Why should I believe the Bible?

And have we not here a very complete answer to the oft-raised question of infidelity, "How do we know that the Bible is the word of God?" If indeed we believe in Christ; if we own Him to be the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, very God and very man, we cannot fail to see the moral force of the fact that this divine Person constantly appeals to the scriptures — to Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms, as to a divine standard. Did He not know them to be the word of God? Undoubtedly. As God, He had given them; as Man, He received them, lived by them, and owned their paramount authority, in all things.

"Never man spake like this man," said those whom His enemies sent to apprehend Him (John 7:46). Yet what can be more striking than His own testimony to the scriptures for which men claim the validating or sealing authority of the church? "How can ye believe, receiving as ye do glory one of another, and seek not the glory that is from the only God? Think not that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, Moses, on whom ye have set your hope. For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for about me he wrote. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words" (John 5:44-47)? Thus, where the Lord is enumerating the witnesses to the Jews why they should believe on Him, He gives pointedly the highest place, over spoken words, to the written word as having a permanence from God peculiar to itself. Not to believe scripture is virtually that God did not and could not make it bind the conscience to receive it as His without the church's authority to stamp it. The church is bound to be a witness and keeper of God's word, and all the more because blessed beyond measure through it; but to set up to be its necessary and authoritative warrant is shameless arrogance and unbelieving profanity.

On the other hand, the Lord Jesus quoted many an Old Testament Scripture as authoritative. Did He not say, "It is written" (Matt. 4:4, 6-7) three times, quoting passages from Deuteronomy when resisting the Devil in the temptation in the wilderness? In the Sermon on the Mount we read, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law [the law, a term covering the five books of Moses], till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:17-18). This is a particular affirmation of the authority and inspiration of the Old Testament. A jot is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet; the tittle, a little mark on a letter to distinguish it from another letter, so alike that a mistake might be made were the mark not there. Some people are afraid of the word verbal inspiration, but our Lord goes further, and tells us every letter and mark is authoritative.

No thoughtful reader can fail to be impressed with our Lord's absolute dependence upon the whole word of God throughout His entire life. Even in the circumstances attending His birth, all was done "that the Scriptures might be fulfilled," and at His death it was the same. We would search in vain for the slightest uncertainty on His part as to the truth and authority of the Scriptures. With Him it was ever and only the word of God. "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). It was Moses who wrote of Him, and David who, by the Holy Ghost, foretold His glory. How does the awful unbelief of men who profess to be His followers compare with this? It is as if our Lord declared He stood or fell with the word of God; that if that were not true, neither was He. And so indeed it must be. He who is holy and true has given His sanction to all Scripture as true. By it He met Satan and vanquished him; to it He appealed in His teaching; from it He quoted constantly in all His conflicts with the unbelieving Pharisees and others. Its history, its psalms and its prophecy are declared by Him to be the word of God. The truth of the history of Jonah stands or falls with the truth of His own death and resurrection: to deny one is to deny the other also (Matt. 12:39-40). All Scripture pointed to Himself, and He expounded it so (Luke 24:27, 44). Thus our Lord fully and perfectly identified Himself with the word of God.

Believing as we do, that there is a Supreme Being, and that He created man with intelligence far beyond the beasts of the field, it is not difficult to believe that He would seek the spiritual blessing of His creatures, and so give to us the one inspired book, the Bible, the Holy Scriptures of truth. Nor has there been any book, save the Bible, that has had and still has even today, a tithe of its influence in the world. That cannot be denied! How completely satisfying is the Bible’s account of the origin of prophecy, “Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). “All this, said David, the LORD made me understand in writing by His hand upon me” (1 Chr. 28:19). The Scriptures carry their own conviction, that they are inspired of God.

Very much can be said to prove the inspiration of the Bible. One unassailable proof is prophecy. There are over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ, and these have been strikingly fulfilled. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that the prophecies could be made to fit the fulfilment; or the fulfilment the prophecies.

External evidences are poor things to rest one's faith upon. Yet in the case of the Bible they are by no means lacking.

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.

The original writings were copied on manuscripts, in painstaking accuracy. This was assured through various techniques, such as counting the number of occurrences of each letter, etc.

Evidence for the accuracy of transmission abounds. Until 1947, the oldest known OT manuscripts were from around 1,000 AD. Bible critics claimed that these had to be very inaccurate because so many centuries had elapsed. The famous Qumran discovery, in 1947, proved them wrong (the critics, not the manuscripts). The caves in Qumran contained copies of all books of the Old Testament (except Esther) - from 100 - 200 years BC. A careful comparison showed that these manuscripts were virtually identical to the ones that had been known before (from 1000 AD).

To proceed. The multiplicity of copies of the Scriptures running into many hundreds, laboriously engrossed by hand in many a place and during many centuries, first of all proves the existence of the original. There can be no possible doubt of the existence of the sixty-six books that compose the Bible. Second, it proves the high regard in which they were held, a regard extended to no other writings, this attitude towards the Holy Writings being quite unique. Third, the effect of these writings in the spread of Christianity proves them to be living and powerful.