Introductory
What the heart of a fortress is to its outworks and minor defences, that, to the Christian Faith, is the Inspired Word of God — its central stronghold. To give up that, in any measure, is, therefore, in so far, to yield up the whole fortress to the foe.
Infidelity and irreligion seem now to be massing all their united forces for a combined and final assault upon the whole system of Christianity, and there are signs of a subtle, ingenious and Satanic plot to undermine its very foundations by destroying all belief in the supernatural. All intelligent faith in the supernatural rests, ultimately, upon the divine origin, plenary inspiration and infallible authority of the Bible, as the Book of God; and hence, naturally and necessarily, this book becomes the very center both of the attack and the defence.
Such facts at such a crisis constitute a challenge to the believer to examine anew into the whole question whether there be ample evidence of the super-human authorship of this book, carefully to weigh its claims to divine authority, and to determine how far it utters a judgment and verdict from which there is no appeal. In such matters, doubt is disaster, for even an honest misgiving is destructive both of intellectual conviction and moral repose, unsettling, if not undermining, the very basis upon which rests human confidence in the stability of a structure, the like of which never was reared. On the other hand, whatever confirms and establishes faith in the Living Oracles of God correspondingly affects every interest dearest to the believer and to mankind. If intelligent investigation produces certainty of conviction, the results are manifold: the whole history of Christianity for nearly two thousand years is vindicated; fresh force is imparted to all holy living and new nerve is infused into mxodern missions at home and abroad, while such faith in the Bible inspires a grand hope for all coming ages. The remote results are correspondingly grand; for, in proportion as, in this generation, confidence in the Word of God is confirmed, generations, yet unborn, will feel more assured that they have a rock basis for their creed and conduct.
The subject calls for calm, candid, patient investigation. Rhetorical emphasis cannot be made to do duty for rational conviction, invective cannot supply the lack of intelligence, nor can abuse of those who are believed to be in error, take the place of the sound argument that compels conviction and grounds believers in the truth. In a game, he who only stands on the defensive, loses; in battle, victory seldom comes to an army that only hides behind entrenchments; and what is needed for the vindication of Christianity is that we shall not simply be able to hold our own, but to carry the war into the enemy’s territory. Men demand not negations but positions — positive proofs that the Bible is of God, proofs that will bear the searchlight and stand severe tests. It will not do for faith to be indistinguishable from credulity. God never meant that the believer’s confidence in His word should be a blind bigoted assumption of what is unproven, hiding behind ignorance, tradition or superstition. If the Bible be a divine book, it has nothing to fear from rational inquiry. Investigation will issue in vindication, and the more searching the investigation, the more triumphant the vindication.
A few years ago a party of five, roped together, were climbing a precipitous cliff in the Alps. At a critical point in the ascent, the lowermost man lost foothold, and dragged after him the next above, and so on, till the increased strain caused all the party to lose their foothold except the leader, who, driving his axe and alpenstock into the ice, and bracing himself firmly, enabled the man, next below, to regain his footing, and so successively each of the four once more recovered himself, because the foremost man had stood the strain. It is not too much to say that, while the Word of God holds its place firmly in the minds and hearts of men, as God’s own book, inbreathed of the Holy Spirit and to be believed and trusted in every part as a divine guide to doctrine and duty, all that is most precious in our Christian faith and life holds its place in our convictions and confidence; but that, if the Bible loses or loosens its hold upon us as an infallible standard of truth and duty, everything else goes down with it into the same abyss of doubt. For, let it be remembered, the Word of God is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Ghost, of the nature and secrets of all spiritual life; without it we have no authentic history of Jesus the Saviour, no knowledge of the way of salvation, no unfolding of the mystery of Godliness, no clear unveiling of a future life.
It is common, in these days, carelessly to say that, even if the Bible were taken from the believer, he cannot be separated from Christ who, by the Spirit of God, dwells within him; and hence it is argued that, while it is of supreme consequence to possess Christ, it is not needful to be concerned as to whether or not the Word of God be infallibly inspired. This fallacy is too shallow to deceive or mislead a thoughtful disciple; for it by no means follows that, after one has safely reached a secure resting-place, it is of no consequence what becomes of the road thither by which he traveled. Is one to feel no concern for those who are to come after and who will be dependent on finding a plain path to the same goal.? Only a madman or a monster would be indifferent to the obliteration of all the marks, blazed on the trees of a dense forest or dangerous jungle, for the guidance of lost travelers, because he himself had got into the open fields beyond. Were every Bible burned, and the teaching of that Book blotted out from the literature of mankind, how is another soul of man to know with any certainty, of Christ, of salvation by grace, of the Holy Spirit, and of the new birth in Him, of the plan of God for worldwide missions, of Christian stewardship, of the second advent of our Lord, and of the future state with its final awards? For such reasons, among many others, it is first of all needful for all believers to have an intelligent, rational, unshakable confidence in God’s Word as divine in origin, inspired of the Holy Spirit, a safe guide in belief and a sure pattern for practice.
