Scripture: Its Inspiration and Authority
Alexander Craven Ord
Table of Contents
Prefatory Remarks
A question of deepest importance to all Christians at the present moment has been raised by statements made recently in Lectures delivered by the Rev. J. M. Wilson. The groundless assumptions contained in these Lectures, and the freehanded and deliberate way, in which the faith of ages which has produced such mighty results in the past history of Christianity and of the world, has been dismissed — to make way for modern and ill supported ones on the Inspiration of the Scripture — theories which successively melt away before the inroads of unbelief has given great pain to many minds. These Lectures appear like dismantling and undermining the fortifications of Christianity, and this by one of its professed friends, in order to conciliate its enemies, who are only too ready to take advantage of such a mistake; whilst weak minds are disturbed, and the wavering induced to conclude, seeing the main prop and stay of Christianity surrendered, that it cannot be maintained in its integrity against all attacks. The warning “Equo ne credite,” given to the Trojans when, unconscious of their danger, they introduced into the citadel the Grecian horse filled with armed foes, may well be repeated here. The object of these pages is to show how dangerous in their nature, and how futile and unwarrantable, are these concessions to the infidel, and that Christians may be on their guard against receiving them, as well as that they may understand, how firm is the foundation which the Word of God affords, as the basis of faith.
Scripture: Its Inspiration and Authority
Mr. Wilson tells us that the Bible contains “The Word of God,” but not the “Words of God,” that the apostles claimed weight for their writings not because they were inspired, but “on account of their accuracy as eye witnesses.”
Is Mr. Wilson correct in this representation of apostolic doctrine on the subject, or has he totally misapprehended the claims of Scripture and the authority of the apostolic and other writings both of the Old and New Testaments? For he also surrenders the account of the “Creation,” “the Fall of Man,” and the “Deluge,” as not necessarily to be believed.
Now if we have not what comes directly and immediately from God, we have no divine warrant for faith nor (as Mr. Wilson consistently allows to his opponents) is there guilt in the rejection of a divine testimony. Faith is the reception of what God says, because He says it: “He that hath received His testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true, for He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God” (John 3:33, 34). “He that is of God heareth God’s words” (John 8:47). “He that rejecteth Me and heareth not my words, hath One that judgeth him, the Word that I have spoken the same shall judge him at the last day” (John 12:48). “God’s words” are to have their weight in every soul; if received in faith, they bring salvation and eternal life (John 6:68, 69); if rejected, it is at the peril of the rejector for how could God speak or address Himself to man, with evidence enough that He has done so, and the treatment of His word be a matter of indifference? If it be a question merely of the apostles’ accuracy apart from inspiration, all this would be out of place. The reply would be, there is no certainty that they accurately reported what they heard, so that we should be bound by their statements as the words of God, having the weight which belongs exclusively to Himself when He speaks, whatever may be the instrument He employs.
Perhaps Mr. Wilson may say that he does not deny that our blessed Lord Himself spake the words of God, but the apostles’ report of His acts and words, is what he refers to and for which he says, they did not claim inspiration. But even so, we have no divine certainty of truth — no revelation from God, with the absolute certainty belonging to what comes from Him. The apostles may have had this for themselves, but we are left without it; and all the blessedness involved in the fact that God has come so near to us, and that we have heard His voice, and that voice addressing us in Christianity, in its tenderest and most gracious accents, is lost. Have we then no security that these precious communications have reached us, with all their momentous import for time and eternity: “words of eternal life” (John 6:68) and of which the Savior says, “He that sent Me is true, and I speak to the world those things that I have heard of Him” (John 8:26); and again, “All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15). Hear His own statement as to the special function of the Spirit of Truth, the power of all divine light and knowledge, when sent down from heaven to the apostles. “But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). The distinct object of His mission, was, to bring the very words of Christ to their remembrance, as well as to be an unerring infallible guide into all truth, even such as was not yet made known unto them. His presence and operation were purposely intended, that they might not be left to the uncertainty of the human mind and memory unaided, in that which they had to communicate, for the blessing of the people of God through all this dispensation. Moreover these fresh revelations that he would make, unfolding Truth in its divine range and showing them things to come, He would give as definite communications from the Father and the Son. “Howbeit 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: and He will show you things to come” (John 16:13). Thus He was to give with distinct certainty, the words of God as He received them, and that by revelation to the apostles.
Listen to their own testimony on the same point.
Writing to the Corinthians the apostle Paul tells us, that as the things of a man are only known to “the spirit of man which is in him; even so, the things of God knoweth no man; but the Spirit of God.” “But God hath revealed them to us (the apostles) by His Spirit”; received expressly that “we might know the things that are given to us of God.”
But are they only thus revealed by the Spirit to the apostles so that in the communication of them to others, they are left to themselves? Far from it. “Which things we speak (adds the apostle) not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth” (1 Cor. 2:11-13). So that not only the substance, but the form of communication was divine. What can be plainer than “the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth”? I do not say, as has been implied that He does not use the mind of man in this; but that mind which it should be remembered, He Himself created divinely inspired and directed, so as to communicate only and precisely what God intended to be conveyed.
