Christ, Christianity and the Bible

In John, this Jewish King, this Servant of God and men, this Man among men, who received sinners and ate with them, is revealed as the Mighty God, the eternal Word, the Holy One of Israel, who came down to visit his people, was made flesh and “tabernacled” among them, as of old he dwelt in the tabernacle of the wilderness in the Shekinal glory above the Mercy Seat and between the outstretched wings of the golden Cherubim.

Take away the book of Acts, and nothing can be known of the origin of the church and its apostolic history. Without the book of Acts the epistles are wholly unintelligible when they refer to the Church.

Do without the Second epistle to the Corinthians, and you have no revelation of the state of the Christian dead either as to their location or condition.

Without the Second epistle to the Thessalonians you cannot fix the identity of the Antichrist.

Leave out the epistle to the Hebrews and there is no key to Leviticus.

Without the book of Daniel it is impossible fully to understand the book of Revelation.

No matter at what period the book of Revelation may have been written, it can have but one place in the Bible, and that the last. It must have this place because it shows us the foreview of Genesis fulfilled: the seed of the woman has bruised the serpent’s head, Satan has been bound and Paradise is regained.

The Old and New Testaments stand related to each other as the two halves of a perfect whole. In the Old Testament the New is concealed; in the New Testament the Old is revealed.

Genesis finds its key in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, and identifies the creator of heaven and earth with him who was made flesh and dwelt among us as the Son of God.

Exodus is explained by the First epistle to the Corinthians, in which we learn that “Christ” is the “Passover sacrificed for us.”

Leviticus is expounded by the epistle to the Hebrews.

Numbers has its correspondence in the book of Acts.

In Numbers you have the experience of the Children of Israel in their journey through the wilderness. In Acts we get the story of the Church in its pilgrimage through the world.

Deuteronomy is to be read with Colossians.

In Deuteronomy the people of Israel are being prepared for an earthly inheritance. In Colossians the Church is being prepared for a heavenly inheritance.

Joshua stands over against Ephesians.

In Joshua the redeemed people have to fight with flesh and blood in order to possess the covenant land. In Ephesians “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against wicked spirits in the heavenly places.”

Judges may be understood by reading the first chapter of the first epistle, and the twelfth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians.

The book of Ruth is illuminated by the third and fifth chapters of the Ephesians.

In Ruth you have the Gentile bride of a Hebrew Lord, the kinsman, redeemer and advocate; who presents his bride to himself in the gate before all the assembled judges.

In Ephesians, the Gentile Bride is seen to be the Church, the kinsman, redeemer and advocate, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, having loved the Church and given himself for it, will “present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.”

The books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, may be read with the four Gospels and the book of Revelation.

In Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, you have the story of David, the anointed king, man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, triumphant warrior, exalted king – Solomon, prince of peace, ruling over the established kingdom and the queen of Sheba coming from the uttermost parts of the earth to own and celebrate his glory.

In the Gospels we get the story of our Lord Jesus Christ as anointed king and man of sorrows. In Revelation he is seen coming forth at the head of the armies of heaven, a mighty warrior, a triumphant king and, at the last, as Prince of Peace ruling in splendor over his established kingdom; while the Gentiles, coming from the uttermost parts of the earth to Jerusalem, bow the knee before him and acknowledge his glory.

Ezra may be read with the latter half of the second chapter of the Ephesians.

In Ezra you have the building of the material temple. In Ephesus the building of the spiritual temple.

Nehemiah can be read with the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation.

Nehemiah gives us Jerusalem below. Revelation, Jerusalem above.

In the book of Esther the name of God is not once mentioned; but it shows us the unseen God acting in his secret providence to deliver his covenant people, the Jews, from the hand of the Gentile oppressor, and setting them in the place of authority and power over the Gentiles.

The eleventh chapter of the Romans explains the book of Esther.

In the eleventh chapter Paul shows that God has not forgotten the people whom he foreknew. The nation as such has been set aside. It is now, as Hosea says, Lo Ammi, “not my people,” not the people of God.

An election according to grace is going on among the Jews. These are being called into the Church and will form a part of the Body and Bride. The Gentiles have come dispensationally into the place of Israel, and God is sending his Gospel among them – calling out those whom he has foreseen and known among the Gentiles. The nation as such would seem to be cast aside. The people are walking in darkness and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their true God and only Saviour, is not owned among them; but while the Lord is thus denied by them, he has not forgotten them. His providences are round about them in their preservation and multiplication, and in his judgment of the nations which persecute them. Their present condition nationally is temporary. Paul warns the Gentiles that the Jews have been cut off and set aside because of unbelief. The Gentiles have been brought in, and stand alone by faith. It is well for them not to be “high-minded,” but “to fear”; for so surely as God spared not the nation and set it aside because of unbelief, just so surely will he deal with the Gentiles if the Gentiles fall into unbelief.

