The Bible claims inspiration, not in one part alone, but throughout its length and breadth, not once, but many times, not by one method but by several. If it be not inspired, then it is built upon a foundation of blasphemous falsehood, and is an utterly infamous book. On the other hand, if it is inspired, then the teachings of the Modernists are wicked and blasphemous. The only softening of this indictment can be made as to the Modernists, but none as to their teaching. In many cases, we trust, Modernists, when they get their eyes open to the tremendous mistake they have made, will be able to say with the apostle Paul, who had persecuted the church of God, " Nevertheless, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief " (1 Tim. 1:1313Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. (1 Timothy 1:13)).
There is a cry being made to-day, Back from the Bible to Christ. It is utterly illogical to think that we can have Christ apart from the Bible. Where should we have any knowledge of Christ save through the Bible by His Spirit? We can only know His Name through His Word.
Now wonder that David could exclaim:-"Oh how I love Thy law! it is my meditation all the day." (Psa. 119:9797MEM. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. (Psalm 119:97)).
In that long psalm of 176 verses, there are only two verses that do not refer to God's Word under the names of "law," "commandments," "precepts" "testimonies," "word," "judgments." Does this not show how precious and important is God's Word?
The apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, says:- "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." (2 Tim. 3:1616All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2 Timothy 3:16)).
This shows what Paul thought of the Old Testament at any rate, and it covers, we believe, equally the New Testament as we have it today.
The Pentateuch informs us some 630 times that the subject matter was spoken by Moses, very many times with the formula "Thus saith the Lord." The New Testament states over and over again the truth as to Moses' authorship of the Pentateuch. Did not our Lord refer to the Old Testament Scriptures as inspired when He spoke to the two disciples going to Emmaus: " And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself " (Luke 24:2727And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27))? And again, He said "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning Me " (v. 44). Moreover, did He not quote Scripture as authoritative and final, when He repelled Satan in the temptation in the wilderness? Thrice quoting from Deuteronomy, He struck
Satan a blow from which he recoiled a defeated foe when He said. "It is written " (Matt. 4:4, 7, 104But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
7Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. (Matthew 4:7)
10Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4:10)). Did He not put the question, "Have ye not read?" (Matt. 19:44And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, (Matthew 19:4)), when He quoted Scripture as authoritative, upholding, too, the story of Eve's creation and her presentation to Adam as a helpmeet?
Again, He put the question, Have ye not read? (Matt. 22:3131But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, (Matthew 22:31)) this time to assert His belief in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as real personages, and as upholding the truth of the survival of man's spirit after death. Again, Have ye never read? (Matt. 21:1616And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? (Matthew 21:16)), He asked, quoting Psa. 8 as a final court of appeal. Again He asked, " Did ye never read in the Scriptures?" quoting Psa. 118:2222The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. (Psalm 118:22). Once more in one speech He twice asked the Pharisees, Have ye not read? firstly quoting from 1 Sam. 21:66So the priest gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there but the showbread, that was taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away. (1 Samuel 21:6), and secondly, from the law of Moses, as authoritative. Again, how crushing are the words of Christ: "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 5:46, 4746For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. 47But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (John 5:46‑47)). He thus put the writings of Moses on a level with His own words, which could only be true of them, if Moses was inspired. The Modernist says Moses did not write the Pentateuch, and that either Christ was ignorant as to who wrote it, or stooped to conform to a false tradition. How terrible!
Last, but not least, the Lord said, "Till heaven and earth shall pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." The "jot" or "yod" is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, whilst the tittle is the little horn or point which distinguishes one letter from another very alike, so that inspiration is here claimed for even a single letter and even a part of a letter.
Thus we find the Lord claiming full and plenary inspiration for the Scriptures. If He was mistaken, then we have a fallible Christ, and if He was fallible, Christianity is utterly worthless, nay, the greatest deception practiced on the credulity of mankind.
To have known better, and yet to have affirmed inspiration when it was not a true claim, would have branded Him as the worst of men, for the claim is of such a lofty nature, that if it is true, we can build on an infallible foundation, if it is not true, the claim would be blasphemous in the extreme.
Could any book in the world answer to such a test of design as the following?
The Pentateuch gives us the FIGURES of Christ.
The Psalms give us the FEELINGS of Christ.
The Prophets give us the FORETELLINGS of Christ.
The Gospels give us the FACTS of Christ.
The Epistles give us the FRUITS of Christ.
Remember, too, the Bible is a collection of no less than sixty-six books, and yet it presents a connected whole, as witness the above statement. This proves the Bible to be the product of one mind.
