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  WHAT THINK YE OF THE BIBLE
  by Schoeler William
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William Schoeler's apologetic work examining the Bible's general
characteristics, arguing for its universality, literary excellence, justice, and
remarkable unity across its many diverse authors.

  Chapters: 6

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. WTY-1 No Other Book Like the Bible
    2. WTY-2 General Characteristics of the Bible
    3. WTY-3 The Religious Need of the Bible
    4. WTY-4 Is the Bible Authentic?
    5. WTY-5 Is the Bible Trustworthy?
    6. WTY-6 Is the Bible Inspired?

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  CHAPTER 1: WTY-1 NO OTHER BOOK LIKE THE BIBLE
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CHAPTER I NO OTHER BOOK LIKE THE BIBLE Can the Bible lay any claim to specialty,
or must it be considered as on a par with other textbooks of religion?

Here is a call to the study of com­parative religions. We, if earnest men,
should be in quest of the best book without asking who wrote it or by what
authority it was written. Only if the Bible speaks to us as no other book can
speak should we ac­cord it a unique position.

There are many religions in the world. Bold enemies of the Bible are besieging
the citadel of Christianity all around its circuit. The Christian religion is
regarded as only one among many—springing from the same source. Ancient
religions are blatantly proclaimed its equals. A host of religious faiths is
challenging our attention and forcing us into comparison with our own. If the
Bible is indeed the Word of God, we need have no fear of such compar­isons. The
study of other religions will broaden and deepen our knowl­edge and appreciation
of Christian­ity itself. We do not value to the full the advantages and
excellences of our modern electric lighting system until we go back in thought
to the time when people endeavored to dispel the darkness with jets, with
candles and tapers.

Gather up all the religions in the world in one view, extend the inquiry far and
wide, through time and space, and the Bible will separate self from every other
book by excellences that cannot be equaled. Other excellences are not disputed;
other books are not denied. We are not so narrow-minded as to think that we
dishonor the Bible by recognizing anything valuable that may be found outside of
it; we only affirm that the Bible, after occupying common ground with many other
religions, presents forces and qualities un­known to any of them. He who knows
Christianity only does not know this. He is ignorant of its points of
superi­ority. Only the unbiased student of comparative religions knows that all
the vaunted moral truth and beauty of oriental and classical mythology and
philosophy is found in our four gospels—and that in completer form, nay, in
absolute perfection.

Max Mueller, the distinguished orientologist, once remarked: “The ancient
religions were but the milk of nature, which was in due time suc­ceeded by the
Bread of Life.” The Bible itself throws out a chal­lenge. It says through Moses,
Deuteronomy 4:32-33; “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before
thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from one end of
heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great
thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever a people hear the voice of God
speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?”

Never forget this challenge on the part of the Bible! It is a noble speech. The
Bible will not remain with us one day longer than it can supply what no other
book can furnish. It does not ignore the cults of the heathen; it is not afraid
of compar­ison or competition; it awaits to be displaced.

“As soon as anyone can arise who can speak in a nobler eloquence, in a tenderer
music, with a profounder wisdom, the Bible is willing that its old pages should
be closed forever. There are good men who have no Bible; there have been
virtuous men who never heard of Christ; there are good writings which the world
will not willingly let die that have not been baptized in the name of the triune
God. This is acknowledged, and must be broadly and frankly and gratefully
confessed; the question still remains, Does not the Bible by some quality stand
out above all other books—the very pinnacle of the temple of literature? The
inspiration of the Bible must be proved by the quality of the Bible!”

We are not afraid of an investiga­tion.


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  CHAPTER 2: WTY-2 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE
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CHAPTER II GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE

It has been said that the Bible lives by its peculiarities. There is much truth
in this. Individuality elbows itself through the commonplace—it stands apart; it
forces the attention; it is a matter of specialty. This is what the Bible does.
When all other books have made their speeches, the Bible rises as though no
voice had been heard, clears away a space for itself, and by uniqueness of
majesty, and sympathy, and singularity it forthwith claims the foremost place. A
Book for Everybody The Bible is the people’s book! Some men labor under the
mistake that the Bible is a textbook for preachers, and nothing more. No
conception is more erroneous—more contrary to all the Scriptures testify of
themselves. Was the revelation of God made to mankind, or was it made to a few
chosen individuals that towered intellectually above the ‘‘common herd?” We read
in the gospels that Jesus says, “Father, I thank Thee, that Thou hast hid these
things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes!” And
again we are assured at another place that “the common people heard Him gladly.”
No sophism is more subversive than the assertion that the Bible be­longs to a
professional class. A thou­sand times No! It belongs to human­ity—to the poor
man, the working man, the sorrowing man, the suffer­ing woman, the little child;
no human being on earth is excluded; like the sun in the sky it wishes to warm
and bless and guide them all. In this the Bible differs from all other sacred
books. Neither the Ko­ran nor the Bhagavad Gita, neither the Veda nor the
Tripitaka, addresses itself to the entire human race. They speak rather to the
wise and the pru­dent, or to the courageous and strong. Thus slaves and serfs,
soldiers, public officials, criminals, and children un­der twelve years of age
are expressly excluded from the Sangha, that is the holy communion of Buddha.

How different the Bible! Christ’s invitation is as wide as the world: “Come unto
Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden; I will give you rest.” And He has
kept His promise. His Gospel has comforted the poor sick mother, as well as
Isaac Newton, prince among the scientists; the blind beggar to whom it was read,
as well as king Charles I, before his execu­tion; the negro in Africa, as well
as the cultured European.

Let no man say that the Bible can be understood only by a certain kind of men to
whom exceptional privi­leges have been granted. That is equal to robbing the
common people of their God-given birthright!

There is nothing in the Bible, nec­essary to salvation, which the people cannot
find out for themselves. Priests who take away the Bible from the laity under
the holy pretense that its perusal would confuse and poison their minds, are
thieves and knaves! More Bible is what is wanted; a fuller reading of the Book
itself. Now that we have the Bible in our mother tongue, let no one dare to say,
“Touch not; read not; handle not!” The fire will proceed from out of the
sanctu­ary and burn him!

Too long has the Bible been consid­ered as belonging to a ministerial class. It
is an open book for every­one—for all the world. Those who prevent, or try to
prevent, the read­ing of the Scriptures, are the foes of Christ—the enemies of
the truth. Nothing can exceed the egotism and impudence of the man who claims
the right to investigate for himself and denies the same right to others.
“Search the Scriptures!” says Jesus Christ. The words are addressed to the whole
world. No Other Book Cares so Much for Man

There are people who neglect the Bible. There are millions of people in
so-called Christian countries who never have read the Bible. It is not in the
power of any man to do them a greater injustice than they inflict upon
themselves. The man who says of the Bible, “I can do without it!” may be
speaking sincerely, but he is speaking ignorantly. There is no man on earth who
can afford to pass the Bible by.

Says J. Q. Adams: “I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say
to you, Search the Scrip­tures! The Bible is the Book of all others, to be read
at all ages, and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice
or thrice through, and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one
or two chapters every day, and never to be intermit­ted, unless by some
overruling neces­sity.”

There are men who oppose the Bible. They ought to be ashamed of themselves!
There is no other book whose beneficent influence ap­proaches even approximately
that of the Bible. Read in our families, it will keep the father in his place,
and the child in his place. It will speak to the employer and the employed, to
the mother and to the servant, and impart a blessing to each. Carried into our
politics, it will teach men to do unto others as they would have others do unto
them. Kept in our business, it will burn our false meas­uring rod and destroy
our unequal balances—it will be just to persons on both sides of the counter. It
is the Magna Charta of the civilized world.

“There is not in the whole compass of human literature a book like the Bible,
which deals with such pro­found topics, which touches human nature on so many
sides of experi­ence, which relates so especially to its duties and sorrows and
tempta­tions, and yet which looks over the whole field of life with such
sympathy and cheerfulness of spirit.” (H. W. Beecher.)

