24-CHAPTER XIX INSPIRATION DEMONSTRATED BY THE HARMONY OF THE WHOLE SCRIPTURE

CHAPTER XIX INSPIRATION DEMONSTRATED BY THE HARMONY OF THE WHOLE SCRIPTURE We believe in full inspiration because of the harmony of allthe single parts of the whole Biblical testimony.

God’s book    is written in three distinct languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek. The New Testament was written by- nine different writers, the Old Testament by at least thirty. They differed in culture, class, age, and profession, being prophets, kings, officials, ministers, shepherds, a tax gatherer, priests, fishermen, theologians, judges. Their books differed in places and lands of origin—in Babylon and Ephesus; in the bustle of the seaport of double-harbored heathen Corinth (epistle to the Romans), as well as in the peaceful starry night under the open heaven in the Holy Land (Psalms 8:1-9); in Rome, the centre of the world-empire, as well as in Jerusalem, the centre of God’s chosen people; in the wild, cleft, jagged mountains of the deserts where David found refuge, as well as in the nobly decorated cities of Greece where Paul preached; in the fruitless, arid deserts of Sinai, as well as in the land which flowed with milk and honey. And finally, though a millennium and a half passed from Moses to John, the seer of Patmos, in the course of which God permitted the perfecting of this noblest of all books, and though all these manifold circumstances pressed closely one upon another, there is nevertheless a harmony which, even under the most critical dissecting knife of unbelief, knows how to assert itself again and again.

Against this reference is made to the many supposed "con­tradictions" in the Bible, especially in the Gospel narratives, as for example, in the miracles of the Lord and the accounts of the resurrection. But how often, and in the most surprising manner, it has been found that, by more exact knowledge of the period, or of the individual surroundings, or of the idiomatic expressions of the historians, such "contradictions" without any ingenious forcing dissolve into harmony. Therefore faith, by a variety of proofs, has a thoroughly tested and certain ground for joyful confidence that, even in those matters in which we have not yet perhaps the full explanation, it nevertheless already exists:either somewhere else another already has it, or sooner or later either we ourselves will find it or perhaps another will do so. In either case we shall all see it clearly in the perfect day.

Quite often we shall be surprised how extremely simple the explanation was, only we had not seen it sooner for lack of clear knowledge of certain local, linguistic, or historical details. Therefore faith is sure of this, that the Bible, which has so often been justified in spite of its critics, will in like manner be found correct in all those questions which today we cannot answer. For the believer the thousandfold past victories of the Bible are justification and pledge of his confident expectation that yet further victories will follow in the present and the future. Such an expectation, based upon innumerable experiences, is certainly not unjustified, "unscientific," or out of date.

Let us suppose that in the course of long years there arrived at a certain place parcels of marble of very different and often most irregular shapes. Also that these came from three different continents and from more than forty different sculptors, who for the more part had never seen one another nor exchanged letters. But at last it became possible to construct of these strange shape­less pieces a single, magnificent, beautiful statue, in which the various pieces so exactly fitted together that not the smallest gap was to be found. Would this not be an irrefutable proof that these single pieces in their several forms, corners, angles, and shapes, had been made from one common plan and been deter­mined by one common intelligent designer? No one would doubt this. Now in a spiritual manner this is precisely the case with the Bible. Or would it be possible to cure today a sick person by means of a medical book that had been compiled from forty different doctors who had lived in the times of the ancient East and of classical antiquity; being men of Asia Minor, North Africa, and Greece; professional doctors and laymen, scholars and artisans; to which book had been contributed receipts which had been applied during the course of fifteen hundreds of years, say from the middle of the second millennium B.C. to the close of the first century a.d.? We think not. But the Bible is actually the medicine for all the world, the medicine for our souls. Millions upon millions in all times and lands have experienced its healing power; and although its earliest parts are already more than 3,300 years old, yet is their healing power as strong today and their healing word as effective and life-giving as if the whole book had been written just now. The whole Holy Scripture carries one doctrine and shows one way of salvation for our inner life. Though the revealed ways of God in different periods have been very manifold, yet there is but one life-principle that permeates the whole, and this oneness found in all these many varieties and different forms proves that there is a consistent, underlying Divine pattern and plan.