Daniel's prophecy of the great four world-empires that should arise could only be given by inspiration. No man could possibly have foreseen the happening, of centuries, only God could have done that, so that Daniel must have been inspired.
The greatest prophecies in the Scripture are those relating to Christ. The late Canon Liddon used to say that there were over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the birth and life and death of Christ, and all had been fulfilled. This stands absolutely unique in the literature of the world. When different authors in different centuries can thus prophesy, and the prophecies all pieced together unite in making a prophetic history of Christ, which came true in its entirety without exception, we can have no doubt as to its inspiration.
When the Book of Revelation threatens judgment on any who add to or take away from the words of the prophecy of that book, we confess that it puts the Higher Critic and Modernist in a very unenviable position. The Book of Revelation claims verbal inspiration when it lays such stress on the words of the prophecy of this book.
What a test the Bible gives us, " By their fruits ye shall know them." The untold blessing of the Bible in countless lives, its influence in lifting man out of the degradation of heathendom, emancipating him from superstition, and preserving him from the corruption of his own heart, is what the Bible and the Bible alone in all the literature of the world has done. The Bible is indeed a tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. Is this not a supreme test of its inspiration by God?
Professor Huxley, a thorough-going agnostic, wrote:- " I have always been in favor of secular education without theology; but I must confess that I have been seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of moral conduct, is to be kept up in the present chaotic state of opinion on these matters without the use of the Bible."
What a testimony!
The well-known author, the late H. G. Wells, some time ago wrote an article entitled, " The Salvaging of Civilization." In it he pointed out that civilization is in a very critical state. He saw that there are strong forces and tendencies at work, which, if not checked and controlled, will bring about the utter destruction of human society. Russia and Germany are lurid examples of what is feared. And what is Mr. Wells' remedy for this appalling state of things? He wrote,- " We want a Bible, and want it badly."
When an outspoken disbeliever in the only Bible there is, or ever will be, makes a confession like this, it is very significant.
What a tremendous testimony to the power of the Bible! When an enemy praises it, it is praise indeed. Job of old cried out, "Oh!... that mine adversary had written a book. Surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown upon me " (ch. 31:35, 36), so sure was he, that, if it spoke the truth, it would prove to be his greatest vindication.
So with Mr. H. G. Wells and the Bible. He admits:- "The wonder of its influence over the lives and minds of men." "It is the Book that has held together the fabric of Western Civilization." "The civilization we possess could not have come into existence, and could not have been sustained, without it." "It has been the handbook of life to countless millions of men and women. It has explained the world to the mass of our people... has given them moral standards and a form into which their conscience could work."
Can a tithe of this, a millionth part of this, be said about any other book? The handbook of life to countless millions! The origin of our Western Civilization and its sustainment! If this be so, why did Mr. Wells sigh for a new Bible? Surely he should have enough discernment to see that what is needed to-day is not a new Bible, but a revival of the authority of the old Bible in the minds of men.
Alas! it is just the efforts of the Higher Critics and of such as Mr. Wells, that are responsible for the present state of affairs. They are like house-breakers, who are foolish enough to break down the foundations and who are alarmed at the prospect of being killed beneath the collapse of the superstructure.
Alas! all this destructive criticism beginning in Germany has spread into Great Britain and America, and has worked its way insidiously, till nearly all the professors of theology are saturated with it, and engaged in filling the minds of their ordinands with its destructive speculations. They in their turn, when appointed clergy and ministers, pass it on to their congregations, and thus the apostasy is helped on.
We were recently much struck by a wise remark. The writer, a firm believer in verbal inspiration, a scholar, too, the Rev. Adolph Saphir, urged his readers to judge the Bible as a whole. Infidels take up small points, and believe they get a discrepancy here and a contradiction there, and because of a fancied flaw in a gem of priceless worth they fling the whole away.
Little do they care about the majesty, the elevation, the power, the proofs of inspiration glittering on every page, but they dwell upon some little objection, often with the fierceness of a little mind that hates God and the truth. We plead for a sane, reverent outlook in connection with the Word of God, though we believe it to be inerrant in every small detail.
Finally, the Scripture puts its finger on the spot where the difficulty lies, when it says that "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2:1414But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)).
How often have we been painfully struck in studying "Peake's Commentary on the Bible" by the patent fact that the writers had no conception whatever of the spiritual meaning of the Scriptures they were criticizing, and that their statements did not show up the Bible's "internal inconsistencies" and "intrinsic incredibilities," but the crass ignorance of the writers. They looked with the eyes of "the natural man" and misread the beautiful Bible teaching to their own confusion, did they but know it.
