The Bible -- What it is, and how to interpret it

"The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (II Tim. 4v 3, 4).

"Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20v 30).

"There shall be false teachers among you and many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom, the way of truth shall be evil spoken of" (II Pet. 2v 1, 2).

"Try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (I John 4v 1).

"Their word will eat as doth a canker" (II Tim. 2v 17). "All nations deceived" (Rev. 18, 23).

"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isaiah 8v 20).

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THAT CHRISTENDOM is astray from the system of doctrine and practice established by the labours of the apostles in the first century, is recognised by men of very different ways of thinking. The unbeliever asserts it without fear. The church partisan admits it without shame, and all sorts of middle men are of opinion that it would be a misfortune were it otherwise. The unbeliever, while himself rejoicing in the fact, uses it as a reproach to those who profess to follow the apostles whom he openly rejects, the churchman, while owning the apostles as the foundation, regards it as the inevitable result of the spiritual prerogative vested in "the church," that there should be further unfoldings of light and truth leading away from the primitive form of things; and the moderate and indifferent class accept it as a necessary and welcome result of the advance of the times, with which they think the original apostolic institution has become inconsistent.

Is there not another meaning to the fact? To such as have confidence in the Bible as a divine record, the quotations standing at the head of this chapter must suggest a view of the present state of things very different from that entertained by the common run of religious professors. Do not these quotations require us to believe that it was in the apostolic foresight (a foresight imparted to them by that presence of the Holy Spirit which Jesus before his departure promised he would secure for them during his absence (John 14v 17: 16v 13) - that the time coming was a time of departure from what they preached - when men indulging in "fables" and walking in "pernicious ways," would wholly turn aside from the saving institutions of the gospel delivered by them, and realise the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy as to the state of things upon earth just before the manifestation of God's glory at the appearing of Christ, viz., that "darkness should cover the earth and gross darkness the people"? (Isa. 60v 2). Such a view may bring lamentable conclusions, and be fruitful of personal embarrassments in a state of society where a man cannot prosper unless he fall down and worship the current "doxy." But an earnest mind will not be debarred by such considerations from the investigation of a momentous topic. "What is the truth?" is the engrossing question of men of this type, and they follow wherever the answer may lead them, even "to prison and death," if that were possible in our age.

We propose this investigation in the following lectures. Such subjects have been supposed to pertain exclusively to the clerical province. Obviously, it is not a likely theme for a clergyman to discuss whether the whole system of clericalism itself be not a departure from Bible truth. It is not one which he is specially fitted to consider. And, in point of fact, it is more and more generally conceded that questions of Bible truth are matters of nonprofessional understanding and concern. Nothing but an untrammelled individual knowledge of the Bible will satisfy the earnest curiosity that would know what the truth is amid the intellectual turmoils, questionings and collisions of modern times. If the Bible is God's voice to every man that has ears to hear (which it demonstrably is), it is for every man by himself and for himself, to seek to understand it, and to extend the benefit he may have received.

Qualification for this is not a question of "ordination": it comes with enlightenment. And not only qualification, but obligation comes with this enlightenment. As soon as a man understands and believes the gospel, he is bound to lend himself as an instrument for its diffusion. The command is direct from the mouth of the Lord Jesus himself: "Let him that heareth say, COME" (Rev. 22v 17), the example of the early Christians affords unmistakable illustration of the meaning of the command (Acts 8v 14). Tradition clings to "holy orders." Of these we hear nothing in the Scripture. Apostolic teaching inculcates the common sense view that the truth of God is designed to make propagandists of all who receive it.

The subject of this afternoon's lecture is the natural starting point of all endeavours to ascertain what the Bible teaches. We want to know what the Bible is in itself, and on what principles it is to be understood. On the first of these points, we must take a good deal for granted. We shall assume throughout these lectures that the Bible is a book of Divine authorship. Our present duty is simply to look at the structure and character of the Bible as a book appearing before us with a professedly divine character taken for granted. Looking at it in this way, we first discover that the Bible consists in reality of a number of books written at different times by different authors. It opens with five, familiarly known as the "five books of Moses," a history written by Moses, of matters and transactions in which he performed a leading personal part. This history occupies a position of first importance. It lays the basis of all that follows. Commencing with an account of the creation and peopling of the earth, it chiefly treats of the origin and experience of the Jewish nation, of whom Moses says, "The Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth" (Deut. 14v 2). The five books also contain the laws (very elaborately stated), which God delivered by the hand of Moses, for the constitution and guidance of the nation.

