If any word of ours could deepen in the souls of our readers the unspeakable importance of possessing a written revelation from God, we would be truly thankful. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments—consisting of 66 books, and embracing an endless variety of subjects, the work of about 40 different penmen drawn from all classes of society, from the wisest of monarchs down to the unlettered fishermen of Galilee, composed too at different periods during the progress of 16 centuries, and in some cases in places 1000 miles apart, pervaded by One mind, one plan, and characterized throughout by unity of design—are fully inspired of God, and hence their authority is absolute and unquestionable. The authority of the living God is lodged in these divine and imperishable records. The declaration of Scripture on whatever subject must be accepted as the voice and will of God.
The contempt of man has been poured out upon the Scriptures; the power and ingenuity of man have been exerted to their utmost to blot them out of existence; the learning of man has been employed to destroy their divine character; but all has been in vain. Has the accumulated lore of 33 centuries produced one fact contradicting a single statement in the earliest written of all books—the book of Genesis? On the contrary, that venerable document written by Moses on the plains of Moab, in the middle of the fifteenth century before Christ, throws its certain light upon every branch of science and subject to which it refers, and upon every moral question bearing upon man—his present and future.
Fuller light there may be in other portions of the matchless Word of God, but there is as divine certainty in the statements written by Moses, as in the utterances of the Lord Himself (John 5:45-4745Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. 46For 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 5:45‑47)). Believing most firmly in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures—as they came from the hands of the various penmen employed by the Spirit of God—we utterly reject the thought that Bible statements need to be confirmed by human testimony, or that the sacred page needs light from the scientist. "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." Psalm 12:66The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. (Psalm 12:6).
With ever increasing delight we turn to the sacred volume, every page, and line, and word of which were penned by inspiration of God. In these divine records we have unfolded the history of man from paradise to paradise, from the first transgression to its final judgment in the lake of fire, from the tribunal in the garden (Gen. 3) to the judgment throne of eternity (Rev. 20), from eternity, through all time and its vicissitudes, on to eternity.
What a tangled, twisted web, what a mass of complications, what a crowd of unanswered questions, and a multitude of unsolved problems, does the history of man present! But in the Word of God, all is plain, and the mind of man is fully instructed in every theme bearing on his present relation to God, and on those connected with his eternal future. There the true account of creation, the origin and unity of the race and subsequent history, their distribution into nations, their geographical location, their future, whether of judgment or blessing, and kindred subjects of universal interest are clearly unfolded; while the yet more perplexing questions of the ancients, as the existence of sin, the unity and character of God, the ultimate triumph of good; the revelation of heaven, of hell, of eternity, of grace, and of Christ too, are moral questions of supreme moment, satisfactorily and divinely answered by Him who alone could sound the depths of man's utter wretchedness and ruin, and yet disclose in love and righteousness His beloved Son as the Savior of the lost. In the divine volume we have the veil lifted from the historic past and the prophetic future, for with God all is one present. The certain light of inspiration is thrown across the whole history of the race, and we are given to weigh actions and motives, origin and destiny, in the light of God and of eternity. What a book! Truly its author is God!