автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian faith
THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES
OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
THE
FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES
OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
BY
R. A. TORREY
Author of
"How to Bring Men to Christ,"
"What the Bible Teaches," etc., etc.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1918,
By R. A. Torrey
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
The author of these sermons has had a feeling for a long time that the great need in our churches in this day is systematic indoctrination. He put his theory into practice last winter in his own church, and these sermons are the result. We were having a great many accessions to our church. In the two years of the church's history we had had something like six hundred accessions to the church, and every month considerable numbers of new members were being added. While many of these came by letter from other churches, many of them were new converts and had had practically no systematic instruction in the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, so we announced a series of sermons on The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith. There was immediately a large increase in the attendance at the services where these addresses were given, and this increase has kept up until on the last Lord's Day we had much the largest attendance we have ever had, excepting on Easter Sunday. Many have testified to the blessing received from these sermons, and there has been a great demand that the sermons be printed for general circulation. This request has come from ministers of various denominations, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and others. It is hoped that this volume will be useful to other pastors in suggesting lines of teaching in their regular pastoral work, and also that it may be used widely by pastors and others for circulation among Christians. We live in a day in which many of our church members are all at sea as to what they believe on the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. These sermons have already helped many through their delivery. It is hoped they will reach and help far more in the printed form.
R. A. Torrey.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
I
Inspiration, or To What Extent is the Bible Inspired of God? 11II
The Christian Conception of God, or the God of the Bible as Distinguished from the God of Christian Science and the God of Modern Philosophy 38III
The Christian Conception of God—The Infinite Perfection and Unity of God 56IV
The Deity of Jesus Christ 73V
Jesus Christ a Real Man 93VI
The Personality of the Holy Spirit 112VII
The Deity of the Holy Spirit and the Distinction Between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit 144VIII
The Atonement: God's Doctrine of the Atonement vs. Unitarian and Christian Science Doctrines of the Atonement 162IX
The Distinctive Doctrine of Protestantism: Justification by Faith 186X
The New Birth 206XI
Sanctification 225XII
The Resurrection of the Body of Jesus and of Our Bodies 245XIII
The Devil 263XIV
Is There a Literal Hell? 284XV
Is Future Punishment Everlasting? 303THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES
OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
THE
FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES
OF THE
CHRISTIAN FAITH
I
Inspiration, or to What Extent Is the Bible Inspired of God?
"For no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit."—2 Pet. 1:21.
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."—2 Tim. 3:16, 17.
Our subject this morning is "The Inspiration of the Bible, or to What Extent Is the Bible Inspired of God?" The subject is of vital and fundamental importance. If we can make it clear that the writers of the various books of the Bible were inspired of God in a sense that no other men were ever inspired of God, that they were so gifted and taught and led and governed by the Holy Spirit in their utterances as recorded in the Bible, that they taught the truth and nothing but the truth, that their teachings were absolutely without error,—then we have in the Bible a court of final appeal and of infallible wisdom to which we can go to settle every question of doctrine or duty. But if the writers of the Bible were "inspired" only in the vague and uncertain sense that Shakespeare, Browning and many other men of genius were inspired, only inspired to the extent that their minds were made more keen to see the truth than ordinary men, but still only in such a way that they made mistakes, or chose the wrong word to express their thought, so that we must recast their thought by discovering, if we may, what the inspired thought back of the uninspired words was, then we are all at sea, in hopeless confusion, so that each generation must settle for itself what the Holy Spirit meant to say through the blundering reporters; and it is absolutely certain that no generation can determine with anything approximating accuracy what the Spirit meant, and so no generation can arrive at the truth, but simply promulgate blunders for the next and wiser generation to correct, to be corrected in turn by the next generation that follows it. Thank God that this latter subtle but popular doctrine can be proven to be utterly untrue!
There is great need of crystal clear teaching on this subject, because our colleges and seminaries and pulpits and Sunday schools and religious papers are full of teaching that is vague, inaccurate, misleading, un-Scriptural, and oftentimes grossly false. There are many in these days who say "I believe that the Bible is inspired" when by "inspired" they do not mean at all what you understand or what the mighty men of faith in the past meant by "inspired." They often say that they "believe the Bible is the Word of God," when at the same time they believe it is full of errors.
