CHAPTER TEN: THE COMPLETENESS OF THE BIBLE DEMONSTRATES ITS DIVINE PERFECTION
The antiquity of the Scriptures argues against
their completeness. The compilation of the Bible was completed more than
eighteen centuries ago, while the greater part of the world was yet
uncivilized. Since John added the capstone to the Temple of God's Truth there
have been many wonderful discoveries and inventions, yet there have been no
additions whatever to the moral and spiritual truths contained in the Bible.
Today, we know no more about the origin of life, the nature of the soul, the
problem of suffering or the future destiny of man than did those who had the
Bible eighteen hundred years ago. Through the centuries of the Christian era,
man has succeeded in learning many of the secrets of nature and has harnessed
her forces to his service, but in the actual revelation of supernatural truth
nothing new has been discovered. Human writers cannot supplement
the Divine records for they are complete, entire, "wanting nothing."
The Bible needs no addendum. There is more than
sufficient in God's Word to meet the temporal and spiritual needs of all
mankind. Though written two thousand years ago, the Bible is still
"up-to-date," and answers every vital question which concerns the soul of man
in our day. The Book of Job was written three thousand years before Columbus
discovered America, yet it is as fresh to the heart of man now as though it had
only been published ten years ago. The majority of the Psalms were written two
thousand five hundred years before President Wilson was born, yet in our day
and generation they are perfectly new and fresh to the human soul. Such facts
as these can only be explained on the hypothesis that the Eternal God is the
Author of the Bible.
The adaptation of the Scriptures is
another illustration of their wonderful completeness. To young or old, feeble
or vigorous, ignorant or cultured, joyful or sorrowful, perplexed or
enlightened, Orientalist or Ocidentalist, saint or sinner, the Bible is a
source of blessing, will minister to every need, and is able to supply every
variety of want. And the Bible is the only Book in the world of which this can
be predicted. The writings of Plato may be a source of interest and instruction
to the philosophic mind, but they are unsuitable for placing in the hands of a
child. Not so with the Bible: the youngest may profit from a perusal of the
Sacred Page. The writings of Jerome or Twain may please, for an hour, the man
of humor, but they will bring no balm to the sore heart and will speak no words
of comfort and consolation to those passing through the waters of bereavement.
How different with the Scriptures - never has a heavy heart turned in vain to
God's Word for peace! The writings of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller may be
of profit to the Western mind, but they convey little of value to the
Easterner. Not so with God's Word; it may be translated into any language and
will speak with equal clearness, directness and power to all men in their
mother tongue.
To quote Dr. Burrell: " In every heart, down
below all other wants and aspirations, there is a profound longing to know the
way of spiritual life. The world is crying, "What shall I do to be saved?" Of
all books the Bible is the only one that answers that universal cry. There are
other books which set forth morality with more or less correctness; but there
is none other that suggests a blotting out of the record of the mislived past
or an escape from the penalty of the broken law. There are other books that
have poetry; but there is none that sings the song of salvation or gives a
troubled soul the peace that floweth like a river. There are other books that
have eloquence; but there is no other that enables us to behold God Himself
with outstretched hands pleading with men to turn and live. There are other
books that have science; but there is none other that can give the soul a
definite assurance of the future life, so that it can say, "I know whom I have
believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed
unto Him against that day."
Though other books contain valuable truths, they
also have an admixture of error; other books contain part of the truth, the
Bible alone contains all the truth. Nowhere in the writings of human genius can
a single moral or spiritual truth be found, which is not contained in substance
in the Bible. Examine the writings of the ancients; ransack the libraries of
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, India, Greece, and Rome; search the contents of the
Koran, the Zend - Avesta, or the Bagavad-Gita; gather together the most exalted
spiritual thoughts and the sublimest moral conceptions contained in them and
you will find that each and all are duplicated in the Bible! Dr. Torrey has
said, "If every book but the Bible were destroyed not a single spiritual truth
would be lost." In the small compass of God's Word there is stored more wisdom
which will endure the test of eternity than the sum total of thinking done by
man since his creation. Of all the books in the world, the Bible alone can
truly be said to be complete, and this characteristic of the Scriptures is
another of the many lines of demonstration which witnesses to the Divine
inspiration of the Bible.