How can we believe the Bible is true?

Let us return, for a moment to the question of reasoning and faith. You say, "I must know that the Bible is the Word of God before I believe it," and I say, "You cannot." When you have believed, you will know that the Bible is the word of God — that is, you receive faith. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). Human reason cannot pronounce on the authority of the word of God, but "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself" (1 John 5:10). Believing, you may examine the external evidences, and you will find them satisfactory; but this will not produce faith. It may be useful in answering the objections made by men who believe not; but the authority of God's word cannot be subject to human intelligence. "The law of Jehovah is perfect, converting the soul. The entrance of thy word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple" (Ps. 119:130).

Fully admitting the value of reasoning to convict gainsayers and expose the futility of their captious arguments, I lay it down as an axiom that in revealed truth it is and must be simply a question of a divine testimony, which is given to be believed, and which binds the conscience even of him who rejects it through unbelief. If physics require patient induction and comprehensive grouping under general principles or laws, if mathematics demand a strict and necessary demonstration, if the mixed sciences admit of both, the written word of God claims faith in His testimony which tests the moral state of him who hears. The faith which receives it traditionally and with indifference is of no value, and will under pressure give it up with the same otiose facility in which it assented. Certainly to doubt is not to believe; yet one could almost allow the saying to pass, that there is more faith in some doubts than in such traditional faith as characterises Christendom, save those in it who are born of God. For the soul which begins to be really in earnest is apt to hesitate till it has adequate motive to believe; while the flesh which so promptly offered to obey at Sinai is just as ready to say its Amen to the Athanasian creed.

Not only is it impossible to prove this question without faith, but the effect of reasoning on the subject is to destroy faith. If Scripture has to be proved by reason, God is not believed because He has spoken, i.e., there is no true faith. If I believe A because B has said that what A has said is true, I do not believe A at all. I come to a logical conclusion from other evidence that the statement is right I don't believe the person. Similarly, in reasoning about the Scriptures, I may come to the logical conclusion that it must be the word of God, but this is not faith, though faith is almost certain to follow from such a conclusion, but it must be realized that reasoning cannot give faith.

Take the nearest approach to anything in Scripture. It was thought wonderful many years ago, as one looks back when Sir H. Rawlinson found and deciphered the cylinder which bore witness to the truth of Belshazzar's reigning in Babylon, notwithstanding the total silence of history. What it proved was that learned men who doubted the prophet believed a cylinder. What is the worth of faith grounded on evidence of this kind? None, if we believe our Lord's estimate as given in John 2:23-26. If it be allowed that there must be antecedent faith, but that these evidences enlighten and sustain, one must demur again on the ground of John 20:5-10, For here were two eminent and pious souls; yet the aim of the inspired record is to show that evidence, no matter how convincing, is not what feeds and edifies, but the truth revealed in the scriptures and God believed therein. Both Peter and John "saw and believed," "For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead." And this is confirmed later in the chapter, where Thomas, who refused adequate testimony and never thought of the scripture, was shamed out of his incredulity by our Lord's condescension, yet rebuked by more than one word; and the true principle was affirmed in ver. 29, "Because thou hast seen, thou hast believed: blessed are those that saw not and believed." This is Christian faith, not the mongrel which Christendom has brought forth alike to ritualism and to rationalism as here.

I see not how we can doubt that Holy Scripture containeth the certain revelation of all things necessary to our salvation, because it is by their revelation alone that their necessity is shown. None can be the author of truth but God. There can therefore be no truth but as coming from Him, and all that He says must be true as it is written, 'Every word of God is pure. He is a Shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar.' The whole authority therefore of any man consists simply in the proof that he speaks the words of God, and it is merely that by Him we believe in God, from whose life we were alienated by the ignorance that was in us through the blindness of our hearts. And therefore of the Son of God Himself, as appearing in the flesh as 'the Apostle of our profession,' it is said, 'He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true, for He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God.' To Him indeed 'the Spirit was not given by measure' 'in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,' who is the Object of faith as well as the Messenger of it - the Fulness of truth in Himself, so as that the Spirit given to us does but take of His, whose is all that the Father hath, and show it to us according to the measure of the gift of God. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!