Accordingly the apostles everywhere claim divine authority for what they write and teach. In this very epistle writing — not respecting the highest aspects of revealed truth, but concerning the use of Gifts and Order in the assembly of believers — the apostle adds: “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord (1 Cor. 14:37). So positive and absolute is the consciousness of this authority, that where the apostle only gives his own judgment, he shows that however valuable this judgment might be, it had quite another character. “But I speak this by permission and not by commandment” (1 Cor. 7:6). This permission, however, lets us know that he was authorized to express his judgment, though it had not the supreme sanction attached to the words of God only.
Again, the apostle John says, “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us (the apostles): he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:6). The authority with which he wrote was so absolutely of God, that if a man was of God he would bow to it, and prove his relation to God by so doing.
These communications, moreover, could be used as an unerring standard and test of truth and error for whatever was presented to those who had them. The apostle Peter also, warning of scoffers who should come in the last days saying, “Where is the promise of His coming,” refers to the prophets of Old Testament Scripture and puts his own epistles and those of the other apostles upon the same footing, as expressing the authoritative communication of the Lord Himself. Writing both epistles, he says, “that ye should remember the words that were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Peter 3:1, 2. Rev. ver.).
Everywhere our Lord and His apostles recognize a body of writings which they speak of as “Scripture” or “holy Scriptures,” or “the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2; Acts 7:38)
as an infallible standard of appeal which settled every question. “It is written,” was enough from the lips of the Lord, on each occasion, to silence Satan, who dared not to dispute with Him the authority of the Word. It is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4) so that the Lord sets His solemn seal upon the Old Testament Scriptures as giving us the very words which came from “the mouth of God,” and as such, the source of life to man.
Indeed, in one passage He puts the written record of Old Testament Scripture as a recognized authority above the spoken Word, even though that Word was His own. “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust: for had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me: but if ye believe not his writings how shall ye believe My words?” (John 5:45-47). Of such infinite import, as regards the eternal welfare and the standing of the Jews with the Father, are these very writings, of which Mr. Wilson says, “It is plain that any teaching of verbal inspiration or infallibility of the Old Testament is not traceable to the teaching of Christ.” Again, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the Lord, in Abraham’s reply to the desire of the rich man, that his brethren should not come into the place of torment, shows the fearful consequences of not listening to Moses and the prophets adding, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead (Luke 16:29-31). In controversy again with the Jews, the Lord citing a passage from the Old Testament to prove His divine title against their questioning, with the words, “The Scripture cannot be broken,” silences them, while He specifies the inviolable character of a single statement of the written law of God. To close this testimony of our Lord in the Gospels, we have His own explanation to His disciples after He has risen, recognizing the three divisions of the Old Testament as they stand in the Hebrew Bible, “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. Then opened He their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:44, 45). To Him those Scriptures were sacred, as expressing the mind of God; hence the value of the divinely opened understanding to enter into them. So much is this the case, that the special prophetic announcement respecting His treatment by man in the last moments of His life on earth, is recorded by the apostle John in connection with His intentional fulfillment of Scripture: “Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, ‘I thirst.’ When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, ‘It is finished’: and He bowed His head and gave up the Ghost” (John 19:28, 30). The apostle adds, that the conduct of the soldiers in only piercing His side, while they brake the legs of the two malefactors hanging on either side was a twofold fulfillment of what Scripture had recorded (v. 36, 37) as also was their casting lots for the tunic instead of rending it; “these things therefore the soldiers did” (v. 24).
For the Lord himself says; “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” (Matt. 5:18). With our Lord and His apostles Scripture is infallible — “must be fulfilled” in its most exact and minutest particulars. It is just this to which Mr. Wilson objects as “literal” and “verbal.”
In Rom. 3 the apostle Paul speaks of the advantages the Jews possessed, as the chosen people of God; the chief of which was in having the Scriptures, which he terms “the Oracles of God” (cp. Heb. 5:12, 13), committed to them.
No language can be more distinctly expressive of what has come from the lips of God, and he adds that their effect cannot be neutralized by the partial unbelief of that word by man, “Yea let God be true, and every man a liar, that Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou art judged.” For these words of God will be the ground of His judgment hereafter, as our Lord plainly indicates (John 12:48). Stephen, addressing the Jews speaks of Moses as the Mediator, who received “the living Oracles” of God to give unto us (Acts 7:8); and the apostle Peter uses similar language, contrasting the abiding eternal nature of the word of God, with the glory of man, and his fleeting condition. “Being horn again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). Incorruptible and eternal, it could be a source of life in the soul, which it stamped with its own abiding character, whilst everything connected with this scene fades away. For this he quotes the striking testimony of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah “The word of the Lord endureth for ever” (Isa. 5:25).
Let the reader judge for himself, how completely the divine authorship of Scripture becomes apparent, by the character of the expressions made use of, in what has been cited; or in even more formal declarations of utterances by the Holy Ghost, such as: “David himself said by the Holy Ghost” (Mark 12:36). “Well spake the Holy Ghost by the prophet Isaiah” (Acts 28:29). “The Scripture must needs be fulfilled which the Holy Ghost spake concerning Judas” (Acts 1:16). “Which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21).
