BIBLE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

WHAT THE BIBLE CLAIMS FOR ITSELF

 

            In the Proclamation of 1538 the Bible is described as "the very lively Word of God." That designa­tion is a great one, though it is not used as fre­quently as it was. Indeed, there have been those who have objected to it, and have said the Book is not the Word of God, but contains the Word of God. Personally I have never fallen away from the habit of speaking of the Bible in that way.

            Thinking of it, then, as the Word of God, we now face a question which has often been asked, sometimes very sincerely, and again with satirical intention by others. When we have claimed that this is the Word of God and has a divine and inspired origin, people have said to us, Does the Bible ever claim to be divine? Does it ever claim within itself to be the Word of God?

Let it be at once granted that it makes no claim in any of its parts for its unity, that is, for the whole Book. How could it? Part was being written, and the entity was not complete. The Bible is a library, made up of many books, written over a period of fifteen centuries.

            In the New Testament claims are made for the Old Testament quite distinctly as to the way in which it was written, and as to the nature of the things written. No claim is made in the Old Testa­ment as to its completeness. Interestingly enough, the references in the New Testament to the Old are all in the plural—"the Sacred Scriptures" or the "Sacred Writings."

            Taken, then, as a collection of writings, what do the individual writings claim for themselves; and what does the New Testament claim for the writings of the Old Testament? These constitute the lines of our questioning and article.

            First, then, what do the individual writings claim for themselves within themselves? Dividing into the Old and New Testaments, and commencing with the Old, and following the arrangement of the Books in our Bibles, we find there are four distinct groups. First, the first five Books called the Pentateuch; then the second, twelve Books containing history, from Joshua to Esther; then the third, five Books, Job to Song of Solomon; and lastly the seventeen, commonly called the prophetic Books.

            Take the Pentateuch. We are not told when or by whom it was written. But it claims to be a record of God's ways with man, and a report of His law for man. Read naturally and simply, that is what it claims to be. If it is not what it claims to be, then it is worthless. When men tell me it is a collection of folk lore that is to make its authority worthless.

            The second group, the twelve Books, Joshua to Esther, claims to be the history of the Hebrew people, the race that emerged in the first five books.

            The third group, the Books from Job to the Song of Solomon, must be sub-divided into two sections, first, philosophy, and then poetry.

            The Book of Job is philosophy. There is no claim made, except that it is the story of a man passing through times of terrible suffering, and emerging therefrom; and telling of his relationship to God, and God's relationship with him.

            The Book of Proverbs does state exactly what it is, in the opening six verses:-‑

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

To know wisdom and instruction;

To discern the words of understanding;

To receive instruction in wise dealing,

In righteousness and judgment and equity;

To give subtilty to the simple.

To the young man knowledge and discretion;

That the wise man may hear, and increase in learning;

And that the man of understanding may attain unto sound counsel

To understand a proverb, and a figure;

The words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

That is what it claims to be.

            Ecclesiastes makes no claim, but its contents reveal very clearly the experiences of a man who lives upon the earth level. One phrase runs through the Book, "Under the Sun." This is one of the most up-to-date Books in the Bible. Our literature has been characterized during the past generation by the same despondent pessimism that character­ized Solomon when he wrote the Book. He was inspired to write it as a revelation of experience. In a great conclusion, he summed everything up as he wrote, "This is the whole of man" to "fear God, and keep His commandments." The word duty is not in the Hebrew. This is life over the sun as well as under the sun. This, Ecclesiastes makes perfectly clear.

            When we come to the five Books of Psalms, these make no claim, as a whole, except that they con­stantly refer to the Law and to the will of God. They are a wonderful collection of songs expressing all moods of human experiences, not as much modern poetry has done, into the void and into space; but in the presence of God. Some today want to get rid of the Psalms which call down God’s curse and wrath upon the enemies. Leave them where they are. We want them sometimes!

