How God inspired the Bible : thoughts for the present disquiet

Front matter

v<

'^oV

B Y THE SAME A UTHOR.

Chapter II. Reassurance

Is THE Bible Safe ? . . .

"A Great Cloud of Witnesses"

The Witness of the Book Itself The Witness of Christ The Witness of its Power .

CHAPTER HI.

POPULAR NOTIONS OF INSPIRATION.

I. Is Disquiet an Evil ? .

II. On "Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie

1 3

4 6

7 10

13 15 25 35 37

41 43

VI CONTENTS.

PAGE

III. The Confidence of Scholars .... 44

IV. The Bible through Coloured Spectacles . . 45 V. Danger of Popular Notions of Inspiration . 46

Vl. A Challenge 51

VII. Are we Bound to any Theory of Inspiration ? 53

CHAPTER ly.

HOW TO FORM TRUE NOTIONS OF INSPIRATION.

I. The Wrong Way 58

II. The Right Way 03

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY OF NOTIONS OF INSPIRATION.

I. The Jews 70

II. The Early Church 72

III. The Middle Ages 78

IV. The Reformation 80

V. In Modern Days 85

Book m.

HOW OOD INSPIRED THE BIBLE.

Introduction 91

CHAPTER I.

WHAT IS INSPIRATION 9

I. What is Inspiration ? 94

II. Revelation and Inspiration 97

CONTENTS. vu

CHAPTER II.

THE TWO EXTREMES.

PAGE

Introductory 100

I. Natural Inspiration 101

{a) How Far is it True? . , . .102 (6) What the Writers Thought of Their

(c) Other Considerations .... 107

II. Verbal Inspiration 108

Chapter III. The Human And Divine

I. The Human Element in Inspiration . . . 113

II. Value of the Human Element .... 117

III. Evil of Ignoring the Human Element . . 120

IV. The Divine Mingling with the Human . . 124 V. The Nature of Christ and the Nature of the

Bible 126

Chapter IV. Is The Bible Infallible ?

I. What Human Theories Claim

II. What the Scriptures Claim

. 131

III. What Common-Sense Claims

IV. The Purpose of Scripture .

V. Its Method of Teaching

VI. What Infallibility is Needed .

VII. Is the Bible Infallible ? .

nil. Danger of Popular Notions of Infallibility

IX. A Caution viii CONTENTS.

Chapter V. Progressiveness Of God's Teaching

PAGE

I. The Moral Difficulties of the Old Testament 148 II. A Rational Method of Education . . .150

III. First Illustration 153

IV. Second Illustration 154

V. Brahmin Development — an Illustration . . 157

VI. The Education of the Race .... 158

VII. The School of God 159

VIII. Back to the Moral Difficulties . . . 162

IX. The Danger of Ignoring Progressive Teaching 169

X. Objections and Answers 172

XI. Conclusion 178

Chapter VI. Inspiration And The "higher Criticism."

I. The Higher Criticism .

II. Illustrations of the Higher Criticism

III. An Unreasonable Panic

IV. Dangers of the Higher Criticism V. The True Position of "Criticism"

VI. Are its Results to be Feared? . VII. A Reasonable Attitude

CHAPTER VII. Conclusion 306

Book f.

Chapter I. Disquiet

The " Problem of the Day."

The burning question of the day in the so-called " religious world," and indeed in an increasinglylarge circle without it as well, is that of the true position of the Bible. Many men are everywhere asking, though perhaps not always asking aloud : What of the claims of the Bible, what of its inspiration ? How far is it human in its origin ? How far is it Divine ? How far is it infallible ? Is it merely the word of " holy men of old," or is its every utterance literally " the Word of God " ?

Never was there more interest, more inquiry, and, I fear I must add, more disquiet amongst thoughtful people with regard to these questions. Men are no longer satisfied with the old answers to them. It is foolishness to talk of the danger and unwisdom of publicly discussing them now. Even if it were right to ignore them, they cannot be ignored.

They are no longer questions confined to critics and theologians, or discussed only in abs1«ruse, inaccessible books. Our popular magazines and religious newspapers continually refer to them. The public are freely taken into the confidence of scholars, and taught all, and often more than all, that these scholars know themselves.

At all times such questions have occupied men's minds as they thought about certain problems presented by the Bible. But they have in the main been shirked and put aside as too difficult or too irreverent. That can never be again. There is a freedom and fearlessness about these questions to-day which demands that they shall be answered one way or another. There has come to us a crisis in the history of the Bible, a crisis through which our generation must pass — amid strife and heart-burnings, it may be — amid doubts and fears for the future of religion — but whose results will ultimately be the enthroning of the Bible in a position firmer and more lasting than it has ever held before in the hearts of Christian people.