What comes from the mouth expresses what is in the mind — hence we have ascribed to Scripture the purpose intention, or mind of Him who inspired it, whilst the mind of man is also constantly engaged. “Those things which God before had showed by the month of all His prophets that Christ should suffer He hath so fulfilled” (Acts 3:18).
The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith” (Gal. 3:8). “The Holy Ghost this signifying” by what was specified as to the High Priest (Heb. 9:8). This corresponds with what the apostle Paul states, when warning us as to the last days and their perilous character, he gives as the special safeguard and security for the people of God in these very times in which we are found, that “All Scripture is ‘Theopneustic,’ or ‘God breathed,’” containing the full declaration of the thoughts of God and His will for man in all times, and under all circumstances; suitable even for the guidance of a child to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus; or to render the advanced servant of Christ skilled and equipped for all the work of God. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:15-17). Again contemplating departure from the Truth in the Church of God, the same apostle does not lead us to place any reliance upon an apostolic succession, or derivative human authority but says, “I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace” (Acts 20:32). And this being in view of the loss of apostolic care and guidance, renders all the more striking testimony to the importance and sufficiency of Scripture.
It appears then that the Inspiration of Scripture embraces and makes known definitely the highest thoughts and counsels of God, or descends to details such as we find in the directions given respecting the Tabernacle, giving to these last a significance which they could not have had of themselves. But it is the Holy Ghost who indites the whole so that what is written cannot be limited to the narrow scope of the mind of man. For this reason the apostle Peter says that the prophecy of Scripture is not of any private interpretation, i.e. what attaches to the mind or circumstances of the individual through whom it was given although all this might be included in it: “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 Ghost” (1 Peter 1:21). If it came not by “the will of man” it is because it proceeded from a source above that will, and hence is not to be interpreted except according to the divine spring and mover of the utterances, and not merely by the individual’s own (Æ*\@H) measure of thought and interest. This accords with another passage of the same apostle when writing of the same Old Testament prophets, he says that it was matter of research, not what they meant in their prophecy, but what “the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.” The Holy Ghost gave therefore the breadth and character of the divine mind to what He inspired. It is on this account that the apostle Paul brings in — not the prophet Jeremiah from whom be quotes, as a witness to prove the complete forgiveness of sins, founded on the acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ, but says — “Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us” (Heb. 10:15, 17; 3:7) again to give importance to his exhortation, “Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” How otherwise should it be needful that the understanding should be opened by the Lord, that they might understand the Scriptures.” Had it been merely the depth and range of the human mind that were in question, no such divine enlightenment were required, for the perceptions of the human mind are adequate for what is within its compass.
Everywhere in the Old Testament itself, the communications recorded are loudly proclaimed to be directly inspired by God. “Thus saith the Lord.” “The word of the Lord came to Moses,” Isaiah and Jeremiah, “saying.” “God spake unto Moses, saying.” This is repeated in too many passages to be more than alluded to, so that, if further testimony is needful, we have the emphatic declarations of the Old Testament, as well as the universal consent of the New Testament authorities, to substantiate the fact of the fullest divine inspiration throughout.
Against all this weight of evidence, Mr. Wilson can give us positively nothing, except the fact that the apostles describe themselves as eyewitnesses; and the accuracy with which the evangelist Luke, the beloved physician, had carefully traced everything from the first (B"D06@8@L206`J4 Luke 1:3); but then we have his object in writing stated, that it was in contrast with other writings; that we might have the certainty which belongs as we have seen, only to these divine records (cp. Prov. 22:19-21, and 30:5, 6). This brings in the question of the human element which has already been briefly alluded to.
Do we deny it? By no means. Why cannot human testimony, as to facts and particulars, exist along with divine guidance as to what should be brought forward or insisted on? Mr. Wilson says, “they (the apostles) make no claim to supernatural guidance,” and refers to the statement of the apostle John, that he was an eyewitness, and assures his readers that he spoke the truth, and “he knoweth that he saith true.” But Mr. Wilson should have given the quotation in full; which would show the occasion, as well as the reason of his saying this. The Gnostics, who were a pest of the early Church, as all students of Church History know held that matter was evil; and denied in consequence that Christ had a veritable human body, as well as the reality of His death. Upon both of these great facts of Christianity the whole of its doctrines are based — hence the apostle John, after describing the crucifixion, and what took place at it, adds the particulars concerning His death, which he witnessed and then, that which especially demonstrated the certainty of death — the piercing of His side by one of the soldiers with the spear (“because they saw He was dead already”) “and forthwith came there out blood and water.”
He then gives his special attestation as a personal witness of these facts. “He that saw it bare record, and His record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe” (John 19:30-35. Cp. 20:30, 31). Why is this statement, which particularizes in the strongest way the apostle’s personal testimony, inconsistent with the special direction of the Holy Ghost?
We have seen that the Holy Ghost, when He came, was to quicken the memories of the apostles. As eyewitnesses they were to testify what they had seen: for this, according to our blessed Lord and His apostles, the assistance and guidance of the Holy spirit were indispensable. “Ye are witnesses of these things; and behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:48 49). It should be remembered, that they were to bear witness in the face of an unbelieving generation, and before the world at large. What avail would it have been to testify to such, that the Holy Ghost had told them the facts concerning Christ? It was all important that they should be able to speak as eyewitnesses. Both our Lord and His apostles alike, allude to this; not as if their testimony rendered that of the Spirit needless, but as combined witness: “He (the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth), shall testify of Me, and ye shall also bear witness because ye have been with Me from the beginning” (John 15:26, 27). “And we are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God bath given to them that obey Him” (Acts 5:32; 1:8).