“The doctrine of the golden rule, the interpretation of the law as love to God
and man, and the specific directions in it to husbands and wives, parents and
children, masters and servants, rulers and citizens, and the warnings against
covetousness and sin are the best preventives and cure of all political
diseases.” (F. C. Monfort.) The Bible is Full of the Spirit of Justice

Let me show this by an example. We read in Numbers 27 : “Then drew near the
daughters of Zelophehad . . saying, Our father died in the wilder­ness. . . .
and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from among
his family, because he had no son? Give us possession among the brethren of our
father.” The man who had died left five girls, but no boys. According to the
existing law the girls could not in­herit their father’s possession. So far no
provisions had been made for a situation in which the five women found
themselves. They were per­plexed. They were greatly disturbed. One day they put
their heads together and deliberated. They resolved to make a public speech. Now
Moses might have pointed to all the prece­dents of Israel as the answer to their
appeal, but he did not. Here was a special case. “He brought their cause before
Jehovah.” “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, The daughters of Zelophehad speak
right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their
father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass
unto them.”

Justice! We like the decision! “Give any nation the Bible, and let that nation
make the Bible its statute book, and every class in the commu­nity will have
justice; masters will be just to their servants; servants will be just to their
masters: family peace will be protected; social relations will be purified;
common progress will be guaranteed. This spirit of justice is the social
strength of the Bible. No life is to be tampered with; the small cause as well
as the great is to be heard; no kid is to seethe in its mother’s milk; no fruit
tree is to be cut down even in time of war; no bird’s nest to be wantonly
destroyed; all men are to be honored, helped and saved. A book with a tone like
this should be protected from the sneers of persons who have never actually
studied its ennobling pages." (Joseph Parker.) The Bible is Woman’s Friend and
the Child’s

There are men who assert that the Bible has been the means of enslaving woman.
That is one of Ingersoll’s hobbies. He affirms it everlastingly. It appears in
every disquisition of his. Nothing is farther from the truth. The Bible is
woman’s greatest friend! Never forget it—the appli­cants in Numbers were women;
nay, they were orphans! Their father was dead. No brother was there to take
their part. Nevertheless they re­ceived justice. God said, “They are right!” In
no history, beside the Bible, can there be found an equal number of charming
female portraits. Why not? Because the Bible recognizes the dignity and worth of
woman beyond all other books. Everywhere woman ap­pears as the helpmeet, the
companion and friend of man. She is more than a bearer of children—more than a
mere toy. She is “man’s glory” (1 Corinthians 11:7), not his slave; she is the
queen of the home, not a beast of burden—the tool and play­thing of man. In
China, woman is regarded as a necessary evil — men must have mothers. She has no
rights the supe­rior sex is under obligation to respect. Young maidens are daily
sold into domestic servitude. Girls are bought to be trained for the stage by
theatre-managers who acquire with each unfortunate the power to put her to
death. Woman has no right what­ever to fraternal consideration. That is
Confucianism. The Buddhism of India is no better. Buddha was a hater of woman— a
selfish deserter of wife and child; and today, any Buddhist who desires to make
trial of a new mistress, has only to enter a retreat and remain celibate for a
month. In this way he secures a legal separation from all female companions and
is free to marry whom he pleases. For woman Buddhism has prepared eighteen
hells; only if she lives virtuously through fifteen hundred incarna­tions, she
may be born once more as an infant boy and thus attain Nir- wana. The climax
curse of India is child marriage. Matrimony is en­joined as a religious
obligation at the age of five or six. Babes are born to children of twelve.
There are mil­lions of widows under ten years of age. Widowhood is regarded as a
punishment for crimes committed in a pre-existent state; hence these
child-widows are treated worse than beasts—they are held responsible for their
husband’s death. Their lot is one of helpless, hopeless misery. That is
Hinduism! As to Muhammedanism, it is just as bad. Muhammed was an unbridled
libertine. He tempted his followers to war by promising them maiden captives. He
encouraged the slave trade so that his devotees might find it easy to obtain
mistresses for them­selves. He married seventeen wives himself, and was the
owner of hun­dreds of concubines. Marriage among the Muhammedans is nothing more
than a business transaction. The price of a woman ranges from two to sixty
dollars. A wife that cloys the appetite or taste may be divorced by the husband
on the instant. He needs only to say, in the presence of a third party, “I
divorce you; be gone!” That is Muhammedanism.

How different are the teachings of Jesus Christ! There is no system of religion,
ethics, or philosophy, that promulgates a conception of the mar­riage relation
approaching in nobility that taught in the New Testament. In all the teachings
of Jesus Christ there is not the slightest intimation of woman’s inferiority to
her hus­band; there is one moral code for both; the marriage tie is as binding
upon the one as upon the other. These teachings have revolutionized the world;
they have ennobled woman; they have procured her social recogni­tion. In
Christian countries woman is a new being. No wonder that Jesus won the warm and
gentle hearts of Jewish women—no wonder that He con­tinues to win the hearts of
women everywhere. Every woman instinct­ively feels that a man like Jesus must be
her friend. Yet Mr. Ingersoll says time and again that Jesus not only failed to
elevate her position, but on the contrary, with word and example, forged chains
for her! It is passing strange that in spite of this Jesus Christ should have
the noblest women for an inheritance! The Bible is also the friend of the child.
Jesus alone has taught us to treat children as though they were “little
majesties.” Confucianism gives the father absolute authority over the child; the
child must bend or break; the New Testament says, “Parents, provoke not your
children unto wrath!” Hinduism excludes the child from the holy communion of
Buddha; it is ignored, regarded as unfit for salvation, looked upon as a
negligible quantity: Jesus says, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

Thus we might enumerate passages and draw comparisons ad infinitum. We know of
no other religion that makes so much of the child, irrespect­ive of sex—that
speaks so highly of woman—as does Christianty. The Bible is Adapted to all the
Cir­cumstances and Necessities of Human Life Look at the range, the compass, the
circuit, of the Bible! Is there a single aspect of life which lies beyond the
circumference of the divine testi­monies? Has not God anticipated everything,
provided for everything? God has special messages for those who rule: He speaks
of righteous­ness, equity, oppression, wisdom. God has special messages for
those who are afflicted some of the richest and tenderest testimonies of the
divine revelation are addressed to those whose eyes are blinded with tears, and
in whose breast there is the anguish of a great sorrow—the tu­mult of a great
woe. In the family circle, God calls Himself Father, and tells us of a love more
enduring than all the affections of human kind. As to wickedness, God’s
testimonies burn unquenchably against all wrong: in short, the Bible provides
for every exigency of human life, for every aspect of human experience, for
every anticipation of human love and hope. Nothing has been forgotten; in this
book every circumstance of life has been met. Here we find precepts for kings,
and rules for the lowliest sub­ject. Here we find psalms of joy, and dirges of
woe; rest for the weary, and stimuli for the indolent; prescriptions for health,
and balm for sick­ness ; words for the hoary, and hymns for little children;
great trees are here and little flowers, mighty rivers and threading rills,
great lights and glimmering sparks. This wealth of provision amounts to an
argument! The Bible Shirks no Great Questions The Bible is not a book that
con­tents itself with trifles; it is not a book that offers little mincing
guesses to little riddles. No, it grapples with the highest subjects; it faces
the highest lines of spiritual inquiry, and gives an answer—not a halting,
un­certain, timid, subjunctive answer, but an answer that is final, an answer
that admits of no appeal, an answer that is precise and imperative.

I do not wish here and now to decide whether the answer it gives to every
question is right or wrong; I only desire to point out the fact that the Bible
is the boldest book in the world as to its tone. No matter what the
question—God, creation, invisible worlds, sin, death, immortality, hell or life
eternal, the Bible speaks posi­tively and authoritatively. It never suggests; it
always declares! “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth!” “The
things that are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are
eternal.” “Sin is the destruction of any people.” “Death is the wages of sin.”
“The hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and
shall come forth they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and
they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.” Is it possible for
God Himself to speak more emphatic? After reading the works of Plato, Socrates,
or Aristotle, we feel that the specific differ­ence between their words and the
declarations of the Bible is that be­tween an inquiry and a revelation. The
Bible Bold in Many Other Respects

It never flatters or courts any reader. It never extols the achieve­ments of
man. It never tries to make itself popular. On the contrary. It announces that
sin infests the whole human family to such a degree that all are unclean, that
all have come short, that there is none that doeth good in the sight of God,—no,
not one! To the proud it says, “God will have nothing of you; He abases those
who exalt themselves.” The rich man it warns, “Woe to you who trust in wealth;
it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The self-righteous Phari­sees are
denounced as “a generation of vipers.”