It has become fashionable, under various learned sanctions, to question the authenticity of these books, while admitting the possible genuineness of the remaining portions of the Sacred Record. Without attempting to discuss the question, we may remark that it is impossible to reconcile this attitude with allegiance to Christ. You cannot reject Moses while accepting Christ. Christ endorsed the writings of Moses. He said to the Jews by the mouth of Abraham in parable: "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16v 29, 31). It is also recorded that when he appeared incognito to two of his disciples after his resurrection, "beginning at MOSES and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 14v 27). Further, he said, "Had ye believed MOSES, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But IF YE BELIEVE NOT HIS WRITINGS, HOW SHALL YE BELIEVE MY WORDS?" (John 5v 46, 47). If Christ was divine, this sanction of the Pentateuch by him settles the question; if the Pentateuch is a fiction, Christ was a deceiver, whether consciously or otherwise. There is no middle ground. Moses and Christ stand or fall together.

The next twelve books present the history of the Jews during a period of several centuries, involving the development of the mind of God to the extent to which that was unfolded in the message prophetically addressed to the people in the several stages of their history. This gives them more than a historical value. They exhibit and illustrate divine principles of action, while furnishing an accurate account of the proceedings of a nation which was itself a monument of divine work on the earth, and the repository of divine revelation. (See The Visible Hand of God, by the Lecturer). The book of Job is no exception as to divinity of character. It does not, however, pertain to Israel nationally. It is a record of divine dealings with a Son of God, at a time when that nation had no existence. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon, are the inspired writings of two of Israel's most illustrious kings - writings in which natural genius is supplemented with preternatural spirit impulse, in consequence of which the writings so produced are reflections of divine wisdom, and by no means of merely human origin. This is proved by Christ's declarations in the New Testament.

In the books of the prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, we are presented with a most important department of "Holy Writ." In these seventeen books - respectively bearing the names of the writers - we find recorded a multitudinous variety of messages transmitted from the Deity to the "prophets," for the correction and enlightenment of Israel. These messages are valuable beyond all conception. They contain information concerning God otherwise inaccessible, and instructions as to acceptable character and conduct, otherwise unobtainable; in addition to which they have a transcendent value from their disclosure of God's purpose in the future, in which we naturally have the highest interest, but of which, naturally, we are in the greatest and most helpless ignorance.

Coming to the New Testament, we are furnished in the first four books with a history which has no parallel in the range of literature. The Messiah promised in the prophets, appointed of God to deliver our suffering race from all the calamities in which it is involved, appears: and here are recorded His doings and His sayings. What wonderful deeds! What wonderful words! We are constrained in the reading to exclaim with the disciples on the sea of Galilee: "What manner of man is this?" He entrusted his apostles with a mission to the world at large. In the Acts of the Apostles we have made plain to us in a practical way, what Christ intended them to do as affecting ourselves. In the same book we have the proceedings of the primitive Christians, written for our guidance as to the real import of the commandments of Christ, and the real scope and nature of the work of Christ among men. The remainder of the New Testament is made up of a series of epistles, addressed by the inspired apostles to various Christian communities, after they had been organised by the apostolic labours. These letters contain practical instruction in regard to the character which Christians ought to cultivate, and in a general and incidental way illustrate the higher aspects of the truth as it is in Jesus. Without these epistles, we should not have been able to comprehend the Christian system in its entirety. Their absence would have been a great blank; and we in this remote age should hardly have been able to lay hold on eternal life.

Such is a scant outline of the book we call "the Bible." Composed of many books, it is yet one volume, complete and consistent with itself in all its parts, presenting this singular literary spectacle, that while written by men in every situation of life - from the king to the shepherd - and scattered over many centuries in its composition, it is pervaded by absolute unity of spirit and identity of principle. This is unaccountable on the hypothesis of a human authorship. No similarly miscellaneous production is like it in this respect. Heterogeneousness, and not uniformity, characterizes any collection of human writings of the ordinary sort, even if belonging to the same age. But here is a book written by forty authors, living in different ages, without possible concert or collusion, producing a book which in all its parts is pervaded by one spirit, one doctrine, one design, and by an air of sublime authority which is its peculiar characteristic. Such a book is a literary miracle. It is impossible to account for its existence upon ordinary principles. The futile attempts of various classes of unbelievers is evidence of this. On its own principles it is accounted for God spoke to, and by, its authors "at sundry times and in divers manners." This is no mere profession on the part of the writers. It is strewn to be a true profession not only of the character of the book and the fulfilment of its prophecies, but by the fact that nearly all the writers sealed their testimony with their own blood, after a life of submission to every kind of disadvantage - "trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments, were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword, wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, in deserts and mountains; in dens and caves of the earth - being destitute, afflicted, tormented" (Heb. 11v 36-38). To suppose the Bible to be human is to raise insurmountable difficulties, and to do violence to every reasonable probability. The only truly rational theory of the book is that supplied by itself. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (II Peter 1v 21). In this we find an explanation of the whole matter. The presence of one supreme guiding mind, inspiring and controlling the utterances of the authors, completely accounts for their agreement of teaching throughout, and for the exalted nature of their doctrines: on any other supposition the book is a riddle, which must ever puzzle and bewilder the mind that earnestly faces all the facts of the case.