It is, however, by no means true, that the evangelists write exclusively as eyewitnesses. They each give us their narrative, according to the purpose of the Spirit of God, in exhibiting the varied phases of the character of Christ. The apostle John, who is occupied with the Glory of the Person of the Son of God, relates, how — His adversaries “went backward and fell to the ground” in Gethsemane, as well as how He sets His seal to His own work upon the Cross.
Nevertheless, though personally present throughout, he omits the agony in the garden — the supernatural darkness which overhung the earth, and the cry of the Lord when forsaken, on account of our sins. The evangelist Luke, who views Christ as the gracious, suffering, Son of man — though not an eyewitness —details the conflict of the Savior in Gethsemane more fully than any of the other evangelists.
For the same reason he tells us all that relates to the birth of Christ and traces His genealogy up to Adam. Mark takes up what suits the mission and path of Christ as the divine Servant on earth, commencing only with what introduces His service. Matthew shows the fulfillment of Scripture and of the promises in Him, who was the Messiah, the Seed of Abraham, and Son of David. Similarly, the apostle Paul, (1 Cor. 11:23-25), when insisting on the character of the Lord’s supper — he narrates the circumstances of its first institution — says: “I received (not of the apostles present but) from (.BÎ) the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.”
The Scriptures contain, without doubt, the words of evil men, of Satan, and even the defective sayings and doings of the people of God. But those who recorded them, did so by the will of God, in order to give us a divine picture of man and of God’s ways with man, for our instruction, edification and warning, surrounded, as we are, by similar dangers and difficulties. “These things happened unto them for ensamples (types), and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11).
All that the Christian values in the Old Testament — written to communicate, though but partially, the knowledge of God — His patience, longsuffering, tenderness, combined with righteous and holy ways in His character as a moral Governor — would be lost, had men, however pious, been left to give us merely their own ideas and views, concerning these things. Nor could the human mind uninspired, have been competent, to trace the unfolding of God’s gracious dealings with man, and still less the revelation of His ultimate purposes in connection with, or in consequence of those dealings, contained in the Old Testament Scriptures.
The employment of the human heart and mind by the Spirit of God, when under the influence of feelings produced by spiritual life in the soul, have the deepest interest for the saints of God, at all times. The pleadings of Moses for the people of God, using the Glory of His own name; the promises He had made to the Fathers, and His own unchangeable nature; or the forgiveness which He had revealed as a part of His name, (Ex. 32:11-13; 34:6-9), all have this character. The righteous indignation of Jeremiah at the insensibility of God’s chosen people to the faithfulness of Jehovah towards them, on the one hand — and his tears over them — and breaking out of earnest pleadings for them so long as that was possible, on the other, convey the deepest instruction for all times and seem to remind us of One, whose love has no equal in earth or heaven; and whose tears, intercessions, and still more — His life given as a ransom — when Himself the object of unmitigated human enmity, have shown us where alone these moral beauties could be seen in their perfection, rising above the sin which He shed His blood to cancel.
True, the inspiration of the writers of the New Testament exhibits the full knowledge of the mind of God as well as an intimacy with the purposes of God in the future — unknown to the Old Testament. The apostle Peter tells us, that when the prophets enquired as to the meaning of their prophecies, touching things to come, they were informed, that these revelations were not intended for themselves; but for “us” who have fuller light through the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, as an abiding Comforter in the Church (1 Peter 1:10-12. Cp. Dan. 12:4 8, 9). The Lord seems to allude to this character of inspiration, when He foretells, that when the Holy Ghost shall have come, as the result of His being glorified as the Son of man at the hand of God; “He that believeth on Me as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). This expression indicates, that the Holy Ghost, when sent from Christ in heaven as the Head of His Body the Church, would be a living spring in His communications, acting through the deepest affections sympathies and interests, of which the human heart is capable. “This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). The apostle Paul, speaking on this very point, says “Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” And that “the Spirit searcheth all things; yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:11-16). The very things that were hidden before, in order that they might be revealed now. This accords with the way in which the Spirit of God now acts in all believers; helping their infirmities, sharing their sorrows (Rom. 8:18, 26, 27), bearing witness with their spirit — a means of intelligence and communion to the Christian, as well as enabling him to enjoy the glory to come, of which His presence is the earnest.
In all this we can trace the perfect harmony between the divine and the human element, which writers of this kind constantly put in contrast, as if they were mutually exclusive of each other; and then having defined inspiration to be that which no one believes, they throw contempt upon it as “mechanical,” “dynamic,” &c. We know indeed that at times the Holy Ghost did, both in Old and New Testament times, act on men exceptionally to show His power where the mind was not engaged, though the heart might be. But this the apostle puts in a lower place than where the intelligence was in exercise, and forbids its employment in the Christian Assembly: clearly it was not so in his own case, or that of the other apostles, for he says, “In the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue” (1 Cor. 14:15, 18, 19).
