Fourth Chapter. The Holy Scripture of the Old Testament
Fourth Chapter
XII.
The Holy Scripture.
“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 unto all good works.”— 2 Tim iii. 16, 17.
Among the divine works of art produced by the Holy Spirit, the Sacred Scripture stands first. It may seem incredible that the printed pages of a book should excel His spiritual work in human hearts, yet we assign to the Sacred scripture the most conspicuous place without hesitation.
Objectors can never have considered what this holy Book is, or any other book, writing, or language is, or what the putting down of a world of thought in a collection of Sacred Scripture means. We deny that a book, especially such as the Sacred Scripture, opposes a world of divine thought, the current of life, and spiritual experience. A book is not merely paper printed in ink, but is like a portrait—a collection of lines and features in which we see the likeness of a person. _Standing _near, we see not the person, but spots and lines of paint; but at the right distance these disappear and we see the likeness of a person. Even now it does not speak to us, for it is the face of a stranger; we may be able to judge the man’s character, yet he fails to interest us. But let his child look, and instantly the image which left us cold appeals to him with warmth and life, which were invisible to us because our hearts lacked the essentials. What appeals to the child is not in the picture, but in his memory and imagination; the cooperation of the features in the painting and the father’s image in his heart makes the likeness speak.
This comparison will explain the mysterious effect of the Scripture. Guido de Brès spoke of it in his debates with the Baptists: “That which we call Holy Scripture is not paper with black impressions, but that which addresses our spirits by means of those impressions.” Those letters are but tokens of recognition; those words are only the clicks of the telegraph-key signaling thoughts to our spirits along the lines of our visual and auditory nerves. And the thoughts so signaled are not isolated and incoherent, but parts of a complete system that is directly antagonistic to man’s thoughts, yet enters their sphere.
Reading the Scripture brings to our minds the sphere of divine thoughts so far as needful for us as sinners, in order to glorify God, love our neighbor, and save the soul. This is not a mere collection of beautiful and glittering ideas, but the reflection of the divine life. In God life and thought are united: there can be no life without thought, no thought not the product of life. Not so with us. Falsehood entered us, i.e., we can sever thought from life. Or rather, they are always severed, unless we have voluntarily established the former unity. Hence our cold abstractions; our speaking without doing; our words without power; our thoughts without working; our books that, like plants cut off from their roots, wither before they can blossom, much less bear fruit.
The difference between divine and human life gives Scripture its uniqueness and precludes antagonism between its letter and its spirit, such as a false exegesis of 2 Cor. iii. 6 might suggest. If the Word of God were dominated by the falsehood that has crept into our hearts, and in the midst of our misery continues to place word and life in opposition as well as separation, then we would take refuge in the standpoint of our dissenting brethren, with their exaltation of the life above the Word. But we need not do so, for the opposition and separation are not in the Scripture. For this reason it is the Holy Scripture; for it was not lost in the unholy tearing asunder of thought and life, and is therefore distinct from writings in which yawns the gulf between the words and the reality of life. What other writings lack is in this Book, perfect agreement between the life reflected in the divine thought and the thoughts which the Word begets in our minds.
The Holy Scripture is like a diamond: in the dark it is like a piece of glass, but as soon as the light strikes it the water begins to sparkle, and the scintillation of life greets us. So the Word of God apart from the divine life is valueless, unworthy even of the name of Sacred Scripture. It exists only in connection with this divine life, from which it imparts life-giving thoughts to our minds. It is like the fragrance of a flower-bed that refreshes us only when the flowers and our organs of smell correspond. Hence the illustration of the child and his father’s picture is exact.
While the Bible always flashes thoughts born of the divine life, yet the effects are not the same in all. As a whole, it is the portrait of Him who is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His Person, aiming either to show us His likeness or to serve as its background.
Notice the difference when a child of God and an alien face that image. Not as tho it has nothing to say to the unregenerate—this is a mistake of Methodism which should be corrected.For the author’s sense of Methodism; see section 5 in the Preface. It addresses itself to all men as the King’s Word, and every one must receive its impress in his own way. But while the alien sees only a strange face, which annoys him, contradicts his world, and so repels him, the child of God understands and recognizes it. He is in holiest sympathy with the life of the world from which that image greets him. Thus reading what the stranger could not read, he feels that God is speaking to him, whispering peace to his soul.
Not as tho the Scripture were only a system of signals to flash thought into the soul; rather it is the instrument of God to awaken and increase spiritual life, not as by magic, giving a sort of attestation of the genuineness of our experience—a fanatical view always opposed and rejected by the Church—but by the Holy Spirit through the use of the Word of God.