All such crises are from the hand of God, part of His method of guiding the world's progress. The history of religious thought is but a record of such crises. Whenever a truth has in course of time become encrusted with error, it is by thus shaking and disturbing men's beliefs that the evil is to be remedied. " Yet once more " God is thus shaking the popular notions about the Bible : "And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, . . . that the things lohich cannot he shalcen may remain.'^'' ^

Let us watch this process now that is going on around us. Let us note the various groups that are, some of them unconsciously, working out for the Bible the good purposes of God.

I.

The Disquieted Thinker.

Let us first regard the large and rapidly growing^ class for which primarily this book is being written — the thoughtful religious man who is disquieted about his Bible because he has had to break with the traditional view of it, and has not yet been able to find any other. Let us believe, as we are bound to do in the case of every honest thinker, that his rising disquiet and dissatisfaction are but the means through which the God of truth is helping him

1 Heb. xii. 27.

^ A writer in the London Times of January 7th, describes them as "this great third party of enormous numbers, and rolling on like a snow-ball;" and another of the 14th says, " I belong to that vast party. I was brought up in the traditional beliefs about the Bible, and I have suffered the exquisite pain of finding my Bible slipping from me."

to higher truth. Let as notice how his attitude toward the Bible is affected by the different phases of thought with which he comes in contact.

" I do not reject or disbelieve the Bible," he says. " Far from it. But my mind is disturbed about it. My faith in it is shaken. I read some expressions of its inspired men that seem to me very far below the standard of Christ. I hear of discrepancies in its history, of contradictions to established decisions of science, of crudeness and imperfection in its early moral teaching, of compiling and editing and revising and re-revising in books that I almost looked on as direct from the finger of God. I still try to cling to it for comfort and help. I feel that, even if these charges be true, it would still remain the most marvellous book in the world. But I am perplexed and disquieted. I hardly know what to believe about it. I have lost that perfect unquestioning confidence which used to be such a comfort in turning to its pages.

II.

The Secularist.

" And recently my difficulties have grown sharper and more defined. I know something of the secularist propaganda throughout England. I meet with men who are secularists and infidels, some of them with rancorous bitterness against all religion ; but some of them, too, with sad and honest hearts, who seem fearlessly seeking the truth alone. And I notice that their chief difficulties are connected with the Bible. If ever I glance at the weekly accounts of secularist lectures in the large towns of England, if I meet with the common literature of the infidel press, everywhere I find that the Bible forms the chief object of attack. The gibe and the sneer, and sometimes, I must confess, the earnest, powerful argument, are directed against difficulties which seem presented by the Bible. Some of these difficulties are such as have long ago spontaneously presented themselves to my own mind, and I have tried to forget them or leave them unread. I have thought it best to 'let sleeping dogs lie.' But they will not lie any longer now. These Bible assailants have roused them with a vengeance. The laugh is raised at the ' Christian superstition which believes in the stupendous miracle of the stopping of the universe that Joshua might complete his A'ictory over the Canaanites.' With mocking emphasis are read the * words of the loving God,' ' O daughter of Babylon, happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones ! '

*' I feel myself cringe as I hear such expressions launched with vigour and earnestness into an audience of working-men who have been taught to

6 DI8QUIET,

regard the Bible just as I have been taught, and as the lecturer himself was taught in his childhood. And I cannot see, at least from their point of view and mine, how such difficulties are to be answered.

III.

The Biblical Scholar.

" But another influence, and from a very different quarter, has still more affected my beliefs. I find things subversive of many of my notions about the Bible put forward by men who are no sceptics or scoffers or enemies of religion, but who seem to have reverently and for many years investigated the phenomena of the Bible. They are professors in the universities, bishops and dignitaries in the Church, men of distinguished scholarship, of undoubted piety, of widely differing schools of religious opinion. I gather that they cannot regard the Bible as they did in their childhood, and as it is popularly regarded by thousands of holy men and women to-day. They find more of the human in it, they say, though not, when rightly understood, less of the Divine. They think it has more in common with other books than is generally believed, especially in the writings of the Old Testament. They think it quite possible for the ancient authors to have made crude and incorrect statements in science and history. They point out the lower morality of the Old Testament as compared with the New. They find traces of a much freer literary treatment of the books than is consistent, certainly with my notions of inspiration.

" In the face of all this I feel it almost impossible to hold the notions about the Bible which I have been taught ; and yet to give up these seems to me to give up the Divine authority of Scripture altogether."

