Our attitude toward Christ will determine OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE SCRIPTURES.

It must be clear to the mind of every earnest and thoughtful man and woman among us that the time has come when we must clearly define for ourselves what our attitude toward the Bible is to be, if we are to continue our work as a denomination. No family, nor community, nor institution, nor nation, can live a peaceful, progressive, and useful life, without the direction of some recognized authority. And without some such authoritative direction, neither church nor denomination can exercise a useful ministry to the world about it. Authority must reside in someone. In whom? To whom can Baptists look for direction? We have no bishop; and we refuse to allow any person or collection of persons to exercise spiritual lordship over us. And yet someone must command and direct. Who shall it be?

There can be but one answer: "One is your Master, even Christ: and all ye are brethren." But who is to be the Master's mouthpiece? By what means is His will to be communicated to us? Where shall we find an order bearing His unmistakable signature? Formerly, and historically, Baptists believed that the Head of the church had revealed His will in the Holy Scriptures. To our fathers the Bible was the word of God. Do we still so regard it?

If we do not, if we have no longer a reliable compass and chart, our ship must surely drift from her course; and, defaulting in her mission, disintegrate, and ultimately disappear. No captain would put to sea in a ship whose steering gear was believed to be out of order. And every Baptist movement, if it is to be worthy of the name, must find its direction in the authority of the Bible as the word of God. For when Baptists yield their belief in the authority of the Scriptures they have surrendered the last logical reason for their continued existence.

But how shall the right attitude toward the Bible be determined? Who shall tell us authoritatively whether the Bible is the word of God? Must we not in this matter resort to and rely upon the authority of Christ?

Personally, I have no theory of the inspiration of the scriptures. But I am sure of ten thousand facts concerning which I am unable to formulate a theory. And it is of the fact of inspiration, not of any theory of it, that we must be convinced. We may not know how "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," and yet be absolutely sure that they were so moved.

The Bible is a human book, written by human hands. It has never been claimed that its manuscripts were magically produced. But the Bible is divine as well as human. This is the claim it everywhere makes on its own behalf. In what proportions, therefore, are these divine and human elements blended? Is it so human as to partake of such imperfection as is common to all things of human origin? Or is it so permeated by the divine as to be saturated with divine perfection?

The Book tells us of a great Personality Who was born of a human mother, but was begotten of the Holy Ghost; and Who was, therefore, both human and divine, like the Book itself. But how were the divine and human elements blended in Him? Which of the two natures predominated? Did His human nature render Him subject to human limitations? Or, the rather, was not His humanity, while still making Him our true Kinsman, by union with His divinity, sublimed to the quality of divine perfection? For if He was limited in one realm of His being, must He not have been limited in all? If He was mentally limited to the measure of the human mind, how can inherent physical immortality or moral perfection be predicated of Him?

We are thus driven to the inquiry: In what realms of life is Jesus Christ to be Lord? Unquestionably, He is to be Lord of our bodies. And who will dispute His supremacy as a moral and religious Teacher? But what about the realm of the intellect?

Let us hear from one who was widely and deeply learned. No one will question the Apostle Paul's qualification for judging of intellectual matters. And he tells us, "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth."

But after he had seen Jesus, he gloried in being the "bond-slave" of Christ. Now to what extent did Paul submit himself to Christ? Did he continue to "think with himself"? And were his thoughts, "contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth"? O tell us! Thou mighty leader of men, thou man of massive and far-seeing intellect, in the wide realm of thy intellectual activities, hast thou mad Jesus Christ thy Lord?

And he answers:

"Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh; (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the puling down of strongholds) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."

And nothing less than that will do. Jesus Christ must be Lord in the realm of the intellect! Imaginations and reasonings and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, must, by the power of God, be cast down. A true Baptist, to whom Jesus Christ is the Incarnate God, in the nature of the case, has no "liberty" to entertain thoughts which are "contrary" to Christ. He is "the bond-slave" of the Christ, intellectually as well as spiritually; and his "every thought" his thought about the Bible, and about everything else, in this life, and in that which is to come, must be "brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."

Now when Christ is so regarded we have an infallible Standard and Authority to whom all our intellectual problems can be brought. We must consult Him, therefore, about the Bible, for He is the highest Authority in the universe.

Of the Old testament in general. He says: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." And to this He adds in another place, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Thus, this infallible Christ declares He has come to fulfill the law and the prophets, even to the last jot and the last title; and having put the seal of His infallible authority on the law and the prophets, He later solemnly avows that His own words shall never pass away. Can language express a stronger claim to infallibility and final authority?

What use can I now make of this divine pronouncement? How is the authority of Christ with respect to the Scriptures to determine my own attitude toward the Bible? Let me give you two or three simple illustrative applications of the principle.