He regenerates us by the Word. The mode of this operation will be discussed later on; let it suffice here to say that the operations of the Word and the Holy Spirit never oppose each other, but, as St. Paul declares emphatically, that the Holy Scripture is prepared by the Spirit of God and given to the Church as an instrument to perfect God’s work in man; as he expresses it. “That the man of God may be perfect,” (2 Tim. iii. 17) i.e., a man formerly of the world, made a man of God by divine act, to be perfected by the Holy Spirit; wherefore he is already perfect in Christ through the Word. To this end, as St. Paul declares, the Scripture was inspired of God. Hence this work of art was prepared by the Holy Spirit to lead the new-born man to this high ideal. And to emphasize the thought he adds: “That he may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Tim. iii. 17)
Hence Scripture serves this twofold purpose:
First, as an instrument of the Holy Spirit in His work upon a man’s heart.
Secondly, to qualify man perfectly and to equip him for every good work.
Consequently the working of Scripture embraces not only the _quickening _of faith, but also the _exercise _of faith. Therefore instead of being a dead-letter, unspiritual, mechanically opposing the spiritual life, it is the very fountain of living water, which, being opened, springs up to eternal life.
Hence the Spirit’s preparation and preservation of Scripture is not subordinate, but prominent with reference to the life of the entire Church. Or to put it more clearly: if prophecy; _e.g., _aims first to benefit contemporary generations, and secondly to be part of the Holy Scripture that is to minister comfort to the Church of all ages, the latter is of infinitely higher importance. Hence the chief aim of prophecy was not to benefit the people living at that time, and through Scripture to yield fruit for us only indirectly, but through Scripture to yield fruit for the Church of all ages, and indirectly to benefit the Church of old.
XIII.
The Scripture a Necessity.
“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”—Rom. xv. 4.
That the Bible is the product of the Chief Artist, the Holy Spirit; that He gave it to the Church and that in the Church He uses it as His instrument, can not be over-emphasized.
Not as tho He had lived in the Church of all ages, and given us in Scripture the record of that life, its origin and history, so that the life was the real substance and the Scripture the accident; rather the Scripture was the end of all that preceded and the instrument of all that followed.
With the dawn of the Day of days the Sacred Volume will undoubtedly disappear. As the New Jerusalem will need no sun, moon, or temple, but the Lord God will be its light, so will there be no need of Scripture, for the revelation of God shall reach His elect directly through the unveiled Word. But so long as the Church is on earth, face-to-face communion withheld, and our hearts accessible only by the avenues of this imperfect existence, Scripture must remain the indispensable instrument by which the Triune God prepares men’s souls for higher glory.
The cause of this lies in our personality. We think, we are self-conscious, and the threefold world _about _and _above _and _within _us is reflected in our thoughts. The man of confused or unformed consciousness or one insane can not act as a man. True, there are depths in our hearts which the plummet of our thinking has not sounded; but the influence that is to affect us deeply, clearly, with outlasting effect upon our personality, must be wrought through our self-consciousness.
The history of sin proves it. How did sin enter the world? Did Satan infuse its poison into man’s soul while he slept? By no means. While Eve was fully herself, Satan began to discuss the matter with her. He wrought upon her consciousness with words and representations, and she, allowing this, drank the poison, fell, and dragged her husband with her. Had not God thus foretold it? Man’s fall was to be known neither by his recognized nor by his unrecognized emotions, but by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge that caused his fall was not merely abstract, intellectual, but vital. Of course the operating cause was external, but it wrought upon his consciousness and bore the form of knowledge.
And as his fall, so also must be his restoration. Redemption must come from without, act upon our _consciousness, _and bear the form of _knowledge. _To affect and win us in our personality we must be touched in the very spot where sin first wounded us, viz., in our proud and haughty self-consciousness. And since our consciousness mirrors itself in a world of thought—thoughts expressed in words so intimately connected as to form, as it were, but one word—therefore it was of the highest necessity that a new, divine world of thought should speak to our consciousness in a _Word, i.e., _in a _Scripture. _And this is the work of Holy Scripture.
Our thought-world is full of falsehood, and so is the outer world. But one thought-world is absolutely true, and that is the world of God’s thoughts. Into this world we must be brought, and it into us with the life that belongs to it, as brightness to light. Therefore redemption depends upon faith. To believe is to acknowledge that the entire world of thought within and around us is false, and that only God’s world of thought is true and abiding, and as such to accept and confess it. So it is still the Tree of knowledge. But the fruit now taken and enjoyed grows upon the inward plant of self-emptying and self-denial, whereby we renounce our own entire world of thought, no longer judging between good and evil, but faithfully repeating what God teaches, as ever little children in His school.