The Gentiles must not be wise in their own conceits. The blindness and the setting aside of Israel will last only till the “fulness of the Gentiles be come in,” that is, till the election among them is complete; then the Lord will take up Israel as a nation again, and precisely as he delivered Mordecai and the Jews of Esther’s and Ahasuerus’ time and made them to be accepted and feared, so, it is written, the Lord himself will come forth in behalf of his ancient people. “There shall come out of (unto) Sion the Deliverer,” and, “so all Israel shall be saved.”

The book of Esther read in the light of the eleventh chapter of the Romans is illuminating as to the unchanging faithfulness of God and his unceasing love for the nation and people of his choice.

Thus book after book of the Bible may be studied; and the more they are examined and studied, the more manifest will be the intimate relation and marvellous correspondence between the Old and the New Testaments.

When you realize the fact that these Old and New Testament books, so remarkably related and inter-explanatory of each other, have been written by different authors, without possibility of collusion or agreed plan; that each part fits into the other; that it cannot have one book less or one book more; that to take from it would destroy the completeness, to add would mar the harmony; that it is perfect in itself, having the key of each book hung up at the entrance; that it gives but never borrows light; that it cannot be explained or interpreted outside of itself; that to him who diligently searches it, it will reveal itself and make him wise both for this world and for that which is to come; when all these facts are faced, it ought to be evident that in the Bible we have a living thing and not a mere handiwork wrought by man; that man can no more claim to be the actual author of it than of the mountains that are round about Jerusalem or the heavens that are high above them.

The unity of a book demands unity of objective.

This book has a great objective – a supreme theme.

That theme is not Israel – although two-thirds of the book considered as a whole are taken up with the history of that people. The great theme is not the Church of Christ – although the Church in this age is the supreme thing in the sight of God. The one great theme, the one immense objective of this book towards which it moves through history and prophecy, through figure and symbol, through self-sustained prose and musical song – the one great objective is —

OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

It seeks to present him in his person, his work, his present office and coming glories.

It sets him before us as,

The Child born.

The Son given.

The Counsellor.

The Mighty God.

The Prince of Peace.

The Everlasting Father.

The Lily of the valleys.

The Rose of Sharon.

The Branch.

The Lord our Righteousness.

The Lord’s Fellow.

The Man of God’s Right hand.

He whose Goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

The Burnt Offering.

The Meat Offering.

The Peace Offering.

The Sin Offering.

The Trespass Offering.

The Sum of God’s Thoughts.

The Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Son of Abraham.

Son of David.

Son of Mary.

Son of Man.

God the Son.

King of the Jews.

King of Israel.

King of Kings.

Lord of Lords.

God the Creator.

God manifest in the flesh.

The Second Man.

The Last Adam.

The First and the Last.

The Beginning and the Ending.

The Way, the Truth, the Life.

The Light of the world.

The Bread of life.

The Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep.

The Great Shepherd who came again from the dead.

The Chief Shepherd, who shall appear with his flock in glory.

The Sin-bearer.

The Rock.

Our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

He who is.

He who was.

He who is to come.

He who before Abraham was, is, by his own announcement, the “I am.”

The Almighty.

THIS SAME JESUS.

And to these might be added more than five hundred other names and titles, together with their cognates, to say nothing of the various characteristics assigned him, the things predicated of him, until it is found that he is the very warp and woof of the book.

To proclaim him, exalt him, make him known, set him forth in his many roles, his functions, his offices and his covenant glories, prophets recite their visions, a Psalmist sings his rarest songs, and apostles unfold their matchless doctrines.

When you contemplate the fact of this one objective; this tremendous unity of intention in the book, you have an overwhelming demonstration of the unity of its inspiration. Whether the inspiration be a true or a false one, it is beyond all question one inspiration. A book whose construction extends over centuries, written by men separated by time and distance from each other, with no possibility of personal or mental relation to each other – all writing to one objective – and that to set forth the Christ of God in his varied relations – a book with such a unity of purpose demonstrates in the most self-evident fashion that the writers were moved by a common impulse and, therefore, a common inspiration.

And this unity of objective and inspiration coordinates with the wonderful fact that the book has but ONE KEY.

The key which can alone open this book and make every line intelligible from Genesis to Revelation is Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Take Christ out of the Bible and it is a harp without a player, a song without a singer, a palace with all the doors locked, a labyrinth with no Ariadne thread to guide.

Put Christ into the Bible, and the harp strings will be smitten as with a master’s hand.

Put Christ into the Bible, and the voice of song is heard as when a lark from the midst of dew-wet grasses sings, as it soars aloft to greet the coming dawn.

