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  IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD
  by William G. Scroggie
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Scroggie's apologetic work demonstrating the divine origin of the Bible through
external evidence of its miraculous origination, preservation, and worldwide
circulation, and internal evidence of its human yet divine nature, manifold yet
unified themes, and perpetually modern relevance.

  Chapters: 5

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 0.5-Introduction
    2. 1-It Seems to Be
    3. 2-It Claims to Be in the Old Testament
    4. 3-It Claims to Be in the New Testament
    5. 4-It Proves to Be

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  CHAPTER 1: 0.5-INTRODUCTION
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Introduction IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD?

Dr. Eugene Stock has said, “When I was a boy, I read a story which showed me the
different ways in which we can be sure that this great library of Sacred Books,
which we call the Bible, is really the Word of God, his Revelation to mankind.
The writer of the story had been explaining three different kinds of evidence -
the Historical, the Internal, and the Experimental. Then he told how he once
sent a boy to the chemist’s to get some phosphorus. The boy brought back a
little packet; was it phosphorus? The boy reported that he went to the shop and
asked for phosphorus; that the chemist went to his shelves, took some kind of
stuff from a jar, put it in the little packet, and gave it to him, and that he
had brought it straight back. That was the historical evidence that the packet
had phosphorus in it. Then the gentleman opened the packet. The substance inside
looked like phosphorus and smelled like phosphorus. That was the internal
evidence. Then he put a light to it - ‘See how it burns!’ That was the
experimental evidence.”

Along some such line as that we propose to set forth the evidence - so far as
that can be done within strict limits - that the Bible is the Word of God. In
reply to the question before us, we give a threefold answer, namely, It Seems to
Be; It Claims to Be; and It Proves to Be.

The conclusiveness of the evidence is not in any one of these answers taken by
itself, but in the three together, which constitute irrefragable proof that the
Bible is of divine origin, and therefore of sovereign authority; that is, that
it is the Word of God.

What evidence is there of this?

***


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  CHAPTER 2: 1-IT SEEMS TO BE
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It Seems to Be

CHAPTER ONE Think for a moment of - 1. THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK - THE EXTERNAL
EVIDENCE

(1) Its Origination.

In this respect no book has such a history as the Bible. Almost all books,
except dictionaries, encyclopedias, and such like, are the productions each of
an individual, and certainly each is the product of one generation, but not so
the Bible. This King of books is the result of productions extending over some
sixteen hundred years, a period as long as from Diocletian to King George V.,
and is the work of some forty authors (the “Critics” would probably say of some
four hundred!).

The Bible, therefore, slowly grew under the hands of many men, in different
countries, and across fifty-five generations. Before Christ came to this world
the books which form our Old Testament had been collected, and were regarded as
sacred books. Josephus said, “No one has dared either to add anything to them,
or to take anything from them, or to alter anything. All Jews regard them as the
teaching of God, and abide by them, and would gladly die for them.”

None of the Apocryphal books were included in the Old Testament Canon. The
thirty-nine books which are in our Old Testament constituted our Lord’s Bible,
neither more nor less. In like manner, the New Testament was a growth, within a
much briefer period of time, and at the end of three centuries these
twenty-seven books were distinguished from all contemporaneous writings as being
Holy Scripture, and the judgment of men, guided, we believe, by the Spirit of
God, with reference to the books in both Testaments, was not challenged for over
fifteen centuries. When all the facts concerning the origin of these books are
considered, we can only say, the Bible is a literary marvel, and a moral
miracle. But think further of:

(2) Its Preservation.

Not less amazing is the way in which these Scriptures have been preserved. We
now know that writing was among the most ancient of arts, one practiced from the
very beginning. There is no reason to doubt that Noah took records with him into
the ark; records which, in some form or another, had been accumulating for a
millennium and a half.

These were preserved from the flood, and constituted the basis of the earliest
of writings. These, as they grew, were preserved, by divine Providence, through
all the changing fortunes of Israel - in Egypt, in the Wilderness, in the Land,
and in Babylonia. Collected during the inter-Testament period, they were alike a
record of the past and a vision of the future, greatly cherished by the Jews.

To these the New Testament writings in due course were added, the former being
written in Hebrew, and the latter in Greek. All the original documents are lost,
but what they contained has been preserved in manuscripts, versions, and the
writings of the Fathers. The history of this preservation is a wonderful one.
Through the dark Middle Ages, extending across a thousand years, monks in their
monasteries occupied themselves by making copies of the Word of God. This brings
us to the fifteenth century, the greatest in the story of the Bible since the
canon was settled, for it was then, as Professor Goldwin Smith has said, that
“Greece arose from the dead with the New Testament in her hand” ; and then,
also, that printing was invented.

But dark days were ahead, and before this great Book could become the glad
possession of the people, it had to be suffered for and bled for. Nobly did the
translators and reformers do their work, a work which could no more be destroyed
than their spirit could be crushed. Then came our great Authorized Version in
1611. Through all these long ages these Writings were preserved, on the one hand
from corruption, and on the other from destruction, and this cannot but be
regarded as another miracle. In connection with the external history of the
Bible, one other thing must be noticed.

(3) Its Circulation.

The circulation of the Scriptures is a wonder which few appreciate, because
figures do not readily impress us. But in this instance we should spare a few
moments to think into these facts: the British and Foreign Bible Society
provided for its war service alone 8,000,000 volumes of the Word of God, in 75
languages. In the year 1917-1918, the same society issued and circulated, in
addition to the above, 9,387,182 Bibles or portions, and its output during the
four years of war amounted to 40,000,000. Since the foundation of the Society,
in 1804, it has issued over 293,000,000 copies of the Scriptures, 97,000,000 of
which have been in English. These Scriptures are now being produced and
circulated in 511 different languages. This is the record of one society only.
Add to the above totals the Scriptures which have been scattered by the
Scripture Gift Mission, the Trinitarian Bible Society, the National Bible
Society of Scotland, and others, and we shall then begin to apprehend the
magnitude and the marvel of this work. Such a circulation could not have been
possible except for the art of printing, and it is not without significance that
the first complete book printed by the inventor of this art was a Bible, about
1445.

Judging, therefore, by the external history of the Bible, its wonderful
origination, miraculous preservation, and amazing circulation, this is no work
of unaided man; it can be nothing less, surely, than the Word of God. Yet this
is the least part of the evidence. More wonderful than the external history of
the Bible is its internal power. So look now at:

2. THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK - THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE.

Let three things only be said about this.

(1) It is Human, yet Divine.

Yes, the Bible is human, though some, out of a zeal which is not according to
knowledge, have denied this. Those books have passed through the minds of men,
are written in the language of men, were penned by the hands of men, and bear in
their style the characteristics of men. Christ said, “A body hast thou prepared
me” (Heb 10:5).

The body was not Christ, yet Christ could not have been manifested without a
body. Christ was divine, but his body was human. As with the Incarnate so with
the Written Word. The spirit is divine, but the form is human; the thought of
God has been given a body in the language of men.

The modes of human expression are everywhere in evidence. The Scriptures are not
all cast in one mold; there are here history, as in the Kings; Wisdom, as in
Proverbs; Drama, as in Job; Poetry, as in the Psalms; Apocalypse, as in the
Revelation; and Ethic, as in James. Those are the modes of human thought and
expression, and the Bible follows them.

Then again, turn where we will in this library, we are face to face with
personality and style. Paul is Paul, and John is John, and no one could imagine
the writings of the one coming from the pen of the other. When God would give a
revelation to men he did not do violence to human personality and style, but,
rather, made use of these.

And in yet another sense is the Bible human. Not only has it come to us through
men, but it is all about men - great men, fallible and erring men. Abram lied,
David lusted, and Peter cursed - that is human enough. The Bible does not give
us in human language the story of angels, but of men, and that is why it is read
by men as no other book is; that accounts for its circulation and its power.

Truly the Bible is a human book. And yet it is divine. Language, style, and
subject matter notwithstanding, this Book is more than human.

There are other great human books in the world, but none can compare with this,
because none other is also divine. There are thoughts here which the human mind
could never have created, and projects which the human will could never have
embarked upon. Even the sin of man and man the sinner are not looked at from the
human side, but from the divine. History itself is seen in these pages to be,
not an agglomeration of fortuitous happenings, but a plan of God.

If the unique glories of this revelation had not been mitigated by human
shadows, could we have looked upon them, and lived? And the shadows without the
glories would only have driven us to despair. But both are here.

The Bible is divine, for it is the Voice of God, and it is human, for it is in
the language of men, and what flesh is to spirit, speech is to thought. Further,

(2) It is Manifold, yet One.

It is a Library, yet it is a Book. How remarkable that it is called The Bible (o
Biblios), seeing that there are here sixty-six books, shorter or longer, but it
is not without reason.

How manifold is the Bible. It treats of a hundred subjects of the first
importance, such as - The Origin of the Universe, The Creation of the Race, The
History of Sin, The Divine Principles of Government, The Rise and History of
Israel, The Incarnation of God, The Life and Death of Jesus Christ, The
Institution and Progress of the Church, The Evangelization of the Gentile World,
The Future of Israel, The Story of the Conflict Between Darkness and Light, The
Final Facts and other subjects innumerable.

Here we read of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, Israel, Syria,
and a host of smaller powers. Abram and Amraphel, Nimrod and Noah, Rebekah and
Rameses, Joshua and Jezebel, Daniel and Darius, Pilate and Paul, and a multitude
of others move across the stage of this story. Every variety of character and
subject is found in this Book, making it the one dateless and universal Book; no
one will call into question its manifoldness. And yet it is One. The many colors
make its light; the thousand threads weave its pattern; the countless themes
reveal its subject. From beginning to end the theme is Redemption; and from
beginning to end the subject is Christ. Here is a wonderful thing - law, and
history, and drama, and poetry, and wisdom, and prophecy, and ethic, and
apocalypse, all bound up in a single volume. Can such a mixture be anything but
a muddle? Ordinarily that could be the only result; but here all is in perfect
harmony, all these books dovetail into one another in such a way as to be
inseparable; these many parts in the Temple of Truth are essential to one
another. The Bible is a Library, and yet it is a Book, and that is true of no
other collection of works in the world. Once again, it can be said of the Bible
that,

(3) It is Ancient, yet Modern.

How ancient it is difficult for us to realize. Here, for instance, is a poem
over three thousand three hundred years old - Psalm 90. How was life viewed at
that distance from our day?

Abram, the Bedouin sheikh, lived his life and made his contribution to
world-history four thousand years ago! The king of Egypt whose embalmed body may
be seen in the museum in Cairo was contemporary with Moses, about three thousand
four hundred years ago.

Cities, such as Nineveh and Babylon, once thought to be impregnable, and empires
such as the Assyrian and Roman, once regarded as indestructible, have long since
crumbled to dust, and are now chiefly of archeological interest. When Ezra was a
youth in Babylon, the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis were fought;
Pindar was writing his Odes, and Aeschylus his Tragedies, and Confucius was
inaugurating an age in China.

And it will be well to remember that Nehemiah was contemporary with Herodotus,
“the father of history,” and with the great Socrates. These are names that take
us into a remote past, and to that past the Old Testament belongs. Paul was
contemporary with Seneca and Pliny, and John reached to the time of Tacitus and
Suetonius. All that seems and is far away. The Bible is a very ancient Book. Its
last chapters were written over eighteen hundred years ago, and its first
chapters probably fifty-five hundred years ago! But it is difficult to believe
it because the Bible is so modern. The ink might scarcely be dry on the page.
There are millions of books of recent date which are already out of date, but
this old Book is the most modern of all. Why do not men leave the Bible alone?
If they believe it to be a pious fraud, or a collection of myths, why, having
said so, are they not done with it? The answer is, because they cannot.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that for him the most convincing proof of the
divinity of the Bible was that it found him at deeper depths of his being than
any other book. That is what the Bible does with all of us, whether we
acknowledge it or not; and that is why we cannot leave it alone. I suppose the
most recent thing in print is the newspaper. But is it more recent than the
Bible?

Dr. Joseph Parker has written eloquently on this point. He says:

“What a book is the Bible in the mere matter of variety of contents! Everything
seems to be in it - poem, narrative, intelligence, judgment, battle, prayer,
song, anathema, and benediction. The bush is common enough. But what of the fire
which makes the shepherd turn aside? The bread is such as has been used at
supper, yet presently it will symbolize the body of Christ! Paul is almost in
heaven, yet in the very height of his anticipation he asks for his parchments
and his cloak, and he knows exactly where both are left.

