How to know the Bible is real

We rise from our task. This brief survey of Scripture has only served to deepen in the writer’s mind the truth of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and how they should be treated with the utmost reverence, realising that God Himself is speaking to us in them. We have brought forward very little, but that little overwhelmingly proves that the Scriptures are all that they themselves claim to be. The claim has been amply substantiated by the contents of the Book, the character of its writers; the fulfilment of prophecy; the correspondence between the shadows of the ceremonial law and their fulfilment in Christ and His atoning death on the cross; the supreme Person of our Lord, as delineated in the four gospels, the presentation of a life unique in every way, and in character and degree infinitely beyond every other life, however exalted, and finally its living power in moulding human lives for God. By its fruits we know the Book to be supremely good.

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.

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.

No book in the world could stand the test that the Word of God does. It is the only Book in the world which has prophesied numerous events which have been fulfilled to the letter; prophecy marks the Scriptures as inspired of God and inerrant. For prophecy as a young believer I was profoundly thankful, and found it confirmatory of my faith. Now as life speeds on to its close the testimony becomes more and more convincing and precious.

We have now reached the main object of the foregoing recital of what are now historical facts, related by the angel long before they occurred, demonstrating, it may once more be affirmed, both the presence of God and the character of inspiration. It is the habit of the present day to seek among ancient ruins and antique inscriptions and tablets for confirmation of the Bible records. It seems to be forgotten that God is not dependent on man for the authentication of the revelation He has made, and that if the word of God is not its own witness (see John 3:33) no amount of human evidence will establish it as such in the soul. Besides, the facts adduced, and the translations made from ancient cylinders and monuments assume a very different aspect and importance according to the views of the various interpreters. But accepting the Bible as the veritable word of God, and maintaining therefore its absolute "inerrancy" (to borrow a new theological term) where there is no dispute as to readings or translation, we have an infallible guide, a trustworthy standard of appeal, and thus the certainty that the events predicted must have a real and actual fulfilment, and that the historical facts recorded are given with the most truthful accuracy. It is of all moment, if we would understand the divine records, that we should begin with an undoubting faith in the infallibility of Scripture.

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?

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.

The internal difficulties by which the sceptic seeks to invalidate the inspiration of the New Testament, or at any rate the greater part of them, were noticed already in the second century, and answered. The Jews were as desirous to prove Jesus was not the Messiah, as the sceptic could be now. In a word we are on ground travelled over for eighteen centuries — old infidelity dressed up in a new form, to be met by increasing light and increasing proofs which God in His goodness affords both internal and external.

The following weighty extracts, from the French of Professor Gaussen, present some admirable and scholarly statements on the preservation of the sacred text: —

"The Lord has miraculously watched over His word. Facts demonstrate this. In the first place, by constituting the Jews its depositaries, and afterwards the Christians, His providence thus charged itself with watching that the oracles of God should be faithfully transmitted to us. This has been done; and to attain this result, various causes were brought into operation, of which we shall have to speak hereafter. Recent researches of science have placed this fact in the light of day. Herculean labours have been undertaken to collect all the readings, or variations, which could be supplied, either by the diligent examination of the manuscripts of the sacred writings, preserved in the various libraries of Europe, the study of the most ancient versions, or the investigation of the innumerable quotations made from the sacred books throughout the writings of the Fathers of the Church; and this immense labour has furnished a result admirable in its insignificance, imposing by its nullity.

It is commonly said that the resurrection of Christ is the proof of the truth of the Christian religion, and the demonstration that the work of Christ in His death was accomplished. That is indeed a truth for infidels. If we would prove the truth of Christianity to those who do not believe, the fact of the resurrection is the pivot, so to speak, on which the evidence of its truth turns. God gave it for this end. But for Christians, for those who already believe in the blessed Saviour, for those whose hope is already founded on the certainty of the word, and who desire to find the power of that word in their regenerate souls, the resurrection, as set forth in the Scriptures, contains much more.

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.