That our Lord came to inaugurate by His death and resurrection and the descent of the Holy Ghost another dispensation, established upon other principles than those contained in the law, — whilst verifying and giving it its full place of authority, by dying under its curse for us, — is everywhere evident in the New Testament. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” accords with the principles of exact justice, for under the law, God was maintaining His rights as Lord of all the earth (Joshua 3:11). Israel as a nation was the center of this government, until, set aside for their disobedience and idolatry, the scepter passed into the hands of the Gentiles. He even made use of the sword of Joshua, to cut off those nations, whose iniquity rose to such a height, that His patience could no longer hold back the execution of the righteous sentence passed upon them (Gen. 15:16). Now through the death of His Son, which has vindicated His righteousness in another way, He is acting in love to His enemies; whilst the rights of Christ, and His claim as sovereign Lord of the earth, are held in abeyance.
“Sit thou on My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Psa. 110:1). These rights remain to be made good in power, when Christ comes, and “all things are put under His feet” (Heb. 2:8). The establishment of the Kingdom of Christ, so often foretold in the Scripture, can only be—by the putting down of all opposition, and the destruction of enemies, who have refused all the offers of love in the gospel, and the restoration of God’s ancient people, with whom God’s government, and the earthly kingdom of the Messiah, stand in connection. Hence it is that we have in the Psalms, the call for the execution of God’s righteousness in judgment upon enemies, and the vindication of His holy character against evil; this government is seen again in the book of Revelation consequent upon the Lamb taking the Book and opening the Seals, when we are again on Old Testament ground “lightnings and thunderings and voices,” proceeding out of the throne of God, and cries for judgment again ascending as in the Psalms, for without this judgment, the Kingdom of Christ could not have its place (Rev. 4-19).
God does not surrender His right to put down evil in the earth, because He is now acting upon the principles of grace. But the infidel abuses the long-suffering love of God and the light in which this love is exercised, to challenge God’s righteous actings in the Old Testament, which He will resume, and from which His earthly people have their character and position. “Judgment shall return to righteousness and all the upright in heart shall follow it” (Psa. 94:15). For the principles, feelings and conduct of the people of God, are regulated by the divine procedure according to the dispensation in which their lot may be cast.
“When Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:9). At the same time, every Christian admits, that when God was hidden behind the vail, knowledge was partial and imperfect. Many things, in consequence, were tolerated or passed over which the clearer light — now that He has rent the vail and been fully displayed in the manifestation of Christ —condemns, for “the darkness is past or ‘passing away,’(B"DV(,J"4) and the true light now shineth” (1 John 2:8. Cp. Matt. 19:4-8). Though the Lord shows in Matt.5 and elsewhere, the entire change in the nature of the divine action; yet the whole fabric of New Testament doctrine is interwoven with Old Testament Scripture, which — whilst exhibiting contrasts in many points, — it fulfils in a way which evinces the same divine mind in the whole.
The death of Christ, and His rejection by the Jewish nation — accomplishing as it did the almost innumerable passages of the prophets, and putting its seal upon the authority of the law — opened according to the Hebrews, heavenly things the vail being rent, so that the Jewish system, of which the vail was the central expression, passed away to disclose a heavenly order and place of worship, a heavenly priesthood and heavenly worshipers. All this is anticipated in the figures of the law, “which serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things; as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for see saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount” (Heb. 8:5).
We have, in the special dispensational dealings of God the great principles of promise, law and prophecy, brought out in His ways with man; but this does not correspond with Mr. Wilson’s theory of education, growth and progress of the human mind, developed in his second Lecture. Each revelation is perfect, for the object for which it was intended; but promise, though antecedent in time, is in its nature higher than law as a principle of divine action towards sinful men, because resting on the faithfulness of God alone, as the apostle teaches in Gal. 3:17-20. The law was needed to test man on the ground of righteousness, and to show that he was incapable of meeting the divine claims contained in it, in order to bring him to a sense of his guilt and ruin, before revealing the perfect grace of God in the Gospel — meeting that need through the death of the Son of God. That death, at the same time, confirmed all the promises of blessing through the promised seed of the woman, and laid the basis for the fulfillment of the prophecies of the future glory of Christ, by which God sustained the faith of His elect, when it became evident that the recall to the obedience of the law by the prophets (a second purpose of prophecy) was likely to be ineffectual as regards the nation at large; the authority of the law being vindicated in the Son of God being born under it as man and bearing the consequences of its breach for those who believed. Thus, promise, law, and prophecy all have their terminating radii and center in the death of Christ, who thereby introduces the true ground on which alone we can stand in the presence of God, justified by His grace, through faith in the blessed work accomplished on Calvary.
If the intervention of law, between promise and prophecy is inconsistent with the idea of progress, in the sense which has been attached to it, the introduction of Christianity is entirely irreconcilable with it; for Christianity addresses man, not as he was under the law in a state of probation, but as a lost sinner. “The Son of Man is come to save that which is lost.” In addition to this, man is proved to be in a condition of enmity against God, by the total rejection of His Son when sent into this world in love though that love has made use of this act of deepest rebellion, to display in the cross how it can rise above sin and efface it; the Spirit of God by this means giving to the soul, a just estimate both of sin and of divine goodness.