It never begs or entreats to be read, it never appeals to the mighty and
distinguished to give it a kindly hear­ing. The wise it takes in their own
craftiness, and human wisdom it esteems foolishness. Where is a book like unto
this? This book writes the history of the wicked as graphically as it writes the
history of the godly. The Bible hides nothing, covers nothing up, does not call
darkness light, or sour sweet. It makes no pretense whatever to be re­strained
by what is called taste or del­icacy. It uses words which make the cheek burn.
There are many things in it which no man dare read aloud. Calmly and without
shame it moves right on, amid the miscellaneousness of our life. It makes no
apology, draws no curtain, makes no excuse, never turns aside to stammer or
blush; on it goes; taking life as it is, and describing it without flattery or
fear. In this we see the dazzling honesty of the book!

“The Bible is true to the very root and reality of things. The book does not
ignore facts with a goody-goody blindness, but faces them, names them, proposes
remedies for them, and searches into the root and core of the whole of them. No
man in this country dare publish certain separate chapters of the Bible, and
show them in his window. How then ? They are right in their setting. Pick them
out with a foul spirit, and they are foul; let them alone in the order and
rhythm which God has appointed, and we cannot do without them. Evil be to him
that evil thinks. These things belong to a greater whole; they must not be
detached; the part that would be intolerable is essential to the whole that is
beautiful.” Who are the men and women of the Bible? Are they a galaxy of
artistic figures — dramatic characters, put up, painted, and arrayed for the
pur­pose to play their part aesthetically, without fault and beyond criticism?
That is what many think. It is for this reason they cover their holy faces with
their holy hands when they come upon chapters in which the Bible describes moral
depravity, beastly lasciviousness, satanic wickedness.

No. The men and women of the Bible are no puppets—they are living men and women!
As the Bible paints them, so they were—and we are not one whit better!

“That the open enunciation of truth is repulsive to us, ought to make us
ashamed; for it proves how little we are in the truth, and how little we can
bear the truth. We are a poor, proud, hypocritical, virtue-dissem­bling
generation, which is ever trying to cover its nakedness and leprosy with
beautiful rags; is ever adorning and painting itself, in order to play its part
on the stage of life and so­ciety, and whose members are ever complimenting one
another on their beautiful, flourishing, and healthy appearance. Our incessant
endeavor is toward appearing better than we are, toward making as favorable an
impression as possible on others, and toward avoiding at all events to let
others see the filthy dregs of our hearts. There is no person, the his­tory of
whose life and soul is not im­moral, and this true history will some day come to
light. ‘We must all ap­pear before the judgment-seat of Christ.’ Of our
revelation before the judgment-seat of Christ the Bible gives us a prelude, and
says sternly and coldly, ‘Such are you, even the best among you’.” (Bettex.) The
imperfections which we notice in Bible characters enable us to take heart—they
become a source of com­fort when we ourselves have stumbled and fallen. The
Bible as the Best Antidote for Race Prejudice At this hour we find the nations
of the earth divided into opposing camps. One division flings at the other
division epithets of bitter hate and scorn. One people denounces the other
people as beasts and savages. One race exalts itself above the other with
unbecoming pride.

Race hatred is as old as races. Race prejudice antedates the deluge—it is as old
as unregenerated human nature. It is wrong! It must be stamped out! It must be
overcome! We should recognize in all the na­tions of the world one common human
nature—one vast family. This the Bible does—the Bible alone of all the sacred
books! It is free from race prejudice—the Old Testament as well as the new. It
says, “God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the
earth.” A great truth! It prevents us from limiting our life to families, clans
and sects. It joins us all together. It broadens our sympathies, enlarges our
ideas, corrects our conceptions. We begin to see that mankind is one —derived
from a common source. “This conception is both humbling and elevating. It is
humbling to think that the cannibal is a relative of ours; that the slave
couching in an African wood is bone of our bone; and that the meanest scum of
all the earth started from the same founda­tion as ourselves! On the other hand,
it is elevating to think that all kings and mighty men, all soldiers renow­ned
in song, all heroes canonized in history, the wise, the strong, the good, are
our elder brothers and immortal friends.”

We learn from the Bible that the people of every race have distinctive qualities
which we ourselves lack, and which will make valuable contribu­tions to the
kingdom of God. One race supplements the other. This is confirmed by experience.
We lack the stability and reverence of the China­men; the alertness and loyalty
of the Japanese; the devotion and contem­plativeness of the Hindu; the sunny
optimism of the negro. Each of these virtues is a stone in a great arch. The
arch is the kingdom of God; and it is not completed until every 6tone is
contributed. If people anywhere are inclined to look down upon the peoples of
other races, it is an unhealthy symptom. They need the Bible! Its Language With
reference to its literary quali­ties, and in its relation to other books, the
Bible has not only no superior, but no peer. Everywhere do we find sin­ewy
language—unequalled nobleness of speech, great massiveness, incal­culable
solidity, ineffable dignity. This Bible is not afraid of critics— it asks that
the earth may hear, and the heavens may listen!

Men of letters on every hand have praised the literary beauties of the Bible.
Many of its compositions are bold, grand, sublime, thrilling; some of them have
never been excelled in simple pathos and profound sym­pathy. Notwithstanding the
fact that language is thousands of years older now; that is has grown upon every
hand; that its power of expression has been carried to its very highest
point,—still the eloquent strains of Hebrew speech and song make up the best
parts of our sermons and dis­course today.’ I report this as a fact.

Those who are fond of literature I refer to chapters 24-27 in the Prophet
Isaiah. I advise them to read this specimen in one sitting. I assure them that
they will come across elo­quence than which there is none more exalted on earth.
This book was written by some thirty or forty people who, speaking generally,
never saw one another. Those men were probably unaware of the fact that other
people were writ­ing parts of the book! They were not children of the same
age—the same country. Some of them lived a thou­sand or more years apart—some of
them were separated by thousands of miles. Few of them had what we now call
schooling or education. Some were statesmen, some were shepherds, some were
fishers; one was a physi­cian, one a tax-collector. Now these men, differing
vastly in gifts, in talents, in education, in accomplish­ments, have put their
contributions together in one book—all within the same canvas! What is the
result? Chaos? Confusion? Disorder?—No! Matchless harmony! Sublime unity!

Collect the writings of any thirty or forty writers on any subject. I do not
even ask you to separate them by distance and time. Collect, I say, their
disquisitions on any subject and your result is bedlam! a veritable Babel! But
the Biblical writers speak upon every question that ever en­gaged the attention
of man—and agree!

Says Peter: “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of
grass. The grass withereth and the flower falleth: but the word of the Lord
abideth forever.” So be it! Other books come and go; this book stands forever.
It endures forever, because the world forever needs it.


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  CHAPTER 3: WTY-3 THE RELIGIOUS NEED OF THE BIBLE
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CHAPTER III THE RELIGIOUS NEED OF THE BIBLE

Though it is conceded by many that the Bible is in many respects a good book, it
is not so readily granted that it is indispensably necessary—not even for
religion. It is positively affirmed that there is but one revela­tion—the Book
of Nature; that this revelation is sufficient, that its teach­ings are clear and
ample, and that man needs no more.

Now what are the facts? Could man really dispense with the Bible? Would he
without it come to any ade­quate conception of God, of the world, or of himself?
The Attainable Knowledge

Nature is unquestionably a book which, if read with an understanding eye, will
afford much instruction. Coming from the hand of God, it must everywhere reveal
glimpses of His glory. Therefore men are admonished to investigate nature, “to
seek God, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him" (Acts 17:27). The
apostle to the Gentiles declares that “the in­visible things of Him since the
crea­tion of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that
are made, even His everlasting power and divinity; that they might be without
excuse; because that, knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave
thanks” (Romans 1:20-21).