By inspiration we mean that which is God-breathed. We are told "all [or every], scripture is given by inspiration of God." It might be rendered "every scripture is God-breathed." (2 Tim. 3:16.) The scriptures are therefore a revelation from God; and their force or authority to our hearts and consciences flows from that fact. If scripture be not God's word, it has no more value to us than the writings of good men; but it is His word, hence it comes to us with the authority, love, wisdom and holiness of God. Though its pages run over thousands of years, take us back before time was, and lead our thoughts on to the eternal state, and some of its books were written more than three thousand years ago, it is unlike any other book, for it is always new. Take up an ordinary volume of human composition, written two or three hundred years ago, or even go back to one of the Fathers, and you will find you have scarcely patience to read a few pages; but scripture, as we have said, though old, is always new. It carries with it a freshness and power to the heart and conscience, as no other book does; and all the changes in the world and in mankind never seem to affect it. It warns us against "men" and their "philosophy," ritualism and its imposing ordinances, and of putting "tradition" in the place of authority instead of Christ. While addressing itself to the heart and conscience, it has always a voice of instruction and blessing to those who believe and receive its words from the mouth of God. Those who do not believe, cannot understand it, for "by faith we understand." Such only know its blessedness. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," and we have "joy and peace in believing." To the rationalist scripture is inexplicable, to the ritualist it is confusion, to the infidel it abounds with mistakes, to the literary man there are inaccuracies and contradictions. Such, however, little know that God has said that "the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2:14.)

As Christians, then, we recognise the perfection of Divine revelation in the Son of God; but we recognise a further truth also; and that is, God has been pleased to preserve the totality of such revelation in an essentially Divine record, given by the unction of His Holy Spirit through elect vessels, that there might be no uncertainty for such as should come after, and that the truth itself might be preserved after a Divine manner as contrasted with the grave possibility of error in a merely oral testimony. This, however, is not peculiar to the full revelation of our God in the Person of our Lord Jesus; but belongs properly to the entire scope of His dealings with men and His disclosures to them. Hence there can be no sort of discrepancy recognised between the truth of the Old and New Testaments. The distinction between them lies in the character of the revelation not in the fact that both are essentially true and of God according to the light in which He is known. Thus we own the book of Genesis to be not only true but Divine, which no other cosmogony is or could be; and we recognise its truth and its Divine character equally as we do the Gospel of John. There is neither disparity of truth nor want of moral correspondence in the two books; because what God is dominates both alike and constitutes their glory.

In writing this little book, however, I shall have largely in mind the truth unfolded in the New Testament, for it is pre-eminently that to which I shall call attention. In it, the Son speaks and tells us of the Father; likewise in it the Father speaks and tells us of the Son; also throughout all, the Holy Spirit speaks, in the power and glory of the Divine unity, the harmony of infinite and eternal truth. Neither can there be any doubt concerning the language in which such truth has been communicated. All is in Divine suitability. The truth is God's; His also are the words; His also is their Divine meaning. Thus are we assured of all reality. And not only this; but His word is living and speaks in the conscience and heart of man, probes that conscience and subdues that heart, so that faith in Himself results, constituting a real living link between the soul and God. The soul knows that God has spoken to it alike in grace and in truth, and has the, full assurance of the perfection of His mind in the written word. This gives stability to our souls in all moral relations. And Scripture becomes to us not merely a guide in our relations to our fellows, but is the ground of all our relations to God, a link between the soul and Himself which cannot be broken either by man's infidelity or Satan's corruption and lies. This is truly what Martin Luther discovered in the Word, and thousands more: when the outward Church was in ruins, when evil raged, when seducers waxed worse and worse, when the souls of men were tortured with doubts and fears, when truth seemed to have perished from the earth, then were their eves directed to the word, to the written page, and they could truly say in the language of that Word itself: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was to me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by thy name, O JEHOVAH God of hosts." Jeremiah 15:16.