But this would not avail us if God’s thoughts came in unintelligible words, which would have been the case if the Holy Spirit had used mere words. We know how hopeless it is to try to describe the felicities of heaven. Every effort has been so far a failure. That bliss passes our imagination. And the Scripture revelation concerning it is couched in earthly imagery—as a Paradise, a Jerusalem, or a wedding-feast—which, beautiful as it may be, leaves no clear impressions. We know heaven must be beautiful and entrancing, but a concrete conception of it is out of the question. Nor can we have clear ideas of the relation of the glorified Son of man to the Trinity, His sitting at the right hand of God, the life of the redeemed, and their condition when, passing from the chambers of death, they enter the palace of the great King.
Hence if the Holy Spirit had presented the world of divine thoughts concerning our salvation in writing directly from heaven, a clear conception of the subject would have been impossible. Our conception would have been vague and figurative as that concerning heaven. Hence these thoughts were not directly written, but _translated into the life of this world, _which gave them _form _and _shape; _and thus they came down to us in _human language, _in the pages of a book. Without this there could not even be a language to embody such sacred and glorious realities. St. Paul had visions, _i.e., _he was freed from the limitations of consciousness and enabled to contemplate heavenly things; but having returned to his limitations, could not speak of what he had seen, as he said: “They are unspeakable.”
And that the equally unspeakable things of salvation may be rendered _expressible _in _human _words, it pleased God to bring to this world the life which originated them; to accustom our human consciousness to them, from it to draw words for them, and thus to exhibit them to every man.
God’s thoughts are inseparable from His life; hence His life must enter the world before His thoughts, at least at first; afterward the thoughts became the vehicle of the life.
This appears in the creation of Adam. The first man is _created; _after him men are _born. _At first human life appeared at once in full stature; from that life once introduced, new life will be born. First, new life originated by forming Eve from Adam’s rib; then, by the union of man and woman. So also here. At first God introduced spiritual life into the world, finished, perfect, by a miracle; afterward differently, since the thought introduced as life into this world is _pictured _to our view. Henceforth the Holy Spirit will use the product of this life to awaken new life.
So redemption can not begin with the gift of Holy Scripture to the Church of the Old Covenant. Such Scripture could not be produced until its content is wrought out in life, and redemption is objectively accomplished.
But the two should not be separated. Redemption was not first completed and then recorded in Scripture. Such conception would be mechanical and unspiritual, directly contradicted by the nature of Scripture, which is living and life-giving. Scripture was produced spontaneously and gradually by and from redemption. The promise in Paradise already foreshadowed it. For tho redemption precedes Scripture, yet in the regeneration of the first men the Word was not idle; the Holy Spirit began with speaking to man, acting upon his consciousness. Even in Paradise, and subsequently when the stream of revelation proceeds, a divine Word always precedes the life and is life’s instrument, and a divine thought introduces redemptive work. And when redemption is fulfilled in Christ He appears first as the Speaker, then as the Worker. The Word that was from the beginning reveals Himself to Israel as the Seal of Prophecy, saying: “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke iv. 21)
Hence the work of the Holy Spirit is never purely magical nor mechanical. Even in the preparatory period He always acted through the Word in translating a soul from death unto life. However, between then and now there is a decided difference:
First, _then, _the Word came to the soul directly by inspiration or by a prophet’s address. Now, both these have ceased, and in their stead comes the Word sealed in the Sacred Scripture, interpreted by the Holy Spirit in preaching in the Church.
Secondly, _then, _the bringing in of life was confined to Israel, expressed itself in words and originated relations that strictly separated the servants of the only true God from the life of the world. Now, this extraordinary, preparatory dispensation is closed; the Israel of God are no more the natural descendants of Abraham, but the spiritual; the stream of the Church flows through all nations and peoples; it stands no more outside the world’s life and development, but rather governs them.
Thirdly, altho in the Old Dispensation redemption existed partly already in Scripture, and the Psalmist shows everywhere his devotion thereto, yet Scripture could be used so to a small extent only, and needed constant supplementing by direct revelations and prophecies. But now, Scripture reveals the whole counsel of God, and nothing can be added to it. Woe to him who dares diminish or increase this Book of Life which discloses the world of divine thought!
But notwithstanding differences, the fact remains that the Holy Spirit mastered the problem of bringing to man lost in sin, by human language intelligible to all nations and ages, the world of divine thoughts, so as to use them as the instrument of man’s quickening.
It does not alter the case that the Holy Scripture shows so many seams and uneven places, and looks different from what we should expect. The chief virtue of this masterpiece was so to enfold God’s thoughts in our sinful life that out of our language they could form a speech in which to proclaim through the ages, to all nations, the mighty words of God. This masterpiece is finished and lies before us in the Holy Scripture. And instead of losing itself in criticizing these apparent defects, the Church of all ages has received it with adoration and thanksgiving; has preserved it, tasted it, enjoyed it, and always believed to find eternal life in it.