“Whole pages are taken up with obscure names, and more is told of a genealogy
than of the day of judgment. Stories are half told, and the night falls before
we can tell where victory lay. Where is there anything to correspond with this?
Not in any book, certainly; but in actual life there is the selfsame thing over
again without the loss of one line. If the seer could print for us what he sees
on any one day in the year he would print a second edition of the Bible. We
should have it all over again, including, perhaps, something even of creation
itself, with its light, its ascending and descending waters, its trees bringing
forth each after its kind, its sunny day, its starry night; but the humanity
would be the same, still more vividly family life, love, fear, envy,
covetousness, magnanimity; chosen people and alien lands; temples warm with the
fire of the Lord, and houses of vain and corrupt idolatry; the noise of war and
the song of peace; shepherds keeping their flocks and soldiers listening for the
foe; David in the wilderness and Jonah on the sea; weird dreams, spectral hands
on the wall, baffled magicians and truth-telling prophets; psalms for which no
music is good enough, and proverbs that glisten with wit. All these, and more,
we should have on every or any day in the year if the sun could but print as
well as shine!

“This is just the Bible. It is a page torn out of the volume of human life, only
torn by the hand of God, annotated by his Spirit.

“What is the daily newspaper but a revised translation of the Bible, often,
indeed, with God left out in the spelling, though he cannot be left out in
reality. Take to-morrow’s newspaper in one hand, and the Bible in the other, and
see if the paper be not full of repetitions, and if there be not something like
an echo in all its utterances. Is that true? Then this ancient Book is the most
modern of all, this first Word is also the last. It is true of the Bible as of
Christ, just because it is of Christ, that it is the Alpha and the Omega; it is
the A and the Z of literature.

What Calvin said of the Psalms is true of the whole Bible, it is “a perfect
anatomy of the human soul,” and until entirely new elements are introduced into
the field of human nature and experience, this oldest Book will remain the most
modern. After what has here been said, in answer to the question, What evidence
is there that the Bible is the Word of God! Is it too much to claim that It
seems to be! Does not the history of the Book, its external evidence, as seen in
its origination, preservation, and circulation, point to that? And does not the
content of the Book, its internal evidence, as seen in its humanity and
divinity, its manifoldness and unity, its antiquity and modernness, point to
that?

Truly, it seems to be, and yet that is the least part of the evidence.

~ end of chapter 1 ~


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  CHAPTER 3: 2-IT CLAIMS TO BE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
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It Claims to Be in the Old Testament

CHAPTER TWO In dealing with this subject we must consider the claims made by
each of the Testaments for itself and for each other, and as these claims are
many and varied, all that we pretend to do here is to indicate a line of
evidence that the Bible is the Word of God, which shall be sufficient to prove
the claim, and, we trust, suggestive enough to provoke some to further search.

I. THE OLD TESTAMENT

The inquiry here is twofold: first, the Old Testament’s witness to itself, and
then, the New Testament’s witness to the Old. And let us be perfectly fair as we
pursue the subject, bearing in mind that we are to hear what the Bible has to
say about itself. In a court of law we assume that a witness will speak the
truth, and must accept what he says unless we have good grounds for suspecting
him, or can prove him a liar. Surely the Bible should be given the same
opportunity to be heard, and should receive a like patient and unprejudiced
hearing.

(A) The Old Testament’s Witness to Itself.

The field here is so wide that necessarily we must place the investigation
within certain limits, and so shall consider only the testimony of the prophets
and of prophecy.

1. The Testimony of the Prophets.

One or two things under this head claim our careful attention, and first:

(1) The Prophetic Function. What are we to understand by the word “prophet,” and
what was the office of such an one? The answer to these questions will
contribute much to the evidence that the Bible is the Word of God. The word
“prophet” is represented in the Hebrew Scriptures by at least three words, all
of which are found in 1Ch 29:29 :

“Now the acts of David the King, first and last, behold, they are written in the
book of Samuel the seer [Roeh], and in the book of Nathan the prophet [Nabi’],
and in the book of God the seer [Chozek].”

Roeh means one who is taught in visions divinely brought, and is usually
translated “seer”; that is, one who sees. Chosek means one who beholds, who
gazes, and is used constantly with reference to the prophetical vision. Nabi’ is
from a verb which means “to cause to bubble up.” This is the word commonly used,
and signifies “to pour forth words abundantly,” “from the Divine prophets having
been supposed to be moved rather by another’s powers than their own”
(“Gesenius”): hence, we read that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by
the Holy Spirit” (2Pe 1:21). So the Nabi’ is “the utterer of a divine message,
one who conveys to his fellows truth otherwise hidden, and imparted to himself
by God for them. He is, in short, the mouth of God’s mind towards men.”
(Findlay).

It would seem that the same persons are designated by all these words, the first
two pointing to the prophets’ power of seeing the visions presented to them by
God, and the last, from their function of revealing and proclaiming God’s truth
to man.

It is clear from the above that the prophet was one who made known the divine
will under supernatural impulse. This is pointedly illustrated by Exo 4:16; Exo
7:1, where Moses is seen to be the “mouth” of God to Aaron, and Aaron the
“mouth” of Moses to the people. It was the chief office of the prophet to reveal
God’s will and ways to man, not only in the capacity of “interpreter,” but by
predicting future events, and foretelling the coming and work of Christ. The
bearing of all this upon the subject in hand must be apparent. If what has been
said is true, then the writings of the prophets are the Word of God; and
remember, most of the Old Testament writers were prophets, some descriptive, and
some predictive. In the next place consider,

(2) The Prophetic Consciousness.

We have said that the prophets were the spokesmen of God to man, and received
their communications by the agency of the Spirit. But, it will be asked, “How
did they discern what was the will of God, under what conditions and in what way
did they receive divine communications?”

A fairly exhaustive answer to these inquiries will be found in Num 12:6-8 :
“Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, the Lord will make himself
known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.” But “with him
[Moses] will I speak mouth to mouth.”

It will be observed that communications were by “visions,” “dreams,” and “mouth
to mouth.” Between the first two there is no precise distinction, but the third
was a special mode of communication, and of rare occurrence. Dream and vision
predominated in the earliest and latest types of prophecy, but in the chief
middle prophets of the canon these phenomena almost disappear, and the prophets
speak in the full and manly exercise of their rational powers. In both cases the
prophets were conscious that they were the messengers of God, speaking in his
name the word which they first received from him. Isaiah says: “The Lord GOD
hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word
in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine
ear to hear as the learned.”

He speaks these words in “sober certainty of waking sense,” with clear
consciousness of his high calling. Further, frequently the prophets were
conscious that they acted under divine restraint rather than willingly:

“The Spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the
heat of my spirit; but the hand of the LORD was strong upon me” (Eze 3:14).

Compare further Exo 4:11-12; Isa 8:11; Jer 1:9; Hos 9:7; and frequently they did
not comprehend the meaning of their own predictions, for they “enquired and
searched diligently . . . what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in
them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the
glory that should follow” (1Pe 1:10-11).

It was the function of the priests to represent the people before the Lord, but
of the prophets to represent the Lord to the people, and of this the prophets
themselves were fully conscious, hence their fearlessness, and the note of
authority in their messages.

It is quite evident from this that the prophets were sensible that they were
called of God, instructed by God, and sent for God:

“Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets” (Amo 3:7). Of this passage Professor Findlay says, “Amos
evidently views the order to which he belongs as an indispensable intermediary
between God and his people, the channel through which he declares his mind to
them, whether in favor or censure.” But let us consider now more definitely,

(3) The Prophetic Witness.

It is when we learn what the prophets declared as to the origin and character of
their messages that the evidence becomes overwhelming that the Old Testament
Scriptures are the Word of God.

It is not possible to do more here than briefly tabulate their testimony,
testimony so abundant and explicit that we are compelled, on the one hand, to
believe that these writers were “incorrigible liars and crazy fanatics,” or, on
the other hand, that what they said is true. In the

(a) Pentateuch we find such words and expressions as the following:

- “The Lord God called unto Adam and said”; - “The Lord said unto Noah,” and
Abram, and Isaac, and Jacob; - “God spake unto Israel”; - “Moses told all the
people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments; and all the people
answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we
do” - “And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord”; - “The writing was the
writing of God, graven upon the tables”; - “These are the words which the Lord
hath commanded”; - “The Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the
tent of meeting, saying”; - “Gather me the people together, and I will make them
hear my words”; - “The voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire”; -
“Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice”; - “Thou heardest his words”; -
“The Lord talked with you face to face.”

Expressions such as “God said,” “the Lord spake saying,” “the Lord commanded,”
and “the word of the Lord,” occur in the Pentateuch alone nearly 700 times, so
that this part of the Old Testament writings claims to be the ’Word of God, and
assuredly is. The testimony is not less considerable and emphatic in

(b) The Historical Books.

- “After the death of Moses . . . the Lord spake unto Joshua . . . saying”; -
“The word of the Lord was precious in those days”; - “The Lord revealed himself
to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord”; - David says, “The spirit of the
Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, The
Rock of Israel spake to me”; - “The word of the Lord came to Solomon saying” ; -
“The Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by the hand of all the
prophets, and by all the seers, saying”; - “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel”;
- “The Lord spoke unto God, David’s seer, saying”; - “Micaiah said, As the Lord
liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak”; - “They mocked the
messengers of God, and despised his words”; - “The word that God putteth in my
mouth, that shall I speak”; - “All that the Lord speaketh that I must do”; - “I
cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord.”

Such expressions as these occur considerably over four hundred times between the
books of Joshua and Esther; and, let us remember, these plain declarations are
only a small part of the evidence: the entire history is written from the divine
standpoint, and the divine purpose is as manifest in the omissions as in the
selections.

(c) The Poetical Books bear the same testimony.

- “The Lord said unto Satan”; - “Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the
whirlwind and said”; - in Psalm 19 we read of “The law, the testimony, the
statutes, the commandment, and the judgments of the Lord”;

- And the whole of Psalm 119 is a song in praise of God’s Word, that Word being
mentioned as many times as there are verses in the Psalm.

The entire Psalter is the answer of God to the infinitely diversified needs of
men, and that is why it is more read than perhaps any other part of the Bible.
And when we come to

(d) The Prophecies, it is scarcely necessary to quote, as predictive prophecy by
its very nature is supernatural, and the prophets men sent from God and
instructed by him.

Yet it may be well to state that such expressions as “Hear the word of the
Lord”; “saith the Lord”; “I heard the voice of the Lord saying”; “The Lord hath
spoken; “It was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts”; “The word of our
God”; “My word that goeth forth out of my mouth”; “The word of the Lord came
unto me”; “Whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak”; “I have put my words in
thy mouth”; “The word of the Lord came unto me, saying”; “He said unto me”; “He
spake unto me”; “Thou shalt speak my words unto them”; “My words that I shall
speak unto thee”; “When I speak with thee”; “I heard the voice of his words”;
“The Lord hath spoken it”; “Thus saith the Lord”; such expressions as these
occur in the prophecies over thirteen hundred times, and double that number of
times in the whole of the Old Testament. Truly this is none other than the voice
of him who sitteth on the throne. The testimony of the Prophets is united and
abundant that these Scriptures are “the Word of God which liveth and abideth
forever.” But to their personal witness must be added that of their writings,
the substance of which furnishes the same evidence, so look at 2. The Testimony
of the Prophecies.

Here we shall look briefly at the character, substance, and harmony of Hebrew
prophecy.

(1) The Character of Hebrew Prophecy.

It is perfectly true that the utterances and writings of the prophets arose out
of, and are to be interpreted in, the light of their national history at its
successive stages, and that a large proportion of these writings is strictly
historical in character; but that, notwithstanding, it is simply a fact that
prophecy is chiefly predictive, and is therefore revelation, that is, the Word
of God. Yet this has been and still is challenged.

Dr. A. B. Davidson wrote: “It is now commonly admitted that the essential part
of Biblical Prophecy does not lie in predicting contingent events, but in
divining the essentially religious in the course of history . . . In no prophecy
can it be shown that the literal predicting of distant historical events is
contained . . . In conformity with the analogy of prophecy generally, special
predictions concerning Christ do not appear in the Old Testament.”

Canon Driver wrote: “To base a promise upon a condition of things not yet
existent, and without any point of contact with the circumstances or situation
of those to whom it is addressed, is alien to the genius of prophecy.”

He applies this principle of interpretation to the second division of the book
of Isaiah:

“Judged by the analogy of prophecy, this constitutes the strongest possible
presumption that the author actually lived in the period which he thus
describes, and is not merely (as has been supposed) Isaiah immersed in spirit in
the future, and holding converse, as it were, with the generations yet unborn.
Such an immersion in the future would be not only without parallel in the Old
Testament; it would be contrary to the nature of prophecy.” And Dr. David Smith,
of Londonderry, with more assurance than understanding in the matter, writes,
“Prophecy-mongering is morally and intellectually ruinous. It issues in
madness.” The prophets never predict far remote events.” The objection to the
idea of prediction underlying these and all other similar opinions is that “to
concede the quality of prediction in the writings of the prophets is to admit
the miraculous.”

Certainly, and it is for that very fact that we contend. If miracles are either
physically or morally impossible, then prediction is impossible. This is only
saying that belief in prediction is not compatible with the theory of Atheism,
or with the philosophy which rejects the overruling Providence of a personal
God.