We may, through a rational con­templation of the works of nature, arrive at the
knowledge of the exist­ence of God, a knowledge so complete that it deprives of
all exculpation those who reject it. Furthermore, as to moral and religious
knowledge, man through ra­tional contemplation is able to recog­nize himself as
a dependent creature and to realize that it behooves him to worship God; which
is abundantly demonstrated by the various forms of religion, however imperfect,
of all heathen nations. In addition, man will find that he is falling far short
of what he ought to be, the law in his heart bearing witness and accusing him,
in consequence of which a cer­tain “fear of death” will take hold of him, and
his life will be a life “subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). The Unattainable
Knowledge

Although there is a natural knowl­edge of God, which we arrive at through an
intelligent investigation of nature, this knowledge is little more than an
obscure presentiment. Being fully persuaded that there is a God, we would from
nature learn little about this God. His essence would forever be hidden from our
cognition. The June morning brim­ful of gladness, with the meadows glistening
with the dew-drops of the morning, might tell us that God is loving and good.
But what about the dark December night, when ships go down at sea? What about
the hur­ricane that destroys and shatters? What about the Galveston flood? The
Messina earthquake? The late world war? As nature leaves us entirely in the dark
regarding God’s nature and es­sence, so it leaves us altogether at sea
respecting God’s will toward us. Knowing instinctively that we ought to serve
and worship Him, the harass­ing question would forever be: “How must I worship
Him?” And in all eternity reason and nature would furnish no answer. Whence
would we derive any information, for ex­ample, concerning the introduction of
sin, the gift of the Savior, the doctrine of atonement by His death, the
de­scent and work of the Holy Spirit, the provision and ordinances of the
Gos­pel? Nature is dumb as to all these things. Nor can reason, without the aid
of revelation, solve the enigma of our own existence. It is bold enough to
allege that it can, but the history of philosophy gives it the lie. This science
has ever desired, without the aid of revelation, to solve the ques­tions: “What
am I?” “Whence am I?” “What am I here for?” “Whither am I and the world
tending?” Till this day, in spite of all the labor ex­pended, no satisfactory
answer has been supplied. Here is clearly ful­filled what the Scripture says:
“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spirit­ually
judged” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Perversions of the Heathen

Let us turn to the races of antiq­uity, destitute of a special revelation. Let
us see where reason, apart from revelation, led. Let us look at the religions of
the nations. Are they not a miserable compound of absurd­ity, superstition and
corruption? Let us consider their divinities. Are they not, for the most part,
monsters of wickedness, vindictive and sanguin­ary, jealous, wrathful, cruel,
and obscene? The reason of the heathen world never attained to the simplest
truth of all, namely, that God is and can be only One. It will not do to point
to India. Its monotheism was attained only by the surrender of the living
character and personality of God, and so was essentially pantheistic.

Again, reason left to itself never arrived at those other fundamental truths,
that God is and must be ab­solutely good and holy. The divinities of the
heathen, being the creations of their fancy, were subject to all the temptations
and passions of man, and were without number. Every phase of nature, sky, sea
and earth, every phase of human life, its habits, acci­dents, and impulses, was
in time pro­vided with a special guardian and controlling deity. As no people
can be expected to be better than their gods, the moral life of the heathen was
and is miserably defective. They, having changed the glory of the incorruptible
God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and
four-footed beasts, and creeping things, God gave them up in the lusts of their
hearts unto uncleanness. Their sensuous hearts were darkened. They wal­lowed in
vice. They became so per­verted as to think it an acceptable form of worship for
virgins in the very temples of their gods to sur­render their virtue! Ponder
over the fearful description of heathen vices in Romans 1:21-32.

Regarding the conception of the right worship of God, we find that the ignorance
and perversion is indescrib­able. One heathen aims at deliver­ance from sin by
means of a bath; another thinks to purify his heart by the use of an emetic
(North Ameri­can Indian); a third sets prayer-mills in motion; a fourth pours
out libations of wine or tea; again, another offers his darling child as the
most accept­ able sacrifice. In consequence of the labors of missionaries this
subject is from year to year better understood. Not a missionary journal or
paper is published, touching the religious rites of the heathen nations, which
is not a standing testimony of their need of a revelation from heaven.

Confessions of the Heathen That nature and reason and con­science are not
sufficient sources of knowledge is apparent from the con­fessions of many a
heathen philoso­pher. Plato complains that it is hard to find the Father of the
universe. Socrates, though deeming it the greatest happiness for man to know the
will of the gods, nevertheless de­spairs of its ever being discovered. A. prayer
in Aeschylus reads: “Zeus, whoever thou art, and by whatever name it please thee
to be named, I call on thee and pray.”

Sextus Empiricus declares nothing to be more certain than the uncer­tainty of
everything, including the existence of the gods. Some of the impressive songs of
the Indian Rigveda have the ever-recurring refrain, “Who is the God to whom our
gifts belong?”

Everywhere we find established what the ancient Greek poet says: “Except the
gods themselves to thee unveil,—search as thou wilt the world, thou seek’st in
vain!” Consider the altar at Athens, dedicated “To an Unknown God” (Acts 17:23).
But even if the heathen philosopher might in some measure recognize the will of
the gods, whence would he de­rive the power to put it into practice? Lacking the
efficacious influence of the gospel to restrain and curb and subdue the power of
sin, his actions always fall short of his knowledge. Says Marcus Aurelius: “I
should have lived better than I have done, had I always followed the monitions
of the gods!”

Thus it has always been in the case of everyone who has rejected the aid of
revealed religion in his moral con­flicts. No one has been able to get beyond a
feeling of guilt, which, in consequence of the contradiction ex­isting between
our knowledge and our actions, is ever asserting itself. Even so free-thinking a
theologian as Dr. Schwartz of Gotha allows this: “Oh, do not tell me that to act
up­rightly, and to do one’s duty, and to have a good conscience, is sufficient.
I ask you, ye virtuous ones, who among us does his duty and has good conscience
in the highest sense of the word? Not one among us all. We all are and remain
striving and strug­gling ones, who in manifold ways err, and stumble, and fall
short.” The Bible Indispensable

Now let us condense and summar­ize what we have found. Our invest­igation proved
that though reason and nature supply us with many a valuable hint as to God and
the world and our religious life, they are ab­solutely inadequate to satisfy our
spiritual need. They leave us ignor­ant of many a subject most essential to our
spiritual happiness in this world and the next. They do not afford the strength
necessary to resist the evil and to perform the good.

It follows, therefore, that the Scrip­ture is right in denying to the natural
man the power to perceive the things of the Spirit of God, and in demand­ing
that he must be born again, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorrupt­ible,
through the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (1 Peter 1:13). Says
John: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only be­gotten Son, who is in the
bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him!”

He who rejects this eternal truth will forever remain in ignorance and grope in
darkness. In confirmation of the statement let me conclude with the testimony of
a man who is noted as a great opponent of all revelation. Revising his opinion,
Fichte declares: “A higher Being undertook the charge of the first members of
our race, just as an old and venerable document, containing the deepest and
sublimest truths, represents Him to have done; and to this testimony all
philosophy must in the end revert.”


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  CHAPTER 4: WTY-4 IS THE BIBLE AUTHENTIC?
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CHAPTER IV IS THE BIBLE AUTHENTIC?

What belongs to the Bible? The question is very pertinent and timely. We find
that many people today are doubtful about an answer. Why, for instance, does the
Protestant Church exclude the Apocryphal books, which, by the Romanist Church,
are reputed to be canonical? Have they ever be­longed to the Bible? If so, why
and by what authority were they elimi­nated from the sacred volume? Is there any
truth in the allegation heard so often in these days that a council, called in
the first centuries to determine which books should go into the Bible and which
should not, decided by but a majority of one in favor of the books that are now
re­ceived by the Protestant Church?

