How do we know the Bible is true?

Of all those great items of scriptural truth which are fundamental in their character, the one which forms our present theme stands first, for the simple reason that whatever may have been the excellence and authority of those revelations of God and of His will originally delivered orally by our Lord and His apostles, except we have, now that they are gone, those revelations conveyed to us in writings, divinely inspired and therefore of full authority, we have nothing worthy of being called THE FAITH today. At best we should have had but an ill-assorted mass of recollections and traditions, handed on from generation to generation.

First, that in the opening chapters we are told of things completely outside the range of the observation of any human writer, things indeed clean outside any knowledge that could be possessed apart from a divine revelation, since happenings before man's creation are recounted; and further, that these things are stated not in terms befitting human speculation but with the quiet ring and assurance of absolute knowledge, and therefore of truth.

Secondly, in all the historical books we find features utterly unknown in all human histories. We may specify such a feature as the complete absence of all hero worship. Men, indeed, there are, approved of God, but even so their failings are recounted, just as any commendable feature in the worst of men is mentioned; and all with a lofty detachment from human passions and prejudices, with an impartial and serene judgment which is found only in God Himself.

Thirdly, in the prophets we cannot but feel the directness of their appeal. No hesitation, no apologies; but the most direct and emphatic "Thus says the Lord" repeated again and again.

The scripture was the weapon which He used, as being divinely tempered, against which Satan had no power, and his devices no possible success. It sufficed to say, "It is written." The tempter would have betrayed himself if he had questioned the absolute authority of the quotation: his best resource was to quote scripture his own way; but it does not fail under this trial. The second Adam still replies, "It is also written."

There were various readings, bad translations (especially that of the Septuagint), and supposed inconsistencies, at the very time when the Lord said, "The scripture cannot be broken." ... None of these things prevented the Lord's recognizing their absolute authority on every occasion. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men."

The first step is that of REVELATION. The things prepared of God for those that love Him, things unseen, unheard, and unimagined by man, have been made known by the Spirit of God.

The second step, then, is that of INSPIRATION. God took care that the apostles and prophets should convey these revelations to others under supervision of a direct and divine kind. They were not left to exercise their own wisdom as to the best way of stating the truth, but were guided by the Holy Spirit in the exact words they used.

Thirdly comes the step of APPROPRIATION. The truth having been revealed to men chosen of God, and by them communicated in inspired words, it must now be received or appropriated if it is to have an enlightening and controlling effect upon men.

To assure us that Paul and Peter and John had wonderful ideas given of God, but that they were left without any divine guidance when it came to be a question of expressing those ideas for the benefit of others, is to take away with the left hand what is offered by the right. You and I have no means of getting at those wonderful thoughts in Paul's mind save by the words in which he clothed them... if we have not Scriptures verbally inspired we have no inspired Scriptures at all, and the Bible, though interesting and elevating, would not be AUTHORITATIVE.

For us there is no divine truth unless it is communicated with divine certainty. An existing fact which cannot be naturally known to man, because not relating to this creation, cannot be a truth to my soul, if it be not communicated with divine certainty.

"Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." Could the idea of inspiration be embodied in a form of words more absolutely definite than the expression, "words which the Holy Ghost teacheth"?

The Christian wants divine certainty in his relations with God. Probability is all that man, as man, seeks or can have because he knows not God. But believers have ever craved and ever taken the wholly different ground of divine certainty by God's word.

In spite of this great diversity of times and of authors there is a perfect unity of design and of doctrine: a unity, the separate parts of which are so linked with each other, and so entirely adapted to each other, that the whole work is evidently that of one and the same Spirit, one and the same mind, with one purpose carried on from the beginning to the end... Now there is but One, who lived through all the ages during which the various books of the Bible were written, and that One is the Holy Ghost.

If but one joint of a finger were wanting to a man, he is not a man such as God made him; he may have life, but he is imperfect, and his imperfection is perceptible. So take away a book from the New Testament, the remainder is divine undoubtedly, but it is no longer the New Testament in its divine perfection.

A substantial majority would fall under the head of accusations founded upon sheer ignorance, intensified often by an admixture of cunning dishonesty.

Of the residue, a great majority again would prove to be genuine difficulties, but of a sort that careful and prayerful research gradually resolve into most instructive helps, often displaying much hidden beauty.

Most of these so-called mistakes are apparent only and not real, and the very few real ones are copyists' slips and the like on side matters of no vital importance.

The Bible will speak for itself. It will justify its divine origin. It will illumine our whole lives with such a blaze of light as shall scatter forever for us all the powers of darkness, so that all we need to do is to make sure that we are letting that light shine.

We have far more to fear from the neglect, the ignorance and the imperfect knowledge of the Scriptures in the people of God than we have from all the assaults of unbelief combined.

The believer is not called on to define Inspiration. How the scriptures were inspired has not been revealed. It is enough for him that by them God is made known, that holy men of God testified by "the Spirit of Christ which was in them," and that they minister Christ to his soul.