Advance indeed there is compared with former dispensations, in the manifestation of God in love, and not only advance, but perfection, which excludes the idea of further development hinted at by Mr. Wilson; for the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, He hath revealed Him. He alone could do this, and, in absolute perfection and say: “I have glorified Thee on the earth.” What could surpass the glory of the Father displayed on earth by His Son?
But why has this glory — though “full of grace and truth,” exactly suited to man in his present condition – not been perceived and owned by the world? (John 1:14, 1718). “For in Him was life and the life was the light of men.” Let the same Scripture tell. “And the light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” For this is the natural state of man — alienation from God — darkness that does not comprehend the light, though it has shone with all its brightness in this world. This is why men “do not believe the Bible.” “For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). It is not by surrendering the lofty claim of divine truth, and what distinguishes it; nor by lowering it down to what may suit or flatter the pride of man’s intellect, that he will be induced to accept Christianity. Each must find out for himself, that God will only teach those who are willing to listen to Him, and give Him His place as God. “He gives not account of any of His matters.” And those who presume, with the partial and imperfect perceptions of the human mind, to arraign God at their bar, and to sit in judgment upon Him and His word and ways — who is their Creator and Judge — must take the consequences, and find out in the end that He in His inscrutable wisdom, hides things from the wise and prudent, and, reveals them unto babes. The soul of man needs grace and the Spirit of God so freely given, to apprehend divine truth (John 4:10).
No one questions that there are difficulties in Scripture and mysteries also. We are surrounded by them in the world in which we live, and they are impenetrable to the mind of man in his present state of existence. “In vain,” says Professor Baden Powell, “they seek to get rid of mysteries, the being of a GOD is the greatest of mysteries.”
The connection of the soul with the body — the nature of plant life, and why it should assimilate from surrounding elements that which it requires — the crystallization in beauteous forms of certain organic and inorganic substances— are all unfathomable to our minds. Is it then strange that in the revelation of what is Divine, we should find mysteries? There especially we ought to bow, and own the incompetency of the human intellect, to measure what is infinite and incomprehensible. Difficulties in Scripture do indeed exercise the faith of the individual believer, and whether he has the reverence for God, which makes him attribute what he cannot understand, to his own partially enlightened mind; he is but a child and knows only in part and the consciousness of this serves to keep him humble and dependent on God for further illumination. “Now we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. “When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:9-12).
He who in the consciousness of this imperfect knowledge waits on God for light, finds how many points of Scripture inexplicable at first sight, are afterwards resolved, or serve to bring out some further unfoldings of divine truth, which he otherwise had not perceived.
In conclusion, we have seen that the statements of our Lord and His apostles are everywhere at variance with those of Mr. Wilson: they universally claim the inspiration which he repudiates for them, and for which repudiation, we have not a syllable of real evidence from Scripture advanced. To reduce, therefore, the question to its simple and proper issue, we have only to ask, who are to be accepted or listened to, by Christians in general, touching the nature and authority of the Christian Records — our Lord and His Apostles, or writers of this school? Certainly it is not presumption, in the feeblest and most simple minded Christian, to prefer to trust, on such a vital question, to the Lord Himself and the great founders of Christianity sent by Him, rather than to recent speculators in divine truth, many of whom on the Continent and even of late in England, have piloted themselves and their too credulous followers, either into avowed infidelity or into the mysterious and dark whirlpool of pantheism.
What Mr. Wilson says of the Fathers, the Reformation and the Church of England, has as little foundation as when he speaks of the New Testament writers. Mr. Greaves has shown, in his quotations from Bishop Ellicott, how unequivocal are the views of the early writers of the Christian era on the subject of the inspiration of Scripture.
The Reformers placed the authority of Scripture upon the very highest pinnacle, in opposition to the attempt of the Church of Rome to put human tradition and the Apocrypha upon the same level with Scripture; but unfaithful as she proved to be in this, the Church of Rome did not venture to deny the plenary inspiration of canonical Scripture. From the very commencement of the promulgation of Christianity its acceptance has been general, in a way that can be affirmed of no other Christian doctrine; so that the statement of Mr. Wilson, “still no theory of inspiration” is entirely misleading. It may be quite true that the Church of England has never formulated any doctrine upon this subject. Why? The fact is, the articles and standards of that Church were written to guard against well known and prevalent errors; but what every one believes, it is not necessary to affirm formally. The high authority of Scripture is, however, assumed in the articles and formularies in a way it could not be if the framers of these standards had not the fullest belief in its complete inspiration. Read the two first homilies, which express the authorized teaching of the Church of England, and still more what is written in the homily entitled, “An Information for them which take offence at certain places of the Holy Scripture,” from which the ensuing extracts are taken.
For the whole Scripture, saith St. Paul, is given by the inspiration of God. (2 Tim. 3:16). And shall we Christian men think to learn the knowledge of God and of ourselves in any earthly man’s work or writing sooner or better than in the Holy Scriptures, written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost? “The Scriptures were not brought unto us by the will of man; but holy men of God,” as witnesseth St. Peter, “spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God” (2 Peter 1:21).