How weighty in this connection are the words of Bishop Westcott: “A divine
counsel was wrought out in the course of the life of Israel. We are allowed to
see in the people of God signs of the purpose of God for humanity; the whole
history is prophetic. It is not enough to recognize that the Old Testament
contains prophecies: the Old Testament is one vast prophecy. The application of
prophetic words in each case has regard to the ideal indicated by them, and is
not limited by the historical fact with which they are connected.”

Let the matter be submitted to the test of fact, and the problem will be to say
how any one in his senses could ever deny that there are hundreds of predictions
in the Old Testament which have already become history, and there are hundreds
more which, we believe, will become history in God’s own time. This brings us
to:

(2) The Substance of Hebrew Prophecy.

It is, in the main, threefold:

(a) Gentile Prophecies. There are scores of these, affecting the smaller nations
such as the Syrians, Philistines, Ninevites, Edomites, Moabites, which have long
since been fulfilled, and many concerning other Gentile powers which have for
centuries been in progress of fulfillment, and are yet to be fulfilled. The
outstanding illustration and proof will be found in Daniel 2.

Such predictions are not the guesses of men, but the Word of God.

(b) Israelitish Prophecies. No one can seriously question the fact that Israel’s
future course was early predicted, and that up to the present time those
predictions have been fulfilling with unmistakable exactness.

Take for illustration the following: “I will make your cities waste and bring
your sanctuaries into desolation. And I will bring the land into desolation; and
your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished. And I will scatter you
among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you; and your lands shall be
desolate, and your cities waste.” The evidence that this is the Word of God is
twofold - firstly, it was spoken before the Israelites entered Canaan, but
assumes that they would do so, which they did; and secondly, those things
predicted of them at a time subsequent to their possession of the land have
literally come to pass. To this add those passages which predict the restoration
of Israel, a restoration which, obviously, has not yet taken place: “In that day
will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the
breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the
days of old . . . And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel,
and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them . . . and I will plant
them upon their own land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land
which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.”

It is the Lord who has declared this, therefore it must be so.

Further, the Old Testament is full of:

(c) Messianic Prophecies. There are at least three hundred of these traceable,
many of which were fulfilled by Christ’s first advent, and the remainder shall
be fulfilled at his second advent. Nowhere is the evidence of genuine prediction
more manifest than in those passages of the Old Testament that tell of the
Messiah. Such passages are so numerous, and go into such detail, that our
intelligence is more greatly taxed to believe that they are not predictive than
to believe that they are. And if they are predictive, they are of divine and not
of human origin.

(3) The Harmony of Hebrew Prophecy.

It follows from what has been said that all the notes of the prophetic
Scriptures must harmonize. God cannot contradict himself.

Prophecies were being written or uttered concerning Israel, the Gentiles, and
the Christ, for over a thousand years, and by men of very varied intellectual
ability and social standing, and widely separated even when contemporaneous,
yet, though there was no collusion, there is not contradiction. How is that to
be accounted for? Only in one way, namely, that “Holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit;” that is, the prophecies are the Word of God.

This, then, is part of the Old Testament’s witness to itself that it is of
divine origin.

The evidence of prophecy is particularly valuable because no spiritual
qualification is necessary in order to apprehend it. Given common sense, a few
sound principles of interpretation, and a spirit of fairness, and it is
demonstrable that, in great detail, events were predicted hundreds of years
before they became history, and as it was not and is not in the power of man to
forewrite history, these prophecies must be the Word of God.

Consider now,

B. The New Testament’s Witness to the Old.

It were as easy to separate a superstructure from its foundation as to separate
the New Testament from the Old, for they stand in that relation to each other.
The New Testament assumes the Old Testament, and assumes that it is of divine
origin and authority. If there were no Old Testament, hundreds of passages in
the New Testament would be meaningless; and if the Old Testament be not the Word
of God, the whole assumption and attitude of the New Testament is wrong. That is
just another way of saying that the New Testament bears witness to the Old
Testament as being of divine origin; and by this we mean that it is and not
merely contains the Word of God that the inspiration is both of thought and of
record, sometimes of thought, but always of record.

This, at any rate, one may affirm: that if the Old Testament is not the Word of
God, it is certain that the New Testament is not, because, in that event, its
entire assumption would be an error, and God cannot be guilty of error. The Old
Testament is in the very warp and woof of the New Testament, there being, in
addition to hundreds of allusions, at least three hundred plain quotations; and
these latter are made, not in the way of contradiction but of affirmation of the
Old Testament, not in the way of denial, but of fulfillment. If the Old
Testament be not the Word of God, then Christ and his apostles were wrong; and
alas! There are not lacking those who affirm that they were, for no one with any
show of reason has suggested that our Lord and his apostles ever impugned the
authority of the Old Testament. But let us look at the evidence, and first,

I. The Testimony of Jesus Christ.

A rapid survey of the Gospels will suffice to show that Christ deliberately
placed the seal of his approval and authority upon the Old Testament Scriptures
in their parts, and as a whole; and that not only before the Cross, but more
emphatically after. The passages from which we learn that Christ believed these
Scriptures to be the Word of God may be divided into three classes:

- Those which refer to particular narratives. - Those which declare that the
prophets were divine agents.

- Those which endorse the Old Testament as a whole.

Look at a few illustrations of each of these.

(1) Those passages which refer to particular narratives.

There are passages in which our Lord endorses as historical, narratives which
modern scholarship:

(1) pronounces to be “mythical” or “legendary,” as, for example,

- The stories of the Flood (Mat 24:37-39); - Of the doings of Elijah and Elisha
(Luk 4:25-27; - Of Noah; - Of Lot and his wife; - Of Sodom and Gomorrah (Luk
17:26-32; Mat 11:21-24); - Of Jonah in the fish’s belly (Mat 12:40); - Of many
others.

Denial here is not of the divine utterance, but of the divine action; but Christ
declares that God did so act, and that the record is true.

(2) Those passages which declare that the prophets were divine agents.

There are further those passages which reflect our Lord’s belief that the Old
Testament Scriptures were of divine origin, by declaring that the human speaker
or writer was not the originator, but the bearer only, of his message.

- “All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord
through the prophet, saying . . .”

- “Thus it is written through the prophet.” - “Then was fulfilled that which was
spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.” And finally,

(3) Those passages in which our Lord endorses the Old Testament as a whole.

Christ began his public ministry by using these Scriptures with which to visit
the onslaughts of the Devil, and his thrice-repeated “It is written” is double
evidence that the passages quoted are divinely inspired, first, by reason of his
making use of them in that way at such a solemn time, and then by reason of the
effect they had upon his enemy: “then the devil leaveth him.”

Further, allow the following passages their full weight, and then say what they
claim and prove with reference to Christ’s conception of the Old Testament:

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to
destroy but to fulfil, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled.”

Referring to the way the Pharisees treated a certain Old Testament statute, he
said, “Full well ye reject the command ment of God . . . making the Word of God
of none effect through your tradition.” What Moses wrote was therefore the “Word
of God.” Again:

- “Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying . . .”

- “David himself said by the Holy Spirit, The Lord said to my Lord.”

- “The Scripture cannot be broken.”

- “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently
give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be
fulfilled, that thus it must be? . . . All this was done that the Scriptures of
the prophets might be fulfilled.”

- “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were accomplished, that the
Scriptures might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.”

Alas, that there should be those who, assuming our Lord’s fallibility, would not
regard the above utterances as carrying much weight. But what are such going to
do with Christ’s post-resurrection affirmations?

- “Beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

- “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that
all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the
prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” Could it be granted - which it is
not that he might have erred before the Cross in his reading of the Old
Testament, that stricture certainly cannot apply to him after his resurrection;
yet it is then that he categorically endorses the whole of the Old Testament in
the form in which the Jews have it to this day, the Law, the Prophets, and the
Psalms.

About these and similar passages let two things here be said:

First, that the word “Scripture” is never used of any writings except the sacred
Scriptures; Secondly, that Christ did not come to do the bidding or fulfil the
purpose of men, but of God, and that he was conscious of what underlies all the
passages just quoted.

We endorse without reserve the words of the late Bishop Moule:

“The New Testament as a whole is a mass of valid historical evidence to the
opinions of Jesus Christ. And in this character it attests beyond a doubt his
profound veneration for the Holy Scriptures then existing; that is to say, for
the Old Testament as, in substance and practically in detail, it exists to-day.
For him it possessed the peculiar and awful characteristic of divine authority.
He stated no theory of its construction, but, looking upon it as it existed, he
recognized in it the decisive utterance of God, even in its minor features of
expression. For the mind which recognizes in Jesus Christ all that he claimed to
be, this verdict on the supernatural character and divine authority of the Old
Testament is final.”

2. The Testimony of the Apostles.

Christ’s Bible was the Bible of the apostles and his attitude towards and
interpretation of it were theirs. All the evidence proves this, so that attacks
made upon the apostles are virtually attacks on Christ, for they were prophets
sent by God and taught by God. But let us look at a few passages in which the
apostles and others bear testimony to the Old Testament as of divine authority,
passages in which this authority is always assumed where it is not plainly
declared:

(1) The Virgin Mary, in her beautiful song, modeled on Hannah’s, says, “He spake
to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever”; and what he said to
Abraham was written, so that it is the Word of God.

(2) Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying, “He spake by the
mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began.” A man filled
with the Holy Spirit, as Zacharias was, could not attribute to God what were but
the pious thoughts and utterances of men.

(3) Peter in his addresses and letters has the same belief. At Pentecost he
said:

- “Brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy
Spirit by the mouth of David spake”; - “Lord, thou art God . . . who by the
mouth of thy servant David said”; - “The God of glory appeared unto our father
Abraham . . . and said unto him.”

Right or wrong, Peter certainly believed that the Old Testament was a divine
revelation, and that God spoke to and through the fathers and the prophets.

Turning to the letters of this apostle, we find two passages which are classic
on this subject. Speaking of the present salvation, he says, “Of which salvation
the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace
that should come unto you; searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of
Christ who was in them did signify, when he testified beforehand the sufferings
of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” This passage teaches at least two
great truths:

First, that what the prophets wrote-for it is written prophecy that is in view
here - was what the Spirit communicated to and through them;

Second, that these revelations frequently transcended their own comprehension,
and led them to search into one another’s prophecies, to learn, if possible,
what was meant and what time was indicated. The other passage reads: “No
prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy
came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit.”

Between this and the rationalistic view of the Old Testament there can be no
compromise; one must be right and the other wrong, and there can be no doubt as
to which is right. To this let us add that of:

(4) Paul, who was a scholar in the presence of whom some who pride themselves on
their scholarship should speak with more modesty. What was Paul’s view of the
Old Testament?

The Bible was to him, as Meyer says, “A history of divine acts, and the
unfolding of divine ideas, continually manifesting the superintendence of a
divine sovereignty; not a history of the world, or of all God’s providence in
it, but only of one kingdom and society, which was elected out of the rest to
exhibit principles applicable to all kingdoms and societies, and to preserve
certain privileges with which it was provisionally endowed in order that they
might ultimately be extended to the whole race of man.” This view is reflected
in all Paul’s speeches and letters, both in the way of affirmation and
implication. Here are a few illustrations:

- “Well spake the Holy Spirit through Isaiah the prophet.”

- “The Gospel of God, which he had promised afore through the prophets in the
Holy Scriptures.”

- “What saith the Scripture?” - “The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh.”

- “He saith also in Hosea.” - “The Scripture foreseeing.”

These passages refer to the Scripture or the Scriptures as the body of divine
revelation, as the very voice of God and words of God; the divine thoughts and
utterances are here personified; the Scriptures have not only voice, but vision;
they not only say, but see.

How entirely this was Paul’s reading of the Old Testament may be judged from the
fact that he quotes from twenty-five of its thirty-nine books. There are
seventy-four quotations in Romans, twenty-nine in I Corinthians, twenty in
Second Corinthians, thirteen in Galatians, twenty-one in Ephesians, six in
Philippians, four in Colossians, seven in First Thessalonians, nine in Second
Thessalonians, two in I Timothy, four in Second Timothy, and three in Titus.
These Scriptures are appealed to as being authoritative, as setting forth the
mind and acts of God. But in addition to all this, it is plain from Paul’s
writings that his view of any part of the Old Testament was also his view of the
whole, for there are passages in which he speaks of his Bible (the Old
Testament) in its completeness. What does he say about it?

- “Believing all things which are according to the law, and which are written in
the prophets.”

- “These things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for
our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.”

- “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that
we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” And the
classic passage, the full force of which not even the Revised Version can rob
us:

- “From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

- “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God [is God-breathed], and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works.” The Authorized Version fairly gives the meaning of the Greek, and
it is simply absurd to render it “Every Scripture inspired of God is also
profitable.” Of course, what God has inspired is profitable; but what Scriptures
has he inspired? Some or all? Paul declares, “All Scripture is inspired
[God-breathed].” But there are more witnesses.

(5) John commences his Epistle by saying that “the Word of life was from the
beginning.”

Westcott interprets this “Word” of “those truths which were gradually realized
in the course of ages, through the teaching of patriarchs, law-givers and
prophets, and lastly of the Son himself.” In that view, the Old Testament is in
the first place the “word of life,” and must therefore be as truly the word of
God as Christ was the Son of God.

