The Bible and Its Christ

The addresses in this book have been delivered to large audiences of business and professional men in cities and large towns in Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Many who have been helped by them have urged me to put them into book form in order that they may be preserved for reference, and that they may be circulated among friends, hence this volume.

In Melbourne the Town Hall was packed with 2500 men of all classes at the noon hour each day to listen to these addresses. In Sydney I am told that in the crowd that thronged the Centenary Hall there were many prominent business men and members of both Houses of the Legislature, who gave up their mid-day meal each day to attend. In Great Britain and Ireland men very prominent in commercial and professional life, a large number of University men, both professors and students, have spoken to me of the help that has come to them from these addresses, not a few having been shaken in their faith by the critical discussions of the present day. Many agnostics, skeptics, Unitarians, and destructive critics have testified publicly to having been led by these lectures to Til viii INTRODUCTION

give up their former erroneous positions. I have been especially encouraged by the number of my brethren in the ministry who have testified in public and private of the help received. I pray that these addresses may be used in this printed form to lead many thousands more out into the light and strength that come from faith in the Bible and in the Christ of the Bible.

The most important question in religious thought is, “Is the Bible the Word of God?” If the Bible is the Word of God, an absolutely trustworthy revelation from God Himself of Himself, His purposes and His will, of man’s duty and destiny of spiritual and eternal realities, then we have a starting-point from which we can proceed to the conquest of the whole domain of religious truth. But if the Bible is not the Word of God, if it is the mere product of man’s thinking, speculating, and guessing, not altogether trustworthy in regard to religious and eternal truth, then we are all at sea, not knowing whither we are drifting, but we may be sure that we are not drifting toward any safe port.

I did not always believe the Bible to be the Word of God. I sincerely doubted that the Bible was the Word of God. I doubted that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. I doubted whether there was a personal God. I was not an infidel — I was a skeptic. I did not deny — I questioned. I was not an atheist — I was an agnostic. I did not know, but I determined to find out. If there was a God, I determined to find that out, and act accordingly. If there was not a God, I determined to find that out, and act accordingly. If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, I determined to find that out, and act accordingly. If Jesus Christ was not the Son of God, I determined to find that out, and act accordingly. If the Bible was the Word of God, I determined to find that out, and act accordingly; and if the Bible was not the Word of God, I determined to find that out, and act accordingly. I found out. I found out beyond a peradventure that there is a God, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that the Bible is the Word of God. To-day it is with me not a matter of mere probability, nor even of mere belief, but of absolute certainty.

I am going to give you some of the reasons why I believe the Bible to be the Word of God. Not all the reasons — it would take months to do that; not even the reasons which are most conclusive to me personally, for these are of such a personal and experimental character that they cannot be conveyed to another. But I will give you reasons that will prove conclusive to any candid seeker after the truth, to anyone who desires to know the truth and is willing to obey it. They will not convince one who is determined not to know the truth, or who is unwilling to obey it. If one will not receive the love of the truth, he must be left to his own deliberate choice of error, and given over to strong delusion to believe a lie. But if one is searching for the truth, no matter how completely he is in the fog to-day, he can be led into the truth.

I believe the Bible to be the Word of God, first of all, because of the testimony of Jesus Christ to that fact. We live in a day in which many men say that they accept the teaching of Jesus Christ, but that they do not accept the teaching of the whole Bible; that they believe what Jesus Christ says, but as to what Moses said, or is said to have said, and what Isaiah said, or is said to have said, and what Jeremiah said, and Paul said, and John said, and the rest of the Bible writers, they do not know about that. This position may at the first glance seem rational, but, in point of fact, it is utterly irrational. If we accept the teaching of Jesus Christ, we must accept the whole Bible, for Jesus Christ has set His stamp of His authority upon the entire Book, and if we accept His authority, we must accept all that upon which He sets the stamp of His authority.

As to Christ’s endorsement of the Old Testament, turn first of all to Mark vii. 13. Jesus has just quoted from the Law of Moses, not merely from the Ten Commandments, but from other portions of the Law of Moses as well. He has set over against the teaching of the Law of Moses the traditions of the Pharisees and Scribes, and in this verse He says, You do make “the Word of God of none effect throughout your tradition.” Here He distinctly calls the Law of Moses the “Word of God.” It is oftentimes said that the Bible nowhere claims to be the Word of God. Here Jesus Christ Himself distinctly asserts that the Law of Moses is the Word of God. If, then, we accept the authority of Jesus Christ, we must accept the Law of Moses as “the Word of God.” Of course this only covers the first five books of the Old Testament, but if we can accept this as the Word of God, we will have little difficulty with the rest of the Old Testament, for it is here that the hottest battle is being fought to-day.

Turn again to Matthew v. 18. Here Jesus says, “Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law until all be fulfilled.” Now every Hebrew scholar knows that a “jot” is the Hebrew character “yodh,” the smallest character in the Hebrew alphabet, less than half the size of any other character in the Hebrew alphabet, and that a “tittle” is a little horn that the Hebrews put on their consonants; and here Jesus asserts that the Law of Moses as originally given is absolutely infallible down to its smallest letter and part of a letter. If, then, we accept the authority of Jesus Christ, we must accept the authority of the Law of Moses as originally given, and as contained in the Old Testament Scriptures.

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