05.03.07 - The Scriptures a Living and Abiding Word

(7) The Scriptures a Living and Abiding Word

It is in the permanency of the Scriptures, in the living and abiding Word that we have the witness to the truth and finality of the Scriptures. These Scriptures are circulated by the million year by year. No engrossment of the human mind in the secularities of life, in politic-, in scientific pursuits, in discover}, and inventions of even- kind; no change in methods of thought and criticism in science and literature, no progress or development or advancement in science and thought have put them out of court. Man}- books, writings, and systems have come into existence and passed away since the Scriptures began to be, but they hold on their way waxing stronger and stronger. We read many books, and some several times during the year with interest, but the Scriptures we read every night and morning with freshness and newness of meaning. This not only distinguishes them from all other writings and witnesses to their power and worth, but also testifies of their permanency and finality. The Scriptures contain all we know of God and religion, or ever shall know till the veil is rent. “ No text, no revelation has been given in addition to that within the covers of the Bible.” Men may say God has revealed Himself in nature, by His providence in history, that He has revealed Himself in the individual life and the religious consciousness of men, revealed Himself by His Spirit in His Church and her teaching and doctrine; that He has inspired books of devotion and hymns of praise which arc the treasures of the world; that week by week God speaks in and through the thoughts of men who under the guidance and inspiration of the Spirit speak to their fellows of the deep things of God from the ten thousand pulpits of Christendom. Yes, it is so all true, perfectly true, in its way. But what has God said in nature, in providence, in history, in literature, in Christian experience, in devotion and the thoughts and hearts of men, that He has not first said in the Scriptures of Divine truth? “ Take,” says W. R. Nicoll, “ the most beautiful thought ever uttered by any individual that has ever written or spoken on the subject of religion, and you may find it folded in some saying of the Lord Jesus, or some Apostolic Epistle, or in the utterance of some Prophet or Psalmist.” This was the special argument of Professor Robertson Smith for the inspiration of the Scriptures. “ We mean that they contain within themselves a perfect picture of God’s gracious relations to man, and that we have no need to go outside the Scriptures to know anything of God and His saving will to man; that the whole growth of true religion up to its perfect fulness is set before us in the record of God’s dealings with Israel, culminating in the manifestation of Jesus Christ.”

History and experience have taught us nothing in the matter of true religion that is not found in the New Testament. We stand at the close of the nineteenth century where Christ stood at the first; or rather, Christ stands now in the midst of us and as much above us as He did in the midst and above the reach of His first disciples the perfect Master, the perfect Teacher, the perfect Revealer of God, the Supreme Head of the fellowship of all true faith and religion. Here then is room for growth and development in the knowledge of the Scriptures as the Word of God. Whatever the progress, whatever the development, the Scriptures and Christ are always above it the perfect standard is never reached, their meaning and worth are never exhausted.