Formation of the Old Testament Canon By way of introduction it would probably be
in place to explain in a few words how it came that the Bible was divided into
the Old and New Testaments, and called by these names. At the time of Christ the
Old Tes­tament was either called “Scripture” (John 7:38), or “The Scriptures”
(Matthew 21:42). Scripture it was called when the Old Testament was referred to
as one book; Scriptures, when reference was had to the vari­ous manuscripts that
constituted the book. Moreover, Christ would call it “law of Moses, and the
prophets, and the psalms” (Luke 24:44). The name “Old Testament” has been
derived from passages like 2 Corinthians 3:14. Paul here says that “at the
reading of the Old Testa­ment/’ or covenant, the veil that cov­ers the eyes of
the Jews “remaineth unto this day/’ The term “New Tes­tament” has been gotten
from such passages as Hebrews 9:15; Hebrews 12:24; where Christ is designated as
the "Mediator of a new covenant,” or testament. The Greek word employed in these
texts signifies both covenant and testament and is in some Latin Bibles
translated “testamentum”

Formation and Preservation of the Old Testament A very steadfast tradition of
the Jews ascribes the formation and pres­ervation of the Old Testament before
the Exile to Moses and the prophets. This tradition is supported by Scrip­ture
itself. We read in Deuteronomy 31:9 : “And Moses wrote this law, and delivered
it unto the priests, the sons of Levi.” And Deuteronomy 31:25-26 : “Moses
commanded the Levites . . . Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of
the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God.” Samuel also is said (1 Samuel
10:25) to have “laid up the book before Jehovah.” And 2 Kings 22:8, Hilkiah the
priest is said to have “found the book of the law in the house of Jehovah.”
Isaiah for corroboration of his own proph­ecies points the people to this book
when he says: “Seek ye out of the book of Jehovah, and read; no one of these
shall be missing, none shall want her mate” (Isaiah 34:16). Daniel tells us that
he “understood by the books the number of the years of the desolation of
Jerusalem.” Who Closed the Old Testament?

According to their own testimony the books of the Old Testament (as also of the
New) are of divine-human origin. In other words: they are in­spired of God but
have been reduced to writing by men. As has become clear already, they were
composed not at one certain period of the world’s history, but in various times
and ages. They are continued revelations from the time of Moses until about the
year 300 B. C. The question that now obtrudes itself is: Who collected all these
various and separate books into one body, and when was it done? The Jews in the
Talmud (Pirke Aboth) assert that after Moses and the elders the books were
guarded by the prophets, until, at last, the canon was closed by Ezra and
Nehemiah and the men of the Great Synagogue. There is no reason why this
testimony should be doubted; since it is, as we have seen above, even supported
by Scripture. Furthermore, when the Jews returned from the Exile the need was
almost imperative that a competent body of men declare what books belonged and
what books did not belong to the canon.

Again, the men of the Great Syna­gogue were the last of the prophets. If with
them the time of prophecy was to cease, who should fix the canon if they
neglected to do it? The fact that the separate books are not ar­ranged according
to the time in which they were written, that is chronolog­ically, but with
reference to their con­tents, renders it almost impossible to believe that the
canon closed itself, as some have said, but postulates the mediation of some
qualified man or body of men. It is highly probable, therefore, that the men of
the Great Synagogue had a God-wrought con­viction that they were the last of the
prophets, and, therefore, for the welfare and benefit of the people,
deter­mined, and fixed the canon. Had they left this work undone it could not
very well be explained why such books as Sirach did not find their way into the
canon.

Christ and the Canon Did the Old Testament, as it ex­isted in the days of the
Savior, receive His sanction ? We are able to answer this important question
with a joyful “Yes!” Christ received and sanc­tioned what He usually called the
“Scriptures,” regarded them as the “word of God” and as of binding authority.
Ever and again He ap­peals to them. From them He draws all His ammunition in the
conflict with earth and hell. He knows of no better weapon to foil and defeat
not only His human adversaries, but even him that walks about as a roaring lion.

Here are some of his utterances: “The Scriptures cannot be broken.” “Search the
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life.” “All things must needs
be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in
the psalms, concerning me.” “It is written!” It is a fact beyond dispute that
our Savior sanctioned in the most explicit terms a class of writings held among
the Jews, speaking of them as “the word of God which must be fulfilled.” He who
believed in “Moses and the prophets,” He declared, would soon also believe in
Him. Is Our Old Testament Identical With Christ’s? This is another burning
question. If it can be shown to our satisfaction that His Old Testament agreed
with that which we have now in our homes, then I insist that as Christians we
should ask no more questions. The following considerations prove that the
Scriptures which Christ con­firmed and sanctioned were the same as those
contained in our Old Testa­ment.

1. The Septuagint version (that is, a translation of the Hebrew Bible into
Greek) which was begun in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt,
about 280 B. C., and com­pleted not long after, contains all the present
canonical books. Some Apo­cryphal writings it is true, have since been bound
with the Septuagint, but it is at least doubtful whether they made any part of
it in the days of Christ.

2. Josephus, who lived in the First Century, and also Origen, give account of
the sacred books of the Jews. They indeed speak of but twenty-two books, whereas
our Old Testament has thirty-nine; but the number twenty-two was obtained by
joining some of the books together; as Judges and Ruth; Ezra and Nehemiah;
Jere­miah and the Lamentations and all the minor prophets. The idea was to have
the number of books of the Old Testament answer to the twenty-two letters of the
Hebrew alphabet.

3. Since the time of Christ Jews and Christians have been spies upon each other;
so that, if either party had attempted to disturb the canon of the Old
Testament, instant expo­sure would have been the consequence.

We may accordingly be assured that the Old Testament which Christ sanctioned and
that which we now possess agree entirely. Consequently, the authority and
authenticity not only of the Old Testament in general, but of each and every
book comprised in it, is settled beyond a peradventure.

Apocryphal Writings In connection with the canonical books of the Old Testament
the Ro­manist Church has received the so- called apocryphal books and accords
them the same reverence. The ques­tion naturally arises why the Protes­tant
Church rejects these writings. I mention three of the many reasons that could be
given.

1. They are not found in the He­brew Bible. They were originally written not in
Hebrew, but in Greek, a language which was not in vogue among the Jews until
long after the canon of the Old Testament was closed.

2. They contain many things which are fabulous, absurd, and false. In the Second
Book of the Maccabees, for example, we read: “It is a holy and wholesome thought
to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins” (2Ma 12:43; 2Ma
12:45). The Romanist Church needs this passage to prove the doctrine of the
Mass. Again, in Tob 12:9, it is declared: “Alms delivereth from death and shall
purge away all sins.” This statement militates against the Scripture doctrine of
the atonement. Many more texts of such a nature could be cited.

3. Christ, as also the apostles, though quoting scores of times from almost all
canonical books, entirely ignore the apocryphal writings, which goes to show
that they regard them not as possessing divine authority.

It follows that, though some of the apocryphal books possess a high value,
considered as ancient Jewish writings which throw light upon the history and
manners of the East, they have no claim to be admitted into the sacred canon, or
to be regarded as of divine authority. Luther’s definition is correct. They are,
for the most part, good to read, but are not to be received, as on a par with
the holy Scriptures. The New Testament Canon

Having considered the formation, extent, and preservation of the Old Testament,
we now turn to the New. Though we have the Gospels as the first part of our New
Testament, they were not written first, but last. The Epistles appeared before
any Life of Christ was composed. The apostles, to begin, preached the way of
salvation, going from place to place. The young congrega­tions that were
everywhere founded had the gospel at the outset only in its oral promulgation.
Nothing had been reduced to writing. The oral tradition sufficed as long as men
were living “who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the
word.” The Epistles Appear In the course of time the congrega­tions multiplied.
The apostles were no more able personally to attend to all of them. Accordingly
men, quali­fied as teachers, acted as the substi­tutes of the apostles. But now
the door was also thrown wide open to all kinds of heresy. Many untrust­worthy
persons arose, who though claiming divine authority for what they said, palmed
off questionable doctrine, such as that the resurrec­tion had already happened,
that Christ was not really risen from the dead, that one must remain in an
un­married state and abstain from cer­tain kinds of food, which latter
teach­ings Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1, brands as doctrines of “seducing spirits and
demons.”