[With reference to difficult passages in the Old Testament]: It is a shame that Christian men should be so light headed to toy as ruffians do with such manner of speeches, uttered in good grave signification by the Holy Ghost. Consider that the Scripture, in what strange form soever it be pronounced, is the Word of the living God. Let that always come to your remembrance which is so oft repeated of the prophet Esais: The mouth of the Lord, saith he, has spoken it.
It cannot therefore be but truth which proceedeth from the God of all truth: it cannot be but wisely and prudently commanded, what Almighty God hath devised, how vainly soever, through want of grace, we miserable wretches do imagine and judge of His most holy word. Christ Jesus, the Prophets, the Apostles and all the true Ministers of His word, yea every jot and tittle in the Holy Scripture, have been, is, and shall be for evermore, the savor of life unto eternal life, unto all those whose hearts God hath purified through true faith. The more obscure and dark the sayings be to our understanding, the further let us think ourselves to be from God, and His Holy Spirit, who was the Author of them.
With such extracts before us, what are we to say to such a statement as: “We attribute to the Bible qualities which are claimed for it neither by the book itself, nor by the formal declarations of Christian churches, nor by their most representative writers.” Alas that one in the specially responsible position held by Mr. Wilson, and put forward by others, as the champion of Christianity in the serious combat with infidelity, should take such ground, and allow the only weapon which the enemy cannot stand against “the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God,” to fall from his grasp. It is a blade of high temper and keen edge “quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword,” yet one which the unlettered Christian can use with irresistible effect, if guided by the Spirit of God.
How many now wandering in the dreary wilderness of unbelief, who would at one time have shrunk back with horror, if asked to relinquish Christianity, have had their faith first undermined by the insinuation of these, doubts concerning Scripture, used by the enemy of souls, as the narrow end of the wedge, to loosen its foundation; for where the authority of Scripture is once shaken, all that is supernatural speedily crumbles; and miracles, atonement and resurrection, all indeed that distinguishes Christianity as a revelation of God and from God, is surrendered by degrees, till at last there is not a plank left to float the soul over the dark ocean of eternity.
We must not be surprised if, in the closing days of the dispensation, God allows the heart of the Christian, and his adherence to the Word of God, to be tested; and whether he will hold fast that sacred deposit, which has been entrusted to him, not withstanding the weakness and defection of friends, and the opposition of enemies. It is no doubt more difficult and requires more faith, to maintain the truth in days of declension and unbelief and when human opinion is being constantly put on the same level with, or substituted for divine truth. But faith thus tried will have its sure reward.
In our Lord’s address to His Father in John 17, after saying: “I have given them (His disciples) Thy Word,” we have His gracious testimony: “They have kept Thy Word.”
Think what it will be, to be owned by Christ Himself before His Father, in this blessed way, in a day yet to come. We have, moreover, in His address to the Church at Philadelphia, His own encouraging commendation, to those who are faithful in holding fast His word. “Thou hast kept My Word and not denied My Name”; and again, “Because thou hast kept the Word of my patience, I also will keep thee,” closing with the reward which He will bestow, as the blessed and public result of that fidelity, approved before all: “Behold, I come quickly; hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crow n,” (Rev. 3:8, 10, 11).
{This article has been added for the second edition.}
Practical Separation and Testimony
Hebrews 11:13-16; Mark 13: 31-34; Ephesians 1:19-23
There is one point in Heb 11 in connection with what we have had before us, which is, that that which throws us out of this scene as to our hopes, expectations and joys, is the truth that God Himself is a stranger in His own world. God is not at home here, because His Son has been rejected and the effect of this is, that we who are united to Christ are thrown out of it too; but into His blessed company. It is this which has separating power with the saints.
We are so apt to look upon ourselves as losers because of this. It tests the heart continually while down here, thus proving whether we are content to let all go for Him. We gain everything.
To Abram God appeared as “the God of glory.” God takes His start there with him, and from thence unfolds to him His purposes and counsels in Christ. God gives rest to the heart here by choosing us to share in His rest there and He calls us out from this scene, separates us from what is in it, that we may be able even now to take part in that rest.
Look at the Lord in Mark 3. They said, “He is beside himself.” They could not understand His blessed path of self-renunciation, self-forget-ting toil in their midst.
Neither can a worldly Christian understand it. And to the extent to which the saints follow in His steps will the world be unable to understand them. It is “As long as thou doest well to thyself men will speak well of thee.”
But what are these to the Lord who take His path with Him? He looks round with delight and satisfaction upon them, and says: “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” Priceless is that will to Him. All such as do it most near; all relationships dear and tender concentrated in one. This is the result of faithfulness to God in days of evil. Christ loves our company; He delights to have us with Him. If the church has left its first love, has Christ ever left His? He loves to have us in association with Himself, linked with Himself and how can that be? Only in the path in which God’s will is everything; His disciples had left all to follow Him.
But then comes the question, are we content to take the lot of pilgrims? These of whom we read in Hebrews that they declared plainly that they sought a country “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” And what was the consequence? What did God do for them? When we link ourselves with God’s interests, He can link Himself to ours. It is then He is “not ashamed to be called our God.” It is wondrous that God should call Himself the God of men on earth.