Again, John says: “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong,
and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” In
view of the time at which the Epistle was written, the reference here could
quite well be to the Scriptures of the New Testament, but the evidence is still
valid, as the New Testament rises from and rests upon the Old Testament as “The
Word of God.”

Add to this testimony that furnished by the book of Revelation, which, just
because it is revelation, is the Word of God.

Speaking of this last book of the Bible, the late Professor Milligan wrote:

“The book is absolutely steeped in the memories, the incidents, the thoughts,
and the language of the Church’s past. To such an extent is this the case that
it may be doubted whether it contains a single figure not drawn from the Old
Testament, or a single complete sentence not more or less built up of materials
brought from the same source. It is a perfect mosaic of passages from the Old
Testament, at one time quoted verbally, at another referred to by distinct
allusion; now taken from one scene in Jewish history, and now again from two or
three together.”

Out of the total number of 404 verses in this book, about 265 verses contain Old
Testament language, and about 550 references are made to Old Testament passages
- a fact significant enough. Logic comes to our aid here: If this book is a
revelation from and of God, seeing that the book is substantially the Old
Testament in a new combination, therefore the Old Testament must be a revelation
from and of God. John’s view of the Old Testament was that of his brother
apostles and of his Master all regarded it to be the Word of God. So did:

(6) The Writer to the Hebrews.

With perhaps one exception (Heb 4:7), the quotations from the Old Testament in
this epistle, of which there are many, are not attributed to those whom God
employed to speak or write, but are given as being Holy Scripture.

- “Wherefore as the Holy Spirit saith”; - “As he said”; - “the Holy Spirit also
is a witness to us; for after that he had said before”; - “if they escaped not
who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn
away from him that speaketh from heaven.”

Westcott has made it clear that the contrast here is not between Moses and
Christ, but between the character of these two revelations which were made, “on
earth” and “from heaven.” The point is that both covenants are revelations, that
alike the Law and the Gospel are the Word of God. This is emphasized at the
beginning as well as at the end of the epistle: “God, who at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in
these last days spoken unto us by his Son.”

“From first to last it is maintained that God spake to the fathers in the
prophets. The message through the Son takes up and crowns all that had gone
before . . . The New is the consummation of the Old . . . There is nothing in
the Old which is not taken up and transfigured in the New.”

If the Old Testament be not the Word of God, the foundation is knocked from the
argument of this epistle; it exists only on that assumption. To the same effect
is the testimony of:

(7) James.

“Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being
not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his
doing.” The “perfect law of liberty” is, of course, the Old Testament revelation
of the divine will. As no law of man’s is perfect, that to which James refers
must be God’s. Again, he calls it “The royal law according to the Scripture.”
And in quoting some words of the wise he attributes them to God: “Wherefore he
saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” But this
epistle is saturated with the Old Testament; its language and its atmosphere are
those of the Old Covenant, only that covenant is seen in the light of the Sermon
on the Mount. To the same effect is:

(8) Jude.

Though there are here only twenty-five verses, yet reference is made to Moses,
Cain, Balaam, Korah, and Enoch; also to the deliverance from Egypt, the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and to the Israelites who perished in the
wilderness. And these references, as everywhere in the New Testament, are made
on the assumption, not only that the Old Testament is actual and accurate
history, but that in that history God stands revealed, and for our sakes has
caused it to be written.

It is surely an impressive fact that whereas you will find about 280 direct
quotations from the Old Testament in the New, and these taken from 28 of its 39
books, you will not find one clear quotation from the Apocrypha.

No doubt the apostles were acquainted with these latter writings, and in all
probability in Heb 11:33-37 reference is made to the books of Maccabees, but the
New Testament writers certainly knew the difference between the Apocrypha and
the Old Testament writings, and knew the latter, not the former, to be of divine
origin and authority.

“Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum,” Jesus Christ and all
his apostles believed that the Old Testament as they had it, and as we now have
it, was the record of a divine eternal purpose in process of outworking; that,
not only in its various parts, but also in its completeness, it is “Holy
Scripture.”

This view of these Writings may be challenged, as, alas, it has been; but at any
rate it cannot be questioned that that was Christ’s and the apostles’ view. The
Old Testament, therefore, claims to be the Word of God.

~ end of chapter 2 ~


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  CHAPTER 4: 3-IT CLAIMS TO BE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
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It Claims to Be in the New Testament

CHAPTER THREE And here again, as in the previous case, it is our purpose to
examine the evidence, from whatsoever quarter, and to be subject to the result.
The attempt to make the truth fit into our theories is both foolish and useless.
Wisdom and honesty will espouse that theory which the truth dictates. Let us
look first at:

(A) The Old Testament’s Witness to the New.

If what has already been said has been to any purpose, it will follow that the
witness of the Testaments is reciprocal, that the one implies and necessitates
the other, and that, therefore, what can truly be predicated of the one stands
good for the other. If the New bears witness to the Old, so does the Old to the
New. The claim of the New Testament is that it is the realization of that of
which the Old Testament is the anticipation. And the demand of the Old Testament
is that its anticipation find a realization, a demand to which the New Testament
responds. It follows, therefore, that if the Old Testament is the Word of God,
the New Testament must be so also. The witness of the Old Testament to the New
is that of “a mold to a medallion, the same image being found in both - sunk in
the surface of the one, projecting from the surface of the other.” It is a
witness of relationship, as of hand to hand, as of root to flower, as of seed to
harvest, as of portrait to person, as of shadow to substance; so that what is
true of the root, the seed, the portrait, and the shadow on the one hand, is
necessarily true of the flower, the harvest, the person, and the substance on
the other hand. The two Testaments stand in relation to each other as the
cherubim of old, facing each other over the mercy-seat, and beaten out of the
same piece of gold. One thing is perfectly certain, namely, that the credit or
discredit of either Testament is shared by its fellow; that the Old Testament
and the New Testament stand or fall together. But let us examine this truth
somewhat more closely. A large part of the witness under review is to be found
in:

I. The Unity of the Testaments

Modern Biblical criticism, for obvious reasons, little regards this, but here it
is, and avoiding or denying it does not alter the fact. No one can read these
Scriptures with any care without, sooner or later, discovering a five-fold
unity.

(1) There is Structural Unity.

This may be regarded as coincidental and scarcely valid evidence. It is,
nevertheless, most impressive, and might be illustrated from many standpoints.
Look, for instance, at the three-fold division of each Testament:

First, Historic: Genesis to Esther (Old Testament), Matthew to Acts (New
Testament);

Second, Didactic: Job to Canticles (Old Testament), Romans to Jude (New
Testament);

Third, Prophecies: Isaiah to Malachi (Old Testament), Revelation (New
Testament).

Or, compare the Pentateuch, that seed plot of all revelation, and the New
Testament:

- Genesis, and the Four Gospels: The Great Foundations.

- Exodus, and the Acts: The Deliverance and Constitution of the Elect People.

- Leviticus, and the Pauline Epistles: The Believer’s Standing and State;
Separation and Holiness unto the Lord.

- Numbers, and the Catholic Epistles: The Wilderness Journey of God’s People.
Trial and Suffering.

- Deuteronomy, and Revelation: Review and Consummation. This surely is apt and
striking, and is calculated to lead to the belief that God is as careful of form
as of substance; that there are order and design in the arrangement of his words
as well as of his works.

We do not wish to lay undue emphasis upon the structural unity of the Bible, or
to convey the impression that this balance of parts is a thing of any vital
importance, but only that it enters into the revelation vouchsafed, and implies
that that revelation is tile product of one Mind.

(2) There is Historical Unity.

There is not an isolated book in the whole collection; each is dependent on the
one before it until we come to the primary fact, “In the beginning God.” This is
the more remarkable when we think of its many authors, and the period across
which the writings were produced. This history is not the product of an editor
who chose his contributors, mapped out the field, gave to each his period, and
himself brought all into relation. Even in such enterprises as that unity is not
always achieved. But here all are independent of one another, yet the result is
a sublime story which moves on from period to period in most impressive
eloquence from commencement to consummation.

Surely the explanation of this is to be found only in one direction. But
further:

(3) There is Prophetical Unity.

This is in fact a miracle, and prophecy is one of the greatest proofs of the
divine origin and authority of the Bible.

Not only do great numbers of Old Testament prophecies become fulfillments in the
New Testament, but the New Testament itself is largely prophetic - much more so
than is commonly thought, and its prophetic outlook is in complete perspective
with that of the Old Testament. It is fuller and reaches further than that of
the Old Testament, but the forelook is in the same direction. All these voices
speak one great truth because all their utterances are the articulation of one
great Mind. Daniel and John unfold one great plan, and reveal one great purpose,
covering thousands of years, and whatever the critics may do with the authors
they cannot change the character of their works. This miracle of prophecy is
unimpeachable evidence that the Bible is the Word of God. Yet again:

(4) There is Doctrinal Unity.

The countless contradictory doctrines held by men of our own generation should
be enough to show how impossible it is for the unaided intellect to arrive at
harmony of view about the great things - God, Life, the Soul, Sin, Destiny, and
much besides. Yet in the Scriptures we find perfect harmony of teaching across a
period of over fifteen centuries, and coming through men of great diversity of
character and equipment. The apparent exceptions are due to faulty
interpretations on our part, and do not exist in fact. It is not true that Jesus
sets aside Moses, or that Paul contradicts James, though these things have been
alleged in consequence of limited apprehension and mistaken interpretation. The
Bible does not teach Calvinism against Arminianism, or the latter against the
former. It teaches both. They are different aspects of one great truth which
finds expression in the sacrifice of Christ, on the one hand as propitiatory,
and on the other as substitutionary. The sovereignty of God and human free will
are not contradictory, but complementary. The enlightened Christian will be a
Calvinist on his knees and an Arminian on his feet. In all the parts of this
amazing revelation there is harmony of doctrine, and divine inspiration is the
only explanation. Yet once more,

(5) There is Spiritual Unity.

The same sap pervades the whole of this tree of life; one spirit inhabits this
body of truth; one energy moves from commencement to finish, and one redeeming
purpose makes this library a single Book. The sap is the life of God, and the
breath is the Spirit of God. The names and titles which the Scriptures bear are
a declaration of its spiritual unity, as, for example, “The Word of the Lord“;
“The Oracles of God”; “The Word of Faith”; “The Word of Truth”; “The Word of
Reconciliation”; “The Word of Life”; “The Word of Righteousness”; “The Faithful
Word. But the great evidence of the spiritual unity of the Bible is to be found
in its atmosphere and its altitude. The air is rarer here than anywhere else;
this is the most morally bracing climate in which we can live: it is stifling to
iniquity, but health-giving to righteousness. The Bible is one long history of
sin, but it nowhere sanctions or excuses it. To save the reputation of the
saints is not an object here. Noah got drunk, Abram lied, David committed murder
and adultery, and Peter swore; these are facts, and the Bible records them to
save us from repeating them.

On the other hand, Jesus says to the adultereress, “Neither do I condemn thee,”
and to the penitent thief, “This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The
pull of the Bible is always up. The moral standards of the two Testaments are
not contradictory, but the New transcends the Old.

Here, then, is a wonderful thing, that between the two Testaments there is no
contradiction of historical facts, no confusion of spiritual types, no
contortion of prophetic outline, no collision of doctrinal statement, and no
collapse of divine perspective: all is a sublime unity, and this can be
accounted for only by the fact that these writings are the Word of God.

Let us recall the thread of our argument. In showing that the Bible claims to be
the Word of God, we have examined, first, the Old Testament - its witness to
itself, and the New Testament’s witness to it. We are now examining the New
Testament. Here, also, the witness is twofold, - first, that which the Old bears
to the New; second, that which the New bears to itself. Of the former of these
we have already considered the evidence of the unity of the Testaments i and we
must now look briefly at the evidence derived from the presence of:

2. The Old Testament in the New.

If the claim of the Old Testament to be the Word of God is valid, the New
Testament must share that distinction at least to the extent that the Old is in
the New. Look then, summarily, at:

(1) The Range of the References.

By “References” let us understand quotations and allusions. Of the former, it
has been reckoned there are 263; and these, drawn from all over the Old
Testament, are found all over the New.

Dr. S. H. Brooks affirms that Genesis is quoted 19 times in 9 New Testament
books; Exodus, 24 times in 12 New Testament books; Leviticus, 12 times in 9 New
Testament books; Numbers is quoted or alluded to in 9 New Testament books;
Deuteronomy, 26 times in 13 New Testament books; the Psalms,59 times in 12 New
Testament books; Isaiah, 50 times in 11 New Testament books; Proverbs, 6 times
in 6 New Testament books; and Zechariah, 6 times in 4 New Testament books. But
to these we have to add about 376 allusions, more or less distinct. It is
evident, therefore, that the New Testament is saturated with the Old. Indeed, it
is not too much to say that if all references to the Old Testament were
eliminated, there would be comparatively little left.