IV.

The Orthodox Controversialist.

Let us trace a little further this doubter's experience, and see what help in his disquiet he receives from his religious friends. This is usually what we shall find. Some of them are modest, simple Christians who live much in communion with God, who regard the Bible as the sacred source of their comfort and strength, and shrink sensitively from the free and often flippant criticism to which nowadays it is so frequently subjected. They regard their friend's disquiet as a temptation of Satan ; one that has attempted an entrance into their own hearts at times and troubled them sorely. It is a trial of his faith, they say ; he must resolutely turn away his thoughts from such subjects ; he must earnestly fight those doubts upon his knees. And though they cannot satisfy him, yet somehow their simple faith brings him comfort and hope. He sees that they are not very logical, but he sees, too, that the Bible has been a great power in their lives ; that they are away up on the heights with God in a region where difficulties such as his have scarce power to disquiet ; and almost unconsciously to himself his faith is strengthened and helped by theirs.

Others of them are — let me draw from the life, from one of the best specimens I know of those who hold the traditional views of inspiration — thoughtful, clear-minded, godly men, who can read and interest themselves in the main questions about the Bible, but without any perceptible doubt or uneasiness to themselves, partly on account of their placid disposition ; partly through their finding so much of the holy and beautiful in Scripture that they never trouble themselves about difficulties at all ; partly, too, because through that delightful inconsistency by which so many a man escapes the conclusions of his premises, they can loosely hold the popular views of inspiration and yet j)leasantly slip out of the difficulties when they come. But such as these cannot help my disquieted thinker.

Lastly come those satisfied, self-confident men who are *' cock-sure" of everything, who never think of holding their judgment in suspense. Some of my readers will recognize the class — men who have never troubled themselves much with real thinking, who have never doubted and never investigated, who consider religion itself bound up with their notions of inspiration, and thus fearfully peril all faith in the Bible. Inspiration, in its Divine largeness and freedom and grandeur, is an idea quite beyond them. Their notion is of a sort of rigid superintendence to guarantee that each little detail of the Bible history shall be absolutely correct; that its science shall be unassailable in the light of the nineteenth century ; that its moral teaching in every period shall be perfect. To attempt to question this is, in their opinion, to endanger the whole foundations of religion. Such men as these are the chief cause of disquiet, and the chief cause of the discredit of the Bible. They pledge God^s inspiration, they pledge Christianity itself, to the truth of their own mechanical theories. They give to the infidel his chief victories over religion. They make sad the seeking souls whom God has not ihade sad ; they unconsciously make void the Word of God by their traditions, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Such are the classes of helpers which an inquirer most frequently meets amongst his associates in the religious world. Seldom does he discuss these difficulties with his clergy. Seldom does he happen on friends who have themselves fought their way through difficulties such as his and reached the firmer ground where they are safe at rest.

Therefore the disquiet goes on increasing, none the less for being generally subdued and unexpressed. To some it soon ceases to give much concern ; to others it is positive torture to the end. Who tliat knows anything of it can speak lightly of the pain and struggle through which many an earnest man has won his way to the light at last ? The writer can look back on his own early difficulties ; he has known something since of the difficulties of others. There are still ringing in his ears the recent words of a young student from one of our universities, fast losing hold of his faith in the Bible. " There are hundreds," he said, " of young fellows like me who do not want to lose our grasp of the Bible, but we can no longer view it as we have been taught to do. If there is any way by which we can still hold it and treasure it, do our teachers know it ? and if they do, why do they not tell us ? "

V.

Why is this Disquiet Especially in our Day?

Why has all this questioning about the Bible come especially to us ? Partly because of the rapid spread of rationalistic speculation, but chiefly because in our age, more than in any age before, the

God :>f truth is giving to men new revelations of His truth, in history and science and comparative religion, and in the careful study and criticism of the Bible. Such revelations, though they cannot clash with the truth of Scripture rightly understood, yet most certainly can and do clash with many very stubborn notions about it, notions which have grown in the popular belief to be regarded as part of the Scripture itself. The fact is, that for some centuries past men have been forcing the Bible into a false position, a position perilous to its authority, unwarranted by its own statements, and, worst of all, in a great measure obscuring the real power and beauty of its teaching. In the fierce light of modern inquiry it is becoming more and more evident that this position cannot be maintained, and simple men are growing disquieted, thinking the Bible itself to be in danger, while those who know better are looking forward hopefully, even though in some measure anxiously too. They know that deep-rooted mistakes and misconc eptions cannot be removed without pain and perhaps loss ; but they know, too, that if the Bible is to be free to accomplish its work in the world, it must at any cost be rescued from its present false position.

