The Relation of Bible Study to the Perennial Revival

There are two ways of rendering John 5: 39 — the King James Version: “ Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me “; and the Revised Version: “Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me.” A study of the original text compels the conviction that the King James Version has much in its favor. The words of Jesus are more likely a command than an affirmation, and so furnish a starting-point for what shall be said in this chapter.

It may be a relief to some people to know that just now that command of Jesus has no formidable opponent. A late pope did the extraordinary thing of blessing Bible study. At the very time when Romanists in Chili were engaged in burning Bibles, the great “Head of the Church” beside the Tiber was pronouncing his blessing upon Scripture study, calling for at least a quarter of an hour each day for this special exercise. To the Protestant world this announcement brought special joy, since they knew the privilege — the unspeakable spiritual privilege — which it would bring to that great body of people, who by pope and priests have been kept in crass ignorance of God’s revealed will. To Romanist it is both gladness and grace since such a privilege contains the promise of that intelligent and spiritual progress which has characterized Bible students in all ages. Some of us are little concerned, from a personal standpoint, as to what the pope says upon such a subject, since we do not receive our orders from him, or regard with any special esteem his boast of authority. But it is of the utmost concern that our Lord himself — the soul’s true Master — should say, “Search the Scriptures,” for he spake with authority. His every wish ought to be our will; his every word is the Christian’s clear command. It is to be supposed also that our Saviour understood the intimate relation between searching the Scriptures and all those blessings expressed by the biblical words “salvation” and “sanctification.”

In order to elucidate our theme, we propose three questions:

What Are the Scriptures?

Joseph Parker says, “As for defining what is meant by ’ the word of God, we must remember that there is no definition. No man can define God, or truth, or life, or love; they are original and undefinable terms.” True, and yet there are some things said in the Scriptures concerning themselves that go far toward the answering of this question. As a man knows his own motive better than his neighbor can, as the rays of light tell the story of the sun, so the Holy Spirit — the author of the word — can answer, and, we believe, has answered the question, “What are the Scriptures?” Then let us be silent while he speaks to us concerning the Scriptures by their own sacred texts. In other words, what say they of themselves?

They claim to he God’s inspired word. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,” or, “Every scripture — God-inspired.” There is a vast difference of opinion as to what this means. But when one hears God promise to be with Moses’ “mouth,” and hears Moses affirm that he gave to the people only that which God had given him; when one hears David saying: “The Spirit of the Lord Spake by me, and his word was in my tongue “; when one hears Isaiah say that the angel cleansed his lips with a coal, that the words of God might be taken upon them; he becomes convinced as to what the word of God means. When one listens to the major prophets and the minor prophets affirming, “The word of the Lord came unto us,” his conviction of inspiration deepens. When Paul attributes the very words of the Scriptures to the Spirit, remarking,” As the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear his voice,” etc. (Heb. 3:7), and when Peter affirms: “Prophecy came not in old times by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”; he knows at least the opinion of the most prominent apostles. But when Jesus adds his testimony that “ God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets “(Luke I: 70), it would seem past dispute. For our part we join heartily with Charles Spurgeon in saying: “The Bible is the writing of the living God. Each letter was penned with an almighty finger; each word in it dropped from the everlasting lips; each sentence was dictated by the Holy Spirit. Albeit Moses was employed to write the histories with his fiery pen, God guided that pen. It may be that David touched his harp, and let sweet psalms of melody drop from his fingers, but God moved his hands over the living strings of his golden harp. Solomon sang canticles of love, and gave forth words of consummate wisdom, but God directed his lips, and made the preacher eloquent. If I follow the thundering Nahum, when the horses plow the waters; or Habakkuk, when he sees the tents of Cushan in affliction; if I read Malachi, when the earth is burning like an oven; if I turn to the smooth page of John, who tells of love; or the rugged chapters of Peter, who speaks of fire devouring God’s enemies; if I turn aside to Jude, who launches forth anathemas upon the foes of God, everywhere I find •God Speaking; it is God’s voice, not man’s; the words are God’s words, the words of the Eternal, the Invisible, the Almighty, the Jehovah of ages. This Bible is God’s Bible; and when I see it I seem to hear a voice springing up from it, saying, * I am the Book of God; study my page, for I was penned by God; love me, for he is my author, and you will see him visible and manifest everywhere.’”