Stephen’s speech is an Old Testament “mosaic.” The Epistle to the Hebrews and
the Jewish portions of the Roman Epistle are entirely dependent on the Old
Testament; and Professor Milligan, writing of the Revelation, says, “It may be
doubted whether it contains a single figure not drawn from the Old Testament, or
a single complete sentence not more or less built up of materials brought from
the same source.” We have already said that out of the total number of 404
verses in this book about 265 verses contain Old Testament language, and about
550 references are made to Old Testament passages. The fact of and extent to
which the Old Testament is in the New needs no further illustration. But the
value of this for our present purpose depends upon:

(2) The Use of the References.

Does the New Testament quote the Old to approve or discredit, to endorse or deny
it? Dr. Girdlestone says, “The more one studies the use of the Old Testament in
the New, the more will one be struck with the fact that all New Testament
writers use the Old Testament in the same way”; and what way that is we may
judge from 2Ti 3:15-17.

Sometimes the quotations are from the Hebrew, mostly from the Septuagint, and
sometimes from neither, but in no case is the reference made for the purpose of
correction or denial, but only for confirmation and expansion.

Sometimes the references are general, and sometimes particular; sometimes whole
books are referred to as “the Scriptures,” and sometimes the whole of the Old
Testament is referred to in this way; but everywhere the writers assume that
they are referring to the Word of God. This absorption of the Old Testament
gives character to the New, and is a valuable part of the evidence of its
inspiration. But let us look now at:

(B) The New Testament’s Witness to Itself.

What evidence is there on this side that the Writings are of divine origin and
authority? What are the character and significance of these twenty-seven books,
ascertainable by the study of them and comparison of them with religious
writings of the period immediately following? The best answer to those questions
would require more time and space than are at present at our disposal; yet we
venture to offer an answer in brief outline, looking first at the external, and
then at the internal, evidence:

1. The External Evidence.

Two things here claim our attention, and first, just a word about:

(1) The Canon of the New Testament. By “Canon” we understand either that which
measures or that which is measured; either that which rules or that which is
ruled. The word occurs in the New Testament five times, two of which references
speak of “walking according to a rule” which has been established (Gal 6:16; Php
3:16).

The word may have come to be applied to these Scriptures in one of two ways,
either by viewing them “as containing the authoritative Rule by which human
thought and life are to be molded; or, by viewing these writings as ruled, that
is, declared by the Church, after ages of doubt and debate, to be of divine
inspiration. In any case, we know that by the end of the fourth century the
books which make our New Testament were universally acknowledged to be Holy
Scripture. Other books within that period made pretentious claims, but the great
test was apostolicity, and this established, there was no longer any question as
to recognition.

These twenty-seven books, since the completion of the Canon, have for over
fifteen centuries been regarded as a true part of God’s great Book of
Scriptures. It is impossible to doubt that during those early centuries the
divine Spirit quickened the discernment and directed the judgment of his people,
leading them to recognize, on substantial evidence, what was, and what was not,
divinely inspired. This testimony must not be set aside, for “There is the same
kind of evidence that the books of the New Testament are of apostolic origin as
that the works of Xenophon, Cicero, or Plutarch proceeded from the authors whose
names they bear.”

Furthermore, the immense number of quotations made from the New Testament by the
early Christian writers is witness to the growing consciousness that these were
of inspired authority; indeed, they were quoted or alluded to as of equal
authority with the Old Testament Scriptures.

Dean Burgon, in his great index of patristic quotations discovered 22,534 in the
writings alone of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen;
and these quotations are from the Gospels, Acts, the Pauline and Catholic
Epistles, and the Apocalypse. The late Professor Johnstone has shown in his
“Principles of Evidence in Critical Enquiry” that by the beginning of the third
century of our era there would be approximately 2,000,000 Christians in the
world, and that the belief of such writers as Irenaeus, or Clement, or
Tertullian, that the New Testament writings were of divine authority was the
view of the Church throughout the world at that time. This evidence is not new,
but it should be known that it is still valid.

Another part of the external evidence that the New Testament is divinely
inspired is to be found in:

(2) The Post-Apostolic Writings.

Between the canonical books and even the best of the uncanonical there is a
distinction which impressively reveals the limits of the unaided Christian
intellect and imagination.

Canon Bernard’s Bampton Lectures should be read here. He discusses the
distinction between the apostolic period and subsequent periods of church
history, and inquires into what constitutes the distinction. The result is
somewhat as follows: That whereas the apostolic period is part of the history of
the communication of truth by God, and of the apprehension of it by man, the
post-apostolic periods are parts of the history only of the apprehension of
truth by man; in other words, the apostolic period was the last of communication
and the first of apprehension. That it was the last of communication is proved
by the fact that the apprehension of truth on the part of the Church throughout
this age has been an apprehension of what the evangelists and apostles wrote,
and not of what any person wrote after the close of that period. “No later
communications from heaven are supposed or alleged.” All definitions, decrees,
and creeds have these writings and these only for their warrant and substance.
It was not a new communication that was given in the time of Athanasius,
Augustine, or Luther, but a new apprehension and a reaffirmation of a former
communication. The matter may be summarized in this way:

{eS Module note: to see this chart, go to
http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=aQnhDSbPMOU%3d&tabid=394&mid=1262
- and scroll down to page 7} From this diagram the situation will be clearly
seen. But in addition to that important fact, it has always been recognized, and
recognized by the apostolic Fathers themselves, that the writings of the
sub-apostolic age are incomparably inferior to the writings of the New
Testament, though they have many beauties of a distinct interest. These facts
together constitute strong external evidence that the New Testament writings are
the Word of God. We shall now proceed to:

2. The Internal Evidence. And first of all let us examine:

(1) The Testimony of Christ.

Perhaps it is not too much to say that the testimony which is inclusive and
convincing is that of:

(a) His Self-Consciousness.

Who did Jesus believe and declare that he was? If his witness be accepted,
nothing remains to be said on the subject of these articles, for his claim
carries with it the whole Bible. We are so familiar, in a way, with our
Authorized text that we are not mastered by such statements as:

- “Come unto me . . . all . . . and I will give you rest”;

- “Before Abraham was I am”;

- “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life”; And that first recorded
utterance:

“Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”

It is difficult and perhaps impossible to say when Jesus became conscious of who
he was, but that consciousness was certainly his at twelve years of age, and
Dean Farrar, in a note on Luk 2:49, in the Cambridge Greek Testament, says that
“did ye not know?” was designed to “recall their fading memory of who he was.”
If that be so, his God-consciousness awakened before his experience at
Jerusalem. But the fact to be marked for our present purpose is that Jesus
believed that he was God, and declared it, alike by his life, his teaching, his
Passion, and subsequent events.

That fact, let me repeat, has a bearing on all relative claims that is simply
determinative. Examine one or two of these as, for example,

(b) His Attitude Toward the Old Testament.

This has already been examined, and is referred to again now only that what he
said about it may be read in the light which breaks from the fact that the
Speaker was divine. Those who challenge the inspiration and authority of the Old
Testament Scriptures are up against the deity of Christ.

Then there is,

(c) His Claim for His Preaching.

We are all familiar with the Kenosis controversy, and I have only one object in
introducing it here; namely, to affirm that whatever that mysterious and
altogether blessed revelation may point to, it certainly could never mean that
he so “emptied” himself that he was liable to “mistakes about fact, even in so
great a matter as the nature of the Old Testament Scriptures.” The matter of
knowledge is not in view at all in the context, but Christ’s willingness to
become, and his becoming, the truly human Bondservant of the Father. But even
suppose we admitted (which we do not) that he was as liable to misread the Old
Testament writings as were the Jews of his day, such error cannot be ascribed to
his teaching, which, he expressly and often affirms, he received from his
Father.

- “My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me. If any man will do his will, he
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”

- “As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.”

- “I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a
commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.”

- “Even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.”

Anyone who dares to challenge the teaching of Jesus must take the full
responsibility of directly challenging the truthfulness of God.

Let us now take one more step in pursuit of the evidence we want, and look at
what may be called:

(d) His Cryptic Prophecy.

I refer to two verses in the upper room discourse (John 14:25; John 16:13): “The
Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things,
andbring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

“When he, the Spirit of truth, is come,he will guide you into all truth: for he
shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak:
andhe will shew you things to come.”

It is to the three sentences in italics that I would call your attention:

He promised his disciples an aided memory as they went forth to preach the
Gospel, and out of that oral Gospel our four records have come.

He promised that the Spirit would guide his disciples into all the truth;
pointing to a field of truth of which he himself was the substance. When was
that promise fulfilled? Primarily when he inspired the apostles to write the
epistles, each of which presents some definite aspect of “the truth” concerning
Christ and Christianity; and progressively, as he, through these ages, has led
believers into an ever deeper understanding of what was then written.

He promised that the Spirit would announce to them “things to come.” And the
last book in the New Testament begins with the words: “Revelation of Jesus
Christ which God gave unto him to shew unto his servants what must shortly come
to pass.”

There is, therefore, in these three declarations a veiled promise of what we now
have and know as the New Testament, distinguished in its parts as history,
doctrine, and Apocalypse, and answering to the great divisions of the Old
Testament history, wisdom, and prophecy.

Christ, therefore, set his imprimatur upon the whole as yet unwritten New
Testament, as afterwards in resurrection life he set his seal upon the whole of
the Old Testament Scriptures as we now possess them, neither more nor less. He
then endorsed the whole Bible, though at that time not a line of the second part
was written.

Let these things be taken together Christ’s self-consciousness, his attitude
Toward the Old Testament, his claim for his teaching, and his foredraft of the
New Testament - and it must be felt that this is cumulative evidence, more than
enough, that the New Testament writings are the Word of God.

Yet this is by no means the only evidence.

There is, in addition,

(2) The Apostolic Consciousness.

If the claims which the apostles themselves make have any meaning or value, they
are conclusive evidence that their writings are Holy Scripture. One or two
examples will suffice:

(a) Paul says: “We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God; that we might know the things freely given to us of God.”

“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but
which the Holy Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1Co
2:12-13).

If that utterance signifies anything at all, it is a definite claim to an
inspiration which extends to the “words” employed in communicating divine truth;
that is, to what is called verbal inspiration. Such an idea is to-day ridiculed
by the disciples of the “new knowledge,” but no research in which scholars may
engage, and no enlargement of the field of positive knowledge can in any way
alter primary facts. Let us rejoice in the stores of information bearing on the
New Testament which modern scholarship has brought to us, but when that learning
presumes to modify or deny the claims of these writings for themselves, then we
must part company. But hear Paul again: “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” (1Co 14:37). The proof that one is “a prophet,
or spiritual,” is this; that acknowledgment is made that the authority of Christ
is continued in his apostle. That claim is strong, but what follows is
stronger:”But if anyone is ignorant [of this] he is ignored.”

Professor Findlay’s remark on this is, “The professor of divine knowledge who
does not discern Paul’s inspiration proves his ignorance; his character as
prophet, or ’spiritual,’ is not recognized, since he does not recognize the
Apostle’s character” (Expositor’s Greek Testament, p. 916).

It is to be feared that a great deal of modern scholarship must stand condemned
at that bar, and for the reason that, not content to discover facts, it has
attempted to create them, and that often by way of denial of the real facts. But
Paul is firm and plain: “When ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us,
ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God,
which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1Th 2:13).

He therefore distinctly asserts that when he made known the doctrines contained
in his writings, he and his words were directly under the control of the Spirit
of God. And what he claimed, the other apostles claimed.

(b) Peter writes: “That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before
by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and
Saviour” (2Pe 3:2).

There he places the apostolic writings on a level with the Old Testament
prophetic writings, of which latter he had already said:

“Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (chap. 1). And he
further classes the Pauline writings with “the other Scriptures” as of equal
authority (2Pe 3:15-16). Hear also the claim of:

(c) John. “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God
heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error”
(1Jn 4:6).

Let any man outside of the apostolic circle make such a statement as that, and
he at once loses all claim to our attention and respect. But such utterances on
the lips of Paul and Peter and John do not shock us, because the teaching to
which they point, and for which they make the claim, bears abundant evidence
that it originates not in man, but in God. This compels us to say just a word
upon:

(3) The Character of the Teaching.

On this subject alone libraries have been written, and might be written, and
only by prolonged and painstaking study can anyone do more than begin to
apprehend the wealth and wonder of the apostolic teaching. Very few, if any, can
go deeply into the whole of these writings, but sink a shaft where you will; you
will strike veins of purest gold. In profoundness, comprehensiveness, sublimity,
and power there is nothing in any or all the literatures of the world together
to compare with these writings. That no men before the apostolic period wrote
like that, and that none since have written so, is evidence in itself that men
of that period could not have written as they did except under the immediate
direction of the Spirit of God. The individuality of the writers is everywhere
clearly marked, so well so that it has been claimed that each has his own
grammar (A. Souter, though Winer is horrified at that idea); yet, this
notwithstanding, they together present a body of truth which the most brilliant
of men, unaided, could never have thought out of themselves; and even had they
been able to do so, it would have been impossible to harmonize their teaching.
But in these writings are found heavenly instruction and heavenly harmony, to be
accounted for only on the hypothesis that they have a heavenly origin. No
classics are treated as the Church has from the beginning found it necessary to
treat the sacred writings in order to arrive at their true meaning and value;
namely, by way of examination of the teaching, sentence by sentence, and word by
word. What does such a treatment imply, if not that the thought is so expressed
that the whole import of it in any given place may depend upon a tense, a
number, a case, or a preposition. A commentator once said in a lecture, “The
whole force of the revelation in the Bible is contained just in two letters -
the Greek preposition for ’in’.” That is a strong and striking pronouncement,
but it was made by one who was competent to speak on the subject.

