Most of us belong to neither one of these classes. We are ordinary people. For us the great bulk of life consists of a series of commonplace events. Very seldom does anything startling or spectacular happen to us. Too many people assume that the supernatural is too unusual ever to meet them in the simple course of their prosaic existence. It is significant to remember that God called Gideon to the leadership of Israel while he was doing his ordinary work on the threshing floor.4 David was tending the sheep when God spoke to him through Samuel.5 The word of the Lord came to Amos while he was performing his duties as a herdsman.6 Whatever the star of Bethlehem may have been, God sent His message to the Wise Men through that channel by which they, as students of the stars, could best understand Him.7 Christ called St. Peter and St. John while they were pursuing their daily occupation as fishermen.8 All of which should tell us that divine promptings may come to us in very ordinary ways. How often have you felt an inner compulsion to do something which you must do though you may not be able to tell exactly why? On the other hand some of these calls of God come with strange accompaniments, which simply means that God does not need to work always in the same way.
This, however, is scarcely enough. We are all familiar with the personal vagaries of different men and women and we need something more substantial to stand in support of individual experiences. We look for more comprehensive evidences of revelation and we find them in the long sweep of human history. This we call “progressive revelation.” Men as a whole are able to absorb about so much at various stages of their development. We find God leading them gradually, step by step, through ascending levels of spiritual progress. That is why religion has taken off from simple beginnings and has passed through many phases of spiritual progress. Every religion which represents an honest effort to know God contains some revelation of Him. The Hebrew people proved to be peculiarly responsive. They showed a “genius for religion” as the Greeks did for art and the Romans for organization. It is quite logical that they should have been God’s “chosen people” for they chose God more fully than any others of the ancient races. But they also had to climb, as the Old Testament record clearly discloses. There is a wide difference in the religious conception of the period of the Judges and that of the times of the prophets. And always they were looking forward to the fulfilment of their expectations. They called it the “Messianic hope”—the unflagging anticipation of the coming of the Messiah who should satisfy their gropings after God and complete His revelation. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.”9
So Christians believe Jesus Christ to be God’s supreme revelation of Himself. All earlier revelation is preparatory to Christ and all subsequent revelation is corroboration of Him. Christianity does not say that all other religions are wrong. It simply says they are inadequate. The best in all of them has been gathered up into Christ. He is the spiritual focus of all revelation. Therefore it is not surprising to find religious ideas of non-Christian origin incorporated in the Christian Gospel. Christ did not come to give religion to a world which had no religion. He came to fulfil the spiritual aspirations of all of them—more especially those of the Hebrews because they had already outstripped all the others.
The Christian claim for spiritual supremacy justifies itself first on the grounds of the intrinsic merits of the Gospel. It is consistent within itself and it offers the most satisfactory answer to the whole question of life both here and hereafter. Second, it is historically sound. Christianity centers on the person of Jesus Christ. It is not a collection of doctrines, but loyalty to a Person who at one time lived on this earth and injected a new spiritual content into the stream of human life. Third, on its results. It has proved its adaptability to man as man, without respect of race, color, or condition. It has done more than any other to elevate character, to inspire love, mercy, self-sacrifice and all the highest virtues, to stimulate progress and the attainment of better things in this life as a preparation for the life-to-come. The Bible is the record of this. For that reason it is unique among books. It has no magical properties but it attains a standing all its own because it portrays and presents Christ—implicitly in the Old Testament and explicitly in the New Testament. Christ Himself is the Word of God—that is, the personal expression of God. The Bible tells of Him and we therefore call it God’s Word. It is the record of the progressive revelation which reaches its summit in Christ.
Christianity depends on Jesus Christ. Without Him there is no Christian religion. He is His own Gospel and we, as Christians, stake everything on Him. The final answer to all questions touching the integrity of our Christian faith is found in the appeal to Christ. We know Him not only in the reading of the Bible but also through the continuous witness of the Church. As the Bible is the written record of Christ, so is the Church the living witness to Christ, and thereby becomes another channel of revelation.
By nature we are blind creatures groping for the God, who, we know instinctively, must be there. By revelation He opens our eyes and manifests Himself to us. Necessarily the whole process is mingled with mystery because it is the work of God rather than of human manufacture. But life itself is a mystery. It raises more questions with God left out than with Him included. If a religion of revelation leaves many questions still unanswered, it simply means that man still has a long way to go. And who will question that?
The important consideration is not how far we have gone, but whether we are going in the right direction.
1 St. Matthew 4:7.
2 St. Matthew 16:4.
3 St. Mark 15:30
4 Judges 6:11.
5 I Samuel 16:1–13.
6 Amos 1:1.
7 St. Matthew 2:1–15.
8 St. Matthew 4–18–22.
9 Hebrews 1:1–2.
IV
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
The bible is the record of the revelation of God. God does not reveal Himself exclusively through a book. He reveals Himself in many ways, but chiefly through people and supremely in our Lord Jesus Christ. Books are made by men. God did not make the Bible—men wrote it. Therefore, when we say that the Bible is an inspired book, we do not mean to suggest that it is the result of divine dictation and, for that reason, exempt from the possibility of human blunders. We mean that the men who did the writing were actively seeking God’s will, inscribing accounts of God’s dealing with human life, and that the spiritual reliability of these accounts was tested over long periods of time by the people for whom they were written. Only in a secondary way can the Bible itself be called a revelation of God. It is the record of His revelation which culminated in the Person of Jesus Christ.
The Bible is important because of Christ—not the other way around. Christ did not come to deliver a book. He came to live a Life. The New Testament contains an account of that Life and a commentary on it. The Old Testament is a record of the preparation for it.
During the time of our Lord’s ministry there was no such thing as the Bible as we know it today. There were certain sacred writings now incorporated in our Old Testament, but the contents of the Old Testament were not properly defined for sixty years after our Lord’s resurrection. The New Testament did not begin to be written until twenty years after the conclusion of His earthly life, and its contents were not settled until more than three centuries later. During all this time the Church was busy carrying on His work. The Church, therefore, is not dependent upon the Bible. It is the Bible that is dependent upon the Church, because, when all is said and done, it was the Church that made the Bible. That is the reason why the only sensible way to interpret the Bible is by reference to the Church which made it. We must keep the order straight. First Christ—then the Church—then the Bible.
We usually speak of the Bible as a book. More properly it is a collection of books, written at different times,