They claim to he God’s power of salvation. It was of the Old Testament Paul wrote to Timothy, reminding him of the fact that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures, “which,” Paul adds, “ are able to make you wise unto salvation “(2 Tim. 3: 15). It was of the Old Testament Christ must have been speaking when he said: “Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.” It was of his own preaching he remarked: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6: 63). On another occasion he declares: “Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man keep my sayings he shall never see death.” Paul also, in Romans i: 16, writes regarding that portion of the Scriptures known as “the gospel “: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” When the faithful few are asked by their Lord, whether they also would turn back from following him, Peter responds, “Lord to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6: 68).

They also claim to he God’s eternal revelation. The Master himself said, “The scripture cannot be broken “(John 10: 35). And again,” Verily I say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” He reaffirmed, therefore, the language of Psalm 117: 2, “The truth of the Lord endureth forever.” We meet not a few people who seem to agree with Rollo Ogden that the battle has gone against the Bible as the world’s only great literature. Some would even advance beyond his position and claim that the battle has gone against it as inspired literature. It is not long since Dr. Lyman Abbott was delighting the satellites of a certain great university by declaring the old theory of Bible inspiration doomed. But Theodore Parker is dead; and the Bible lives! Why be greatly concerned for Abbott’s speech? This book has been able to make good its claim of “ an enduring revelation “; the plain people who have familiarized themselves with its pages, and the humble students among our great scholars, have no fear that it is about to pass away. With Dr. John Cummings they remember that “The empire of the Caesars is gone; the legions of Rome are moldering in the dust; the avalanches that Napoleon hurled upon Europe have melted away; the pride of the Pharaohs is fallen; the pyramids they raised to be their tombs are sinking every day in the desert sands; Tyr is a rock for bleaching fishermen’s nets; Sidon has scarcely left a rock behind; but the word of God still survives. All things which threatened to extinguish it have only aided it; and it proves every day how transient is the noblest monument that man can build, how enduring is the least word that God has spoken. Tradition has dug for it a grave; intolerance has lighted for it many a faggot; many a Judas has betrayed it with a kiss; many a Peter has denied it with an oath; many a Demas has forsaken it; but the word of God still endures.” This prepares us only the better for our second question:

Why Search the Scriptures?

One would not think of attempting all the possible answers to this question. Let us make mention of a few of the more important ones.

First, search the Scriptures, because they are the world’s best literature. Even the critics would confess that Moses had no match; that David was the greatest literary light of his times, competent to pass upon all the literature then existing. David affirms concerning the Scriptures, with which he was familiar, that they had made him wiser than his enemies, that they gave him more understanding than his teachers, and endued him with wisdom above the ancients. (Ps. 119: 98-100.) Of recent men of literature, who is more highly regarded than Ruskin? Think of his words: “I opened my oldest Bible just now... yellow with age, and flexible, but not unclean, with much use, except that the lower corners of the pages at chapter seven of the first book of Kings, and chapter eight of Deuteronomy are worn somewhat thin and dark, the learning of these two chapters have caused me much pain. My mother’s list of chapters with which, every syllable learned accurately, she established my soul in life, has fallen out of it, as follows: * Exodus 15 and 20; 2 Samuel 1,5, 17 to the end; i Kings 8; Psalms 23, 32, 90, 103, 112, 119, 139; Proverbs 2, 3, 8, 12; Isaiah 58; Matthew 5, 6, 7; Acts 26 1 Corinthians 13, 1 5; James 4; Revelation 5 and 6.’ And truly though I have picked up the elements of a little further knowledge ... in mathematics, meteorology, and the like, in afterlife, and I owe not a little to the teachings of many people, this maternal installation of my mind in that property of chapters I count very confidently the most precious and, on the whole, the one essential part of my education.”

