What is the significance of burning Bibles?

What Jehoiakim did, has been done over and over again. It is being done today as never before in the history of Christendom. It is being done by the destructive critics, in colleges and universities; it is done by the men who have produced the Shorter New Testament and the Shorter Old Testament, by those who advocate an abridged Bible, by others who, like the English writer Wells, want a new Bible. The same power of darkness is behind all these wicked attempts to mutilate the Word of God. Jehoiakim's work is nothing in comparison with these twentieth century infidels, because these aim at the most precious, the most blessed revelation of God, the doctrine of Christ. Their condemnation will be far greater than that of the Jewish king.

Verses 27-32. But did the king destroy the Word of God? One might just as well speak of destroying God Himself. Neither God nor His Word can ever be affected by the efforts of men inspired by the enemy of the truth of God. The Word of God endureth forever. It is, like God, eternal. How the Bibles have been burned a thousand times over again! In pagan Rome and papal Rome Satan has raged against the Bible. His Word lives on. And now the devil, camouflaged as an angel of light, in the guise of "devout scholarship" and "reverent criticism" tries it again. His Word lives on! Emperors and popes, philosophers and infidels who attacked the Bible are gone; the Bible is still with us. Jeremiah is told to take another roll. Once more the Lord dictates the same words to him, and Jeremiah again dictates them to Baruch, "with many like words," including a judgment message of the miserable end of the wicked king.

Jeremiah 36 records the profane way in which the writings of God were treated. It is a solemn lesson. This mutilation and destruction of the prophetic roll happened before the destruction of Jerusalem. The same sort of thing will take place before the judgment of Christendom. Not that man can get rid of the Word of God: He knows how to preserve it just as He did in this case, but man by his treatment of it manifests his guilt and profanity, and secures for himself the judgments of which God’s word speaks, even as we read of the Scripture-mutilating king in our chapter. “Thus says the Lord, Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast? Therefore thus says the Lord of Jehoiakim king of Judah, He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity” (Jer. 29:31).

How very different was the attitude of Jehoiakim to the words of the roll of Jeremiah that proclaimed anew the judgment that would befall His unfaithful people. Instead of rending his garments as Josiah had done, after three or four leaves had been read, the king “cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed” (Jer. 36:23). The foolish and profane king might cut the roll, but he could not set aside the divine judgments that were written on it. Little did he think that the very words of the roll, and his wicked action, would be read by millions of people throughout the world thousands of years after he was dead.

Jehudi, who brought the Book, read it in the ears of the king and his assembled princes, while the king sat in his winter-house with the fire burning before him. Without waiting for the whole of the divine message to be read, after the reading of "three or four leaves," the profane king, instead of being afraid, as his princes had been, cut the roll "with the penknife, and cast it into the fire … until all the roll was consumed." Like many another since his day, this foolish man imagined that he could get rid of God's word by consigning it to the flames.

Neither king Jehoiakim, nor any who, like him, have cut up the Scriptures or have burned them, have had any true knowledge of the God who gave them by inspiration or that the word of God is a living word that cannot be destroyed, in this case, the Lord told His servant Jeremiah to "Take again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned." In addition, there was a special word for the king, telling him of the divine judgment that was about to fall upon his person, upon his seed, and upon his land. The king of Babylon would certainly come, and execute the judgment that had been written in the roll. God had given him the opportunity to repent, but he had not only refused it, but had profanely despised the mercy of the God of Israel.

The professing church, like the nation of Israel in the days of Jehoiakim, has been marked by idolatry, corruption, and persecution of the servants of the Lord. There was the time when leaders of the professing church burned the Scriptures, for in them there was the condemnation of their idolatry and corruption; but not all their burnings of the Scriptures or persecution of the saints and servants of the Lord could stop the spread of God's word or hinder the work of the Lord.

The world passeth away, its glory withereth; man is but a fading leaf; but "the word of the Lord endureth for ever." Not one "jot or tittle" — the smallest particle of a letter — penned by inspiration of God will pass away. The Bible, because it is the Word of God, is imperishable. What a rock amidst the shoreless sea of human uncertainty and conflicting opinions! The pagan persecutions of the first Christian centuries; the papal fires of the Middle Ages, in which cart-loads of the Scriptures were cast; nor the gross ignorance which prevailed prior to the Reformation; centuries, too, in which an interdict was laid upon reading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue; nor the yet more wicked attempts in our own times of so-called Christian men who are labouring with unwonted zeal and earnestness in the sad and hopeless task of undermining the authority and Divine character of the Scriptures — these, and the ten thousand attempts of ancient, medieval, and modern times, have covered the enemies of Divine revelation with everlasting confusion, while our dear old English Bible is invulnerable as ever. Do we say, it is a faultless version? Nay; but its mistakes and blemishes only display the blundering hand of man, while leaving untouched the peerless perfection and matchless beauty of the sacred Scriptures.

