Why can't all Christians agree on one Bible?

The fact is, that Scripture differs from mere books of information and science, inasmuch as these are wholly irrespective of moral condition and may be mastered alike by the evil and the good, while that depends on our measure of subjection to the Spirit of God. And as the children of God are not equally spiritual, so they differ in the degree of their understanding of and relish for all that is of God. If all Christians had a single eye, every one would be full of light. But this is not so. Each has to contend with influences, prejudices, prepossessions, etc., which, as far as they work, obscure the judgment, and thus lead to differing views and practice. Hence it is that the evidence of the word which is irresistible to one is weak or null to another, rightly or wrongly, of course, as a man is led by the Spirit. To take the same example as before, a man better taught than Bishop Marsh would see ground, in Jude 11 and Heb. 12:24, for interpreting Cain and Abel typically. And if they are to be so taken, why not Lamech and Seth, of whom serious and interesting facts are recorded in the same chapter? Again, the hardest exactor of express New Testament authority can scarcely deny a formally typical force to the deluge. (See 1 Peter 3.) Has then the subsequent altar which Noah built no future bearing? Nor God's blessing of him and his sons, with His solemn committal of the sword of government and the covenant with the earth and all flesh? And the city and tower in the plain of Shinar, has it no language for our ears, — that Babel, where language was confounded by the judgment of Jehovah, and the various tongues of men began? if Sarah and Hagar, if Isaac and Ishmael have the explicit sanction of Scripture, is it not implied as to Abraham and Lot? If Melchizedek cannot be disputed, what are we to infer about the combinations of the Kings and their conflicts, what about the intervention of the head of promise and the deliverance of his earthly-minded kinsman? Are all these great connected circumstances unmeaning, save as moral and historical? Is "the possessor of heaven and earth" an immaterial title there and then, because, "the most high God" merely is cited in Heb. 7?

We shall perhaps be told that, notwithstanding our possession of the holy scripture, we have, nevertheless, sects, parties, creeds, and schools of thought almost innumerable. But why is this? Simply because we refuse to submit our whole moral being to the authority of holy scripture. This is the real secret of the matter — the true source of all those sects and parties which are the shame and sorrow of the church of God.

Yet, terrible as it was, this and even worse is the condition of the professing Church of God to-day. You may say, "Yes, I see how wrong people are." But look within and you will see the counterpart of all the wrong there is around you, in your own heart. We have not come here to run down our fellow-Christians. We are come to humble ourselves before God and to learn of Him. If we are not spiritual we shall not profit much by the guidance which the scriptures give, and unless we are humble and broken in spirit we shall go utterly wrong in our interpretations. We only understand scripture up to the measure of our spirituality and by the Holy Spirit's teaching, and if we are not spiritual we shall go astray even though we have the scriptures. I will prove this to you. Look at 2 Peter 3:16; there, in speaking of the apostle Paul, he says, "As also in all his epistles, speaking of these things in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." What did they do with scripture? Why, they turned it up the wrong way, and to their own destruction. It is very easy to do that if unlearned and unstable in the things of God. We may be learned and stable in the things of this world, but this will not help us unless taught of God and established by Him. Our present spiritual condition is the measure of our understanding of the mind of God. Having been spiritual yesterday will not enable me to understand to-day. Hence it is that we see sometimes the mighty man of yesterday misses the simplest road to-day. Why is this? He is out of communion, and is seeking to interpret God by means of his intellect and not by the Spirit of God. There is no possibility of getting the mind of God merely by reading the scriptures intellectually. How differently people interpret scripture. Why is this? Because there is so little spirituality in us.

One perplexity often encountered when seeking to study scripture seriously is that the various translations of the Bible often contain significant differences. A frequent cause of these differences is that the translators have used different Greek manuscripts as the basis for their work. One might ask, 'If these renowned scholars can't agree, how can I as a simple believer possibly know which is right?' An example of such a discrepancy occurs here and provides us with one technique for determining the correct translation.

In the first place it must be observed that such variations as the above, and all "various readings," belong to the Greek text, and do not refer to translation. It is easy to see that the same Greek words may be translated differently by different persons; but the 'readings' refer to different Greek words being substituted; or words may be added by copyists in various MSS, or words or sentences may be omitted as in the above instance from John 5:3-4.