It is one of those blunders that public sentiment will not much longer brook, that the Bible has been cast out of public institutions of learning through the influence of Rome. If that late pope’s enunciation has not made its restoration possible, the very demands of scholarship will eventually reinstate that volume which Walter Scott describes “the only book “; and of which Theodore Parker was compelled to admit, “ It is the purest fertilizing stream that ever flowed through our desert world.” Huxley, the agnostic, you will remember, said, “It is indispensable to a sound ethical education.” And better men have more lately declared that it is absolutely necessary to the first attainments of literary knowledge. When one compares the Bible with other books, he appreciates the occasion of Lorimer’s language: “All others are as stars in comparison with the sun, as the cold luster of the pole in comparison with the brilliancy of the tropics, as the opaque whiteness of the pearl in comparison with the transparent beauty of the diamond.”

Again, search the Scriptures, because they are worthy of more than a superficial study. There are not a few people to-day, who, mainly for social reasons, skim over every new volume, and skip through every monthly received at the public library. Their purpose is to shine in society and insure for themselves a cheap reputation. No one seriously objects, since, after all, many of these books and magazine articles are not worthy deep research and serious meditation. But who shall say the Scriptures ought to be so regarded? When Jesus said, ‘^ Search the scriptures,” he emphasized their value! The woman with the lighted candle searched her house because the lost coin was a valuable one; Laban searched Jacob’s tent because he believed his gods to be there; the Berean brethren rightly estimated the Old Testament, and so when they heard Paul and Silas in their synagogue, “ They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Paul put his approval upon this method of Scripture reading when he wrote to Timothy: “Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.”

If we are to have the wisdom of the word, it will come only as a result of diligent search. One who had watched Robert M’Cheyne read his Bible declared that he pored over its pages just exactly as a money-hunter might search through sands known to contain gold nuggets, and ever and anon brought up from the depths of Scripture some marvelous find which seemed to delight his soul, as the Kohinoor rejoiced the heart of the finder.

Search the Scriptures also, because they throw light on life’s pathway. The characteristic of the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm is its many references to the intrinsic worth of the word. You recall how the author says: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path “; and again,” The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.’’ Other books may make contribution to the solution of life’s problems, but this book provides a perfect explanation of the same. As Doctor Behrends remarked: “It is light. It is the sun of the soul, ministering illumination and inspiration. It is represented as the fixed and immovable center of divine truth, ’ forever settled in heaven. It provides the basis of an infallible certainty; just as the sun, by its invisible but constant and efficient energy secures the stability of the planetary system.’”

Those who have read the Life of A. J. Gordon will recall what he said concerning the sufficiency of the Scriptures to accomplish Christian character. In speaking of the Puritan family whence he was descended, Gordon says: “We recall especially one old grandmother, hid away on a back farm with but two books, the Bible and Bunyan, who tended and nurtured a spiritual life fairly efiflorescent in its devotion, its sweetness, its humility. In extreme age interest in the Lord’s work never dimmed. Often did her grandson, coming back to the old home in the summertime, marvel at the depths, the richness, the fulness of this hidden life.” And yet there was no occasion for his marvel when one remembers what springs of life are open in this sacred volume.

Again, the Scriptures declare the light of another world. It is the only revelation we have of the life to come; the only picture of that heaven which is to be our home. Man’s longing for another existence is an argument for his immortality; but the sacred Scriptures stand alone in their revelation of that life. Jesus Christ also impressed the men and women, with whom he was in intimate association, that he was fresh from heaven; when he spake of it, it was as a traveler talks of the house from which he had come but yesterday, to the joy and love of which he would return to-morrow. To Jesus heaven was “my Father’s house.” The “mansions” were the work of his hands, pictured for the consolation and light of his own sadness and of the disciples’ suffering. Those words were in perfect accord with all the Scriptures have said concerning the same. The outlines of the Old Testament are embodied in the New. We look not only on “houses not made with hands,” on mansions — a multitude, but on “the holy city coming down from God out of heaven” — a city that lieth foursquare; a city that exceeds in splendor the wildest flights of the human imagination, and in size the combined cities of ten thousand thousand such worlds as ours. Such a city the Scriptures declare to be our eventual home. If a man will keenly read a will, and earnestly study its every sentence to discover what his inheritance is, why should a people, knowing the instrument which describes and bequeaths to them everlasting possession, neglect its study?