It is seldom God takes up people in this way; it is only with the patriarchs and David. He links Himself to the interest of those who identify themselves with Him upon earth; to those who have no home, no country, no city here, and who are content to find themselves in company with Christ in His path of separation and rejection in this scene through which He passed. If through grace I can take this place, He says of me “My brother, and my sister, and mother.”
But what does it involve? Self-surrender; there must be the giving up of self. The more self-surrendered we are here, the more we are able to enter into and learn the path of that blessed One on earth, the more we are able to walk with Him in it. How did He come into this world? The manger and the cradle tell. He says of Himself, “I am meek and lowly in heart.” He came as the dependent One the obedient One. God never had but one obedient Man upon earth; never but One who always did His will, who could say: “I do always those things that please him.” All else were disobedient; men were in open defiance of God and there is not a single one of us, though saved by His grace, that does not carry the principle, the root of this in his heart. So that though we know what this path of obedience is, yet how often we get out of it. There never was any trod the earth like Him. The meekest, the lowliest man ever seen here was the Son of God.
It was just this point that our brother touched upon which I wished to take up a little. Rest we must not seek here; our rest is to come, when all will be according to God’s own heart.
As regards the testimony of God, there are only two places where the apostle says he is “not ashamed.” He is “not ashamed of the testimony of the Lord” in Timothy and he is “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ” in Romans. We get these two great subjects: the testimony of the Lord, and the righteousness of God, in these two epistles. How wonderful! A display of righteousness for man, and that God’s own. Sin righteously met for the believer, by God taking all that His Son has done and using it to justify sinners!
Well may the Lord present Himself to Nicodemus as the only One who could tell of heavenly things, because He “came down from heaven.” Thus, divine love is heavenly. (See John 3:12, 13, and 16.) Conversion is connected with this earth; but heaven itself came down to die for me, to sacrifice itself for me. Who can tell the wonders of this love! The divine wonders and depths that we shall enjoy, as we were hearing, in eternity, all flowing to us from that blessed One to whom “all power is given.”
I once saw on a tombstone a little verse which struck me
“Millions of years my wondering soul
Shall o’er my Savior’s beauties rove.”
It was not about the sinner, or even about the salvation, it was the beauties of Christ Himself. It spoke wonderfully and beautifully of the occupation of the soul through all eternity; and that is the essence of Christianity. The more I see men giving up Christianity and slighting it, the more its beauties come out; and the more the blessed Person of Christ is despised, the more His beauty comes out too.
Then there is the other side to this path of separation on earth. We look up into heaven, and what do we see there? The glorified Man; the One who fills heaven with His glory. What do we find is the great subject there in the book of Revelation? It is the Lamb in the midst of the throne; the Lamb who was slain; it is the worthiness of the Lamb and the efficacy of His blood. And how is He spoken of? When John sees Him he says: “His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow” {Rev. 1}. Just as the evangelist says of the transfiguration, His raiment was “white as snow.” And Daniel gives us “the Ancient of days,” whose garment was “white as snow.”
The very selfsame words are applied to the sinner washed in that precious blood: he is made “white as snow, as white as wool” (Isa. 1). Such is the place, the portion, that He has won for me, and I glory in the means that has done it.
But this is not all; there is more than salvation. God has His eternal counsels in Christ. What is the will of God? Is it to
gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him{Eph. 1:10}
from the highest archangel down to a blade of grass? This is God’s counsel as to Him who came down from heaven and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross that He might give us a place on His throne, a place in His glory. Thus is God working everything after the counsel of His own will. Thus He has
saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel {2 Tim. 1:9}.
He has gained too the victory over death and the grave and has gone up there to sit at the right hand of God. Man looks at death as the end of everything, his own complete overthrow, where-as the very first thought as to the testimony is that of death abolished, by Christ having taken His place in it. We are connected with Christ as the fruit of His death, and every after-step is connected with death He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens.
“God hath not given us the spirit of fear.” The apostle did not give way under the consciousness of the difficulties that pressed upon him. He knows that he has the spirit of “power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Therefore he says, “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.” He had not a fear however things might be failing outwardly. He was not going to give up; he would maintain it in every iota, and be himself in practical consistency with it, as our brother has been pressing.
I am sure we all feel the need of more earnestness on this point; I do. The apostle, as Moses, counted the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Is there a despising of this world in its objects, in its principles, in its progress? Do we not too often take up a little of it? And remember, the more we meet of its reproach, the better for us; it is really a thing to be loved to be valued, if it is the reproach of Christ.
If we are not on the ground that Moses was, counting it greater riches than all here, we shall surely be formed by the world around us. I am persuaded of this, and the more so as I look back and think of early days amongst us, when some can remember that the reproach of Christ was a thing gloried in; and now, when I look around, I see the great assimilation to the world that is coming in. What a contrast!
Surely it is for us to be refusing citizenship in this world; refusing a country, a home here. It is then God can say: I am not ashamed to be linked with those people; not ashamed to be called their God. And in the day that is coming we shall share in His throne as His companions His bride, partakers of His glory for ever.
Food for the Flock 8:330-337 (1882).