Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Many are the glowing tributes that are being paid to the Bible in this tercentenary year of the Authorized Version of it. From every point of view it commands admiration, and all classes seem more or less eager to praise it. This, in a sense, is a refreshing change from the persistent attacks that have been made upon it of late years. But the sacred volume stands high above both laudation and blame: its dignity is neither increased nor diminished by what men may say about it. IT IS THE WORD OF GOD — the Word, “quick and powerful,” of the living God; and nothing more needs to be said than that.

All Christians accept the Bible as the Word of God, and if any have doubts on this score their doubts are no part of the Christian faith: they are as some malignant bacteria invading the spiritual constitution of such who doubt, producing debility and moral death there. These questions are the spawn of an imagination which is enmity against God, an imagination darkened by the devil; and though some think, in their pride, that to question that the Scriptures are God-breathed is a sign of vigorous manhood and progress, it is in reality but certain evidence of the mastery that the devil exercises over them, and of the darkness in which he holds them.

If the Bible be held by us who believe to be the Word of God, we shall study it. If it be His communication to us, and we love Him, we shall desire an intimate acquaintance with that which He has communicated, and this can only be gained by diligent reading: hence the importance of the exhortation “give attendance to reading” (1 Timothy 4:13).

But with the reading there must be understanding: our reading would lead to nothing otherwise; and for this there must be meditation: “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them;” “Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things” (1 Timothy 4:15; 2 Timothy 2:7).

But faith must also be brought into exercise with regard to that which is read, for without faith the Word cannot be understood; it must be mixed with faith if we are to profit by it (Hebrews 4:2). And as we appropriate it by faith, as we take it into our very soul, assimilating it as the sincere milk of the Word, we shall be affected by it, it will mould us, and we shall be able to reduce it to practice from day to day. We are to be doers of the Word and not hearers only, it is the doer of the work who is blessed in his deed (James 1:22-25).

These things must go together if we are to truly benefit by this great gift of God to us. It must be read, understood by the understanding of faith, assimilated, and reduced to practice in the energy and power of the Holy Spirit of God.

The Bible – A Divinely Perfect Record

If the only-begotten Son of God, divinely perfect and blessed, came into the world for the eternal blessing of men, it is only fitting that a record of His coming and His words and ways, also divinely perfect and blessed, should be given, that those for whom He came might have a divine and perfect assurance of it. Admit the former and the latter follows in logical sequence. To suppose that God would send His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him, and having done that, allow an imperfect, contradictory human record to be the only record of His life and death here, would be to suppose Him to be guilty of colossal folly. The record must be as perfect in its own sphere as the One whose life and mission it records was perfect in His, or else we have no sure knowledge, no certainty, of the things upon which our soul’s eternal welfare depend.

If the Holy Scriptures are what the critics say they are — mere ancient, human documents, in which are recorded events which the writers did but poorly remember, or which they greatly exaggerated or embellished, if they may be cut and criticized, accepted or rejected, in parts or wholly, then where are we in this matter? The angel’s triumphant declaration that he brought “good tidings of great joy when he announced the birth of Jesus may be a mockery; we cannot be sure that our great Redeemer ever did say, “Come to Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Such wonderful words may have been put into His mouth by one of these imperfect but very imaginative human writers, as Shakespeare put words into the mouths of his characters. Did our Lord really warn men of “the damnation of hell,” and speak those words about the many mansions in His Father’s house? We cannot say unless the record of them is divinely perfect and divinely sure. WE BELIEVE GOD, AND THE WORD OF HIS GRACE, and we are confident that if “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” He would see to it that we should be in no uncertainty about it, else “His unspeakable gift” would have been in vain and none could have said, Thanks be to God for it! The Scriptures are God-breathed; the men who wrote them were moved by the Holy Ghost, they had not the things they wrote from hearsay, or from their own imperfect observation but from the source of all true knowledge — from God Himself. Hence the Lord’s own veritable words are given in the divine records, and in those records they are divinely placed, and there they shine like apples of gold in pictures of silver for our blessing and joy. God be praised who has opened our eyes to see them!