These circumstances necessitated the writing of the Epistles. For one thing,
their purpose was to lay a good, solid foundation. Men were to become so
thoroughly established in the truth that they might promptly give to anyone that
asked them “a reason of the hope” that was in them. For another, they were to
overcome and banish false doctrine. Deceivers should find it hard to gain a
foothold. “If anyone cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching of Christ,
receive him not into your house, and give him no greeting; for he that giveth
him greeting partaketh in his evil works” (2 John 1:10). The Gospels are Written

Shortly after the appearance of the Epistles the Gospels were given to the
church. Because Christ had admon­ished His followers to be vigilant, since the
end of the world would come as a thief in the night, the young con­gregations,
as also every individual, had day by day been waiting for His return in power
and glory. But when after the year 60 A. D. one apostle after the other died and
still Christ did not usher in His kingdom, the church must prepare for a time
when no instruction could any longer be had from divinely authorized persons. To
have waited longer with a publi­cation of the exact life of Christ would have
meant to endanger the truth; the more so since many incom­petent persons had
already “taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which had
been ful­filled among” the people of Christ (Luke 1:1). There was, accordingly,
a deeply felt need that trustworthy eye-witnesses of Christ “trace accur­ately
the course of all things from the first.” So the gospels came to be written. The
several Evangelists afford us a four-fold picture of Christ: Mat­thew shows in
Christ the promised Messiah of the Jews, therefore his many citations from the
Old Testa­ment; Mark depicts Him as the King of the World; Luke emphasizes that
He is the Savior of sinners; John describes Him as “the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth.” The Revelation of St. John When the apostolic
age drew near its close, the last book of the Bible, the Revelation, was added
to those al­ready extant. The church in its earlier days, and always when
labor­ing under great difficulties and bend­ing before the storm of savage
perse­cution, has realized how great a treasure it possesses in this little
book. It is a guide and light in gathering darkness, a source of con­solation
and comfort in time of trouble and distress. “Blessed is he that readeth, and
they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written
therein; for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1:3). An Important Question From
the foregoing it has become evident that the twenty-seven books of the New
Testament have been written by various writers at various times and places, and
were sent to various churches. The interesting question that now arises is: Who
un­dertook so vast and important a task as to gather all these different
manu­scripts and bind them up into one volume? In other words: Who settled the
canon? Who said that such and such books were authentic and gen­uine and others
were not, that such and such belonged to the Bible and others had no claim to be
there? Was the authority of the several books of the New Testament established
by decree of any council, or by any formal act of the whole church? The Settling
of the Canon The last-named mode is always cited by infidels, and it is said
that the men present at the council were prejudiced and biased, selecting from a
mass of literature what suited their individual ends, and rejecting what they
disapproved. But the story is a fiction of modern unbelief. The assertion can
never be proved. There never was such a decree of council. The books were rather
received on the testimony of competent witnesses and various well founded
evidences. The council of Laodicea, which as­sembled about the year 350 A. D.
(Meusel), indeed published a cata­logue of received books; “but its de­cree was
not so much legislative as declaratory, setting forth what was and had been the
mind of the church in this important matter” (Enoch Pond).

It was impossible that the various books of the New Testament should everywhere
have been recognized from the very beginning as authentic, and bound together in
one volume, for the reason that they were scattered through many congregations,
the one possessing this letter, and the other that. Only in the course of time
did the whole church, through an inter­change of the manuscripts, become
acquainted with all the Epistles and Gospels written by the apostles or their
attendants. Thus we read in Colossians 4:16, that Paul charges his readers: “And
when this epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the
church of the Laodiceans; and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea." From
2 Peter 3:16, we gather that Peter was acquainted with the epis­tles of St. Paul
and placed them on a level with “the other scriptures,” pre­supposing that the
congregations in Asia to which he wrote had read them. Eusebius tells us that
John knew the other three Gospels, sanc­tioned them as authentic, and indicted
his own as a supplement to them; which accords entirely with the con­tents of
his Gospel. So it happened that about 100 A. D. there existed already a
so-called “original canon,” or Canon Muratori, containing the four Gospels, the
Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul (except Hebrews), the First Epistle
of Peter, the First Epistle of John, and the Revelation. Papias (102 A. D.),
Justin Martyr (140 A. D.), and the Gnostic Marcion (150 A. D.) sup­ply testimony
in abundance that these books were everywhere regarded as inspired, and the
works of those whose names they bear, carrying with them the authority of God.

Why Some Books Were Not Everywhere Looked Upon as Authentic The remaining
writings, however, were not from the beginning every­where accorded canonical
authority. The reasons are various. The last two Epistles of John are very short
and of a personal character. This may have given rise to the thought that they
were not intended for the public. The Second Epistle of Peter and that of Jude,
and also that of James and that to the Hebrews, were designed for particular
occasions and for particular places. This may have prevented their readers from
ex­changing and circulating them. But, though these letters were not universally
known, doubt as to their authenticity or canonicity was never for a moment
entertained by the con­gregations to which they were origi­nally written.
However, since they had not till the end of the First Cen­tury for lack of
information concern­ing them gained universal accepta­tion in the church, it
happened that for a time following they were not by all reckoned as belonging to
the canon. The councils of Hippo Rhegius (393 A. D.) and Carthage (397 A. D.)
finally provided a definite solu­tion of this matter. They did not decree the
canonicity of the writings in question—that had long before been a matter of
firm belief of the churches to which they had been sent —but merely declared
that, being such books, they had a claim to a place in the canon, and should
from that time everywhere be regarded as authoritative and binding. The
Apocrypha of the New Testament

There are Apocrypha not only of the Old Testament but also of the New. The
reason why the church has always rejected and does still reject them from the
canon are similar to those brought to bear against the Apocrypha of the Old
Testament. Not one of them belonged to the original canon. Not one of them was
written by an apostle, or a direct attendant of an apostle under his
supervision. Not one of them was acknowledged or quoted as of any authority by
the early Christian fathers. In fact, most of them were written at a late age
and had no existence until the middle of the Third Century. This explains why
they were nei­ther attacked nor cited by the earliest enemies of the church,
Marcion, Cel- sus, Lucian; which would certainly have been done had they been
extant and generally received by Christians. Moreover, these apocryphal
writ­ings not only contain many flagrant anachronisms, things being men­tioned
which occurred later than the time in which the books profess to have been
composed; but they also contradict, in many points, the doc­trine and practice
of Christ and the apostles. In addition, they teem with statements which are
ludicrous, ab­surd, and even profane, and their style is exceedingly diverse
from that of the canonical writings and inferior to it. Though some of them are
good to read they have no claim to a place between the covers of our Bible. In
Conclusion The New Testament as it is re­ceived by the Greek Church, the La­tin,
the Roman Catholic, and the Pro­testant, contains only such books as could be
proved to have been written either by the apostles themselves, or, in the case
of Mark and Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, by their attend­ants under their
inspection. We may rest assured, therefore, when reading the sacred volume, that
we are brought face to face with the glorious gospel which Christ commissioned
His disciples to preach to the whole world. There is abundant reason for us to
“continue in the things which we have learned and have been as­sured of, knowing
of whom we have learned them” (2 Timothy 3:14-15).


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  CHAPTER 5: WTY-5 IS THE BIBLE TRUSTWORTHY?
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CHAPTER V IS THE BIBLE TRUSTWORTHY?

