How to know if the Bible is real

The marvellous and detailed fulfilment of its prophecies; the perfect harmony between its various parts, indited as they were under varying circumstances and at different epochs; the utter failure of its critics to substantiate their charges of imperfection; the impossibility of the human mind, trained and cultured though it be, to fathom and exhaust its teachings—all these, and many other facts, testify to the divine authorship of the Bible.

1870 156 I cannot here, of course, write a book on the positive evidences of Christianity. But no one is ignorant that there are such, and that the positive proofs of it — proofs such as no event, no system, no person on earth has for itself — have been detailed in the language of every civilized people. Now particular objections leave this all out of sight; yet, where anything has been largely, positively proved, the dwelling on the objections that may be saved, without estimating the positive proofs of the whole system, is a totally unsound mental process. It is a way of judging of the truth of anything which would be admitted in no other case whatever. I do not object to the examination of every difficulty in detail. In the case of scripture, the positive proof is that of the divinity of the system as a whole. If the system at large is positively proved, a difficulty attached to it which I cannot solve is a demonstration not of the falseness of the system, but of my incompetency to deal with the difficulty. In such a case a sound-minded man is content to say, "I do not know." The historical facts and documents of Christianity are proved with an evidence such as no other universally-believed event or acknowledged book has any evidence to be compared with, and if proved show that it is divine. It has met with an opposition which made every document and fact to be scrutinized with a closeness which left only what was incontestable uncontested. This was to be expected, because it presented the claims of a holy God, to which the antagonist will of man never would submit. Hostile heathens, philosophical adversaries, heretical corrupters, foolish advocates, elaborate historians, voluminous commentators, every kind of author and character has been occupied with it from the time of its promulgation, and authenticated its history and its doctrines even when opposing them; and this in the presence of the hostility of religions divinely established or nationally and deeply enracinated on the one side, and sceptical scorn on the other. On the books on which the smallest doubt could be cast, doubts were cast; and their authenticity made a subject of question as they are by objectors now.

One of the most striking proofs of the inspiration of the Bible is the way its prophecies have been fulfilled. No mind, however far-seeing, can penetrate the future centuries, and say what they will unfold. The only book in the world that sets out to prophesy, and whose prophecies have been fulfilled to the letter, is the Bible, and this clearly proves that it was not written merely and only by men like ourselves, but that there was a Divine Mind that inspired it all.

H. Surely that is the way as to enquiry; for it really proves itself its divine power in the conscience. And this last is the only true knowledge of inspiration. I know rationalists try and put off with an air of superiority, as rejected by enlightened people (that is, themselves), what they have not got, and therefore cannot feel the force of; but I am not afraid of avowing, in the fullest extent, the doctrine of the Reformation, which is necessarily the doctrine of every believer, that scripture proves itself by its own power. I go further — it never proves itself, never can prove itself, if it be true, in any other way. And so, moreover, it declares: "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Rom. 10:17, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." 1 John 5:10, "The law of Jehovah is perfect, converting the soul. The entrance of thy word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple." Ps. 19:7. If what is called light requires something to shew it, it is a proof that it is not really light. In the nature of things light shews itself and all else. It is not what we mean by light, what a man who has eyes knows it to be by having eyes, if it has to be shewn. It does require eyes to see it. If a man has not eyes, he cannot of course see it or know what it is at all. Nor can any one tell him what it is, or make himself understood in speaking of it. He wants the faculty of what is to be proved. If a man does not see the word of God to be such, it is a proof that he has no moral eyes, no faith. A man asks me how I can prove honey to be sweet. I say, if you cannot taste it, you must remain ignorant. And note, if there be a word of God, it must be moral light and perfect light, divine light — cannot be otherwise. If what is presented to me be not such, I say at once, then it is not God's word. It may be dawn, or shine through clouds, or be noon-day, but it is in its nature light, or it is not God's word. Hence, in the nature of things it must reveal itself. If it do not, it is not God's word. Whether a man has eyes to see is another question: but one who has knows he sees the light.