            To turn to the much-debated Book, the Song of Solomon, the claim is made in the opening state­ment, "The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's," which is a Hebraism, telling the reader it is the best song Solomon ever wrote.

            We come then to the seventeen. There are really sixteen Books, because Lamentations is part of Jeremiah. What do they claim? That they are messages delivered by men, which they received from God. I am not debating whether they told the truth or not. There are two formula, very arrest­ing, found in the prophets. "The Word of the Lord came." That is found in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah. Every one of these rough, rugged, and magnificent men of old used that formula for what they had to say—"the Word of the Lord came." It is interesting to note that phrase is only found in the historic portion of Isaiah. In other parts of his prophecy are other expressions which are exactly equivalent. The second formula is this: "Thus saith the Lord," used by Amos, Obadiah, Nahum, and Malachi. All these prophets claimed they were speaking words that they had received from God. There is no interpretation of how the Word came to them, but the fact is asserted, and reiterated again and again. Such are the claims scattered through the Old Testament made for the writings.

            Turning to the New Testament, again we group the books. The first five, the Pentateuch of the New Testament, the Gospels and Acts; then the second, the twenty-one little letters; and the last, one book, commonly called the Revelation.

            The first five books claim to be the history of Christ, and the beginnings of the history of the Church. They contain sentences that reveal definite claims. Matthew has none, but it is evident he was telling the story of Jesus. Mark began by showing how his writing fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah of the Messiah as the Servant of God. Luke in his introduction showed how he gained his informa­tion, recognition of the human element; and recognized the divine government, for he said he received these things "from above" (anothen). Toward the end of John's writing is a statement in which he said, “These are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name.” (20:31). In Acts, Luke commenced by reference to his previous writing, and it is a fair deduction that he adopted the same methods in writing again to this friend Theophilus. He was careful to examine with care all things "from above" (anothen). Truth was claimed by Luke for his first treatise, and so for his second; and implicitly that is claimed by all the rest.

            When we take the twenty-one letters, we find a collection of letters and pamphlets concerning the truths of Christianity, and their application to conduct. All the Christian fact is required before the letters are intelligent, but within themselves they do claim authority. In the seventh chapter of the first Corinthian letter there seems to be an exception, but it does but proves the rule. Concern­ing one matter, Paul distinctly wrote that he had not the guidance of the Spirit, but he believed he had the mind of the Lord (vv. 6, 10, 12, 25). It has been said that these statements of Paul reveal his usual method of writing. Surely, that is a most unfair deduction. I believe that the fact that when dealing with subjects about which he felt he had no direct revelation, he said so, is presumptive evidence that in the main bulk of his writings he was conscious that he had full and final authority. All the letters declare the truth concerning the Christ, concerning the Church, and concerning the conduct of Christian people within that Church.

            We come to the last Book, the Revelation. There its claim is made in the beginning, the writer telling distinctly that the things written were under com­mand, received from an angel, and that the angel was sent to give him that command by Jesus Christ; and that God authorized the command to be sent.

            We turn then to the testimony of the New Testament to the Old. Here we have a very inter­esting field, which can only be dealt with in brief outline. In the New Testament, every book of the Old Testament is quoted from, except Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations, or to take that mathematically, in another way. In the New Testament there are 260 chapters; 209 have references to the Old Testament, leaving only fifty-one chapters with no reference. Thus the Old and the New Testament are inter­woven with the weave of a constant reference, allusion, and quotation: and no single reference in the New contradicts the Old, or undermines its authority. They all accept its full authority and its divine nature.

            Again, someone may say, Did not Jesus correct the Old Testament when He said, "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time . . . but I say unto you." The answer is No, but He showed that His law moved on a higher level, which included the lower. There was no contradiction, but rather an enlargement of vision. He constantly referred to the Old Testament. Out of its thirty-nine books He quoted directly from twenty-four in the course of His teaching.