From all these various witnesses, we not only learn that God had ordered writing as a means of communicating His mind and will, but, as a fact, we also find preserved for us in a most marvellous way for nearly two thousand years a number of books written by various persons who had no communication with each other; written, too, at different times, and under different circumstances for a period extending over 1500 years, and all the books so agreeing together that a spiritual mind can trace all as being under the guidance of a master mind: books that were valued by other prophets, treasured up by faithful men, esteemed by many as of more value than thousands of gold and silver, and ministering words which were found and eaten to the joy and rejoicing of the heart. In these many books we find the prophetic words of some afterwards registered by others as fulfilled, and warnings unheeded, too, meeting with the predicted judgments; the depravity and utter ruin and wickedness of man set forth, and alas, manifested, while the nature of God, as love and light, His attributes and words of holiness, grace and truth, stand out in all their uncompromising perfection, and eternal excellence. Because of these things, the written word of the Old Testament brings such conviction to the soul of its divinity and eternal truth, when opened up and brought home by the Spirit, that the heart no more looks to men's opinions, or other external evidence, than a child, when gazing with delight on a photograph of his living mother, would inquire who it is.

We are told that the inerrancy of Scripture “is a principle which is nowhere asserted or claimed in Scripture itself.” If holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21) most of us who believe that it is impossible that God should lie (Titus 1:2) would consider this fact sufficient to establish the veracity of Scripture. Have not the Prophets said: “Hear ye the word of the Lord”? And has not our Lord said that Moses wrote of Him, and that had the Jews believed Moses they would have also believed Hun, “but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” Evidently He assumed that they ought to have had no difficulty in recognizing writings. Perhaps the “Higher Critics” of those days, who were, I suppose, the Sadducees, had disentangled for the people the folklore from the fact! Paul speaks of things that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, things that God has prepared for them that love Him; and of these things, he says: “God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” And then as to their communication to others, he says: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches.” And again “If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. 2:9-13; 14:37). The Lord Himself, His apostles, and all His prophets, use the Scriptures as the only court of appeal regarding all questions that bear any relation to divine things. A single passage from the inspired volume settled every question that could possibly arise. The Scriptures were neither to be added to, not taken from. The Thessalonians received the Gospel preached by Paul, who says “Not as the word of man, but as it is in truth the Word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13), and for this he gave thanks to God. There is not a single hint given by either our Lord or His apostles that there might be error in the text. A Book such as these critics tell us the Bible is would never here been put into the hand of any man by the living God. I know Him well enough to be able to say that with the utmost confidence. I will say more than that: I will say that I know Him sufficiently to affirm, that if He has given us this Book as a revelation of the purposes and counsels of His love His ways with His rebel creature, His government of the world, the way He has taken to bring to pass His eternal counsels, He would not have allowed it to be corrupted by the drivellings of the human mind wandering in the fogs and mists of its abandonment of Himself, but would have watched over it with infinite solicitude, and would have preserved it from the defiling slaver of the old serpent.

But, beloved friends, in the word of God we have nothing of this kind. We do not come to the word of God as we come to the tentative theories of a scientific text-book. We come to the word of God as to a Book which is an infallible and unquestionable authority for our souls. We come to it as the word of God; we come to it as a book which has a paramount demand upon our whole persons, and coming to it in this way we receive it by faith; and such a spirit, I take it, is what the assurance means. It is one thing to learn the doctrine of Scripture. There are persons who learn the truth of God almost of necessity. It has been their fortunate circumstance to he in the immediate sphere where the proclamation of God's special truth as revealed in the New Testament is continually ministered, and so the thing insensibly finds it way into their hearts. Did I say hearts? Let us hope so — into their minds at any rate, and they in this manner become acquainted with New Testament facts and New Testament doctrine. They may have learned the truth in such a way, but I take it the apostle meant much more than this by "assurance."