A.12 THE BIBLE: FROM HEAVEN OR OF MEN?

THE BIBLE: FROM HEAVEN OR OF MEN?
A great question was agitating the minds of men in Israel when the Son of God came to earth. John the Baptist was in the land, thundering at the consciences of all, and claiming to have a divine mission. The people at large regarded him as a true prophet, and many bowed humbly at his words; but their leaders treated him very differently. They did not openly reject him, denouncing him in terms as not of God, yet they were not at all disposed to acknowledge him. The Saviour's challenge to Israel's spiritual guides was therefore very pertinent: "The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?" (Luke 20:4). Their reply exposed at once their wickedness and their incompetency.
A similar question is before men's minds to-day. It is not now as to John, but as to the Bible. A book is in our hands, with the highest pretensions to a divine mission. The challenge therefore comes to us: "If it be from heaven, or of men?" If it be from heaven, the enquiry very naturally follows: "Why do ye not then believe it?" (Matthew 21:25). But if the Bible be of men, let us relegate it to the museum as a curious relic of an ignorant past.
Some will say, "But the Bible states such impossibilities! An ass speaking, walls falling down flat," etc. Pray, from what standpoint do we reason when we pronounce things impossibilities? Is it simply from the standpoint of our present-day experiences? If so, we are manifestly very foolish. Suppose the Bible had spoken of men navigating the air in Noah's day; only fifty years ago one might on this principle, have said it could never have been. But how is it in the year 1910? Because I have never met angels walking the earth, am I wise in saying they never walked here? One has only to bring GOD in, and the greatest marvel becomes simplicity itself. "With God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).
One of the greatest of Scripture miracles is prophecy. I do not refer to that which is still unfulfilled (a most edifying study), but to that which has already been accomplished. Whatever date captious critics may choose to assign to the books of the Old Testament, it is undeniable that they were all in the hands of the Jewish people before the Saviour's birth. Yet the prophets testified beforehand so many things concerning Him that a life of Christ could be constructed from their writings. They predicted His birth of a virgin, they named the village in which He should be born, they described His ministry and His miracles, foretold His residence in Galilee, His rejection by both Israel and the Gentiles, His betrayal, death, resurrection, and ascension. Is not all this previous testimony [a] miracle? If not, what is it?
The great effort of today is to exclude God from everything. We may not even regard Him as our Creator now (save in mere terms). We are but developed apes, the fruit of a law which no one understands, and which manifestly has no continuity, for no Scientist pretends that man is still developing towards some higher form of being. God excluded from both His Word and His works! Where are we getting to?
If the Old Testament writers were indeed the ignoramuses they are now proclaimed to be, so childishly simple as to pass on to us gravely as facts what after all are only legends, how comes it that their work still holds its unique place in Christendom? Is it not an insult to twentieth-century enlightenment? If the Bible is of men written with some measure of divine aid (its critics would probably admit this much), why does not the concentrated wisdom of to-day produce for us something distinctly in advance of it? Some measure of divine aid would as surely be granted to sincere writers now as of old. Why should "the old-fashioned and almost exploded truths of the Bible" (to quote a recent speech by a Bishop, as reported in the daily press) be still taken to the heathen if something better and higher can be provided? We have a right to demand a new work that shall once for all supersede the Bible in our homes and churches — a work in which our hearts may more safely rest than in the old Book. The critics have been destructive long enough; is it not time they became constructive?
The Bible in all its parts undeniably makes tremendous claims for itself. Moses felt so deeply the divine importance of his writings that he delivered them with all solemnity to the care of the priests, with instructions to read them periodically to the people, men, women and children alike (Deuteronomy 31:9-13) . Moreover, when the time should come for Israel to possess a King, he was "to write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God," etc. (Deuteronomy 17:18-20). The sweet psalmist of Israel claimed divine inspiration when he said: "The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and His word was in my tongue" (2 Samuel 23:2). The prophets also with one consent spoke with the loftiest authority. Take the first of them: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for Jehovah hath spoken" (Isaiah 1:2). The minor prophets begin with "the word of Jehovah that came unto Hosea." Joel, Jonah, Micah, and Zephaniah open with almost identical words. Amos says five times over in his first chapter, "Thus saith Jehovah." Peter says of the whole of them, "Men spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21, R.V.). Paul (in a passage upon the unfair handling of which in the Revised Version I would say much, if space permitted) says: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," i.e., "God-breathed" (2 Timothy 3:16). Concerning his own writings in particular, he tells us "We speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. . . . If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 14:37).
Such are a few of the claims put forth in the Bible. If they are false claims, then let us reject the Book with the same indignation with which we reject the Koran and the Book of Mormon. No more dangerous book can be conceived than that which comes to us with exalted divine demands which have no real foundation. Any excellent things that may be found in such a book only render it the more to be feared.
We leave the matter at this point. "The Bible is it from heaven, or of men?" If the former as we reverently believe, woe to any man who would persuade us otherwise. He not only jeopardises his own soul, but ours also. Never was there a time when it was more important to turn away from the clamour of men to God Himself. As the apostasy draws on, our only safeguard is the Word of the living God. Men and their opinions and criticisms are as unstable as the shifting sand, but "the Word of the Lord endureth for ever" (1 Peter 1:25). To this, and to this alone, Paul commended the brethren when his public work was done (Acts 20:32).