Put Christ into the Bible, and all the doors of the palace are swung open and you may pass from room to room, down all the ivory galleries of the King, beholding portrait and landscape, vista of beauty and heaped-up treasures of truth, of infinite love and royal grace.

Put Christ into the Bible, and you will have a scarlet thread – the crimson of the blood – that will lead you through all the winding ways of redemption and glory.

Put Christ into Genesis, into the verses of the first chapter, and it will chime like silver bells in harmony with the wondrous notes in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, and tell you that he who created the heavens and the earth is he who in the beginning was the eternal Word, the voice of the infinite silence, and who, creating for himself a human nature, and clad in mortal flesh, walked on earth among the sons of men as Jesus of Nazareth.

Put Christ into the twenty-second, the twenty-third and the twenty-fourth chapters of Genesis, and you will have placed before you in perfect type the birth of Christ, the sacrifice, the resurrection on the morning of the third day, the setting aside of the Jewish nation as the first wife, the coming of the Holy Spirit in the name of the Father and the Son to find a Bride for the Son, the calling out of the church, the endowment of the church with the gifts sent from the Father in the name of the Son, the pilgrimage of the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Second Coming of Christ, the Rapture and meeting of Christ and the church in the “field” of the air, and the marriage of the Son.

Put Christ into the dryest and dullest page of the book of Kings and Chronicles, and it will bloom with light and glory; and if you watch in faith, you will see the King’s chariot go by, and catch a vision of the King himself in his beauty.

Put Christ into the Tabernacle, and it will cast its treasures like a king’s largess at your feet.

You will see the brazen altar to be the cross, the brazen laver, the bath of regeneration, even the Word of God. In the Holy Place the table of shew bread will speak of him who once said, “I am the bread of life.” The golden candlestick will remind you that he said: “I am the light of the world.” The golden altar and the priest with his swinging censer of burning incense standing thereat will proclaim him as the great high priest. The beautiful veil of fine linen embroidered with figures of the cherubim in blue, purple and scarlet color is (according to a direct Scripture) the symbol of his flesh, his mortal humanity while on earth. Every board and bar, every cord and pin, the coverings, the curtains, the blue, the purple and the scarlet color, the golden vessels as well as the furniture, each and all, proclaim him, illustrate and illuminate him in his person, his work, his present office and coming glories.

All these are analogies, types, pictures, are so related to Christ that he alone explains them; the explanation is filled with such perfection of harmony in every detail, the relation between them and our Lord Jesus Christ as the Antitype is so strikingly self-evident, that any discussion of it would be useless.

When you find a key and lock which fit each other, you conclude they were intended for each other.

In the light of facts already cited, what other conclusion can be drawn than that Christ and the Bible were intended for each other?

And when you see this Bible coming together part by part, foretelling the Christ and explained alone by him, what sane conclusion is possible other than the book which is opened and explained by him who is not only the Christ but the Personal Word of God, must be, and is, THE WRITTEN WORD OF GOD!

Let your mind dwell for a moment on the style of the book.

It is so simple that a child may understand it; so profound, that the mightiest intellect cannot go beyond its depths. It is so essentially rich that it turns every language into which it is translated into a classic. At one moment it is plain narration; at another, it is all drama and tragedy, in which cataclysmic climax crashes against climax.

It records the birth of a babe, the flight of an angel, the death of a king, the overthrow of an empire or the fall of a sparrow. It notes the hyssop that groweth out of the wall and speaks of the cedars of Lebanon. It shows us so pastoral a thing as a man sitting at his tent door in the cool of the day, and then paints for us a city in heaven with jasper walls, with golden streets, and where each several gate that leadeth into the city is one vast and shining pearl.

It is full of outlines – outlines as large and bare as mountain peaks, and then it is crowded with details as minute as the sands of the sea. There are times when clouds and darkness float across its pages and we hear from within like unto the voice of him who inhabiteth eternity; in another moment the lines blaze with light, the revelation they give is high noon – and all the shadows are under the feet.

It is terrible in its analysis and cold and emotionless in the hard impact of its synthesis. It describes moments of passion in passionless words, and states infinite conclusions without the hint of an emphasis. It shows us a man in hell (hades) and, although it describes sufferings more awful than mortal flesh can know, causing the soul to shudder at the simple reading of it, it takes on no quickened pulse, no feverish rush of added speech.

In a few colorless lines it recounts the creation of the heavens and the earth. In language utterly barren of excitement it describes the most exciting and soul-moving event that can occupy the imagination – that moment when the heavens shall be on fire, the elements melted with fervent heat, the earth and the works therein burned up, and a new heaven and a new earth brought into view.