Personally, I am not concerned per se about the human authorship of the books attributed to Moses. When I find the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews saying of certain things in Exodus and Leviticus, "the Holy Ghost, this signifying", I could be content to ignore the human author and listen to the divine word. But when I find that the life and times of Moses are so inextricably interwoven with the Pentateuch that it is impossible to eliminate Moses without invalidating the first five books of the Bible, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch becomes a question of vital importance. Therefore I must bring this vexed question to "the author and finisher of my faith" for settlement. And now let us hear Him!

To the Sadducean naturalists of His day, He said: "Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God?...Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake to him?

And again: "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? And yet again, in that most solemn parable which is a prophecy of retribution beyond the grave, in answer to the once-rich man' request, that Lazarus he sent to warn his five brethren, Christ represents Abraham as saying, (and as saying it in the clearer light and fuller knowledge of the life beyond), "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." And the rich man replies, "Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto him from the dead, they will repent." He puts into Abraham's lips these terribly solemn words: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

When he has heard these words, surely for the man who acknowledges the Deity and consequent infallibility of Christ, the question of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is authoritatively and finally settled; and instead of spending time in idle speculation, he will read it to hear what "the Holy Ghost saith" therein.

And this principle of the infallibility of Christ may be applied to all Biblical questions. I am not disturbed by questions as to historicity of the book of Jonah. I should be quite content to learn its religious lessons as allegorically taught, even if the book had no historic foundation, providing there can be found nothing in any other part of scripture requiring me to regard the book as being historically true. An allegorical Jonah, and parabolic fish, and a legendary gourd, will do no violence to my faith, if I can secure the consent of my one infallible Authority to my holding such a view; for I am not free to form an opinion on the subject: my thought of the book of Jonah must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Therefore, what saith my great Professor of Bible knowledge? Hear Him again:

"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of prophet Jonah; for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three day and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater the Johan is here." And in the same breath, He continues: "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater that Solomon is here."

By that pronouncement, for me, the question of the historicity of the book of Jonah is forever settled. I believe the miraculous story to be historically true because the highest Authority in the universe has so declared.

The same rule applies to the question of the inspiration land authority of the Scriptures as a whole; and in every part. For myself, this is my confession of faith with respect to the Bible: If this building were large enough to hold all the Biblical scholars of the world, and it they should all unite to tell me that the story of the deluge is unhistoric; that Moses did not write the Pentateuch; that the book of Jonah is not historically true, I would believe Christ's naked word before the contrary judgment of all the scholarship of the world, and stake the interests of my soul for the time and for eternity upon the unsupported word of my absolutely infallible Lord; and, for the sake of agreeing with a "scholarship" falsely so-called. For though I thus speak for the purpose of emphasis, I am convinced that the body of thought which is worthy of the high and honourable title of "scholarship", and which represents the findings of disciplined intellectual powers in cooperation with spiritually enlightened and penetrating understandings, will always be found to be in agreement with the work of Him who is Incarnate Truth.

When we thus approach the Bible as being instinct with the personality and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, what a world of intellectual and spiritual treasure it becomes to us! We have walked with Him among the flowers of Eden, and where first the shadow of the curse fell athwart the path of sinful man. We have seen Him walk the waves of the shoreless sea of judgment; and in the patriarchs' tents, in the voice of angels, we have heard the Word which was in the beginning with God. In the tabernacle of the wilderness, with its crimson ritual, and in all the forty miraculous years, we have heard Him speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. We have followed him with Joshua in His triumphal progress into Canaan's promised land; we have found Him sitting among Israel's judges; and in the fields of Boaz, near to Bethlehem, we have heard His whispered promise of the marriage of the Lamb. Where, indeed, have we not found Him? Is there a scripture path untrodden by His fee? Is there a valley which has not echoed with His voice? Is there a mountain which has not been transfigured by His presence? "The voice of My beloved! Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." And we have followed Him through historical wildernesses and biographical mountain solitudes, and through genealogical deserts, only to find that the wilderness and the solitary place are made glad for Him; and in His presence the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. In the psalmist's melodies; in wheels that are dreadful; in chariots of fire; in seraphic visions of enraptured spirits of prophets, priests and kings, we have seen and heard the form and voice of our Beloved; until, at last, He has come to us from out the grave, being declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, and with perfect knowledge of both worlds, He has joined us on the Emmaus road; where with burning hearts we have heard Him, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expound unto us in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.

Therefore by the illumination of His presence in its pages; by the seal of His authority upon all it principles, and precepts, and promises; by His own invariable assumption of the Scriptures' infallibility, there is wrought into our deepest spiritual consciousness the unwavering conviction that the Bible is the word of God that liveth and abideth for ever!