But our subject is the text to be translated. The above passage in Romans 7:6 ought to convince any person that in some places a purer text ought to be taken. If our readers will also turn back to the variations in the Revelation, they will see that some of the readings in the Authorised Version have, as far as we have any means of knowing, absolutely no manuscript authority whatever. Surely such passages ought to be altered. But in many places the sense may not be affected; and if the text is to be altered, the grave question is, who is to do it, and do it in such a way that it shall, as in the translation, commend itself to all Christians? This is a much more difficult question than the translation of the text after that is fixed on. The translation may perhaps be amended to commend itself to most; but as to the text, only few are at all able to judge as to where the text needs altering, and will naturally cling to their time-honoured New Testament. If portions were left out, and others added, we can easily see how many good Christians would look upon the work with the greatest abhorrence, if not designate it as the work of Satan!

Interpretation: The sceptic, if ever the eye of such scanned these humble pages, might well point mockingly to the divisions of Christendom as evidence of sorrowful divergence in the interpretation of the word, for all alike appeal to the same word. And this may be carried a stage further; even those, such as Christadelphians, who are not recognised as Christians by orthodox belief, appeal to the word as the basis and ground of their destructive doctrines. And nothing would be more foolish than for us to attempt to hide the solemn fact that true men of God have not only disagreed concerning the interpretation of scripture, but have also divided in the Church because of that disagreement. However, in the overruling mercy and goodness of God, a very great body of essential truth has been held throughout the Church, (or, perhaps, I should say, the churches), in all ages. And it is profitable study to consider that body of truth, and to rejoice that it includes so much that is infinitely precious to every redeemed soul.

If an artist in furniture designed an exceptionally fine wardrobe and entrusted the work in twelve sections to twelve different joiners, anybody who endeavoured to "interpret" any one of the resulted pieces of joinery by itself would surely reach some strange conclusions. No reliable or satisfactory interpretation would be found until it was seen as related to the whole design. Thus it is with every prophecy of the Scripture, and here is found the reason of the many opinions and even heresies which we have to deplore.

Although there may be individual cases in which God sends a "strong delusion, that they should believe a lie," it cannot yet be said that the great mass of nominal Christians has been given over to delusion in the judgment of God as Israel has been. Yet morally an equally dense vail rests upon the hearts of the great bulk of those who call themselves Christians, as regards the true gospel, as on the heart of Israel in respect of the coming Messiah. Leaving out popery, which has evidently an anti-Christian character, how does it stand with the great number of Protestants by birth and tradition, even with those who read the New Testament, if it is really read at all? The Holy Scriptures are read by the light of tradition, i.e. with a mirror, which alone is sufficient to make the Word of God void and of none effect. They are read like the writings of any human author, whereas this Word comes to man with divine authority, representing God's thoughts and demanding the obedience of faith; or else one looks in the Holy Scriptures for accounts, annals, histories, without heeding in the least the truths connected with the facts, i.e. the teaching of the gospel. Therefore they may be read without the living power of the Spirit being in the least felt - a power which speaks to sinners or disciples now as directly as in the first days of the Church, when this Word issued from the lips of the Lord or of His apostles. (Heb. 2:3.) And thus the word becomes true: "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." (2 Cor. 3:6.)

I have only to notice the objection of differences of opinion among the reformers who acknowledge scripture. This is merely to catch people's minds. No rule can hinder differences so long as the human mind works. The doctrine of the Greeks differs from the doctrines of Rome, of Nestorians from both, of Jacobites from all, of Protestants from the system they have abandoned. This only proves that the church has failed in hindering divisions and maintaining unity. We have four great bodies, of which the latest formed has been for nearly a thousand years separate from Rome, and older than she, besides Anglicanism and the other Protestants. The divisions existed before Protestants were there. Rome is only one of these divided parts, not the oldest, not so numerous as all the rest taken together. With these divisions, the question is, what is the rule to judge which is the right one? Not the authority of one giving itself as the rule. That is what Rome does. Who can trust that? The scriptures were before all these divisions and questions, are given by inspired writers, are God's revelation of what was from the beginning, as God instituted it.