Abundant evidence of the amazing precision with which words are used everywhere
and always in the New Testament may be found in any of our best Greek grammars
of the New Testament, Winer’s and Robertson’s, to name no others. I am tempted
to give a hundred illustrations at random, but must resist. This, however, let
me say, that the teaching of the New Testament is unmistakably divine in its
nature and origin, and is communicated in words which, not only in themselves
were the best in the language to communicate such thoughts, but which became
enriched by being used for such a purpose; for, as Dr. A. T. Robertson says,
“The Christian spirit put a new flavor into this vernacular koine and lifted it
to a new elevation of thought and dignity of style that enrich and glorify the
language. This new and victorious spirit, which seized the best in Jew and
Greek, knew how to use the Greek language with freedom and power” (Greek
Grammar, p. 113). To sum up, then, the evidence that the New Testament
Scriptures are the Word of God is witnessed to by the Old Testament along at
least two lines:

First, that of the unity which exists between the two Testaments, a unity which
is fivefold-structural, historical, prophetical, doctrinal, and spiritual;

Second, that of the range and use of the Old Testament in the New, confirming,
illuminating, and amplifying.

It is also witnessed to by the New Testament itself; and the evidence is both
external and internal. External evidence is found in the history of the Canon,
and by a comparison of the apostolic with the sub-apostolic writings.

Internal evidence is found in the testimony of Christ, the apostolic
consciousness, and in the character of the teaching.

These are by no means inclusive or exhaustive evidences, but are sufficient to
furnish an ample and firm ground for faith.

Let this witness be added to what preceded, - that the Bible seems to be the
Word of God; and these two added to what is to follow, that the Bible proves to
be the Word of God, and for all whose judgments are not grievously warped the
matter will be placed forever beyond question.

~ end of chapter 3 ~


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 4-IT PROVES TO BE
========================================================================

It Proves to Be

CHAPTER FOUR

One of the proofs that the Bible is not “like any other book” is that it has
done what no other book has ever done, or ever could do. In the “Dialogues” of
Socrates, in the “Republic” of Plato, in the “Analects” of Confucius, in the
“Vedas” of the Brahmins, in the “Zend Avesta” of the Parsees, and even in the
“Koran,” there are the strains of a noble and powerful morality, yet these and
other works of a like order must forever be sharply distinguished from what is
Christian in three tremendous ways:

- In respect of the writers, - In respect of the writings, - In respect of the
results.

These teachers may be grouped together, but the name of Christ must not appear
in the list, not even at the top. The contrasts overwhelm the comparisons. They
stand on one side, and he on the other, not so much in the way of ignorance and
knowledge as by reason of their differing qualities of character. It has been
truly and eloquently said,

“Socrates was great and noble and wise, and his death is one of the most moving
scenes of ancient history; let us not breathe one word against that holy and
high-souled sage, but the truth is dearer to us even than Socrates; and, when we
think of Socrates conversing with Theodota, or feasting with Agathon, when we
remember the mingled leniency and coarseness with which he spoke of the sins of
Critias; when we recall his cold and almost impatient dismissal of his wife and
children at his hour of approaching death, and then, with bowed head, think of
Him who talked by the well-side with the woman of Samaria, or stood alone by
that guilty adulteress as she sobbed upon the temple floor; or who, as he hung
upon the cross between the thieves, chose out the tenderest hearted of his
disciples, and, in the midst of his anguish, said to his mother, “Woman, behold
thy son, then indeed, if our Spiritual sense be not utterly blunt and dead, we
may see how infinite is the gulf which separates the teacher of Athens from the
Son of God.” This great gulf lies not only between these teachers and Christ,
but also between the Christian writings and theirs, alike in themselves and in
what they have accomplished and are able to accomplish.

In “Seekers After God” we read,

“The morality of Paganism was on its own confession, insufficient. It was
tentative where Christianity was authoritative. It was dim and partial where
Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to rouse the sluggish
carelessness of mankind where Christianity came with an impartial and awakening
power; it gives only a rule where Christianity supplies a principle; and even
where its teachings were absolutely identical with those of Scripture, it failed
to ratify them with a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the
same powerful and contagious ardor; it failed to furnish any absolutely
faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them with an
irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful comfort under the
difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the aim after a consistent and
holy life.”

In other words, Pagan morality was like gathered blossoms stuck in the careless
garden of a child, looking lovely for a time, but because they had no root soon
withering away. But over against this the Christian writings have proved
themselves to be living, active, efficacious and self-renewing. The triumphs of
the Bible are to be seen in differing forms and degrees in the soul, in society,
and in the race. Let us, for Our present purpose, call two witnesses, the
Individual and Christianity.

Regarding the former of these, we shall see that the individual bears a
threefold witness to the Bible: first, to its saving and keeping virtue; second,
to its compelling and enabling power; and third, to its inherent value and
charm.

And, considering the latter of these two witnesses, we shall bring under rapid
review the sources, progress, and influence of Christianity.

1. THE WITNESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE BIBLE.

Never can all that the Bible has done for the individual soul be put on record,
so great is the volume of testimony, but a slight knowledge of its triumphs in
this direction will suffice to prove that it is indeed the Word of God, “quick
[alive] and powerful.” To begin with, how abundant is the testimony borne to:

(1) The Saving and Keeping Virtue of the Bible.

As illustrative of this, let us take the witness of two men widely separated in
time, diverse in temperament, and altogether distinct in their tasks; namely,
Aurelius Augustine, A.D. 354-430, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, A.D. 1834-1892.

These were separated from each other in time by 1400 years, the one exercising
his unique ministry from Hippo on the north coast of Africa; the other from
London, England; the one as a Christian writer and ecclesiastic, wielding an
influence second only to that of the apostles, an influence which diffused
itself throughout the whole of Western Christendom; and the other as a preacher
of the Gospel ranking easily as one of the greatest the world has ever known.
How came these men to be what they were and to do what they did? Let their
stories briefly be told. Both these men had godly mothers who never ceased to
pray for them, Spurgeon having the advantage of Augustine in that he had also a
devout father.

Augustine in youth was wild and wicked, given over to licentious indulgences;
but Spurgeon was from earliest days a good boy, with a deeply religious
inclination. Both alike were painfully alive to the fact that they were sinners,
and passed through a period, the one longer and the other shorter, of vain
endeavor and search for life and peace. Both were brought to the knowledge of
Christ by a single text of Scripture, instrumentally in Augustine’s case by a
voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not, chanting and oft repeating, “Take up and
read; take up and read”; and in Spurgeon’s case by the simple message of an
unknown Primitive Methodist preacher; the one at Milan, and the other at
Colchester.

These were the texts which wrought the mighty change:

“Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and in wantonness, not in
strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision
for the flesh.”

Augustine says: “No further would I read; nor needed I; for instantly at the end
of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all
the darkness of doubt vanished away.” In Spurgeon’s case the text was:

“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and
there is none else.”

“Setting his eyes upon me as if he knew all my heart,” says Spurgeon, “the
preacher said, ‘Young man, you are in trouble.’ Well, I was, sure enough. Says
he, ‘You will never get out of it unless you look to Christ.’ And then, lifting
up his hands, he cried out, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, ‘Look, look,
look!’ I saw at once the way of salvation. Oh, how I did leap for joy at that
moment! I know not what else he said. I was so possessed with that one thought.
I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard this word, ‘Look:’ what
a charming word it seemed to me! I looked until I could have almost looked my
eyes away; and in heaven I will look on still in my joy unutterable.” To these
testimonies to the saving power of the Gospel might be added countless thousands
through all the ages, and such books as “Broken Earthenware” and “Down in Water
Street” are evidence enough that the Word of God is as potent as ever to work
the miracle of miracles.

It will not even be pretended that any book in the world, or all the books in
the world put together, have wrought such vast and beneficent conversions - such
deliverances from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God - as
have been and are day by day being wrought by the voice of God speaking to us
from the Holy Scriptures. Is not this single fact sufficient to prove their
unique preciousness, their transcendent supremacy?

It is life-giving because it is alive, and it is alive because it is, as no
other book is, the Word of God. But beyond this there is unnumbered individual
testimony to:

(2) The Compelling and Enabling Power of the Bible.

This witness is co-extensive with the history of the Church, and if we introduce
two names at this point, it is only a selection at random as illustrative of the
great throng before and after them who have found the Bible, in life and
service, to be compelling and enabling.

Martin Luther (1483-1555) will readily be voted one of the outstanding
personalities of Christian history. A miner’s son, he rose to a place of power
and eminence which makes his influence a thing felt to this day. Professor
Walker of Yale speaks of him as “one of the few men of whom it may be said that
the history of the world was profoundly altered by his work. Not a great
scholar, an organizer, or a politician, he moved men by the power of a profound
religious experience, resulting in unshakable trust in God, and in direct,
immediate, and personal relation to Him, which brought a confident salvation,
that left no room for the elaborate hierarchical and sacramental strictures of
the Middle Ages.”

What was it that made this Erfurt monk so mighty a power? We are told that as he
ascended the Santa Scala staircase at Rome on his knees, and when but half-way
up, there burst upon his soul, like the rush of an avalanche, the text, “The
just shall live by faith.” And thenceforth, in his own personal experience, the
sum of the Gospel was the forgiveness of sins and absolute dependence on the
Word of God. From that so sudden and complete a deliverance came the bright and
blissful Reformation in which “the sweet odor of the returning Gospel of Christ
has embalmed men’s souls in the fragrancy of heaven,” and emancipated millions
from Egyptian darkness. For our second witness to the compelling and enabling
power of the Bible, we come down two and a half centuries, to David Livingstone.
We turn from Europe to Africa, and from a great reformer to a world-famous
traveler and missionary. Perhaps the most impressive testimony to this heroic
soul is that of Henry M. Stanley. He said:

“In 1871 I went to Africa as prejudiced as the biggest atheist in London. But
there came for me a long time for reflection. I was out there, away from a
worldly world. I saw a solitary old man there. and asked ‘Why on earth does he
stop here? Is he cracked, or what? What is it that inspires him?’ For months
after we met I simply found myself listening to him, wondering at him, as he
carried out all that was said in the Bible: ‘Leave all that ye have and follow
me.’ But little by little his sympathy became contagious. Seeing his piety, his
gentleness, his zeal, his earnestness, and how quietly he did his duty, I was
converted by him, though he had not tried to do it.” That heroic soul on May
4th, 1873, was found dead on his knees at Chitambos village of Ilala, on the
south of Lake Bangweolo, and two faithful Africans, whom he had rescued from
slavery, carried his body on their shoulders three hundred miles to Zanzibar,
whence it was brought to England. He was buried at Westminster Abbey, amid the
tears of the noble and the great. Truly, it was the love of Christ that
constrained him, and his love of the Bible that enabled him; and as part result
of his sacrificial service Africans have been given the Word of God in at least
fourteen languages.

These examples of courage and sacrifice but reflect the story of a multitude.

The time would fail me to tell of those who endured rack and prison and flame
and sword for the sake of Christ and his Word. Said Cyprian: “They stood safe,
stronger than their conquerors; the beaten and lacerated members conquered the
beating and lacerating hooks.” Such was their tremendous spirit through that
long period of legalized and almost unbroken persecution, which reached from
Nero to Diocletian.

Ignatius, the venerable bishop of Antioch, was sent to Rome to be devoured of
beasts, on the way writing seven of his epistles. Justin was scourged and
beheaded because he refused to sacrifice to the gods. When the aged Polycarp was
bidden, “Swear by Caesar’s fortune and revile Christ,” he replied, “Eighty and
six years have I served him, and he never did me wrong; how then can I revile my
King and my Saviour?” The infuriated crowd demanded that he should be burned.

“The demand was complied with, and the populace in their rage soon collected
from the baths and workshops logs and faggots for the pile. The old man ungirded
himself, laid aside his garments, and took his place in the midst of the fuel,
and when they would have secured him with nails to the stake, said, “Let me
remain as I am, for he that has enabled me to brave the fire will so strengthen
me that, without your fastening me with nails, I shall, unmoved, endure its
fierceness.”

After he had offered a short but beautiful prayer, the fire was kindled, but a
high wind drove the flames to one side, so that he was roasted rather than
burned, and the executioner was ordered to dispatch him with a sword. On his
striking him with it so great a quantity of blood flowed from the wound as to
quench the flames, which were, however, resuscitated, in order to consume his
lifeless body.