Here is a vital and paramount question. If the Bible contains mere speculations
which may or may not be true, or if there should be false­hoods found in it, we
would forthwith lose rock-bottom and sink into quick­sand. On the other hand, if
it can be proved that the Bible is true, we too can exult with St. Peter: “We
have not trusted in cunningly devised fables, but in a sure prophetic word I” We
may in a general manner infer the veracity of the Scriptures from the fact that
often in it Appeal is Made to Men’s Experience

Moses writes, Deuteronomy 11:7 : “Your eyes have seen all the great works of
Jehovah which He did.” Now, suppose that God had not led them out of Egypt by an
outstretched hand; suppose that the Egyptians had not drowned in the Red Sea;
imagine that the people had not been fed with manna from heaven and satisfied
with water out of the rock, and Moses had told them: “Your eyes have seen all
these things”—would they have had the stupidity to receive all that Moses wrote
as unquestionable truth? So also the apostles, when speaking of the resurrection
of Christ, refer to eye-witnesses yet living, who might be consulted as to the
truth of the things stated in their Epistles. (Hebrews 12:1; 1 Corinthians
15:6). The Character of the Statements

These statements made also indicates the incontestable truth of the Scriptures.
They are in large part so mortifying to human pride, so humiliating and
offensive to those to whom they were addressed, that they would never have been
re­ceived and promulgated if they had not been known to be true. For example
Abraham was the father of the Jewish nation; but the Bible records that a
heathen king chided him for telling a lie. Jacob was another patriarch; but the
sacred pages relate, among other things, that he cheated Esau out of his
birthright. Aaron, too, was renowned as co­leader with Moses yet the Bible
nar­rates his making the golden calf in Horeb. David was the Israelites’ great
and illustrious king; but the Scriptures in no wise cover up his adultery.

Now, would the Israelites ever have received the Old Testament and have clung to
it even unto death had they not been fully assured that the things rehearsed
therein were facts? In the Fulfilled Prophecies

Here we have the most irrefutable proofs of the exactitude and veracity and
reliability of the Scriptures. “There shall not be one remaining to the house of
Esau” (Obadiah 1:18), say the Scriptures; and the descendants of that Esau
before whom Jacob of old had to flee have perished from the face of the earth.
Their very name has been forgotten in the country they lived in. In like manner
the doom of extinc­tion was pronounced against the Phil­istines (Ezekiel
25:15-16), ancient enemies of the Israelites. When one today seeks for them,
they can no more be found.

Against Egypt Ezekiel thundered that it should no more lift itself above the
nations, but that it should be di­minished, that its foundation should be
broken, that the pride of its power should come down, and that “there shall be
no more a prince out of the land of Egypt” (Ezekiel 30:13). When in these days
we open the pages of ancient history we read: “From about the middle of the
fourth cen­tury B. C. to the present day no native prince has sat upon the
throne of the Pharaohs.” (Myers.) As against nations, so the Bible is full of
prophecies regarding ancient cities, which have all been fulfilled. Tyre was to
be cast into the midst of the sea and become a place “for the spreading of nets”
(Ezekiel 26). The historian of today can find no better words to describe its
appearance.

Thebes was to be “broken up” (Ezekiel 30:16). Strabo (25 B. C.) testifies to the
fact that it was; and even now the once majestic city is broken up into nine
hamlets.

Memphis was to be destroyed to­gether with its idols and images (Ezekiel 30:13).
The traveler who today visits the place finds, beside two broken statues and a
few large rubbish heaps, not a trace of the temple-city once so renowned.

“Ekron shall be roted up!” cried Zephaniah, and the place where it once stood is
now a region of plowed fields, “and the only evidences that a city ever existed
there is found in the stones of hand-mills and the ancient cisterns which are
occasionally met with by the cultivator.”

“Baldness is come upon Gaza,” de­clared another prophet (Jeremiah 47:5). The
event proved that the words were no mere threat. Gaza is now a series of
sand-hills and so bald that not even a blade of grass grows upon it.

Babylon, “the beauty of the Chaldeans’ excellency,” was to become heaps and
should never again be inhabited. It is simply startling to find how clear and
minute these prophetic pictures are.

Archeology As another source of testimony archeology might be mentioned. I
confine myself to but one interesting find. In Exodus 1:11, we read that the
children of Israel built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses. In
connection with the building of these cities the oppression of the children of
Israel reached its climax. When Moses came to lead them out of Egypt, Pharaoh
supposed that not enough work had been as­signed them and commanded that no more
straw should be given them, but that they should go and gather stubble for
themselves. This they did. Finally, when even the stubble failed, they were
commanded to make brick without straw.

Critics formerly impugned this story. They do not so today. Why not? Because the
cities have acci­dentally ben uncovered, and a perfect circumstantial
confirmation of the Bible account has been obtained. In­vestigation proved that
the lower layers were built of brick which con­tained straw, the midle layers of
brick in which stubble instead of straw had been used, and the upper layers of
brick, without straw alto­gether. The Science of Astronomy This too, affords
proof for the truthfulness of the Scriptures. Let us note but one thing. In
Jeremiah 30:22, we are told: “The host of heaven cannot be numbered.” This was
not the sentiment of astronomers. They all thought that they could be numbered.
Hipparchus, living about 150 B. C., counted 1,022 stars. Ptolemy at the
beginning of the second century of the Christian era said there were 1,026. We
can with the naked eye on a clear winter’s night see about 1,160; or in the
whole celestial sphere some 3,000. But when Galileo some three cen­turies ago
pointed the telescope to­ward the sky he counted hundreds of thousands. Next
came Lord Rosse with the great mirror. Now the num­ber of visible stars
increased to nearly 400,000,000. Presently John Herschel and other modern
astrono­mers resolved the nebulae into suns, and found in the scarf about Orion
“a gorgeous bed of stars the Milky Way, too, they tell us, is but a grand
complex of stars without number. Who revealed this fact to Jeremiah millenniums
ago?

Evidences in the World Around Us

It is a fact that all the nations re­late a story of a universal flood. We have
a minute record of this flood in the Bible. Some have said that the occurrence
was merely a local inun­dation. But how does it happen that neither the races of
the world nor the Scriptures narrate any story of a universal earthquake? There
have probably been more local earthquakes than local inundations, yet we
no­where find it so much as hinted at that there was ever a universal
earth­quake.

Again, a most singular mode of propitiating and worshipping the Deity prevailed
over the whole earth. Even today traces of it may be found in Mexico, India,
Africa, and other parts of the world. I mean that of bloody sacrifices. Whoever
estab­lished this mode of worship? Man? Never! It is against all reason.

Some time ago it happened that a man in my hearing pronounced the sacrifices
with which the Old Testa­ment abounds as foolish, absurd, and ridiculous. The
mere light of reason and nature would never have led to such a mode of worship.
There is no possible connection in man’s reason between the killing of an
innocent dove and the acceptable worship of the Most High. Yet this mode of
worship prevails universally. How are we to account for this strange phenomenon?
Reject the explanation which the Bible gives, and who can give us another?

Turning to the Jews we find that they even today celebrate a festival called the
Passover. Suppose they had never been led out of Egypt as the Scriptures relate,
would they ever have commemorated the event? As little as America would
commemo­rate the Fourth of July if American independence had never been
de­clared!

Take also the early and almost uni­versal division of time into weeks. Who
decreed that it should be insti­tuted? There are natural reasons why time should
be divided into months and years; but there are no natural reasons whatever why
it should be divided into periods of seven days. Reject the explanation of it
which Moses gives, and again you are at sea.

Still, these external arguments in favor of the veracity of the Scrip­tures are
but crutches. There is one remaining which is decisive to him whom it concerns.
It is the testimony of the Spirit! A Christian knows the Bible to be true from
his own ex­perience. He knows that a great moral change has taken place within
him, that a new force has entered his life. Proofs? He needs none. "He has the
witness in himself.” .


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  CHAPTER 6: WTY-6 IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED?
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CHAPTER VI IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? In our days the inspiration of the Bible is a
much-talked-about sub­ject. Nevertheless, great ignorance is manifested as to
what is meant by in­spiration. The doctrine is not so dif­ficult and perplexing
a matter. It must only be reverently approached. Childlike faith must be
sustained as to the utterances of God’s word. Then all is simple and plain.