Within a few years past the magazines of the land have made Helen Keller well known to the whole wide world. As men have read the writings of this genius they have not been able to understand how one shut out from the whole world by deafness, dumbness, and blindness, having no medium of communication save through the touch, could ever have thought and written as she thinks and writes. I often wonder how much of her wisdom may come down directly from above as God’s compensation for lost faculties. These beautiful words she spake many years ago: “You know I have lost my loving friend, Bishop Brooks. Oh, it is very hard to bear this great sorrow — hard to believe that I shall never more hold his gentle hand while he tells me about God and love and goodness! Oh, his beautiful words! They come back to me with sweet, new meaning. He once said to me: * Helen, dear child ’ — that is what he always called me — “we must trust our heavenly Father always, and look beyond our present pain and disappointment with a hopeful smile.’ And in the midst of my sorrow I seem to hear his glad voice say: ‘Helen, you SHALL see me again in that beautiful world we used to talk about in my study. Let not your heart be troubled.’ Then heaven seems very near, since a tender, loving friend awaits us there.” Yes, the grass withereth; this world passeth, but God’s heaven is, and his heaven abides.

Who Shall Search the Scriptures?

This question could be answered in the language of the small boy’s petition, “everybody in this world.” Such an answer would save us the trouble of specifying, but also deny us the advantage of the specifying process. There are three or four classes upon whose study of the Scriptures the perennial revival is dependent.

First of all, those who profess to teach their truths. When Jesus said, “Search the scriptures,” he was face to face with Pharisees who prided themselves upon their knowledge of the word. Hillel had died in the days of Christ’s boyhood, and the Jews boasted a flaming knowledge of the Scriptures as a result of his influence. They reckoned some of those who were then members of the Sanhedrin as the bulwarks of their wisdom and the glory of their law. They had a common saying, “He that has the words of the law has eternal life.” And yet Christ called upon them to “search the scriptures” that they might do better than merely know parts of it by rote; that they might see its hidden meaning and understand its spiritual significance!

The reputed teachers of this hour are equally in need of the Master’s word. We do not object that the theological seminaries of this country glorify Greek and Latin; that they lay stress upon the preparation and delivery of discourse; that they demand hard study for history, sacred and profane, and emphasize theology, dogmatic and systematic; but we would have them insist upon the earnest study of God’s word in one’s mother tongue. It is but a short time since Doctor Strong, of Rochester, speaking of the young theological students of that seminary, said: “Almost all of them are college graduates, and they are men of good natural intelligence. Yet I have been pained to find in many of these cases that their relation of experience makes no mention either of sin or of Christ. The two foci of the Christian ellipse they seem to be ignorant of.” What is this but a result of indifference to Scripture study on the part of teachers? Those at whose feet these young men have sat, in the churches whence they came, have too often essayed to be critics of the word rather than instructors in the same. This has come about, not only because the assumption of the attitude of the critic is supposed by superficial thinkers to be equal with scholarship, but because the preacher himself finds it easier to rehash the opinions of these so called learned men than to sound the depths and explore the heights of the sacred word. But the future of the church in its relations to the perennial revival is further mortgaged by the fact that all theological seminaries are not correcting, for their students, this sad deficiency. It is a dark day for the Bible, and that evangelism which is ever dependent upon the same, when theological seminaries adopt as a text-book the writing of some such man as against the plain teachings of Scripture. It is in vain to instruct men in the speculations of the uninspired, and expect them in turn to teach the people the Holy Scriptures. If Jesus were back in the world to-day and were preparing afresh his disciples for their work, he would have equal occasion to emphasize the words, “Search the scriptures.” Paul, in writing to the Galatians, said, “Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.” The minister is the one man concerning whom inquirers ought to be compelled to say, as Nicodemus did to his Master, “We know that thou art a teacher come from- God.” Joshua I: 8 contains the motto for the modern Bible training school: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written herein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Is it any marvel that many a modern product of the seminary is failing, when Sunday after Sunday he stands before his people and speaks what he calls a sermon, which, when it appears in print, is found to contain but a single reference to the Scripture, and that the text?