Glorious was the witness of men, young and old, but not less glorious was the
confession of women of differing age and station.

Blandina, a servant girl, amid horrible torture held firmly by the testimony of
the Gospel.

Perpetua, a youthful matron of gentle birth, clasping an infant to her breast,
calmly withstood the tears and entreaties of her aged father. When the governor
bade her, “Have pity on thy father’s gray hairs, have pity on thy helpless
child, offer sacrifices for the welfare of the Emperor,” she answered, “That I
cannot do.”

“Art thou a Christian?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied, “I am a Christian.”

Felicitas, the female slave, after her trial was seized with the pangs of
maternity. The jailor said to her, “If thy present sufferings are so great, what
wilt thou do when thou art thrown to the wild beasts? This thou didst not
consider when thou refusedst to sacrifice.”

She answered, “I now suffer myself all that I suffer; but then there will be
Another who will suffer for me, because I suffer for him.”

So the lady and the slave went together to the amphitheater, and, before the
stroke which ended their sufferings, exchanged the last kiss of Christian love.
Nor did loyalty to Christ and his Gospel die with the dying of these heroes.
There has been an aristocracy of sufferers for the truth through all the
centuries, such as the Lollards, the Reformers, the Puritans, the Pilgrim
Fathers, and the Covenanters, and did occasion again require such testimony,
without doubt it would be forthcoming.

The martyr-spirit is not dead, just because the Word of God has not lost its
compelling and enabling power over the souls of men, and it is still true that
the more a man makes of the Bible the more it will make of him. The late Wm.
Muir has truly said:

“It is the Bible that has been aback of all civilizing, evangelizing, and
reviving movements. From it has come the inspiration which has sent out the most
successful missionaries and evangelists to gather in the lost; and no
evangelical agency can expect to prosper unless it keeps the Bible in the very
forefront.”

“Whether we think,” he says, “of the great revival of heart religion which we
call the Reformation, or of the Puritan Revival which kept the fire burning on
the altar in our land when the Counter- Reformation was doing deadly work
everywhere else; or of the Methodist Revival either in its earlier phases, when
so many were won for Christ, or in its later phases, when the Primitives came to
be such a blessing to the villages of England - we always find that the good
work gathered round the Bible, and especially round the English Bible.

“It is through its pages that both preparation and call have come to those whom
God has used most, alike in the homelands and in the regions beyond. Not
otherwise can there be an adequate sense of human need or of the fullness of the
divine preparation for it. Not otherwise can men see the corroding, corrupting
power of sin in the light of the Cross. Not otherwise can those who discover
something of the immensity of their debt to Christ on the Cross come under the
dominion of his constraining love. Not otherwise is that compassion for souls,
that yearning pity for the weary and heavy-laden begotten, which makes men and
women Christlike in their endeavors to spread the blessing and share the light.”

But, further individual testimony is borne to:

(3) The Inherent Charm and Value of the Bible.

The power of this wonderful Book has been felt and witnessed to in all ages and
countries by persons of the most diverse rank, accomplishment, and occupation,
the learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, princes and peasants,
statesmen and salesmen, writers and warriors, artists and artisans, sculptors
and shepherds, musicians and merchants, poets and planters.

Men as widely separated by predilection and persuasion as Renan and Faber,
Rousseau and Newman, Hooker and Theodore Parker, Huxley and Browning, Heine and
Gladstone, Wesley and Goethe, Wilberforce and Kuenen, have poured their
impassioned eulogies upon the Bible for its winsome tenderness, its awful
directness, its searching power, its amazing pathos, its wonderful insight, its
literary charm, and its universal reach.

“What a Book!” exclaimed Heine, “vast and wide as the world! Rooted in the
abysses of creation, and towering up beyond the blue secrets of heaven! Sunrise
and sunset, birth and death, promise and fulfillment, the whole drama of
humanity are all in this Book!” And Coleridge said, “In the Bible there is more
that finds me than I have experienced in all other books put together: the words
of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being; and whatever finds me brings
with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy Spirit.”

Volumes might be written on the Bible, viewed from this standpoint, but, enough.
This is “beyond all other books the Book of the world. Other books are for
special times or separate races; this Book has been dear in every age to men of
all races. Other books are for the poor or for the rich; this Book regards poor
and rich alike, not under the inch-high differences of wealth and rank, but as
heirs alike of the common mysteries of life and death, of redemption and
immortality. Other books are for the mature or the youthful; this Book alone
neither wearies the aged, nor repels the young. Other books are only for the
learned, or only for the ignorant; this Book, in the sweetest and simplest
elements of its revelation, is as dear to the philosopher as to the Negro’s
child. In it mind speaks to mind, and heart to heart, and soul to soul.” In
closing, something must be said about a larger aspect of the subject; namely:

2. THE WITNESS OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE BIBLE.

Here, briefly, let us consider the sources, the progress, and the influence of
Christianity.

(1) The Sources of Christianity. These, it may be said, are threefold:

(a) Christ is the Origination of Christianity. Professor Hugh Mackintosh has
defined Christianity as “the religion which holds as its fundamental tenet that
in the historic person, Jesus of Nazareth, God has been perfectly revealed as
Father.”

Christianity is not a church, not a creed, not a ritual, not a tradition, and we
must also say, not a book. Christianity is Christ, the revelation of God as
Life, Light, and Love, first in the historic and personal Christ, and then in
the historic and mystical Christ. Christianity essentially is Christ, and that
leads me to say that:

(b) The Church is the Articulation of Christianity. Reference has just been made
to the historic and mystical Christ, by which we mean the living Head in heaven,
and his living members on earth. As the head functions through the body, so the
absent, living Lord articulates through his Church. She is, or should be, the
expression and reflection here on earth of him. Yet how has the Church through
these ages been able to know him that she might love and serve him? Someone will
say, “By the indwelling and illuminating Holy Spirit.” True, but that only leads
to a further question, How have Christians been able these nearly two thousand
years to know what was of and from the Holy Spirit, and what was not? Has
everyone been a law to himself in this matter so vital, or is there any court of
appeal, any body and standard of truth, by which the claims to one’s having
received illumination may be brought and tested? The answer to that must be:

(c) The Bible is the Definition of Christianity. Perhaps it will be claimed that
experience is that definition. But we ask at once, Whose? When one thinks of the
endless variety of religious experience and belief in the world at any given
time, we see how hopeless would be the quest of the truth, unless, out of
ourselves, there were a revelation from God. But that revelation we have in the
Bible, or, more strictly, the Bible is the inspired record of that revelation.
“In sacred Scripture,” says an old Confession, “the Church has a most full
exposition of whatsoever pertains both to saving faith and to the right molding
of the life which is pleasing to God”; and Protestantism affirms that it is
perfect in its authority, sufficiency, perspicuity, and efficacy. The Lutheran,
the Reformed, and the Armenian Churches unite in the declaration that
“Christianity is a divine revelation communicated to mankind through Christ, the
saving truths of which must be derived from the Bible alone”; the Romish and
Greek Churches add tradition to the Bible; but the Westminster Doctrine is most
emphatic against any subtraction or addition when it says, “The authority of the
Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon
the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God, the Author thereof; and
therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.” The facts
concerning the historic Christ, not to speak of the apostolic interpretation of
those facts under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, would long ago have been
forgotten, or else so overlaid by the accretions of superstition as to be
unrecognizable, had not those facts and interpretations early found fixity as in
the Bible. But let us pass from the sources, to look for a moment at:

(2) The Progress of Christianity. We have already touched upon:

(a) The Early Struggle. Church historians speak of the first three centuries as
the period of persecution, and how widespread and fierce that persecution was
let the Catacombs witness, with their four million graves, according to a
moderate calculation. How colossal were the powers arrayed against those first
believers! All the odds, judged from the standpoint of the world, were against
that little company of “the Way,” who dared to stand by conviction and principle
in the face of Rome’s authority and power. Yet this they did at the uttermost
cost, and even gloried in their sufferings.

Christianity spent her first three centuries in one long, legalized, almost
unbroken persecution, yet by their tremendous spirit they conquered their
conquerors, and died only to live more gloriously.

Neither Nero, Decius, nor Diocletian could quench their ardor, nor prison, rack,
sword, nor shirt of flame compel them to deny their Lord.

“The nearer I am to the sword,” said Ignatius, “the nearer to God.” But side by
side with these persecutions came:

(b) The Increasing Recognition of Christianity.

This was widespread, as the Catacombs show; but it was not, as Gibbon sneeringly
affirmed, a recognition on the part “almost entirely of the dregs of the
populace, of peasants and mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars and slaves.”
Professor Ramsay has said that Christianity “spread first among the educated
more rapidly than among the uneducated”; and certain it is that the divine power
drew to it men of all of society from the beginning, and often the persons in
higher station were the first to come, and through their example brought others.
The heathen themselves became profoundly alarmed at the progress of
Christianity. “Men cry out,” says Tertullian, “that the State is besieged; the
Christians are in the fields, in the forts, in the islands; they mourn, as for a
loss, that every sex, age, condition and even rank, is going over to this sect.”
The advance of Christianity was not only vertical, but lateral, as Orr would
say, and we have it from Justin Martyr that “there is not one single race of
men, whether barbarians, or Greeks, or whatever they may be called, nomads, or
vagrants, or herdsmen dwelling in tents, among whom prayers and giving of thanks
are not offered, through the name of the Crucified Jesus.” Yet the testimony of
the Catacombs is not only to the multitude who believed, they also bear witness
by their elegance, refinement, and construction and elaboration of decoration,
that large numbers of these were of the wealthier class. And so, out of the
struggle, and by way of the recognition of Christianity, came:

(c) The Final Triumph.

How great that triumph was they only can know who have paid some attention to
the history of that period. Farrar, in the “Witness of History to Christ,” says:

“Nothing could have appeared more deplorable than the weakness of the new
religion. It numbered but a handful of timid followers, of whom the boldest had
denied his Lord with blasphemy, and the most devoted had forsaken him and fled.
They were poor, they were ignorant, they were helpless. They could not claim a
single synagogue, or a single sword. If they spoke their own language, it
bewrayed them by its mongrel dialect; if they spoke the current Greek, it was
despised as a miserable patois. And of their two doctrines - the Crucifixion and
the Resurrection - the one inspired indignant horror, and the other unbounded
scorn. But when they were weak, then were they strong. They had been consecrated
for their mighty work by no earthly Chrism; they had been baptized by the Holy
Ghost and with fire; each faithless heart had been dilated with celestial
courage: each lowly forehead mitered with Pentecostal flame.”

It was because of this, that at the end of the ten years’ persecution, when the
enemies of Christ supposed that they had extirpated his worship forever,
multitudes were ready to bow before the standard of the Cross.

Gibbon, in a well-known passage, assigns five reasons for this wonderful and
irresistible triumph of Christianity:

“1. The inflexible and, if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the
Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the
narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentile
from embracing the law of Moses.

“2. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance
which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth.

“3. The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive Church.

“4. The pure and austere morals of the Christians.

“5. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed
an independent and increasing State in the heart of the Roman Empire.” With the
exception, perhaps, of the third, let these reasons be admitted to the full, and
coming from such a quarter the testimony is the mightier. It was the Man of
Nazareth who had wrought the great change by which “the Catacomb triumphed over
the Grecian temple; the Cross of shame over the wine cup and the Salian banquet,
the song of the Siren, and the wreath of rose.

“These obscure sectaries - barbarians, Orientals, Jews, as they were - fought
against the indignant world and won. ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’: by heroic endurance, by stainless innocence,
by burning zeal, by inviolable truthfulness, by boundless love. The world’s
seductive ideals and intoxicating joys, the world’s enchanting mythologies and
dissolute religions, all fled before a cross of wood!” So far we have been
considering the progress of the Gospel during the first three or four centuries
of our era, but that is only a part of the story, and this rapid survey would be
obviously incomplete without a reference, however brief, to:

(3) The Influence of Christianity. Many volumes could not exhaust this aspect of
the subject, for Christianity has invaded every realm and left an indelible
impress upon the individual, society, and the race. But Christianity is the
promulgation of a revelation and the expression of a life. That revelation is
recorded in, and that life is communicated through, the Scriptures, without
which Christianity could not have survived. Therefore when we speak of the
influence of Christianity, we have here in view more particularly the influence
of that Book in Which we find its sum and substance. Think, then, for a moment
of:

(a) The Literary and Aesthetic Influence of the Bible.

The Bible is more than literature, but it certainly is literature, and that at
its best; truly it has been and is an “Academy of Letters” in the land. Who can
measure the influence of these Scriptures upon the best minds and the greatest
writers of the world? Landor said that the Bible is “a Book which, to say
nothing of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and
taste than any other volume in existence.” Froude said, “The Bible thoroughly
known is a literature in itself . . . the rarest and richest in all departments
of thought or imagination which exists.” And Macaulay speaks of it as “that
stupendous work . . . a book, which, if everything else in our language should
perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.”