Not as tho critical and historical examination were prohibited. Such endeavor for the glory of God is highly commendable. But as the physiologist’s search for the genesis of human life becomes sinful if immodest or dangerous to unborn life, so does every criticism of Holy Scripture become sinful and culpable if irreverent or seeking to destroy the life of God’s Word in the consciousness of the Church.
XIV.
The Revelation to Which the Scripture of the Old Testament Owes Its Existence.
“O Lord, … Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed.”—Jer. xx. 7.
The understanding of the Holy Spirit’s work in Scripture requires us to distinguish the _preparation, _and the _formation _that was the outcome of the preparation. We will discuss these two separately.
The Holy Spirit prepared for Scripture by the operations which from Paradise to Patmos supernaturally apprehended the sinful life of this world, and thus raised up believing men who formed the developing Church.
This will seem very foolish if we consider the Scripture a mere paper-book, a lifeless object, but not if we hear God speaking therein directly to the soul. Severed from the divine life, the Scripture is unprofitable, a letter that killeth. But when we realize that it radiates God’s love and mercy in such form as to transform our life and address our consciousness, we see that the supernatural revelation of the life of God must precede the radiation. The revelation of God’s tender mercies must precede their scintillation in the human consciousness. First, the revelation of the mystery of Godliness; then, its radiation in the Sacred Scripture, and _thence _into the heart of God’s Church, is the natural and ordained way.
For this purpose the Holy Spirit first chose individuals, then a few families, and lastly a whole nation, to be the sphere of His activities; and in each stage He began His work with the Word, always following the _Word of Salvation _with the Facts of Salvation.
He began this work in Paradise. After the fall, death and condemnation reigned over the first pair, and in them entombed the race. Had the Spirit left them to themselves, with the germ of death ever developing in them, no star of hope would ever have arisen for the human race.
Therefore the Holy Spirit introduces His work at the very beginning of the development of the race. The first germ of the mystery of Godliness was already implanted in Adam, and the first mother-word of which the Holy Scripture was to be born was whispered into his ear.
This word was followed by the deed. God’s word does not return void; it is not a sound, but a power. It is a plowshare subsoiling the soul. Behind the word stands the propelling power of the Holy Spirit, and thus it becomes effectual, and changes the whole condition of things. We see it in Adam and Eve; especially in Enoch; and “By faith Abel obtained witness that he was righteous.”
After these operations in individuals the Spirit’s work in the family begins, partly in Noah, more especially in Abraham.
The judgment of the flood had completely changed former relations, had caused a new generation to arise, and perhaps had changed the physical relations between the earth and its atmosphere. And then, for the first time, the Holy Spirit begins to work in the family. Our Ritual of Baptism points emphatically to Noah and his eight, which has often been a stumbling-block to a thoughtless unspirituality. And yet needlessly, for by pointing to Noah our fathers meant to indicate, in that sacramental prayer, that it is not the baptism of _individuals, _but of the _people _of God, _i.e., _of the Church and _its seed. _And since the salvation of families emerges first in the history of Noah and his family after the flood, it was perfectly correct to point to the salvation of Noah and his family as God’s first revelation of salvation for us and our seed.
But the work of the Holy Spirit in Noah’s family is only preliminary. Noah and his sons still belong to the old world. They formed a transition. After Noah the holy line disappears, and from Shem to Terah the Holy Spirit’s work remains invisible. But with Terah it appears in clearest light; for now Abraham goes out, not with sons, but alone. The promised son was still resting in the hand of God. And he could not beget him but by faith; so that God could truly say, “I am the Almighty God,” _i.e., _a God “who quickeneth the dead and calleth the things that are not as tho they were.” Hence Abraham’s family is almost in literal sense the product of the Holy Spirit’s work in that there is nothing in his life without faith. The product of art in Abraham’s history is not the image of a pious shepherd-king or virtuous patriarch, but the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit operating in an old man—who again and again “kicks against the pricks,” who brings forth out of his own heart nothing but unbelief—working in him a stedfast and immovable faith, _bringing that faith into direct connection with his family life. _Abraham is called “the Father of the Faithful,” not in the superficial sense of a spiritual connection between our faith and Abraham’s history, but because the faith of Abraham was interwoven with the fact of Isaac’s birth, whom he obtained by faith, and of whom there was given him a seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand of the seashore.
From the individual the Holy Spirit’s work passes into the family, and thence into the nation. Thus Israel receives his being.
It was Israel, _i.e., _not one of the nations, but a people newly created, added to the nations, received among their number, perpetually distinct from all other nations in origin and significance. And this people is also born of faith. To this end God casts it into death: on Moriah; in Jacob’s flight; in the distresses of Joseph, and in the fears of Moses; alongside the fiery furnaces of Pithon and Ramses; when the infants of the Hebrews floated on the Nile. And from this death it is again and again faith that saves and delivers, and therefore the Holy Spirit who continues His glorious work in the generation and regeneration of this coming people. After this people is born it is again thrown into death: first, in the wilderness; then, during the time of the judges; finally, in the Exile. Yet it can not die, for it carries in its bosom the hope of the promise. However maimed, plagued, and decimated, it multiplies again and again; for the Lord’s promise fails not, and in spite of shameful backslidings and apostasy, Israel manifests the glory of a people born, living, and dying by faith.