May not this rescue be in a certain degree furthered by the present disquiet ? May not the overthrow of some of our cherished beliefs be but a necessary preparation for further teaching ? May not scholar and infidel and doubter and believer be working out for the Bible the good purposes of God in widening and clearing our notions of His truth ? —

' ' For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns."

CHAPTER II. Is the Bible Safe?

I do not believe in any effectual remedy for doubt and disquiet save through making a man face boldly the difficulties that disquiet him. He must make up his mind that truth only is to be the object of his search ; that he will accept no ignoble peace from resting on a foundation that he is afraid thoroughly to test.^ A man with real faith in the God of Truth would not hesitate to investigate to the uttermost the worst of his difficulties even if it meant the risk of losing his Bible altogether.

But we are not all formed in that heroic mould, and though in God's wise discipline it may be often good for one to enter into these inquiries about the Scriptures with disquieted heart, and half afraid lest the result may be the shipwreck of his

' "I find in the Bible the secret of all truth. All I truly know I derive from it ; and yet I would say to every man, ' Do not believe the Bible if you cannot see that it is true. Deal freely, boldly by it. It is a friend and not an enemy. If you don't treat it straightforwardly it cannot do its service to you.' " — Jas. Hinton, Life, p. 314.

belief, yet I see no cause why one need do so unnecessarily. And therefore I should like to pause here at the outset to encourage my disquieted thinker by reminding him how little cause there is for real apprehension as to the overthrow of his belief in inspiration itself.

Not that I intend to enter in any detail into proofs of the fact of inspiration. Such an attempt would both make my book too large and also distract attention from the main purpose I have in view. This book is not written for unbelievers, who deny the fact of inspiration, but for Christians who, believing in the Bible as a book inspired of God, are puzzled and perplexed when they meet with facts that seem inconsistent with it. My object is to help such as these. My title assumes their belief that the Bible is inspired.

But experience has shown me how easily the question, How God inspired the Bible, may pass into the further question. Did God inspire the Bible at all ? Is not it continually taking place in the present disquiet ? And therefore it seems advisable at the outset of our inquiry to remind men of facts which have been the stronghold of others in these passing disquiets, to try to show them that all for which we really value the Bible is safe from assault, and far above the reach of these controversies of to-day.

II.

"A Great Cloud of Witnesses."

If the fear should ever come to you, my reader, of the possibility of the Scriptures being discredited by present-day controversies after having been accepted as God-given for three thousand years, first pause for a moment and let the full weight of the thought press on you of all that is implied in the fact that any set of old documents, always open to scrutiny and question, should for thousands of years have been accepted as of Divine origin, and that they should have been yielded to by men as an authority to guide their conduct and impose on them commands often disagreeable to themselves ; that this acceptance and obedience should have been chiefly amongst the most thoughtful and highlycultured nations of the world ; that it should have gone on, age after age, steadily increasing, and never in any age made such marvellous progress as in this cultured, enlightened, all-questioning nineteenth century.

What gave these Scriptures such authority? Remember they were only odd separate documents, often with hundreds of years intervening between them, written by different writers of different characters to different people, and under different circumstances. Remember that in many cases we do not know their origin, or how they assumed their present form, or who were their authors. And yet somehow we never can reach back into history to a time when they were not treasured and reverenced among men as in some way at least above human productions. There they stand, a long chain of records, with one end reaching away into the far back past, and the other gathering around the feet of Christ.

And remember especially this, that they were selected out by no miracle, that they rest on no formal decision of external authority, on no sentence of Church or Council, or pope or saint, nay, not even of the Blessed Lord Himself ; for long before He came, for centuries and centuries, there they stood, testifying of Him, cherished and reverenced as a message that had come from above '^ at sundry times and in divers manners." All study of their history shows that their acceptance rested on no decision of any external authority. They were accepted as of Divine origin for many generations before they were gathered into any fixed collection. "The Church," said Luther, "cannot give more force or authority to a book than it has in itself. A Council cannot make that to be Scripture which in its own nature is not Scripture."

People say that the Great Synagogue, or their official descendants, collected the Old Testament

Canon of Scripture. Yes, but when ? Somewhere about the time of our Lord/ when the books had been for ages recognized as of God. People say that the Christian Church collected the New Testament writings into a Bible. Yes, but when ? After they had been for three hundred years accepted as the God-given guide of the Church. It was not their being collected into a Bible that made them of authority, but rather the fact of their possessing authority made them be collected into a Bible.