But succeeding Kings of Judah were not all so pious as the good King Josiah. We have a sharp contrast in the actions of his son Jehoiakim. Let us pay a visit, unasked, to this King's palace. We find him in his "winterhouse" with a fire burning before him. Another portion of God's Word is being read in his presence, but taking the roll out of the hands of the reader, "he cut it with the penknife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed" (Jer. 36:26). He was the first person we know of who ever dared to destroy any portion of God's written Word, and short and sharp came his judgment. "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Pagan Rome and papal Rome have only too well followed this wicked King's example, but the Word of God is indestructible; it liveth and abideth for ever.

I may say that I subsequently had an opportunity of examining the waste paper basket; and I found there the Song of Solomon, the book of Jonah, half of the prophecies of Isaiah, the Epistle by Jude, the second Epistle of Peter, and large portions of nearly every book of scripture. I cannot describe to you how utterly shocked I was at this wholesale destruction of the sacred Book which is God's veritable message to man.

The last daring act of this malicious volume was to hurl what remained of the mutilated Bible into the fireplace where there were still a few smouldering embers. After contemplating its work for a moment with a good deal of evident self-satisfaction, it turned to resume its place on the shelves, and I was able to read the highly ornamented title on its back — "THE LATEST ACHIEVEMENT OF HIGHER CRITICISM."

Another step of about one hundred years and we find that the domination of Babylon, of Persia, and of Greece is a thing of the past, and Palestine finds itself in the power of a more bitter foe than any of these had been. Antiochus Epiphanes (the Illustrious), or some would call him Epimanes (the Madman), is ruler of Syria, and Judea lies at his mercy. He has determined that he will destroy the race of the Jews and banish the name of the God of Israel from the earth. To do so, Antiochus saw that he must first get rid of the "Law of Moses." Perhaps never, either before or since, has the BOOK passed through such an extreme crisis. Copies of it, laboriously written by hand, could be but few. Those who possessed them were weak and their enemies were strong, but God was over all.

We read that "Antiochus went up to Jerusalem with a great multitude and proudly entered into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof . . . and there was great mourning in Israel. And he commanded the holy place to be profaned . . . and he set up the abominable idol before the altar of God, and cut in pieces and burned with fire the books of the Law of God. And every one with whom the books of the Testament of the Lord was found, and whosoever observed the Law of the Lord, they put to death according to the Edict of the King . . . and there was great wrath upon the people."

About the 24th of February the first edict was issued. It ordained that all who refused to sacrifice should lose their offices, their property, their rank, and civil privileges; that slaves persisting in the profession of the gospel should be excluded from the hope of liberty, that Christians of all ranks should be destroyed, that religious meetings should be suppressed, and that the scriptures should be burnt. The attempt to exterminate the scriptures was a new feature in this persecution, and, no doubt, was suggested by the philosophers who frequented the palace. They were well aware that their own writings would have but little hold on the public mind if the scriptures and other sacred books were circulated. Immediately these measures were resolved upon the church of Nicomedia was attacked, the sacred books were burnt, and the building entirely demolished in a few hours. Throughout the empire the churches of the Christians were to be levelled to the ground, and the sacred books were to be delivered to the imperial officers. Many Christians who refused to give up the scriptures were put to death, while those who gave them up to be burnt were considered by the church as traitors to Christ, and afterwards caused great trouble in the exercise of discipline towards them.*

As we have seen, a persecution broke out in the reign of Diocletian, and orders to persecute the Christians reached Britain as well as all other parts of the Roman empire. Gildas says of the persecution: "All copies of the scriptures that could be found were burned in the streets, and the chosen pastors of God's flock butchered, together with their innocent sheep, in order that not a vestige of the christian religion, if possible, might remain in any province. What disgraceful flights then took place; what slaughter and death, inflicted by way of punishment in divers shapes; and, on the contrary, what glorious crowns of martyrdom then were won! What raving fury was displayed by the persecutors, and what patience on the part of sorrowing saints, ecclesiastical history informs us; for the whole church was crowding in a body to leave behind them the dark things of this world, and to make the best of their way to the happy mansions of heaven, as to their natural home."