Thus the work of the Holy Spirit passes through these three stages: Abel, Abraham, Moses; the individual, the family, the nation. In each of these three the work of the Holy Spirit is visible, inasmuch as everything is wrought by faith. Is faith not wrought by the Holy Spirit? Very well; by faith Abel obtained witness; by faith Abraham received the son of the promise; and by faith Israel passed through the Red Sea.
And what is the relation between _life _and the _word of life _during these three stages? Is it, as according to current representations, first life, and then the word springing therefrom as token of the conscious life?
Evidently history proves the very opposite. In Paradise the word _precedes _and the life follows. To Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees, first the word; “Get thee out from thy country, and I will bless thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” In the case of Moses it is first the word in the burning bush and then the passage through the Red Sea. This is the Lord’s appointed way. He first speaks, then works. Or more correctly, He speaks, and by speaking He quickens. These two stand in closest connection. Not as tho the word _causes _life; for the Eternal and Triune God is the only Cause, Source, and Fountain of life. But the word is the instrument with which He wills to complete His work in our hearts.
We can not stop here to consider the work of the Father and the Son, which either preceded or followed that of the Holy Spirit, and which is interwoven with it. Of the miracles we speak only because we discover in them a special twofold work of the Holy Spirit. The _working _of the miracle is of the Father and of the Son, and not so much of the Holy Spirit. But often as it pleased God to use men as instruments in the performance of miracles, it is the Spirit’s special work to qualify them by working faith in their hearts. Moses smiting the rock believed not, but he imagined that by smiting he himself could produce water from the rock; which God alone can do. To him that believes it is the same whether he speaks or smites the rock. Stick nor tongue can in the least affect it. The power proceeds from God alone. Hence the greatness of the sin of Moses. He thought that he was to be the worker, and not God. And this is the very work of sin in God’s people.
Hence we see that when Moses cast down his rod, when he cursed the Nile, when Elias and other men of God wrought miracles, they did nothing, they only _believed. _And by virtue of their faith they became to the bystanders the interpreters of God’s testimony, showing them the works of God and not their own. This is what St. Peter exclaimed: “Why look ye so earnestly on us as tho by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” (Acts iii. 12)
To work this faith in the hearts of men who were to perform these miracles was the Holy Spirit’s first task. His second was to quicken faith in the hearts of those upon whom the miracle was to be wrought. Of Christ it is written, that in Capernaum He could not do many powerful works because of their unbelief; and we read repeatedly: “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” (Matt. ix. 22; Mark v. 34; Mark x. 52; Luke viii. 48; Luke xvii. 19)
But the miracle alone has no convincing power. The unbeliever begins with denying it. He explains it from natural causes. He neither will nor can see God’s hand in it. And when it is so convincing that he can not deny it, he says: “It is of the devil.” But he will not acknowledge that it is the power of God. Therefore to make the miracle effectual, the Holy Spirit must also open the eyes of them that witness it to see the power of God therein. All our reading of the miracles in our Bible is unprofitable unless the Holy Spirit opens our eyes, and then we see them live, hear their testimony, experience their power, and glorify God for His mighty works.
XV.
The Revelation of the Old Testament in Writing.
“Then I said, I will not speak any more in His Name. But His word was in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones: and I was weary with forbearing, but I could not.”—Jer. xx. 9.
Altho the miracles performed for and in the midst of Israel created a glorious life-center in the midst of the heathen world, yet they did not constitute a Holy Scripture; for this can not be created except God _speak _to man, even to His people Israel. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners _spake _in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days _spoken _unto us by His Son.” (Heb. i. 1)
This divine speaking is not limited to prophecy. God spoke also to others than prophets, e.g., to Eve, Cain, Hagar, etc. To receive a revelation or a vision does not make one a prophet, unless it be accompanied by the command to communicate the revelation to others. The word “nabi,” the Scriptural term for prophet, does not indicate a person who receives something of God, but one who brings something to the people. Hence it is a mistake to confine the divine revelation to the prophetic office. In fact, it extends to the whole race in general; prophecy is only one of its special features. As to the divine revelation in its widest scope, it is evident from the Scripture that God spoke to men from Adam to the last of the apostles. From Paradise to Patmos revelation runs like a golden thread through every part of Sacred History.