Again, we repeat the question, What gave them that authority ? And there seems no possible answer but this, that they j)ossessed it of themselves. They commanded the position they held by their own power. Men's moral sense and reason combined to establish them. They ajDpealed by their own intrinsic worth to the God-given moral faculty, and the response to that appeal through all the ages since is, in reality, the main foundation of the Bible^s position.

Look at the Old Testament. If we at the present day are asked why we receive it as inspired, we usually reply that we receive it on the authority of our Lord and His Apostles. They accepted it as the

^ In the main, the Old Testament Canon was settled long before this time. But some few books, as Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles, were controverted up to the first Christian century.

Word of God and handed it on to us with their imprimatur upon it. Well. But why was it accepted before their day without any such formal sanction ? How did men come to believe and obey as Divinely inspired the words of Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah^ Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micali and the rest ? Excepting the case of Moses there were no miracles or portents, no external voice from Heaven to command men^s allegiance. They were not established in their Divine supremacy by any single authority. Why then were their utterances accepted ?

" It seems evident there can be but one answer. They asserted that supremacy by their own intrinsic claims. Men were compelled to acknowledge that their declaration, that Hhe Word of the Lord had come to them/ was true. There was that in the messages of the Prophets, and in the evidence by which they were accompanied, which compelled this belief. It was often disputed, and as a rule it was vehemently disputed when the Prophets appeared. . . . . But nevertheless, the voice of the Prophet, the message which he brought from the Lord, was recognized by the faithful few in his own time, and gradually, but surely, compelled allegiance among his people.

" In this history of tbe Hebrew Scriptures you have the clearest and most unquestionable evidence of the ground on which the authority of the Scriptures stands. There was no external authority to appeal to. The evidence of miracles was not always present, and even when present, it was not by itself decisive of the question. The Prophets delivered their message as the Word of the Lord, and could appeal to no higher authority in authentication of it. But that word compelled recognition sooner or later ; and the longer the Jewish nation lasted, and the more time there was for these sacred books to produce their natural impression on the minds of the people, the more thoroughly and the more unhesitatingly were they recognized as of Divine origin and authority. . . . God's Word had vindicated itself. It had been disputed by hard hearts and obstinate minds ; but it had held its own and made its way ; it had fulfilled the assurance of the Prophet, that ' My word shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.^ In point of fact, men heard a voice, and had to decide from whom it came. Were those awful, penetrating utterances of men like Jeremiah merely the utterances of a man wiser or better than his fellows ? Or were they, as the Prophets said, the voice of that God who searches our hearts, who is about our path and about our bed, and spies out all our ways ? The voice had to be assigned to its author ; and the more men listened, the less could they doubt that the voice was that of G.od.

When once this was recognized, every solemn utterance of a Prophet who had been intrusted with such a message could not but be regarded as precious, and treated with the most reverent care ; and thus there grew up that collection of sacred Scriptures which were received in the time of our Lord as embodying His revelation to His people. . . . The Books of the New Testament became recognized among Christians just as the Books of the Old Testament had been recognized among the Jews, by virtue of their own inherent evidence. Certain witnesses came forward and recorded in writing the teaching of our Lord, or announced certain messages for which they had His authority, or the guidance of His Spirit in communicating them to their fellows. Men had to decide for themselves whether they believed those claims. The Apostles were supported, indeed, in many cases by miracles, but not always ; and though those miracles afforded momentous evidence, they were not recognized in themselves, and standing alone, as decisive of the whole question. No apparent miracle, it was felt, could of itself authenticate a message from God, which did not bear internal evidence also of having proceeded from Him. The appeal, in short, in the early Church was directed, as in the time of our Lord Himself, to the hearts and consciences of men. He Himself could but appeal to those hearts and consciences, and men accepted or rejected Him, not by reference to any external authority, but in proportion to their capacity for recognizing His Divine character. Thus, from first to last, the authority of the Scriptures has been equivalent to the authority with which they themselves convinced men that they came from God." '

N^ow is not this a striking testimony to the inspiration of these books ? To be sure we believe that all this was the work of God. The Bible was not merely chosen by the Church. " The Bible was formed, even as the Church itself was formed, by the action of that Holy Spirit which was the life of both/^ It was His divine working that separated certain books for the perpetual instruction of the Church. But we must emphasize the fact that the mode of His working was by the quickening and guiding of human souls that they should choose and reverence and love and use that which was most helpful and stimulating to their religious life, that by a divine instinct men should at length gradually, unconsciously arrive at a general recognition of a certain set of writings as authoritative Scripture.