F. B. Meyer says: “I shall never forget seeing Charles Studd early one November morning, clothed in flannels to protect him from the cold, and rejoicing that the Lord had awakened him at 4 a. m. to study the word. He told me then that it was his custom to trust the Lord to call him and enable him to rise.” It is little wonder that Studd succeeded in showing men the way of life when he gave so much of his time to searching the Scriptures. ,Would-be teachers of these truths should do one of two things; either familiarize themselves with them, work their way into the wealth of them, look down into the depths of them, or else step aside and let those fill their places who are willing to pay the price for Scripture knowledge — the price that Paul named to Timothy.

Every saved man should study the Scriptures. The revival for which we pray depends in no small measure upon Scripture-instructed laymen. Philip was able quickly to lead the Ethiopian to the Lord, and speedily into the baptismal waters, because he was so well acquainted with the Book. It is doubtful whether his ability to preach so that “the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which he spake” and Samaria enjoyed a great revival, is to be regarded beyond that which he displayed when he sat beside the Ethiopian and, by the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, showed him the way of salvation. To raise up a generation of such men is to gospelize the age. Bible classes, instructed by masters of the word, and Bible training-schools, presided over by men who know the book — these are the demands of the hour for our Master’s cause!

And yet again, the sinner should study the Scriptures. The very difficulty of the present-day revival, temporary or perennial, is in that lack of Bible knowledge which is coming more and more to characterize the unregenerate in the community. Our fathers preached to the descendants of the Puritans — a Bible-instructed public. Their sermons were not, therefore, delivered in an unknown tongue. Their unregenerate auditors were able to say concerning the sermons, saturated with Scripture references, what the people at Pentecost remarked: “We hear every man in our own languaige wherein we were born.” With no Bible in the public schools; with no family altar in a majority of so-called Christian homes; with critics of the word in so many pulpits, the prophecy of Amos has approached literal fulfilment: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, and shall not find it.”

Go into your great universities and put a few questions of the simplest and most straightforward kind to the students, and you will soon find what they know of the Scriptures; go into your high schools, and into the graded schools and repeat the same, and it will be easy to realize why men are so hard to reach; why even the young seem no longer susceptible to the truths of God’s word. Dr. L. W. Munhall is authority for the following: *’ In an eighth-grade room in a Minneapolis public school, where the pupils were reading Evangeline, they were asked to tell the meaning of the lines,

And crowed the cock, with the selfsame Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.

Twenty-two answers were submitted, and only one was correct.” “A freshman class in English in an Indiana college was recently assigned the book of Job as the subject for an essay. During the following week the librarian had several calls for the ‘Book of Job,’ the applicant in each instance stating that he could not find it at any of the bookstores.” “In the Northwestern University, a Methodist school, ninety-six men and women, mostly from the higher classes, were examined. Thirtysix could not define the Pentateuch. Forty did not know the book of Jude was in the New Testament. Thirty-three could not name the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Fifty-one could not name one of the judges. Forty-nine could not name three kings of Israel. Forty- four could not name three prophets. Twenty could not write a beatitude. Sixty-five could not write a verse from Romans. For judges they named Solomon, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Lazarus. For the prophets they named Matthew, Luke, Herod, and Ananias.”

It was easy to lead the Ethiopian to the Lord Christ because he was a student of the Scriptures. Philip found him immersed in the gospel of Isaiah. To bring back Scripture study is to make soul-winning easy. Doctor Behrends has sagely remarked: “Salvation is the burden of Scripture. Everything else is subordinate. Scripture discloses the nature, the necessity, the source, the conditions, the means, the present and future fruits of eternal life. I am not to go to them for chronology, nor for science, nor even for my history, but to be made wise unto salvation. That is the path upon which their light was made and meant to shine. And upon that path no other light does shine.” The problem, then, in the perennial revival, is in great part, at least, the problem of bringing the whole public back to an earnest study of the book.