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GOD." What word could more fittingly stand at the head of the first line of the first paragraph in this noble epistle! Each structure must rest on him as foundation; each tree must spring from him as root; each design and enterprise must originate in him as source. "IN THE BEGINNING-GOD," is a worthy motto to inscribe at the commencement of every treatise, be it the ponderous volume or the ephemeral tract. And with that name we commence our attempt to gather up some of the glowing lessons which were first addressed to the persecuted and wavering Hebrews in the primitive age, but have ever been most highly prized by believing Gentiles throughout the universal Church. The feast was originally spread for the children of the race of Abraham; but who shall challenge our right to the crumbs? In our endeavor to gather them, be thou, 0 God, Alpha and Omega, First and Last. In the original Greek, the word "God"is preceded by two other words, which describe the variety and multitudinousness of his revelation to man. And the whole verse is full of interest as detailing the origin and authority of the Word of God, and as illustrating the great law which appears in so many parts of the works of God, and has been fitly called the law of VARIETY IN UNITY.
That law operates in Nature. The
earliest book of God. No thoughtful man can look around him without
being arrested by the infinite variety that meets him on every side. "All
flesh is not the same flesh; . . . there are celestial bodies, and bodies
terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one; and the glory of the
terrestrial is another. . . . One star differeth from another star in glory."
You cannot match two faces in a crowd; two leaves in a forest; or two flowers
in the woodlands of spring. It w~ld seem as if the molds in which natural
products are being shaped are broken up and cast aside as soon as one result
has been attained. And it is this which affords such an infinite field
for investigation and enjoyment, forbidding all fear of monotony or weariness
of soul.
And yet, amid all natural variety, there is a marvelous
unity. Every part of the universe interlocks by subtle and delicate links
with every other part. You cannot disturb the balance anywhere without
sending a shock of disturbance through the whole system. Just as in some
majestic Gothic minster the same idea repeats itself in bolder or slighter
forms, so do the same great thoughts recur in tree and flower, in molecule
and planet, in diatom and man. And all this because, if you penetrate to
Nature's heart, you meet God. "Of him, and through him, and to him, are
all things." "There are diversities of operations; but it is the same God
which worketh all in all." The unity that pervades Nature's temple is the
result of its having originated from one mind, and having been effected
by one hand, the mind and hand of God.
That law also operates throughout the Scriptures.
There is as great variety there as in Nature. They were written in
different ages. some in the days of "the fathers"; others at "the end of
these days" for us. In the opening chapters, under the guidance of the
Spirit of God, Moses has embodied fragments of hallowed tradition, which
passed from lip to lip in the tents of the patriarchs; and its later chapters
were written when the holy city, Jerusalem, had already been smitten to
the ground by the mailed hand of Titus.
They were written in different countries:
these in the deserts of Arabia; those under the shadow of the pyramids;
and others amid the tides of life that swept through the greatest cities
of Greece and Rome. You can detect in some the simple pastoral life of
Palestine; in others the magnificence of Nebuchadnezzar's empire. In one
there is the murmur of the blue Aegean; and in several the clank of the
fetter in the Roman prison-cell.
They were written by men belonging to various
ranks, occupations, and methods of thought.. shepherds and fishermen,
warriors and kings; the psalmist, the prophet, and the priest; some employing
the stately religious Hebrew, others the Chaldaic patois, others the polished
Greek-every variety of style, from the friendly letter, or sententious
proverb, to the national history, or the carefully prepared treatise, in
which thought and expression glow as in the fires--but all contributing
their quota to the symmetry and beauty of the whole.
And yet, throughout the Bible, there is an indubitable
unity. What else could have led mankind to look upon these sixty-six
tractlets as being so unmistakably related to each other that they must
be bound up together under a common cover? There has been something so
unique in these books that they have always stood and fallen together.
To disintegrate one has been to loose them all. Belief in one has led to
belief in all. Their hands are linked and locked so tightly that where
one goes all must follow. And though wise and clever men have tried their
best, they have never been able to produce a single treatise containing
that undefinable quality which gives these their mysterious oneness; and
to lack which is fatal to the claims of any book to be included with them,
or to demand the special veneration and homage of mankind.
The world is full of religious books; but the man
who has fed his religious life upon the Bible will tell in a moment the
difference between them and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
The eye can instantly detect the absence of life in the artificial flower;
the tongue can immediately and certainly detect the absence or presence
of a certain flavor submitted to the taste; and the heart of man, his moral
sense, is quick to detect the absence in all other religious books of a
certain savor which pervades the Bible, from Genesis, the book of beginnings,
to the Apocalyptic announcements of the quick coming of the King.
And in the possession of this mysterious attribute,
the Old and new Testaments are one. You cannot
say there is more of it in the glowing paragraphs of the Apostle Paul than
in the splendid prophecies and appeals of the great evangelic prophet,
Isaiah. It is certainly in the Gospels; but it is not less in the story
of the Exodus. Throughout, there is silence on topics which merely gratify
curiosity, but on which other professed revelations have been copiously
full. Throughout, there is no attempt to give instruction on science or
nature; but to bend all energy in discussing the claims of God on men.