It requires but a brief examination of the makers of our literature “to show
that it is not merely that Scripture is often quoted and alluded to, but that
its words and images have entered into the very warp and woof of the cloth of
gold which they have woven for the generations which follow after.

To be ignorant of the Bible is to lack the key of the treasury alike in
literature and grace.

J. R. Green, in speaking of the effects of the Bible on Puritan England,
eloquently says:

“As a mere literary monument, the English Version of the Bible remains the
noblest example of the English tongue, while its perpetual use made it from the
instant of its appearance the standard of our language.

“It formed, we must repeat, the whole literature which was practically
accessible to ordinary Englishmen; and when we recall the number of common
phrases which we owe to great authors, the bits of Shakespeare, or Milton, or
Dickens, or Thackeray, which unconsciously interweave themselves in our ordinary
talk, we shall better understand the strange mosaic of Biblical words and
phrases which colored English talk two hundred years ago.

“The mass of picturesque allusion and illustration which we borrow from a
thousand books, our fathers were forced to borrow from one; and the borrowing
was the easier and the more natural that the range of the Hebrew literature
fitted it for the expression of every phase of feeling. When Spenser poured
forth his warmest love-notes in the ‘Epithalamion,’ he adopted the very words of
the Psalmist, as he bade the gates open for the entrance of his bride. When
Cromwell saw the mists break over the hills of Dunbar, he hailed the sun-burst
with the cry of David: ‘Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered. Like as
the smoke vanisheth, so shalt thou drive them away.’ Even to common minds this
familiarity with grand poetic imagery in prophet and apocalypse gave a loftiness
of ardor and expression that, with all its tendency to exaggeration and bombast,
we may prefer to the slipshod vulgarisms of to-day.” But why multiply witnesses?
It would be easy to quote from scores of master-minds, such as Augustine, and
Dante, and Milton, and Shakespeare, and Goethe, and Bacon, and Pascal, and
Scott, and Carlyle, and Ruskin, and Browning, and Arnold, and Tennyson, and
Gladstone. But there is no need. The Bible is its own greatest witness. It is
self-authenticating. Is there anyone work in all non-Christian literature that
could be classed with the “Civitas Dei,” the “Divina Commedia,” the “Summa
Theologiae,” the “lmitatio Christi,” the “Paradise Lost,” the “Pilgrim’s
Progress”? These are matchless in their kind, and they owe their supremacy to
their kinship with the Bible.

“Will you set the ‘Confessions’ of Rousseau,” it has been asked, “side by side
with the ‘Confessions’ of Augustine, or compare Paine’s ‘Age of Reason’ with
Hooker’s ‘Ecclesiastical Polity’?

Does not the history of all literature prove that not even the brightest wit or
the keenest genius - not even the stately eloquence of Bolingbroke, or the
universal learning of Diderot, or the glowing imagination of Byron, or the
flashing witticisms of Voltaire - can save the writings of men, however gifted,
from perishing of inevitable decay, if they sin against the rules of morality,
or are aimed against the principles of faith?” The greatest test of literature
is time, and the fact is patent that, whereas the books of far-away time are
to-day read by scarcely anyone outside of the class-room, and whereas books of
more recent times which had a great reception on their appearance are already
almost forgotten, the Bible is being more translated and circulated now than
ever before, and is being read, not by one nation only, but by all nations, for
“it has not only overleaped the barrier of time, but it is the only book in the
whole world that has been able to overleap the barrier of nationality.” And we
need not do more here than affirm that its aesthetic influence has been as great
as its literary influence, To estimate that influence upon art, we have but to
recall the names of such as Giotto, and Rembrandt, and Tintoretto, and
Botticelli, and Fra Angelico, and Raphael, and Michelangelo, who owed more to
their subjects than their subjects could ever owe them. When a Dante and a
Milton would find themes which would give scope to their genius and range for
their thought, they turn to religion and the Bible, and receive there both
suggestion and inspiration for the “Divine Comedy” and “Paradise Lost.” Turning
to oratorio, we see that all the masters wrought on this highest level. Handel’s
“Messiah,” Hadyn’s “Creation,” and Mendelssohn’s “Elijah,” not to speak of
Spohr, Sullivan, Bach, Mackenzie, Elgar, are so universally and perennially
cherished just because they touch us at the center and sound us to the depths.
The influence also of the Bible upon sculpture and architecture has been
widespread and abiding. The realms of thought, feeling, and action have all been
invaded, elevated, and ennobled by this Book of books. Eloquently has Farrar
summarized the influence of the Bible in this direction. He says:

“It is a literature which no age or nation can equal or supersede, though every
library in the world had remained unravaged, and every teacher’s truest words
had been written down. What problems do these books leave unexamined? What
depths unfathomed? What heights unsealed? What consolation unadministered? What
conscience unreproved? What heart untouched? How absurd it must be to scoff at a
book which, through all the long centuries, thousands of great men have
reverenced in proportion to their greatness: a book for which, in age after age,
warriors have fought, philosophers labored, and martyrs bled!

“Its literary splendor was acknowledged even by heathen critics like Longinus,
who referred to the sublimity of Genesis and the impassioned force of Paul. It
exercised the toil of Origen and Jerome; it fired the eloquence of Gregory and
Chrysostom; it molded the thought of Athanasius and Augustine; the ‘Summa
Theologiae’ of Thomas Aquinas was but a meditation upon its theology, and the
‘Imitatio Christi’ of Thomas a Kempis an attempt to express its spirituality.
All that is best and greatest in the literature of two thousand years has been
rooted in it and has sprung from it. It has inspired the career of all the best
of men who raised strong arms to bring heaven a little nearer to our earth.
Vincent de Paul learned from its pages his tenderness for the poor, and John
Howard his love for the suffering, and William Wilberforce his compassion for
the slaves, and Lord Shaftesbury the dedication of his life to the amelioration
of the lot of his fellow-men. Has there been one of our foremost statesmen or
our best philanthropists who has not confessed the force of its inspiration? It
dilated and inspired the immortal song of Dante and of Milton. All the best and
brightest English verse, from the poems of Chaucer to the plays of Shakespeare
in their noblest parts, are echoes of its lessons; and from Cowper to
Wordsworth, from Coleridge to Tennyson, the greatest of our poets have drawn
from its pages their loftiest wisdom.

“It inspired the pictures of Fra Angelico and Raphael, the music of Handel and
Mendelssohn. It kindled the intrepid genius of Luther, the bright imagination of
Bunyan, the burning zeal of Whitfield. The hundred best books, the hundred best
pictures, the hundred greatest strains of music, are all in it and all derived
from it.” And who can estimate:

(b) The Domestic and Social Influence of the Bible.

From the very beginning the Bible was learned and cherished in the home; Timothy
knew the Holy Scriptures “from a child.” It was the first reading book; and it
is held by some that the number of Bibles to be found in private houses in the
first three centuries has been underestimated. Tertullian tells us that the
reading of the Bible in common was one of the practices of the Christian home;
and he urges this fact as an argument against mixed marriages, because in such a
case the custom becomes impracticable. He also pictures how husband and wife
entertain each other with psalms and hymns, and vie with each other as to who
shall best sing to God’s praise. Tatian speaks, of Christian maidens sitting at
the distaff and singing about the divine revelation. A picture of domestic piety
is furnished by the occasion of Monica’s death. Her son Augustine and his son
Adeodatus were overwhelmed with grief. Eodius took the Psalter and intoned the
One Hundred and Tenth Psalm, all present making response.

All the teachers of the first centuries, Justin tells us, counted upon this
private use of the Scripture and encouraged it. When, in the time of
Constantine, public worship was by many being substituted for private devotion,
preachers exhorted the people to use the Bible at home. The dark Middle Ages
brought a decline in the reading of the Bible, but that practice was revived
with the awakening soul of nations, and when the art of printing was introduced
the Bible became the people’s Book, and daily Bible reading was regarded as a
Christian’s duty. In the nature of the case we have not a wide literature that
we can consult on the subject of private and domestic reading of the Scriptures,
yet, scattered through memoirs, biographies, and elsewhere are to be found many
illustrations.

We learn from the letters of Bismarck to his wife that he read his Bible daily.
When Oliver Cromwell was dying he asked that Php 4:11-13 should be read to him.

“He repeated the words of the passage to himself. When the apostle spoke of his
contentment and submission to the will of God in all conditions, he said: ‘It’s
true, Paul, you have learned this, and attained to this measure of grace, but
what shall I do? Ah, poor creature, it is a hard lesson for me to take out! I
find it so.’ But when he came to the words which followed, faith began to work,
and his heart found comfort and support, and he said, ‘He that was Paul’s Christ
is my Christ too’; and so he drew water out of the wells of salvation.”

We all know the story of Sir Walter Scott, who when dying said:

“Bring me the Book.” “What book?” asked Lockhart, his son-in-law. “The Book,”
said Sir Walter; “the Bible, there is but one.” And J. M. Barrie relates that a
short time before his mother died his father put her Testament into her hand,
and it fell open at the fourteenth chapter of John. She had been a great
sufferer, and she knew where to seek for comfort and strength. But perhaps there
is no finer illustration of the place and power of the Bible in the home than
the picture which Robert Burns has drawn of a family gathering round the Bible,
in his “Cottar’s Saturday Night.” To look at the father as he:

“Wales a portion wi’ judicious care,” and to hear them sing their evening psalm,
and think of what such exercises imply, is to see how abundantly warranted was
the patriotic outburst that:

“From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs, That makes her loved at
home, revered abroad.”

Well does Mr. Muir say, “The home-life which gathers round the Bible and the
family altar is sacred in every way; and the nation is sane and strong, free and
prosperous, in proportion to the Bible-loving homes within her borders.” The cry
for “altar and hearth” has its fulness of meaning only for those who have
Christian homes. The conception of the family Bible is a very beautiful and
grand one. And what can we say of the social influence of the Bible? So
widespread has this influence been, so continuous and pronounced, that to relate
it would be to relate the history of civilization. Under the beneficent
influence of the Bible cruelty has given place to pity, corruption has given
place high moral standards, and slavery has given place to the right to freedom.
It is the Bible that has taught us to reverence womanhood and to safeguard
childhood. It is the Bible that has motived the establishment of asylums,
hospitals and orphanages, that has sent out into the world noble Christian
patriots like Wilberforce and Granville Sharp, and Robert Raikes and John
Howard, and Elizabeth Fry and Catharine Booth. The Bible has always been, and
ever will remain, the sworn enemy of corruption and oppression, and the mother
of compassion and liberty, and nations, no less than society, and souls, have
received its deep divine impress.”It was the Bible which saved England from
sinking into a tenth-rate power, as a vassal of cruel, ignorant, superstitious
Spain, whose Dominicans and tyrants would have turned her fields into
slaughter-houses, as they turned those of the Netherlands, and would have made
her cities reek as she made Seville reek with the bale-fires of her Inquisition!
This queen of books is essentially freeing, health-giving, ennobling, inspiring,
and were all its beneficent effects extracted from society and civilization, we
would all be back to paganism and barbarism.

One other aspect must be just touched upon; namely,

(c) The Moral and Spiritual Influence of the Bible.

All moral awakening and spiritual quickening are traceable directly to the Word
of God. Never has there been a true revival of religion in our own or any land
that did not originate in and lead to this divine revelation. It is the
foundation of the Church’s faith, and the spring of her life. In earlier times,
in Scotland, when the light of the Reformation was breaking, one of the
nicknames of those who sought to be obedient to the truth that God was revealing
was “New Testamenters,” - a name which speaks for itself.

Yes, truly, this Book is the Word of God.

Other books, the very best, disappoint and fail us, but this one never. Other
books come and go, but this one abides forever. Other books appeal to intellect,
or conscience, or heart, but this one appeals to them all. Other books are for
certain occasions and seasons, but this one is needed at all times and is equal
to all occasions. Other books are for specific people and ages, but this one is
universal and timeless. No book has been more bitterly assailed, neither one so
gloriously vindicated. Julian and Celsus, and Porphyry, and Bolingbroke, and
Hume, and Voltaire, and Strauss, and Renan, and Eichhorn, and Graf, and
Wellhausen, and Kuenen, have all fired their deadliest volleys; yet, in spite of
all, it· marches on to ever new triumphs, seeming to be, claiming to be, and
proving itself to be, the Living Word of God.

FINAL WORD

If, then, the foregoing be true, it is the manifest duty of everyone of us to
believe what God has here revealed of himself and his saving purpose and power,
and to obey what here he has enjoined.

We may read a thousand volumes and feel under no obligation to pay any further
attention to any of them, but not so with the Bible. It never leaves a man where
it finds him, because it bestows privilege, opens up opportunity, and creates
responsibility every time we consult its pages. Being of divine origin, it
speaks with sovereign authority, and each of us turns aside from it at the cost
of his present and eternal undoing.

Let us take this precious Word to our bosoms and our business, and prove it to
be more than sufficient alike for faith and practice.

~ end of book ~


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/scroggie-william-g-is-the-bible-the-word-of-god/
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