strata of bed-rock that crop out at widely parted points. We must be content to dig deep and not trust surface appearances. Truth’s harmonies are not such as are heard by the common ear, but to those whose hearing is divinely quickened, the whole word of God is a glorious anthem, in which many voices and instruments combine in one symphony.