Throughout, the crimson cord of sacrifice is clearly manifest, on which
the books are strung together as beads upon a thread. And throughout, there
is ever the subtle, mysterious, ineffable quality called Inspiration:
a term which is explained by the majestic words of this opening verse,
"God, having spoken of old to the fathers, hath at the end of these days
spoken to us."
Scripture is the speech of God to man. It is this which gives it its unity. "The Lord, the mighty God, hath spoken, and called the earth." The amanuenses may differ; but the inspiring mind is the same. The instruments may vary; but in every case the same theme is being played by the same master-hand. We should read the Bible as those who listen to the very speech of God. Well may it be called "the Word of God."
But the Scripture is God's speech in man.
The heavenly treasure is in vessels of earth. "He spake unto the fathers
in the prophets. . . He hath spoken unto us in his Son." It is very remarkable
to study the life of Jesus, and to listen to his constant statements as
to the source of his marvelous words. So utterly had he emptied himself,
that he originated nothing from himself; but lived by the Father, in the
same way as we are to live by him. He distinctly declared that the words
he spake, he spake not of himself; but that words and works alike were
the outcome of the Father, who dwelt within. Through those lips of clay
the eternal God was speaking. Well might he also be called "the Word of
God"!
And here the words of the prophets in the Old Testament
are leveled up to the plane of the words of Jesus in the New. Without staying
to make the least distinction, our writer tell us, beneath the teaching
of the Spirit, that he who spake in the one spake also in the others. Let
us then think with equal reverence of the Old Testament as of the New.
It was our Saviour's Bible. It was the food which Jesus loved, and lived
upon. He was content to fast from all other food, if only he might have
this. It was his one supreme appeal in conflict with the devil, and in
the clinching of his arguments and exhortations with men. And here we discover
the reason. The voice of God spake in the prophets, whose very name likens
them to the up-rush of the geyser from its hidden source.
As God spake in men, it is clear that he left
them to express his thoughts in the language, and after the method, most
familiar to them. They will speak of Nature just as
they have been accustomed to find her. They will use the mode of speech
whether poem or prose which is most habitual to their cast of thought.
They will make allusions to the events transpiring around them, so as to
be easily understood by their fellows. But, whilst thus left to express
God's thoughts in their own way, yet most certainly the divine Spirit must
have carefully superintended their utterances, so that their words should
accurately convey his messages to men.
In many parts of the Bible there is absolute dictation,
word for word. In others, there is divine superintendence guarding from
error, and guiding in the selection and arrangement of materials: as when
Daniel quotes from historic records; and Moses embodies the sacred stories
which his mother had taught him beside the flowing Nile. In all, there
is the full inspiration of the Spirit of God, by whom all Scripture has
been given. Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, . . .
searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was
in them did signify" (2 Tim. iii. i6 ; 2 Pet. i. 20, 21 ; 1 Pet. i. ii).
We need not deny that other men have been illuminated;
but the difference between illumination and inspiration
is as far as the east is from the west. Nor do we say that God has
not spoken in other men, or in these men at other times; but we do say
that only in the Bible has God given the supreme revelation of his will,
and the authoritative rule of our faith and practice. The heart of man
bears witness to this. We know that there is a tone in these words which
is heard in no other voice. The upper chords of this instrument give it
a timbre which none other can rival.
The revelation in the Old Testament was given
in fragments (or portions). This is the meaning of the word
rendered in the Old Version sundry times, and in the Revised
divers portions. It refers, not to the successive ages over
which it was spread, but to the numerous "portions" into which it was broken
up. No one prophet could speak out all the truth. Each was intrusted with
one or two syllables in the mighty sentences of God's speech. At the best
the view caught of God, and given to men through the prophets, though true,
was partial and limited.
But in Jesus there is nothing of this piecemeal
revelation. "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." He
hath revealed the Father. Whosoever hath seen him hath seen God; and to
hear his words is to get the full-orbed revelation of the Infinite.
The earlier revelation was in many forms.
The earthquake, the fire, the tempest, and the still small
voice-each had its ministry. Symbol and parable, vision and metaphor, type
and historic foreshadowing, all in turn served the divine end; like the
ray which is broken into many prismatic hues. But in Jesus there is the
steady shining of the pure ray of his glory, one uniform and invariable
method of revelation.
Oh the matchless and glorious Book, the Word of
God to men-to us; revealing not only God, but ourselves; explaining moods
for which we had no cipher; touching us as no other book can, and in moments
when all voices beside wax faint and still; telling facts which we have
not been able to discover, but which we instantly recognize as truth; the
bread of the soul; the key of life; disclosing more depths as we climb
higher in Christian experience: we have tested thee too long to doubt that
thou art what Jesus said thou wast, the indispensable and precious gift
of God.