We believe the true attitude towards the Scriptures was expressed by one who, in intellect and scholarship, was not one whit behind any we have named, and in spiritual insight and gift far beyond them-the late John Nelson Darby. He wrote with the humility that ever betokens a really great mind:- "I beg to avow, in the fullest, clearest, and distinctest manner here, my deep, divinely-taught conviction of the inspiration of the Scriptures. That is, while of course, allowing, if need be, for defect in the translation and the like, when I read the Bible, I read it as of absolute authority for my soul as God's Word. There is no higher privilege than to have communications direct from God Himself.... My joy, my comfort, my food, my strength, for near thirty years, have been the Scriptures received implicitly as the Word of God. In the beginning of that period, I was put through the deepest exercise of soul on that point. Did heaven and earth, the visible church, and man himself, crumble into nonentity, I should, through grace, since that epoch, hold to the Word as an unbreakable link between my soul and God. I am satisfied that God has given it me as such. I do not doubt that the grace of the Holy Spirit is needed to make it profitable, and to give it real authority to our souls, because of what we are; but that does not change what it is in itself. To be true when it is received, it must have been true before it was so."
We believe the above extracts present the right attitude towards the Holy Scriptures. They exhibit a mind renewed by God's Holy Spirit, and capable of receiving spiritual enlightenment. What a contrast to the writers of Modernism!
The Bible has likewise extracted homage from the very enemies of the cross.
John Stuart Mill, an avowed atheist, wrote: "Who among His disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings of Jesus, or imagining the life and character ascribed to Him?... Nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, then to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve his life."
Spinoza, described by Bayle as a "systematic atheist," and who probably did more to unsettle the faith of Germany than any other man, and who was one who started the ball of Modernism rolling, said:- "Christ was the temple of God, because in Him He has most fully revealed Himself."
Benjamin Franklin, who certainly did not take the place of a believer, said:- "I think Christ's system of morals and religion, as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see."
Jean Paul Richter said of Christ:- "The holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, lifted with His pierced hand empires off their hinges, turned the stream of civilization out of its channel, and still governs the ages."
Lecky, the infidel historian, tells us:- "Christ has exerted so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortation of moralists."
Disraeli, a Jew by birth, said:- "The wildest dreams of their rabbis have been far exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe and changed its name to Christendom? All countries that refuse the cross wither, and the time will come, when the vast communities and countless myriads of America and Australia, looking upon Europe as Europe now looks upon Greece, and wondering how so small a space could have achieved such great deeds, will find music in the songs of Zion and solace in the parables of Galilee."
Napoleon, who certainly was not a professed Christian, said to his companions in exile at St. Helena:- "I know men; I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man.. Everything in Him astonishes me. Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by Himself. His ideas and His sentiments, the truths which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things. His birth and the history of His life; the profundity of His doctrine, which grapples the mightiest difficulties, and which is of these difficulties the most admirable solution; His Gospel, His apparition, His empire, His march across the ages and the realms; everything is for me a prodigy, a mystery insoluble, which plunges me in reveries I cannot escape; a mystery which is there before my eyes, a mystery which I can neither deny nor explain. Here I see nothing human."
Theodore Parker, a well-known infidel in America, wrote:- "Measure Jesus by the shadow He has cast into the world; no, by the light He has shed upon it. Shall we be told such a man never lived? the whole story is a lie? Suppose that Plato and Newton never lived. But who did their works and thought their thoughts? It takes a Newton to forge a Newton. What man could have fabricated a Jesus? None but a Jesus."
These are just a few remarkable utterances by remarkable men. If the account of Christ from the pens of the four evangelists can produce such thoughts there is every proof that the Book is inspired, and if inspired, all that is said of Christ is true.
These great men said much, but to be logical they should have said more, for if what they say is true, Christ was a good man, the best the world has ever seen, therefore, all the claims for Himself must be true, for a good man could not lend himself to the basest and cruelest deception this world has ever seen, viz., to claim to be God, if He were not. He said:- "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:5858Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. (John 8:58)).
We remember the fervent joy with which a man came to thank us for his deliverance from a system of error which denied the Godhead of the Son of God, and the ecstasy with which he said:- "It was that verse which delivered me, ' And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with thee BEFORE the world was.'" (John 8:5858Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. (John 8:58)).
How true it is that Christ proves the Bible and the Bible proves Christ-an infallible Person and an inspired Book. May we never doubt the One nor the other.