As a rule, the Scripture does not treat this divine speaking metaphorically. There are exceptions, e.g., “God spake to the fish” (Jonah ii. 10); “The heavens declare the glory of God, and day unto day uttereth speech” (Psalm xix. 2, 3). However, it can be proven, from a thousand passages against one to the contrary, that the ordinary speaking of the Lord may not be taken in other than the literal sense. This is evident from the call of God to Samuel, which the child mistook for that of Eli. It is evident also from the names, numbers, and localities that are mentioned in this divine speaking; especially from the dialogues between God and man, as in the history of Abraham in the conflict of his faith concerning the promised seed, and in his intercession for Sodom.
And therefore we can not agree with those who would persuade us that the Lord did not really speak; that if it reads so, it must not be so understood; and that a clearer insight shows that “a certain influence from God affected the inner life of the person addressed. In connection with the person’s peculiar character and the influences of his past and present this working gave special clearness to his consciousness, and wrought in him such a conviction that, without hesitation, he declared: ‘Since I will as God wills, I know that the Lord has thus spoken to me.’” This representation we reject as exceedingly pernicious and hurtful to the life of the Church. We call it false, since it dishonors the truth of God; and we refuse to tolerate a theology that starts from such premises. It annihilates the authority of the Scripture. Altho commended by the Ethical wing it is exceedingly un-ethical, inasmuch as it directly opposes the clearly expressed truth of the Word of God. Nay, this divine speaking, whose record the Scripture offers, must be understood as real speaking.
And what is _speaking? _Speaking presupposes a person who has a thought that he wishes to transfer directly to the consciousness of another, without the intervention of a third person or of writing or of gesture. Hence when God speaks to man three things are implied:
First, that God has a thought which He wills to communicate to man.
Second, that He executes His design in a direct way.
Third, that the person addressed now possesses the divine thought with this result, that he is conscious of the same idea which a moment ago existed only in God.
With every explanation doing full justice to these three points we will agree; every other we reject.
As to the question whether speech is possible without sound, we answer: “No, not among men.” Surely the Lord can speak and has spoken at times by means of _air-vibrations; _but He can speak to man without the use of either sound or ear. As men we have access to each other’s consciousness only by means of the organs of sense. We can not communicate with our neighbor except he hear or see or feel our touch. The unfortunate who is devoid of these senses can not receive the slightest information from without. But the Lord our God is not thus limited. He has access to man’s heart and consciousness from within. He can impart to our consciousness whatever He will in a direct way, without the use of eardrum, auditory nerve, and vibration of air. Tho a man be stone-deaf, God can make him hear, inwardly speaking to his soul.
However, to accomplish this God must condescend to our limitations. For the consciousness is subject to the mental conditions of the world in which it lives. A negro, e.g., can have no other consciousness than that developed by his environment and acquired by his language. Speaking to a foreigner unacquainted with our tongue, we must adapt ourselves to his limitations and address him in his own language. Hence in order to make Himself intelligible to man, God must clothe His thoughts in human language and thus convey them to the human consciousness.
To the person thus addressed it must seem therefore as tho he had been spoken to in the ordinary way. He received the impression that he heard words of human language conveying to him divine thoughts. Hence the divine speaking is always adapted to the capacities of the person addressed. Because in condescension the Lord adapts Himself to every man’s consciousness, His speaking assumes the form peculiar to every man’s condition. What a difference, for instance, between God’s word to Cain and that to Ezekiel! This explains how God could mention names, dates, and various other details; how He could make use of the dialect of a certain period; of derivation of words, as in the changing of names, as in the case of Abraham and Sarah.
This also shows that God’s speaking is not limited to godly and susceptible persons prepared to receive a revelation. Adam was wholly unprepared, hiding himself from the presence of God. And so were Cain and Balaam. Even Jeremiah said: “I will not speak any more in His Name. But His word was in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones: and I was weary with forbearing, but I could not” (chap. xx. 9). Hence the divine omnipotence is unlimited. The Lord can impart the knowledge of His will to whomsoever He pleases. The question why He has not spoken for eighteen centuries must not be answered, “Because He has lost the power”; but, “Because it seemeth not good to Him.” Having once spoken and in the Scripture brought His word to our souls, He is silent now that we may honor the Scripture.
However, it should be noticed that in this divine speaking from Paradise to Patmos there is a certain order, unity, and regularity; wherefore we add:
First, the divine speaking was not confined to individuals, but, having a message for all the people, God spoke through His chosen prophets. That God can speak to a whole nation at once is proven by the events of Sinai. But it pleased Him not always to do this. On the contrary, He never spoke to them in that way afterward, but introduced prophetism instead. Hence the peculiar mission of prophetism is to receive the words of God and immediately to communicate them to the people. God speaks to Abraham what is for Abraham alone; but to Joel, Amos, etc., a message not for themselves, but for others to whom it must be conveyed. In connection with this we notice the fact that the prophet stands not alone, but in relation with a class of men among whom his mind was gradually prepared to _speak to the people, _and to receive the divine Oracle. For the peculiar feature of prophecy was the condition of ecstasy, which differed greatly from the way by which God spoke to Moses.
