TWO APPROACHES TO THE BIBLE

APPROACH TO THE BIBLE: FALSE OR TRUE?

 

            Our method in this article will be that of the exposition of words that fell from the lips of our Lord, recorded in John 5:39. At this time Jesus was nearing the end of the first year of His public ministry. He had come up to Jerusalem to a feast, the feast of Passover in all probability. Passing through Bethesda's porches, He had seen a man who had lain for thirty-eight years in his infirmity, and He healed him both of his moral and physical malady. Because the action took place on a Sabbath day, our Lord was criticized and even persecuted. When giving His reason for what He had done, He claimed that He was acting in fellowship with God. The rulers understood Him that He claimed equality with God, and there­fore they determined to persecute Him even unto death; they "sought the more to kill Him."

            “Jesus therefore answered and said unto them" (verse 19). There follows His full answer to the criticism directed against Him, and to the persecu­tion in which His enemies were indulging. His words were directed principally to the rulers, those responsible teachers of the people, who sat in Moses' seat, occupying the place of authority on all matters, religious, social, and moral. In these words He was referring to that very fact and to their relation to those sacred writings of which they were students, and supposed to be teachers, the writings they were called upon to interpret and apply. In what He said He revealed the false and true method of approach to the Scriptures. We shall then first examine the passage carefully, and then consider its teaching.

            The words are familiar: "Ye search the Scrip­tures." We must first notice a difference between the Authorized, or King James' Version, and the Revised. The difference is one of moods—the imperative, and the indicative. The Old Version renders it in the imperative mood, "Search the Scriptures"; the Revised in the indicative, "Ye search the Scriptures." We ask, which is correct? No one can be dogmatic on the basis of the words themselves, because in the Greek the words are identical in form. Therefore in such cases, context must decide which is correct. This leaves no room for doubt. The Revised rendering is right.

            Jesus was recognizing that these men were searching their Scriptures, "Ye search the Scriptures." In the immediate context He had told them they had neither heard the voice of the Father at any time, nor seen His form, that they had not the Word of the Father abiding in them. "for whom He sent, Him ye believe not. Ye search the Scriptures." He granted that they did so.

            These people were students of the Scriptures in a most remarkable way at that time. The word translated "search" is a strong one, and recognizes an intensity and carefulness of the most pronounced type. All rabbinical lore shows it; all the traditions reveal it. They were comparing words with words. They were building very fanciful theories upon the comparison of words. They knew in their Hebrew Scriptures exactly how many words there were, and where the middle word was. They knew the whole content of the Torah, the Law, the Neblim, the Prophets, and the Kethubim, the Writings. Their knowledge was technical, and by letter, and remark­ably so. To quote from Edersheim, "Their elabo­rate searching, sifting of the Law in hope that, by a subtle analysis of its every particle and letter, by inferences from, and a careful drawing of a prohibitive hedge around its letter, they would possess themselves of eternal life."

            We start, then, by recognizing that our Lord was not speaking to men who were neglecting the Scriptures, but to those who were searching, and doing so in that particular way, "Ye search the Scriptures." The word "search" is a strong one, as we have said, and is used in the New Testament in remarkable ways. Paul speaks of God, and says, "He that searcheth the heart knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit." He also uses it of the Spirit, "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." (1 Cor. 2:10) And Peter, in his first letter, used it of the ancient prophets when he said, "Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently . . . searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ . . . did point unto." (1 Pet. 1:10-11) The word shows that these men were devoting energy and time to the mastery of the Scriptures.

            Notice, in the next place, that they were seeking the true end of all scriptural knowledge—eternal life: "Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life," or, to adopt Rotherham's rendering, "age-abiding life," or Weymouth's "life of the ages." Eternal life does not mean life that never ends only. Eternal life is as broad and deep as it is long. It is the life of the ages, that which proceeds through all the ages. These searchers were seeking the right end.

            But, mark carefully, that they failed in their work. Why did they fail? "Ye search the Scrip­tures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life: and these are they which bear witness of Me; and ye will not come to Me that ye may have life." How are we to account for this? Why would they not come to Him? Of their Scriptures Christ was the Ultimate, the Fulfillment of all their foretelling’s, the Incarnation of all their principles, the Answer to all their hopes. They were seeking life through the very writing which led to the fountain head of life. Yet they failed to find Him, and so they failed to find life.

            Many may say, surely they were right in their search for eternal life, to seek it in their Scriptures? No, that is exactly where they were wrong. At that time these rabbis had actually come to believe that in the very words there existed some mystical quality of life, and that acquaintance with them ensured eternal life. Westcott has told us that Hillel said, "More Torah, more life." Torah was the most sacred portion to them, the Pentateuch. Hillel also said, “He who has gotten to himself words of Torah has gotten to himself the life of the world to come." It was the popular view. The rabbis were holding and teaching that in order to secure this life, all that was necessary was a tech­nical and literal acquaintance with the Writings.

            Our Lord was referring, of course, to the Old Testament when He said, “These are they which bear witness of Me." He had come in fulfillment of all these Writings had revealed and declared; but they would not come to Him that they might have life. Life they were seeking, life was their goal, towards which all the Holy Writings led, and He was the Goal. They all testified of Him, but they rejected Him and refused His teaching.

            We stop there and ask another question. Why did they fail? Hebrew Christians today, those who have come into the light, and confessed Jesus as infinitely more than a great Prophet—which all Jews will admit even today—and see Him as ful­filling all prophecy, after studying the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, have said they could not understand themselves how it was they had never seen before how that chapter found its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. Go behind that, and see what it means.