It is a book of prose and yet a book of sublimest poetry.

The book of Job is a poem by the side of which the hexameters of Horace, the drama of Shakespeare, the imagination of Milton, are not to be compared.

In all literature the book of Job alone introduces a spirit into the scene and reports its speech without utterly breaking down into the disaster of the commonplace.

Listen to the account which Eliphaz the Temanite gives. He says:

“In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, Fear came upon me, and trembling which made all my bones to shake.”

Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up; It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes; there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, “Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall man be more pure than his Maker?”

Here is the threshold of the unseen. Before he sees or hears anything, the Temanite has the sense of fear – the fear of something more than human. The unknown weighs upon him and presses him down, all the life and energy in him are at low ebb – he feels as though the tides of life were running out. A spirit passes before his face. It is like a breath of scarcely moving air out of the night. The hair of his flesh (mark the psychological and physiological fact), the hair of his flesh stood up. It was as if a current of electricity had passed through him. Then the spirit stands still. It is as though this breath of air out of the night were no longer moving. He cannot discern any form. There is nothing fixed or stable enough for him to perceive. An image is before his eyes. He makes no vulgar attempt to describe it – it is indescribable. There is a great silence; then, as the margin has it, he heard a still small voice – not a loud and jarring voice – but a voice low, soft, still; and yet! the utterance of that voice! what immensity of self-conscious power what authority and dignity – the dignity of infinite integrity: “Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall man be more pure than his Maker?”

How the night is full of a sudden law of proportion. Mortal man and eternal God. You feel the distance widening and widening between them there in the stillness of the night. The justice of man! man! the unjust – the law breaker; man, who is of yesterday and is gone to-morrow – mortal man, more just than he of whom it is said, “Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne.” Fallen man, man full of iniquity, shall he be more pure than he who made him; he who breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and made him a living soul; he whose name is holiness and righteousness and very truth? As the question lingers man shrivels and sinks into the dust, and the whole night is filled with stillness – with the stillness and immensity of the all-pervading and holy God.

Read the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth chapters.

They record the highest reaches of human language, so great that our own version cannot dim their splendor. Nothing ever written surpasses them, not only in the felicity of expression, but in the sense of deity pervading them. Each succeeding verse sustains the other and, at the last, you feel that God, very God, indeed, has spoken.

The Almighty answers the complaining Job.

He answers him, not out of the midst of a deep, unbroken calm, but out of the whirlwind; and yet, from the centre of that mighty vortex of unlimited force and energy and power, the voice comes forth with the calmness of one who knows himself superior to the whirlwind and the storm.

“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?”

This is the abrupt and sudden question. It is the fitting question of him who knoweth the end from the beginning. In the very asking of it all the boasted knowledge, the attainment, the self-consciousness and vanity of man fade away, and man himself is as nothing – God alone remains upon the vision – all knowing – all wise – supreme.

This Bible is a book of history.

It will spend page after page in describing the doings of a rebellious king, and then compress the story of twenty-five hundred years into a few dozen lines, but will do this in such a way, by means of exact symbols, that the twenty-five centuries thus compressed will reveal a clearer outline and fuller vista than thousands of ordinary volumes could set forth in detail.

Mark the providence that has guarded the book.

Kings and potentates have sought to destroy it. It has been thrown into the flames. Volume after volume has been burned. But always, and at the critical moment, some copy has been preserved – here in the cottage of a devoted peasant at the risk of his life, hidden in the crevice of a rock from the inquisitor’s search, or cast aside by a careless hand and forgotten amid a pile of swept up dust in a neglected corner of some impregnable castle; from whence it has come forth to be copied by slow and painful, yet loving, toil, passed from house to house secretly as a priceless treasure, then printed on concealed presses and at last cast forth as living and fruitful seed.

Men have denounced it and demonstrated that it is false both in history and science; then, unexpectedly, the stroke of a pick or the turn of a shovel uncovers some startling witness of its exact truth and the excuseless folly of those who deny it.

The fourteenth chapter of Genesis has been set aside by the critics as historically worthless. The excavations in Babylon have brought to light a tablet with the name of Arioch, the fourth king mentioned in that chapter, stamped upon it.

The statement in Exodus that Pharaoh forced the Children of Israel while building his treasure cities to make bricks without straw, has been treated as a fable. The treasure chambers themselves have been found, the rooms divided by brick partitions eight to ten feet thick – and great quantities of these bricks made without straw.

Luke says that Sergius Paulus was pro-consul of Cyprus. The critics denied it and proved thereby the fallibility of the New Testament.

The homely but truth-telling spade, and without consulting the critic, dug up some coins in the island of Cyprus itself, and on the coins were stamped both the image and the name of Sergius Paulus.