Secondly, these divine revelations are mutually related and, taken together, constitute a whole. There is first the foundation, then the superstructure, until finally the illustrious palace of the divine truth and knowledge is completed. Revelation as a whole shows therefore a glorious plan, into which are dovetailed the special revelations to individuals.
Thirdly, the speaking of the Lord, especially of the inward word, is peculiarly the work of the Holy Spirit, which, as we have found before, appears most strikingly when God comes into closest contact with the creature. And the consciousness is the most intimate part of man’s being. Wherefore, as often as the Lord our God enters human consciousness to communicate His thoughts, clothed in human thoughts and speech, the Scripture and the believer honor and adore therein the comforting operation of the Holy Spirit.
XVI.
Inspiration.
“And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write, These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God.”— Rev. iii. 1.
We do not speak here of the New Testament. Nothing has contributed more to falsify and undermine faith in the Scripture and the orthodox view concerning it than the unhistoric and unnatural practise of considering the Scripture of the Old and the New Testament at the same time.
The Old Testament appears first; then came the Word in the flesh; and only after that the Scripture of the New Testament. In the study of the work of the Holy Spirit the same order ought to be observed. Before we speak of His work in the Incarnation, the inspiration of the New Testament may not even be mentioned. And until the Incarnation, there existed no other Scripture than the Old Testament.
The question is now: How is the work of the Holy Spirit to be traced in the _construction _of that Scripture?
We have considered the question how it was prepared. By wonderful works God created a new life in this world; and, in order to make men believe in these works, He spoke to man either directly or indirectly, i.e., by the prophets. But this did not create a Sacred Scripture. If nothing more had been done there would never have been such a Scripture; for events take place and belong to the past; the word once spoken passes away with the emotion in the consciousness.
Human writing is the wonderful gift which God bestowed on man to perpetuate what otherwise would have been forgotten and utterly lost. Tradition falsifies the report. Among holy men this would not be so. But we are sinful men. By sin a lie can be told. Sin is also the cause of our lack of earnestness, and the root of all forgetfulness, carelessness, and thoughtlessness. These are the two factors, lying and carelessness, that rob tradition of its value. For this reason God gave our race the gift of writing. Whether on wax, on metal, on the face of the rock, on parchment, on papyrus, or on paper, is of no importance; but that God enabled man to find the art of committing to posterity a thought, a promise, an event, independent from his person, attaching it to something material, so that it could endure and be read by others even after his death—this is of greatest importance.
For us, men, reading and writing are means of _fellowship. _It begins with speaking, which is essential to fellowship. But mere speaking confines it to narrow limits, while reading and writing give it wider scope, extending it to persons far away and to generations yet unborn. Through writing past generations actually live together. Even now we can meet with Moses and David, Isaiah and John, Plato and Cicero; we can hear them speak and receive their mental utterances. Writing is therefore no contemptible thing as some, who are overspiritual and sneer at the written Word, consider it. On the contrary, it is great and glorious—one of the mighty factors whereby God keeps men and generations in living communication and exercise of love. Its discovery was a wonderful grace, God’s gift to man, more than doubling his treasures.
The gift has often been abused; yet even in its rightful use there is ascending glory. How much more glorious appears the art of writing when Dante, Shakespeare, and Schiller write their poetry, than when the pedagogue compiles his spelling-books or the notary public scribbles the lease of a house!
Since writing may be used or abused, may serve low or high purposes, the question arises: “What is its highest end?” And without the least hesitation we answer: “The writing of the Holy Scripture.” As human speech and language are of the Holy Spirit, so is writing also taught us of Him. But while man uses the art to record human thoughts, the Holy Spirit employs it to give fixed and lasting form to the thoughts of God. Hence there is a human employment of it and a divine. The highest and wholly unique is that in the Holy Scripture.
Actually there is no other book which sustains communication among men and generations as does the Sacred Scripture. To honor His own work the Holy Spirit has caused the universal distribution of this book alone, thereby putting men of all stations and classes into communication with the oldest generations of the race.
From this standpoint the Holy Scripture must be considered, being in fact “the Scripture _par excellence.” _Hence the divine and oft-repeated command: “Write.” God did not only speak and act, leaving it to man whether His deeds and the tenor of His words were to be forgotten or remembered; but He also commanded that they should be recorded in writing. And when just before the announcement and close of the divine revelation to John on Patmos, the Lord commanded him, “Write to the church” of Ephesus, Pergamos, etc., He repeated in a summary what was the design of all preceding revelations, viz., that they should be written and in the form of a Scripture, a gift of the Holy Spirit, and be deposited in the Church, which for that reason is called the “pillar and ground of the truth.” Not, according to a later interpretation, as tho the truth were _concealed _in the Church; but, according to the ancient rendering, that Holy Scripture was entrusted to the Church for preservation.
