Is the Bible a fairy tale?

(V. 16). Having, in these parenthetical verses, given us his motives for writing, he passes on to remind us of the reality of the kingdom glories to which we are going. In speaking of these glories he had not repeated fables cunningly devised by some visionary mind. He had spoken of things seen as well as of things heard. The Apostles Peter, John and James were eye-witnesses of the majesty of Christ, the three forming a complete witness to His glory. They had known Christ in circumstances of weakness and humiliation: they saw Him too in His power and majesty. The scene on the mount of transfiguration was a foretaste of His coming, for His coming will be in power and majesty, a power that will change our bodies of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory according to the working of the power which He has even to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:21). Thus, on the mount, they not only saw the glory of Christ, but they saw the power of Christ by which Moses and Elias appeared in glory with Him, representatives of all the saints that will yet be with Him in the glory.

We have just had our minds stirred up by the fact that diligence is to have its reward when the day of the everlasting kingdom of our Lord is come. Peter, however, was writing to people who had from the days of their fathers cherished the hope of Messiah's kingdom, and who had lived to see Him rejected and crucified. Were they tempted then to wonder if after all the prophecies of His glorious and actual kingdom embracing both earth and heaven were to be interpreted as but figures of speech — glowing and poetic descriptions of what was after all but a spiritual and invisible estate in heaven? It may well have been so, for we are naturally creatures of extremes. People who once thought everything of Messiah's promised advent in public glory and nothing of His advent in humiliation, are likely, when convinced of His coming to suffer, to think everything of that and nothing of His kingdom and glory.

The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ so long foretold in prophetic testimony, is, however, no "cunningly devised fable," and Peter is able to bear such a witness to its substantial reality as is conclusive. In verses 16 to 18 he says to us, in effect, "The prophetic testimony is true and the kingdom foretold is a substantial reality to be displayed in its season, for we have seen it already in sample form. He alluded, of course, to the transfiguration scene recorded in three out of the four gospels, and witnessed by himself, James and John.

I remember reading, as a young man, a commentary on some prophetic part of Scripture by a rationalist theologian, 'This is all fantasy!' That was his judgment - all fantasy. But Peter says, No, it is not fantasy. We have not followed cleverly imagined fables, - for cleverly imagined they would certainly be, if they were fantasy! He says, We were eyewitnesses of the subject of the prophetic word. - Now, there is nothing more important than the testimony of an eyewitness, who has seen the things of which he reports, and this was the case here with Peter, but not only with Peter, for all the twelve apostles were eyewitnesses. The apostle John in his first epistle speaks of all the Twelve, "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, that which we contemplated, and our hands handled concerning the word of life" (1 John 1:1), and again in verses 2 and 3.

All this is plain and solemn fact, related not as a myth or allegory but as divinely given history, of the nearest interest and utmost importance to every soul of man. It is wholly unlike the visions of prophecy, such as are given to John in the Revelation, where we read "I was in the Spirit," "I heard," "I saw," etc. Nothing of the kind is found in Genesis. But the history at the beginning and the prophecy at the end have this in common, that their words are alike faithful arid true, while the only sense of "myth" which scripture recognises is that of "fable" in contrast to the truth. The christian has nothing to do with the dreamy views of heathen philosophy, but with the revealed mind of God, which leaves no room for either Gnosticism or Agnosticism.

It is the oldest history book in the world. Nothing is known so full, so clear, so informative, bearing upon its pages the verisimilitude of truth. Ancient secular histories stand in vivid contrast to the Bible. In them it is hard to distinguish between truth and fiction, between fact and fable. The reader feels he is looking through a mist at figures exaggerated in size, partly human, partly superhuman. The mind is left in complete suspense as to what to believe, and what not to believe. This is not so with the Bible. The histories of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David are all human and true to life. We can walk with Abraham through strange lands; sympathize with Joseph in prison and rejoice in his exaltation; behold Moses come down from the Holy Mount with shining face; see David sling his stone at the giant and see the giant fall. There is nothing like this in the writings of the ancients. Can we not discern the hand of God, not only in the writing of the Holy Scriptures, but also in their miraculous preservation to this day? God chose a nation, the children of Israel, and “unto them were committed the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2). And well have they kept that trust, though the record is anything but to their credit as a nation.

Three things come before us in our consideration of this theme: the resurrection of Christ, the resurrection of believers, and the resurrection of unbelievers. If Christ's resurrection is fable and not fact, then is Christianity a hollow farce. Preaching and faith are alike vain. Believers, instead of being saved, are yet in their sins, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. So the Apostle argues in 1 Cor. 15. Thank God, no such uncertainty exists. Christ's resurrection is one of the best attested facts in the history of this world. The precautions taken by the authorities of that day, the stern regulations concerning sleeping soldiers, the unbelief of the disciples, the large number of those who interviewed the Saviour subsequently, all combine to prove that no pious fraud was perpetrated, but that God really raised His beloved Son from amongst the dead. The fact itself is of immense import. It was God's public vindication of the claims and character of the crucified One, it signified His acceptance of His atoning work, and it involved the complete justification of every sinner who believes in His name.