260 Hence I am not afraid of the language of another of our Essays. "Calvin did not shrink from saying that scripture shone sufficiently by its own light. As long as this could be kept to, the Protestant theory of belief was whole and sound — at least it was as sound as the Catholic. In both, reason, aided by spiritual illumination, performs the subordinate function of recognizing the supreme authority of the Church and of the Bible respectively. But learned controversy and abatement of zeal drove the Protestants generally from the hardy but irrational assertion of Calvin." I dare say they did. That is, as men lost faith, they lost conviction of the divine authority of the word. How could they do otherwise? It is stating the same thing in other terms. But Calvin, as every believer, could not say otherwise, because it had shone thus in his own soul and in no other way. The Church was against it, nature was against it, interest was against it. God's word was too mighty. But I say more: if the scriptures be not thus received, they are never received at all. It professes to be the word and testimony of God. If a witness has to be accredited, and proved to be true, the witness is not believed at all on his own testimony. Hence, as long as scripture has to be proved by reason, or accredited by the Church, God is not believed because He has spoken, that is, there is no real faith. Such reasoning or accrediting may lead me to believe it afterwards, so far as leading me to examine the testimony, which thus may acquire force over my soul as true. But, as long as reasoning or accrediting is the reason why I believe it, I do not receive it as the word of God. I do not believe God in it. I do not receive it as His word. If I believe Thomas because James has said that what he has said is true, I do not believe Thomas at all.

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).

There are evidences, on every hand, many and varied and of the very best; evidences both direct and indirect. The world is full of them, and they may be seen every day; museums of antiquity contain them; evidences of the Bible's veracity are writ large on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments and temples; the ruins of buried cities and the tombs of forgotten kings abound with them, even mummies bearing mute testimony to what the "scripture of truth" declares; and the spade of the excavator brings to light fresh witnesses every year. The natural sciences, astronomy, geology, physiology, anatomy, including even that most exact of all sciences, mathematics, all bear united and harmonious witness to the truth of Scripture, written with "the finger of God."

Yes, my beloved friend, I do believe the internal evidences of the Word of God are, at once, the most precious and powerful of any that can be produced. If it be true, as one of our own poets has told us, that "God is His own interpreter" in providence, it is none the less, but very much more true that He is His own interpreter in Scripture. If God cannot make me understand what He says, no man can; if He does, no man need. When this solid ground is clearly seen and firmly occupied, we are, through grace, prepared to meet the insolence of infidelity, the ignorance of superstition, and the feebleness of many of our modern apologies for the written Word of God. And, in addition to this, we are in a position to estimate at their proper value all the external evidences that can be produced in proof of the divinity of our precious Bible. Such evidences are of the deepest interest. Who, but the most thoughtless, can fail to be arrested by the very history of the Book? Take that one fact of its having been, for over a thousand years, in the custody of a corrupt and apostate church that would, most willingly, have crushed it into annihilation. There lay the peerless volume, buried in the dark cloisters of Rome, chained, like a hated prisoner, in the gloomy vaults of her monasteries. Who watched over it there? Who preserved it? Who warded off the destructive hand? Who but the One Whose Spirit penned its every line? Who can fail to see the Hand of God in the preservation of the Book, just as distinctly as we recognize His Spirit in its inspiration?

Another thing impressed me much, and that was the saintly lives of Christians I knew. Dr. Graham Scroggie says, “Books may inform and reform,—the Bible transforms” and it is the only book that does. Transformation comes from outside and above oneself in every particular. I found the Word of God exerted this force in many lives I knew, and it impressed me greatly. A tree is known by its fruit, and the fruit of the Spirit manifested in human lives convinced me of the goodness and divinity of the Bible. One could expatiate on this theme till volumes were filled, so ample is the testimony all down the ages.

There are millions of men and women, who can testify to the fact that the Word of God is living, that some text of Scripture, some thought from God’s word, laid hold on them, produced by the Spirit’s power a new life within, gave them a new orientation of life, new desires, new affections, new standards of living. Drunkards have been made sober. Thieves have been made honest. The impure have been made pure. Christless professors, the most difficult class to reach, have been made vital possessors of eternal life. Christ has become their Saviour, and the Object of their adoring worship. And this was not a mere turning over of a new leaf, a mere external alteration, but true deep conversion to GOD. Scripture tells us that a washed sow still has the sow nature. What is needed is a new nature, a new spiritual birth.

Of all the facts of history it may be honestly questioned if one of them has been so well authenticated as the resurrection of the Christ has been. That the witnesses were neither plotters nor schemers, but men of the strictest integrity, their writings, their lives, and their sufferings for the truth of what they had seen and heard, convincingly demonstrate. Their evidence is given without sign of stammering or stuttering, without confliction or contradiction, without rant or reserve. There is no attempt to occupy people with the marvellous. If we take into account the amazing subject of their testimony, their sobriety is miraculous. They are not carried away by their unearthly topic into the realm of unreality, in which a fertile imagination may disport itself.