            The people of His day did not come to Him, because the claims of Jesus did not square with the facts which they thought were true concerning their Messiah. To put that in another way: they rejected the claims of Jesus because the facts con­cerning Him did not square with their interpretation of their own Scriptures. The Messianic writings of the Old Testament foretold His meekness and His might, foretold His glory, but also His suffering. We call to mind that glorious description of Him in the earlier chapter, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isa. 9:6-7) All these teachers knew that passage, and loved it. That was their view of Messiah. But when they went on and read the 53rd chapter, "He was despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," that did not square with their view of Messiah.

            Consequently, these men rejected Him because they did not see the signs they expected, and that was because they were dealing unfairly with their own Scriptures. They accepted only those things which appealed to their prejudices and desires, and they denied or neglected all the rest. Jesus told them the Scriptures that they searched because they thought they had eternal life in them—and there was this element of truth in the idea—"These are they that testify of Me." But when He stood before them, fulfilling all the Scriptures they were searching, they would not come to Him that they might have life.

            It is a well-known fact, that in Jewish theology at that time there were rabbis trying to square the views concerning the coming One, who declared that there would be two Messiahs, one a glorious One, and the other a suffering One; but the merg­ing into One was not seen. He was there in all lowliness, garbed in homespun, in weariness, and poverty. Their Scriptures had exactly foretold all this, but they did not so interpret them, and so they did not come to Him. That was the false method of studying the Scriptures.

            There are two false methods of approach to the Bible. One is bibliolatry, and the other is dishonesty.

            What do we mean by bibliolatry? A worship of the Book in itself, a sacramentary view of the Bible, which is false and pernicious. We may be particular about the letter, even when the spirit is dead. It is possible to have a remarkable and technical knowledge of this Literature, and yet never reach life, never reach the One whom it represents. We may know all about Jesus as revealed here, and yet never find Him. Many excellent people in many ways are in terrible danger of treating the Bible as a sort of book of magic, as most Americans and others as well; which, if it is known, they are safe, and have life. By no means. If we think that in the Scriptures there is life, we are wrong. They lead to the One who is the Life-giver, but they may be dealt with technically, and yet He never be reached. That is a false method of approach. If anyone thinks that because he or she has read a little paragraph of Scripture in the early hours of the morning, they are safe, they are making a great mistake. If we are trusting to the fact that we read so much, or have committed to memory certain parts, or if we have gone through the whole course of the Bible School, until certain analyses of the books are known, and marked out in the Bible, and we are trusting to that, we are as far from light as the pagan outside the Christian fact. That is bibliolatry, that is worship of the Book, that is idolatry.

            The second false method of approach is dis­honesty. That is an ugly word. But the Bible is treated with dishonesty when we come to it with preconceived notions, and then attempt to make it square with our ideas. Two of the worst enemies of Bible study are philosophy and theology. A man has a philosophy—any philosophy, I care not whose it is. He can accept the philosophy of Anaxagoras, or the modern science philosophy, and then come to the Bible. Of course, he will have to reject large portions of it. Or another may come with some systematized theology, received from father or mother, possibly or teachers. He may have names for it. I will not mention one. Such come to the Bible to find proofs of their theology, and they will find them, because there is no heresy under heaven or a recklessness that cannot be proved to be accurate by selected texts from the Bible. We shall have more to say about that later in the articles.

            There is the dishonesty of coming to the Bible with preconceived notions concerning Jesus that He could only be the highest and best type of human being the world has ever seen. If the Bible is approached in that way, we shall have to play tricks with it. That is not the Jesus of the Bible. Of course, whole parts of the Bible are not accepted by such because they do not square with their ideas or science of what Jesus could have done, or might have done.

            Then there are the dishonest methods of the abandonment of what does not square with our views; or neglect of whole sections. There are so many sections of the Bible people do not seem to know anything about at all. When we get a book, well bound and printed, which is the Bible up to date, with the genealogies left out, and Ephesians deleted, and other portions also, we have the work of men who are dishonest with the Bible, and are leading others to be dishonest also. Every genea­logy of the Old Testament has its bearing on the great movements of revelation, and gives the reason for them. On the one hand, we have today the tyranny and arrogance of scholars and scientists; and on the other the arrogance of some men for their view of what the Bible teaches. We must guard against these two false methods of approach.

            We ask, then, what is the true method? Search­ing of the Scriptures is not wrong. I am willing to treat the verse as an imperative, and say, "Search the Scriptures," though I have claimed His word was indicative. Searching there must be, but we have, as a basis, the key in those words of Christ. He declares Himself to be the Ultimate. He says that these Scriptures lead to Him, that they testify of Him. He is the Goal of all Bible study, and so we have the key that will unlock the doors. He does not lie and He is the eternal present of all activity that has ever occurred on this earth. He is the “I am.”

            But the intensity of the word must be observed. There can be no intellectual laziness in approach to the Bible. "Search," but search through. Never confuse the road with the destination. Never con­fuse the process with the issue, the means with the end. Such searching is possible to us, having the New Testament, far more than it was to those men in His day, even though their own Scriptures ought to have been clear enough. Their sin points to the sin of trained men today in various fields of expertise. We must search through, and search to. Let nothing arrest our progress. Let us follow the gleam as it shines before us, and never at some point refuse a conclusion because it conflicts with a prejudice, or demands repentance. Unfortunately, that so often happens.

            To dismiss in phrases what we shall deal with more fully in our next article, the two necessities for approach to the Bible are first, the open mind; and secondly, the obedient will.