020. REVELATION, ILLUMINATION, INSPIRATION

REVELATION, ILLUMINATION, INSPIRATION

Revelation and illumination then may exist, and at times they have existed, without inspiration. When we deny that Christianity stands or falls with the doctrine of inspiration as a whole, or with any theory of inspiration in particular, we are not denying or imperiling in the least the reality of divine revelation. We are only saying that the facts of Christ’s life and teaching are greater than any written record of them, and that the substantial truth of the Scripture history may be vindicated just as the truth of many secular narratives has been.

We believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures and of every part of the Scriptures. The Bible not only contains, but it is, the word of God. But as Christ is the truth and his inspiring Spirit is the Spirit of truth, the word which he has inspired has no need of special pleading. It covets the closest examination; it fears no criticism, provided the criticism be candid. There is indeed a self-sufficient and prejudiced study that comes to the Bible determined to find nothing there that will humble the sinner or suggest his need of supernatural aid, and such study will be blind to the most important facts of revelation. It will see in Christ only a man like ourselves; it will strip from his brow the halo of miracle and prophecy that surrounds it; it will find in Scripture no fulfillment of his promise that the Spirit should lead his disciples into all the truth. But to the truly scientific mind,—and we mean by this simply the mind that is integral, that has conscience and affection active, as well as the merely logical understanding,—to the truly scientific mind, I say, that same Scripture will be self-evidencing; the law and the prophets and the Psalms will speak of Christ; minor obscurities and difficulties will be forgotten in the overpowering impression that this revelation is from God. Believing it to be the very word of Christ, we welcome investigation; we form in advance no peculiar theories of inspiration; we are content to let science and criticism tell us what inspiration is. The supremacy of Christ, and not any theory of inspiration, is the citadel of our faith. We refuse to confound the citadel with any of those temporary outworks which past ages have constructed to defend it, and with which our modern artillery enables us in some cases to dispense. ’Upon what, then, must we insist, and what points may we regard as unessential in our judgment of the Scriptures? I answer, We must insist that the Bible, taken together, is a complete and sufficient guide to Christ and salvation. It contains the truth which God saw to be best adapted to man’s moral and religious needs. It is given in the forms that will most stimulate and satisfy the candid and inquiring soul. When rightly interpreted, it is an infallible guide to Christian doctrine. As to all the essential historical facts, both of the earlier and the later dispensation, both with regard to Moses and with regard to Christ, it gives us true and sufficient information. So it is the very truth of God, in the sphere and for the purposes of divine revelation. But it is not essential that we regard every unimportant historical detail as vouched for by inspiration, or that we hold the Bible to any man-made standard of literary perfection or scientific accuracy. These things are beside the purpose of revelation. There is a human element in the Bible. It is God’s "word made flesh," put into imperfect forms of human speech, clothed in the garb of earthly custom and usage, but for that very reason meeting men on their own level and speaking to them in the tongue in which they were born. So the very humanity of the Bible is the best proof of its divinity.