However, we do not mean to say that with reference to every verse and chapter the Holy Spirit commanded, “Write,” as tho the Scripture as we possess it had come into existence page after page. Assuredly the Scripture is divinely inspired: a statement distorted and perverted beyond recognition by our Ethical theologians, if they understand by it that “prophets and apostles were personally animated by the Holy Spirit.” This confounds _illumination _with _revelation, _and revelation with _inspiration. _“Illumination” is the clearing up of the spiritual consciousness which in His own time the Holy Spirit gives more or less to every child of God. “Revelation “Is a communication of the thoughts of God given in extraordinary manner, by a miracle, to prophets and apostles. But “inspiration,” wholly distinct from these, is that special and unique operation of the Holy Spirit whereby He directed the minds of the writers of the Scripture in the act of writing. “All Scripture is given by _inspiration _of God” (2 Tim. iii. 16); and this has no reference to ordinary _illumination, _nor extraordinary _revelation, _but to an operation that stands entirely alone and which the Church has always confessed under the name of Inspiration. Hence inspiration is the name of that all-comprehensive operation of the Holy Spirit whereby He has bestowed on the Church a complete and infallible Scripture. We call this operation all-comprehensive, for it was organic, not mechanical.
The practise of writing dates back to remote antiquity; preceded, however, by the preservation of the verbal tradition by the Holy Spirit. This is evident from the narrative of the Creation. Noted physicists like Agassiz, Dana, Guyot, and others have openly declared that the narrative of the Creation recorded many centuries ago what so far no man could know of himself, and what at the present time is only partly revealed by the study of geology. Hence the narrative of the Creation is not myth, but history. The events took place as recorded in the opening chapters of Genesis. The Creator Himself must have communicated them to man. From Adam to the time when writing was invented the remembrance of this communication must have been preserved correctly. That there are two narratives of the Creation proves nothing to the contrary. Creation is considered from the natural and from the spiritual points of view; hence it is perfectly proper that the image of Creation should be completed in a twofold sketch.
If Adam did not receive the special charge, yet from the revelation itself he obtained the powerful impression that such information was not designed for himself alone, but for all men. Realizing its importance and the obligation it imposed, succeeding generations have perpetuated the remembrance of God’s wonderful words and deeds, first orally, afterward by writing. In this way there gradually arose a collection of documents which through Egyptian influence were put in book form by the great men of Israel. These documents being collected, sifted, compiled, and expanded by Moses, formed in his day the beginning of a Holy Scripture properly so called.
Whether Moses and those earlier writers were conscious of their inspiration is immaterial; the Holy Spirit directed them, brought to their knowledge what they were to know, sharpened their judgment in the choice of documents and records, so that they should decide aright, and gave them a superior maturity of mind that enabled them always to choose the right word.
Altho the Holy Spirit spoke directly to men, human speech and language being no human inventions, yet in writing He employed human agencies. But whether He dictates directly, as in the Revelation of St. John, or governs the writing indirectly, as with historians and evangelists, the result is the same: the product is such in form and content as the Holy Spirit designed, an infallible document for the Church of God.
Hence the confession of inspiration does not exclude ordinary numbering, collecting of documents, sifting, recording, etc. It recognizes all these matters which are plainly discernible in Scripture. Style, diction, repetitions, all retain their value. But it must be insisted that the Scripture as a whole, as finally presented to the Church, as to content, selection, and arrangement of documents, structure, and even words, owes its existence to the Holy Spirit, i.e., that the men employed in this work were consciously or unconsciously so controlled and directed by the Spirit, in all their thinking, selecting, sifting, choice of words, and writing, that their final product, delivered to posterity, possessed a perfect warrant of divine and absolute authority.
That the Scriptures themselves present a number of objections and in many aspects do not make the impression of absolute inspiration does not militate against the other fact that all this spiritual labor was controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit. For the Scripture had to be constructed so as to leave room for the exercise of faith. It was not intended to be approved by the critical judgment and accepted on this ground. This would eliminate faith. Faith takes hold directly with the fulness of our personality. To have faith in the Word, Scripture must not grasp us in our critical _thought, _but in the life of the soul. To believe in the Scripture is an act of life of which thou, O lifeless man! art not capable, except the Quickener, the Holy Ghost, enable thee. He that caused Holy Scripture to be written is the same that must teach thee to read it. Without Him this product of divine art can not affect thee. Hence we believe:
First, that the Holy Spirit chose this human construction of the Scripture purposely, that we as men might more readily live in it.
Secondly, that these stumbling-blocks were introduced that it might be impossible for us to lay hold of its content with mere intellectual grasp, without the exercise of faith.