Romans 15:4

THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE

‘Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.’

Romans 15:4

We are convinced that the value and reality of the Christianity of any country depend very largely upon the thoroughness with which that country reads its Bible. If we do not ground our religious life upon a conscientious study of the Bible, we either fall asleep morally and spiritually or we develop upon false lines which do not produce those fruits of righteousness and social well-being which follow upon true religion.

I. English people still hold this faith widely and firmly, but we can hardly claim that we practise it as our forefathers did.—We are all aware of tendencies around us that make against that steady and serious reading of the Bible which can claim that it ‘reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests.’ These tendencies affect all our intellectual energies. We are always in a hurry, and this makes us neglect the more solid and wholesome forms of literature. We wish our reading to be provided for us in the shortest, easiest, most exciting and concentrated form. We have no time for reading, and as a consequence we can give no effort to reading. The Bible is not easy enough, not exciting enough, not short enough. And connected with this temptation to read as we run, is the temptation to read about a book instead of reading the book, as a short cut to reading the book. All the greater classics of our language—Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton—are talked about rather than read. The Bible also is talked about rather than read. We read books about the Bible rather than the Bible.

II. Further difficulties.—But I shall be told that there is another reason, or class of reasons, why the reading of the Bible is ceasing to hold the place in our spiritual education that it used to hold!

(a) What has been known as the theory of verbal inspiration has broken down. As a consequence people do not know what to think about the Bible. They have a vague idea that it has been discredited, and therefore they cease to read it or to listen to it. No one can pretend that this doctrine has been without its drawbacks. It has got between the reader and the Book. It has prevented that full and free comparison of the spiritual power of the different parts of the Book which is so distinctive a feature of Luther’s criticism; and thus it has been one cause of the tendency to fall back from the New Testament to the teaching and Spirit of the Old Testament, which has again and again hindered the progress of Christ’s Kingdom. It has made the different parts of the Book all alike in authority and inspiration.

(b) And again, the anxious endeavour to harmonise discrepancies and differences of fact has brought discredit upon the sincerity and honesty of Christian divines and apologists.

(c) We may go even deeper than this. The letter killeth; the spirit giveth life. If we make our Bible an infallible guide in the ordinary sense, if we make it a code of rules which saves us from spiritual energy and effort, we kill our own spiritual freedom; we make the Bible a letter instead of a spirit; we make the Word of God of none effect by our tradition. For these reasons we need not take it too much to heart if doubts of the doctrine of verbal inspiration drive from our ranks some who look upon religion as a mere refuge or shelter from the growing pains of an active spiritual life.

(d) But there is still the question of miracle left. There are those who say that their Bible is taken from them by the difficulty about miracles. This I believe to be a very real difficulty, but it will not be without its use if it persuades us to consider more deeply and more carefully what the Bible essentially is. Are we right in making the Bible depend upon miracle? Does not rather miracle depend upon the Bible? Every thoughtful reader of the New Testament must feel that the Lord Jesus Christ in all kinds of subtle ways makes Himself more than His miracles, which are not allowed to prove Him or to force faith in Him, but are subordinated to His Divine personality and spiritual perfection. Most of us find it easy and natural to accept miracle in the life of Christ and in the lives of the first disciples; but, if such an expression may be permitted, it is a natural miracle, a miracle which is there because of the intense reality of the spiritual life. The intense reality of the spiritual life is the essence of the New Testament; and also the intense reality of the spiritual life is the wonderful thing in the Old Testament, which makes it unique and gives it an everlasting value for mankind.

III. If recent research has been in some directions trying for our faith, in others it has been full of help.—It has only made more apparent the intense reality of the spiritual religion of the Old Testament. The prophetical books especially—Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—have had a flood of light thrown upon them by recent scholarship which brings their teaching nearer to us and nearer to the problems of our own day and life. The consciousness of God, the spiritual intuition, the passion for righteousness in Church and State, of the Hebrew prophets make them for our own time and country full of inspiration. The spiritual splendour of the Old Testament, if we consider it rightly, has not abated; rather it has blazed out afresh. I dwell especially upon the prophets because they deal with just those social questions—those problems of justice between class and class—which we to-day find so urgent and so difficult. But I might also have quoted the Psalms. ‘Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God!’ Are we to cease to use for our soul’s health the religious passion of the psalter and the vision of righteousness which the prophets create for our strengthening until we can settle the exact relation to history of the earlier half of the Old Testament? We can understand to-day more clearly than ever before the unity of the Bible as a revelation of God; as a book which puts before us the history of a nation that is led by God and finds in the invisible Father of the souls the source of all social justice, purity, and truth. This revelation culminates in the incredible fact of the life of Christ—incredible till our souls believe it, and use it for their healing and purification.

—Rev. Ronald Bayne.

Illustration

‘Take the Word of God, as that which God has meant it to be to you—take it as a revelation of Himself in Christ Jesus. Who is Himself the key to these Scriptures. “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” If only we studied them more carefully, if only we longingly desired that Christ might be revealed to us through the Holy Spirit, what a comfort and a strength it would be both in life and in death! A lady in London presented a Japanese man, who also lived in London, with a New Testament. Some time afterwards that Testament came back to her, but it was stained with blood. The man belonged to the reservists of the Japanese army, and had been called back to his country and met his death on the field of battle. In his eagerness for the conflict he stripped himself of every encumbrance—his water-bottle, his haversack; but when his body, stark and cold, was found on the hillside, there was the New Testament right on his heart, and the Russians who found it—all honour be to them—sent it back to his mother; and the mother returned it again to the lady who gave it—stained with his blood. Let us pray that the Word of God will be a guide and a stay in life and in death, and lead to a blessed eternity.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE WORK OF THE BIBLE

I. The purpose of the Bible.—Written for our learning.

II. The use we are to make of the Bible.—We are to (a) read, (b) mark, (c) learn, and (d) inwardly digest the Bible.

III. What will follow its proper use?—It will (a) make us wise unto salvation, and (b) enable us to hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.

IV. Note the Bible points to the source of all life, even Jesus Christ Himself.

—Rev. Forbes Winslow.

Illustration

‘On the shore of one of the fairest of England’s lakes, Windermere, there lies the picturesque town of Bowness, and, amongst the other curiosities of the parish church, you are shown a Bible which was used many years ago for the purpose of public worship; it is in a very fair state of preservation, but is especially remarkable for a very strong iron chain, which is firmly attached to it by a thick ring. In the old time so rare and so valuable was the Word of God that it was found necessary to take stringent measures to prevent those Bibles which were used in church from being stolen, and so they were attached by strong iron chains to a ring of the same metal, which was firmly imbedded in the wall. How different times are now! The Bible has found its way all over the wide world.’