            Then He also made a central declaration concern­ing these Scriptures, which word we have previ­ously considered in our second article. When talking to those supposed to be exponents of the law and the prophets and the sacred writings, He told them that they searched the Scriptures, and He said "These are they which bear witness of Me." So He set His seal upon the authority of the Old Testament, and revealed the key of it, which has been of inestimable value to the students of the Scriptures.

            His final attitude is remarkably discovered also in Luke 24, after His resurrection. To His disciples He said, "These are My words which I spake unto you . . . how that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms concerning Me. Then opened He their mind, that they might understand the Scriptures." In referring to the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, our Lord took in the whole of the Old Testament, naming the three great divisions familiar to the Jews. The Psalms included more than the books of the Psalms. It was a title for the third great division of their Scriptures, the Kethubim, or Hagiographa. So when Jesus spoke of the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, He was referring to the Torah, the Nebiim, and the Hagiographa or Kethubim. What a gracious and wonderful thing He did when He disentangled their mind that they might understand the Scriptures.

            We glance next at the apostolic account, and we find two outstanding statements here concerning the Old Testament, one in 2 Pet. 1:19-21 and the other in 2 Tim. 3:14-17.

            Peter distinctly referred in that first passage to one section of the Old Testament, the prophetic, and that more particularly in its predictive value. He declared that no such writing was of private interpretation that is, self-solving. We cannot solve the prophetic writings by our own intellectual ability. The apostle declared that prophecy was the result of men being "moved by the Holy Spirit." That word "moved” fails to give the true idea of the Greek word of which it is a translation. It might be read thus, that men spoke from God, "being borne aloft and carried on by the Holy Spirit." That is how they saw. That is how they were able to utter the message of God. By the Holy Spirit they were lifted above their times, and beyond their times. That is what a New Testament writer has to say about the prophetic writings.

            The other equally familiar passage is from the pen of Paul. Writing to Timothy, he said, "Abide thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." The reference was to his mother and his grandmother. "From a babe thou hast known the holy letters, the sacred writings, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Every writing God-breathed (Theopeustos), is also profitable for teach­ing, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work."

            Paul declared that the Sacred Writings which had been taught to Timothy by Lois and Eunice, are God-breathed. That is the New Testament estimate of those Sacred Writings.

            To sum up. What are the general results as to claims? As to their nature, they are God-breathed. These Sacred Writings are vehicles of the Spirit of God, through which He has made Himself known to men, and made known His will to men. As to the instruments, we find that they were men, through whose natural powers, which are God-created powers, God operated in order to communi­cate His thoughts about Himself, and about them­selves to men. These are the claims.

            And the claims therefore mean that in this Bible which is the "very lively Word of God," we have the true interpretation of life. We have the law of life, the revelation of God's thought about history, and about present conduct, about life in its every phase.

            There is no situation in human life or experience for which a message of God cannot be found through the Book. I do not care whether it be a personal, social, national, or international situation. And about the future, this Book has no hesitation. There is much it does not reveal, but the reality of it is insisted upon from beginning to end. The great fundamental things that we need to know in this preparatory life are all here in this Book.

            What is the final test and challenge? I make use of words that our Lord uttered in defense of Him­self. "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God or whether I speak from Myself." (John 7:17) What a wonderful statement, and how terribly misquoted often-times! He did not say if we will to do the will of God, we shall know of the teaching. What He said was narrower than that, and broader, and fiercer, and more burning. If we will to do His will, we shall know whether the teaching is of God or from Him­self. That was His challenge about Himself. This Book is Christo-centric. As Augustine said, He is covert in the Old, and obvious in the New. I claim that the final word about the Book is the word about the Master Himself. If any man wills to do His will, he shall know about the Book, whether it is of God, or whether it is of human origin. That is the last test, and it is the challenging test. I submit that no man or woman who has given himself or herself to diligent study with the open mind and the devoted will, but that they have found out that this is the Book of God. So the old proclamation was quite right. The Bible is "the very lively Word of God."