Definition of Inspiration

Inspiration is not revelation. Rev­elation is the direct impartation of God’s
truth to the mind of a prophet. Inspiration is the impulse to make known what
has been imparted, and the assistance afforded in the utter­ance of God’s truth,
or in the record­ing of what God chose to have committed to the sacred pages.
Some Old Testament men were granted revela­tions, but they were not induced to
record them; they lacked the inspira­tion. In Moses both experiences met. Having
received revelations, he was also inspired to make an infallible record of what
God chose to have writ­ten for our instruction in righteous­ness.

Inspiration must also be disting­uished from illumination. “God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined” in the heart of every
Christian, “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) But not every Chris­tian is inspired. Only
a few men, the writers of both Old and New Testa­ment, were inspired, while
millions upon millions were illuminated. One easy way to distinguish between
inspiration and illumination is this: Illumination is subject to degrees,
in­spiration is not; one Christian may be more illumined than another, but no
Biblical writer excels another in inspiration. Nor must inspiration be
con­founded with mere human genius. The latter is merely a natural
quali­fication. One man towers over an­other in gifts, in talents, faculties,
capabilities; but all these are natural powers. Inspiration is supernatural
throughout. Human geniuses never agreed; the authors of the various books of the
Bible all agree most wonderfully. To define then: Inspiration is a dy­namic
divine influence coming upon both Old and New Testament writers, moving, urging,
directing, enabling them to reduce to writing in God-sug­gested words, all those
things which God chose to have recorded. The ob­jective point of inspiration is
not the author but the book, not the writer but the writing. The words inscribed
upon the sacred pages are God’s words. Some two thousand times we read in
Scripture the phrase, or its equivalent, “Thus saith the Lord!” The human
authors are but the hands, the amanuenses, of the Spirit.

“But,” says someone, “is not man’s personality thereby suspended, de­stroyed,
encroached upon?” By no means. Though the instrument of the Spirit, the inspired
man is more than a typewriter operated by an author. The prophets and apostles,
far from being reduced to the level of mechanical pieces of machinery,
sus­tained an elevation of their person­ality, and absorbedly participated with
God. Was the personality of Moses annulled, undone, annihilated, when on the
brink of the Red Sea he stretched out his hand and parted the waters? Indeed
not! But the power employed was God’s. In the same way, when later committing to
writing Jeho­vah’s revelation he moved his hand upon the parchment, but the
words that were penned were God’s. Not­withstanding, his whole soul was en­gaged
in the work.

We have proof of the plausibility of such union of the divine agency and the
human in the fact that it con­forms so entirely to God’s usual method of
operation. It is in God that we “live, and move, and have our being yet in
giving us life, breath, and being, He does not interrupt the regular exercise of
our own natural powers, but rather sustains them.

Again, the conversion and sancti­fication of the soul is the work of God; but
who would say that in them man’s personality suffers annihilation. So in the
matter of inspiration, God supervises, assists, restrains, sug­gests, and does
all in His power that that may be recorded which is accord­ing to His will, and
yet the human author thinks with his own mind, ex­ercises his own faculties, and
speaks or writes according to his own method and style.

Necessity of Inspiration

We need inspiration. Objectively we need it to assure ourselves of the stability
and certitude of revelation. It is not enough that at certain pe­riods of the
history of the world God has vouchsafed revelations to the human race. They must
be recorded, so that later generations may have a “sure prophetic word.” Oral
traditions are not trustworthy records. We all know this from experience. Every
society, congregation, organ­ization has its protocol, so that there may be no
doubt as to proceedings of the past. So also with the facts of revelation. If
they were not reduced to writing, who and what would attest their ver­ity? There
would be no rock upon which to plant the feet. Consequent­ly, revelation
imperatively involves and postulates the sacred writings and must be in
operation till their completion, just as an important en­actment of legislature
is not complete until recorded. So important is the authentic formulation of a
code of laws that it is not left to the report­ers, though they may be honest
and capable men, but it is framed by the legislators themselves, formally
adopted, and attested by their signa­tures.

Thus with the Bible. God Himself is the author of it. His providence attended
its construction from Gene­sis to Revelation. The threat con­tained upon the
last page of the Scrip­tures is applicable to all its separate books and parts:
“I testify to every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If
any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written
in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the
holy city, which are written in this book.” The inspiration of the Bible is
necessary not only objectively for the stability and security of the
revela­tion, but also subjectively as a guarantee and pledge of the
dependable­ness and sufficiency of our faith for salvation. The sum total of our
faith is justi­fication by faith in Christ. How do I know that God has
pronounced me guiltless and declared me just? May I rely upon my feelings, the
inner joy and happiness that are mine? What if they fail? Would it be safe to
stay one’s heart on such unstable, change­able inner experience?

No. As soon as my faith begins to reflect and inquire as to its ground and
foundation, an authentic, codified revelation is demanded. Again, when doubts
and difficulties arise; when the way seems rugged and steep, and the darkness is
gathering fast; when temptations confront and peace seems banished from the
heart; then some­thing more is needed than the by-gone subjective experience.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and des­perately wicked.” We need the
solid objective declaration of Scripture that we are “justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The Fact of Inspiration
From beginning to end the Bible asserts its inspiration. To Moses God said:
“Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and I will teach thee what
thou shalt say” (Exodus 4:12). David asserts: “The Spirit of the Lord spake by
me, and His word was in my tongue” (2 Samuel 23:2). To Isaiah Jehovah says: “I
will put My words in thy mouth” (Isaiah 51:16). And to Jeremiah: “Thou shalt be
as My mouth” (Jeremiah 15:19). Likewise Eze­kiel is addressed: “Thou shalt speak
My words unto them” (Ezekiel 2:7). So all the Old Testament writers make it
plain that they are but the mouth­pieces and the penmen of God. Not less
emphatically do the writ­ers of the New Testament assert their inspiration. “I
certify to you,” says Paul, “that the gospel which was preached of me was not
after man; for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it but by the
re­velation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11). And again: “Which things also we
speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth;
comparing spiritual things with spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:13).

Thus the apostle could write be­cause Christ said: “I will give you a mouth and
wisdom which no adver­sary can gainsay or resist.” “When He, the Spirit of truth
is come, He shall guide you into all truth.” “When they shall deliver you up,
take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” The most unique argument for the
inspiration of the Old Testament is the relation which Jesus Christ bears to it.
There is no escaping the issue that He receives it wholly as the word of His
Father. So did His disciples. “We have a sure prophetic word,” cries one; while
another exclaims: “Al1 Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” and a third
“God, who at sundry times and in diverse manner spake in time past by the
prophets, hath in these latter days spoken unto us by His Son.”

If language such as this does not prove the inspiration of the Bible, no
language can. The Position of the Early Fathers The early fathers—the immediate
successors of the apostles, all believed in verbal inspiration. I adduce the
testimony of a few:

Clement of Rome says in his first epistle to the Corinthians: “Give dili­gent
heed to the Scriptures, the true saying of the Holy Ghost.”

Justin Martyr declares: “I think not that the words which you hear the prophet
speaking are uttered by himself. Being filled with the Spirit, they are from the
divine Logps which moves him.”

Origen asserts: “The sacred books breathe the fulness of the Spirit. There is
nothing, neither in the Law, in the Gospels, or in the Apostles, which did not
descend from the ful­ness of the divine Majesty.”

Gregory the Great opines: “It is needless to inquire who wrote the book of Job,
since we may surely be­lieve that the Holy Ghost was its author.”

Conclusion

Let us study the Scriptures—the time spent with them is time well spent. “Do you
know a book that you are willing to put under your head for a pillow when you
lie dying?” cries Joseph Cook, the great Boston lecturer. “That is the book you
want while you are living. There is but one such book in the world!” That book
is the Bible!

“The most learned, acute, and dili­gent student cannot, in the longest life,
obtain an entire knowledge of this one volume. The more deeply he works the
mine, the richer and more abundant he finds the ore; new light continually beams
from this source of heavenly knowledge, to direct the conduct, and illustrate
the work of God and the ways of men; and he will at last leave the world
confessing, that the more he studied the Scrip­tures, the fuller conviction he
had of his own ignorance, and their inestim­able value.” (Walter Scott.)


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/william-schoeler-what-think-ye-of-the-bible/
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