We say an intelligent and reasonable faith. “What do you believe?” asked Whitefield of a Roman Catholic worker in the coal pits of Cornwall. “What the Church believes,” was the answer. “And what does the Church believe?” “What I believe.” “And what do you both believe?” ‘’The same thing.’’
Fides carbonaria — the “colHer’s faith” — has long been ridiculed as a specimen of blind credulity. To believe only what, and only because, others believe, may be perpetuating false teaching, helping on what Cyprian called vetustam erroris — the old age of error.
The Spirit of God enjoins disciples to “be ready always to give an answer to every one that asketh a reason for the hope” that is within them, (i Peter: 111:15.) The more intelligent and reasonable faith is, therefore, the more pleasing and honouring to God, the more helpful to men, and the more restful and forceful to oneself.
The interests of truth demand that we should take even a stronger and more advanced position. The presumption is against the Bible’s claims, rather than in their favour. Every prominent false religion affirms the possession of sacred books, and virtually claims a divine origin; the Word of God, therefore, must vindicate its right to be accepted, while others are rejected, and prove its worthiness to hold the supreme place in man’s confidence as the one unique, incomparable Book of God. It is true that for thousands of years this Book has, by common consent of disciples, been held to be divine; yet even this fact cannot, of itself, establish its right to intelligent acceptance. Every man and woman should so examine for themselves as to know why they receive this one book as entitled to the preeminence in both intellect and heart, swaying thoughts, affections and will.
God has constituted and capacitated human beings to weigh evidence, because He means that they shall use their faculties in ascertaining what is true and false, and what is right and wrong. Man is to weigh, in the scales of the reason, whatever claims allegiance as truth, and subject it to the test of searching scrutiny, that he may separate between truth and falsehood. Then he is to weigh, in the scales of conscience, whatever claims obedience as duty, and try it by the standard of moral excellence, that he may discriminate between right and wrong. What reason approves as true, and conscience sanctions as right, the will is prepared to embrace; for the judgment gives its decision, that such matters are to be held as convictions and followed as practices. Not only does the Bible never avoid or evade such tests, but it challenges men to apply them; courting the severest search, and claiming obedience only when investigation has first established its right to confidence as the authoritative Word of God.
The phrase, “Oracles of God,” occurs four times in the New Testament, and the instances are significant.* Here four things are to be noted: first, they are called “living”; second, they are received from God, and committed in custody to men to be given to others, the fact of such entrustment constituting the supreme “advantage” or privilege of the Jew; third, these oracles contain and inculcate certain “first principles”; and fourth, it is to be the supreme aim of every preacher and teacher to be guided by them in his utterance. These four passages thus furnish an illustration of the way in which the Word of God supplies the reader with a guide to its own interpretation. Here is a body of divine communications or revelations. They are endowed with living and life-giving power, they announce great first principles for our belief and
♦Acts VII: 38. The Living Oracles. Romans iii: 2: Heb. v:12; 1 Peter IV: 11.
practise, and they should control all our speech and conduct in behalf of God.
The lines to be pursued in the following pages are thus laid down at the beginning. Taking for granted that, if the Bible be the Book of God» it contains within itself ample proofs of its divine origin, and satisfactory evidence to support its claims, let it be the joint endeavour of the Vvrriter and the reader to approach the subject with a candid mind and a pure conscience. Both intellectual and moral honesty are first requisites in such a study. The vision of man is binocular. He needs the clear seeing eye of the understanding and the equally unobscured insight of the heart, to read aright the Book of God. The intellectual and moral faculties should be focused upon the Divine Word, if its character and claims are to be intelligently and candidly examined and weighed. With such conditions attending the investigation, two marked results are sure to follow: first, the Bible will not be invested with a false halo, which, as the incense of superstitious worshippers obscures their idol, hinders clearness of vision; and, secondly, whatever be its real character and essential glory, it will be seen and acknowledged. The same law that forbids a blind credulity, prohibits an equally blind prejudice. An honest examination makes it alike impossible to believe without proofs and to “withhold faith when the evidence is adequate. While truth has nothing to fear from the most searching tests, no tests can satisfy him in whom truth is not enthroned. God therefore “desires truth in the inward parts.” Light appears and appeals only to the seeing and open eye.