Hence nothing can be more out of the way than Mr. N.'s remarks. If John had in Asia Minor (if he was there), after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the Jews, given the general history of miracles and acts as a proof of the truth of his mission as Messiah to the Jews, then, though it would not hinder one taught of God from believing, there would be something plausible in what Mr. N. says, in objecting to a new history of miracles at so late a date. This was already done; and that John should then develop Christianity doctrinally and in its spirit, relating only two or three miracles of Jesus, specially connected with this, is exactly in place and keeping. John's testimony as eye-witness was just as valid. These events must have been much more vividly impressed upon him than more recent ones. The Holy Ghost, while acting suitably as to His instruments, and for His purpose, always acts in His own divine power.

279 Mr. N.'s low and disgusting introduction of John as a witness is without sense or force. He puts a question which only shews his ignorance of the matter. The Holy Ghost acted on his memory, "He shall bring to your remembrance." Does he mean to say that God cannot call to a man's memory what He thinks fit? Such a notion is ridiculous — a man can do it. But He puts the memory into activity, and recalls to it the images of what had passed before it. How many scenes and thoughts has the sight of a person called back to our minds! How well does the sinner know that when God acts convertingly on his conscience all his sins come up fresh into his memory! Could God not do as much as to the life of His blessed Son, and control the memory in its activity so as to give what He wished, if He purposed to give a revelation by eye-witnesses? This is what Jesus said the Holy Ghost should do. Hence it is not a "romance," but a history — a real history by eye-witnesses, and a real history by God Himself through their instrumentality. It is much more incredible that He should have sent and given His Son, and not given such a history of Him, but left it unknown, or only traditionally guessed at in after ages.

Further, I repeat, miracles may arrest and draw attention to truth; and truth may arrest and fix attention on divine power shewn by miracles; but the fact is, both were concurrent testimonies to the person and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. On this point also Mr. N. only shews he is far from the plain and very simple state of the case. Suppose the anxious father, who entreated deliverance for his son, found that the fever left him exactly at the moment that Jesus said, "Go thy way, thy son liveth"; and thus, giving ear to Jesus, found that truth, the entering in of which gives light and understanding to the simple, would an infidel's scepticism or the parent's conduct be more just? In the main, the Gospels just give us an authentic history of those things, and of plenty of scepticism too, which has not happily succeeded in anything save confirming, in the state of the sceptic Jews, the prophecies and warnings which they disbelieved and rejected.

Of these analogies, and developments, and proofs of truth flowing from the link which God's ways and hand in it afford between all the parts of this wonderful book, infidelity, of course, is ignorant; cannot pretend to the knowledge of. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will shew them his covenant." With Mr. N. it is a question of geography; as if God, in unfolding the first steps in that wondrous scene which angels desire to look into, were giving us some additional elements to settle a point in Rennel's Geography. I admit scripture ought to be accurate in everything, without going beyond the forms of knowledge of those to whom it was addressed at the time, or it would not have been suited to them, as God does condescend to suit His instruction to us; as, if we know His grace, we might expect He would. And where is the book which — addressed, in ages earlier than otherwise known history, to a despised people — has stood the test of increasing light as the Bible has on every point? Take the Koran, and see the nonsense that is found in it: yet this was in the seventh century. Take the Fathers. Take any book pretending to give an account of what are called fabulous ages, and see how the marvellous prevails; the little grains of fact to be picked out of these large stories; the prodigality of marvellous nonsense, from which we must in a mythical way conjecture some historical idea (if there is any). The only effect of which is, when we have discovered it, to shew that what we have as plain history in scripture is the true origin of the distorted fables we meet with in profane accounts and ceremonies — ceremonies of which the vulgar know nothing but the outside, as the religion of their fathers; but which shew, when investigated, that what we have in scripture is really the world's history — is that which, however distorted, has formed everywhere the basis of the whole system which knit portions together as one people, and separated them as different peoples too; which acted on their fears and conscience, and impressed their imagination — had been the origin of their different religions, which were but the conscience of having had to say to God in these gradually forgotten wonders, of which Satan had possessed himself to acquire the veneration and govern the lusts of those who had utterly departed from, and forgotten, the true God who had wrought them.

I have some doubt of this. Oral tradition may be vague, of course, but written accounts of this kind are not sober history but myths, and arranged by priests in connection with their false gods, ancestral worship and what ministers to their influence. Take the written accounts in Cory's Ancient Fragments, the Vedas and Puranas, or even G. Smith's account of the flood, one of the most striking of these legends, or Deucalion's, or the history of the Titans; and see whether written accounts secure accuracy. I shall be told that these are poetry and myths. All of them are not, save (which is the very point I insist on) that these ancient accounts always seek the marvellous. Accounts are handed down, and when by men left to themselves, they make myths of them in every country, whilst Scripture gives the divine account of events which in man's hands were made myths of.

In 1868 the German missionary Klein found a stone in Dibon (a town in Moab, East-Jordan land) with the inscription of Mesa, king of Moabites (compare 2 Kings 3). On this stone Mesa recorded in ancient Hebrew letters his disputes with King Jehoram of Israel. This stone dating to the time 840 BC is probably the most ancient extra biblical written testimony for the absolute correctitude of the Old Testament accounts on historical facts. (This stone can now be seen in the Louvre, Paris.)