Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

We agree with you in saying, “I recognize the voice of Jesus alone in His Word.” Where else could we hear it? It is upon that blessed Word we are cast for everything. It is the solid foundation on which faith reposes. We want nothing else to give us full assurance but His faithful Word. No outward evidence, no inward feeling can possibly add to the truth and stability of the Word. How do I know I am a sinner? By the Word. How do I know that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners? By the Word. How do I know that my sins are forgiven? Is it by my feelings? No, but by the Word. That Word tells me that “Christ has once suffered for sins.” But how do I know He suffered for my sins? Because the Word says, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” I know I am “unjust” because the Word tells me so. Hence Christ suffered for my sins and I am forgiven according to the effectiveness of Christ’s atoning suffering. I am brought to God according to the virtue and value of the Person and work of Christ. “He was delivered for my offenses and raised again for my justification.” Thus, “being justified by faith, I have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Dear friend, you must lean like a little child on the Word. True, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit we believe in and feed upon the Word, but the Word is the solid foundation on which your precious soul must ever rest. May all your doubts and fears vanish in the pure and precious light of that Word which is “settled forever in heaven!”

You know from where such an infidel thought proceeds. It is from the father of lies. Treat it as such. Judge it and reject it utterly. It seems strange that after knowing the Lord for 40 years, you should even for a moment be troubled by the suggestion of one whom you know to be “a liar from the beginning.” Ask a poor ignorant man how he knows the sun shines. Ask a simple believer how he knows the Bible is the Word of God. He will tell you he has felt its power. Has not the Holy Spirit given you to feel the power of the Word of God? If God cannot make me know that it is He who speaks to me in His Word, who else can?

Were we merely to believe in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures from human testimony — be that testimony ever so powerful — it would not be faith at all. I believe what God says because He says it, not because of any human authority. If all the fathers who ever wrote, all the doctors who ever taught, all the councils that ever sat, all the angels in heaven and all the saints upon earth, were to agree in declaring the Bible is the Word of God and we were to believe on their testimony, it would not be divinely-given faith. On the other hand, were all to agree in declaring the Bible is not the Word of God, it could not for a moment shake our confidence in that peerless revelation. Fling back, dear friend, at once into the enemy’s teeth his foul and blasphemous suggestion and rest like a little child in the love and truth of that blessed One whom you have known for so many years.

We have not seen the book to which you refer, and judging from the extract which you have sent us, we have no desire to see it. We heartily and reverently believe in the absolute inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, given of God in the Hebrew and Greek languages. No doubt errors are found in various versions, copies and translations. We speak only of the Scriptures as given of God.

Oh, dear friend, what an unspeakable comfort to have a divine revelation! What should we do, where should we run if we were left to men’s thoughts on the subject? What a poor affair it would be for us if we had to look to men to accredit the Word of God! They would very soon rob us of its authority and value. What impudent presumption for poor worms of the earth to dare to sit in judgment upon the Word of God, to pronounce upon what is and what is not worthy of God! If God cannot make us understand His Word, if He cannot give us the assurance that it is He Himself who speaks to us in Holy Scriptures, what are we to do? Can man manage the matter better? If God cannot make us understand His Word, no man can; if He does, no man need. We should earnestly counsel you, dear friend, to fling aside all such books, however highly commended.

Sadly, it seems to be the fashion today, in quarters where we should least expect it, to commend in most glowing terms all sorts of infidel books and blasphemous attacks upon the Word of God and the Person of Christ. We judge it to be a very great mistake indeed for Christians to read such books, unless they are called and fitted of God to expose them. Would you read a book entitled, “A treatise seeking to prove that two and three do not make five?” We hardly think you would. If God has graciously given you to rest by faith upon His eternal Word, what more do you want? Infidel books cannot help you. God is His own interpreter in Scripture as well as in providence. Would you think of turning to some skeptical or rationalistic book to help you in the solution of the mysteries of God’s government? We trust not. Then why turn to such for a judgment as to inspiration? We cannot refrain from quoting for you that magnificent passage in 2 Timothy 3: “And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works.”

We greatly fear, dear friend, you were not under the cover of the shield of faith while reading this book of which you speak, but we earnestly pray that your precious soul may be enabled to fling off with calm decision any dark and skeptical suggestions which may be troubling you and to return to the eternal stability of divine revelation. God grant it in His infinite mercy.

The inspired Volume carries its own credentials with it. It speaks for itself. It comes to us with an overwhelming body of evidence, both internal and external. The Apocrypha, on the contrary, carried its own condemnation. It contains passages which you have only to read to be convinced that they were never inspired by the Spirit of God. We reject it on the ground of evidence, both internal and external.

The word in 1 Corinthians 11:2 should be rendered “traditions” or “directions.” The apostle does not specify what they were, but thank God, we know that whatever ordinances, traditions or directions are essential for the Church to the end of time, are clearly laid down in the Scriptures of the New Testament. This is quite enough for us. Men have no authority whatever to set up rites and ceremonies in the Church of God; their doing so can only be regarded by every heart loyal to Christ as a daring usurpation of His authority which He will most assuredly judge before long.

We feel increasingly impressed, dear friend, with a sense of the urgent need of testing everything by the Word of God and of rejecting whatever cannot stand the test. It is not only deeply sorrowful, but most solemn to mark the way in which the authority of Christ as laid down in His precious Word is virtually set aside by those who profess to be His people and His servants. It never seems to occur to people that they are really responsible before God to judge by the light of His Word, the various things in which they are engaged. Hence they go on from week to week and year to year with a whole host of things having not a shadow of foundation in Holy Scripture. How appalling to think of the end of all this! It will not be with a scourge of small cords that all these things will be driven out of the temple! May God the Holy Spirit arouse by His mighty ministry, the whole Church to a more profound sense of the supreme authority and all-sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures!

May all the Lord’s dear people be kept from the spirit of the age! We want to cultivate a truly humble contrite spirit, a spirit of lowly obedience, a spirit which shall lead us to bow down with unreserved submission to the authority of Holy Scripture. “It is written” is a sentence of commanding power. It is a sentence uttered by our blessed Lord and Master at the opening of His public career and referred to again and again in the course of His marvelous ministry. It was reiterated with solemn emphasis to His disciples as He was about to pass into the heavens. May this weighty sentence be engraved on the tablets of our hearts!

If we were asked to state what we consider to be the one grand need of the day in which our lot is cast, we would say without hesitation, we want to give the Word of God its true place as the basis of our individual peace and the sole and all-sufficient authority for our individual path. Let us unite, beloved friend, in earnest prayer to our God that He will give us grace so to do, to the praise of His holy name.

The End