Now the Bible is as clear as crystal in its teachings and claims regarding itself, and either those claims are true, or else the Bible is the biggest fraud in all the literature of the human race. The position held by so many to-day, that the Bible is a good book, perhaps the best book in the world, but at the same time it is full of errors that must be corrected by the higher wisdom of our day, is utterly illogical and absolutely ridiculous. If the Bible is not what it claims to be, it is a fraud—an outrageous fraud.
What does the Bible teach and claim concerning itself? What does it teach and claim regarding the fact and extent of its own inspiration?
I. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN APOSTLES AND PROPHETS DIFFERENT IN CHARACTER FROM HIS WORK IN ALL OTHER PERSONS
The first thing that the Bible teaches on this point and claims for itself is, that the work of the Holy Spirit in apostles and prophets, in the various human authors of the different books of the Bible, differs from His work in other men, even in other believers in Christ. It teaches that the Holy Spirit imparts to apostles and prophets an especial gift for an especial purpose. We find this clearly taught in 1 Cor. 12:4, 8-11, 28, 29, where we read, "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. . . . (8) for to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; (9) to another faith, in the same Spirit; and to another gifts of healing, in the same Spirit; (10) and to another workings of miracles (powers); and to another prophecy; and to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues; (11) but all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as He will. . . . (28) And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues. (29) Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?" This chapter is the fullest and clearest chapter in the Bible on the subject of the various gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is the classical chapter on the whole subject, and the teaching of these verses is as plain as language can make it, and it states in terms, the meaning of which is unmistakable, that the gift bestowed on apostles and prophets differed in kind from the gifts bestowed on other believers, even though those believers were filled with the Holy Spirit. Not only did the work of the Holy Spirit in the apostles and prophets differ from His work in men of genius, but even from His work in other believers. These verses make it as plain as day that the doctrine which has become so common and so popular in our day, that the work of the Holy Spirit in preachers and teachers and in ordinary believers, illuminating them and guiding them into the truth and into the understanding of the Word of God, is the same in kind and differs only in degree from the work of the Holy Spirit in Apostles and Prophets is thoroughly unscriptural and untrue. This doctrine overlooks what is here so clearly stated and so carefully elucidated, that while there is "the same Spirit" "there are diversities of gifts" "diversities of ministrations," "diversities of workings" (1 Cor. 12:406 R. V.) and that not all are Prophets or Apostles. (1 Cor. 12:29.)
Those who desire to minimise the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in Apostles and Prophets, and His work in other men, often refer to the fact that the Bible itself says that Bezaleel, the architect of the tabernacle, was to be "filled with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship," "to devise the work of the tabernacle" (Ex. 31:1-11), as a proof that the inspiration of the Prophet does not differ in kind from the inspiration of the artist or the architect. This argument at first glance seems plausible, but when we bear in mind the facts about the tabernacle, especially the fact that the tabernacle was to be built after the pattern shown to Moses in the mount (Ex. 25:8, 9, 40) and that therefore it was itself a revelation from God, a prophecy, a setting forth of the truth of God, the argument loses all its force. The tabernacle was the Word of God done into wood, gold, silver, brass, cloth, skin, etc., just as truly the Word of God and the revealing of God's truth as if the truth were printed on a page. So, of course, Bezaleel needed to be inspired, he was a prophet, a prophet who uttered his prophecies in the details of the tabernacle. There is much reasoning about inspiration to-day that appear at first sight very learned, but that will not bear much scrutiny or candid comparison with the teachings of the Word of God. There is nothing in the Bible more inspired than the tabernacle, and if the destructive critics would study the tabernacle more carefully and thoroughly they would be led to give up their ingenious but untenable theories, not only about the construction of the tabernacle, but about many other things as well. I have never heard or known of a single destructive critic who had ever given a thorough study to the real meaning of the tabernacle in all its parts, or who had any considerable understanding of the types of Scripture. I have challenged the critics in the University centres of England, Ireland and Scotland to name one single destructive critic who had ever made any thorough study of the types, and no one has ever attempted to even suggest one.
II. TRUTH HIDDEN FROM MEN FOR AGES, AND WHICH THEY HAD NOT DISCOVERED AND COULD NOT DISCOVER, BY THE UNAIDED PROCESSES OF HUMAN REASONING, HAS BEEN REVEALED TO APOSTLES AND PROPHETS IN THE SPIRIT
The second thing taught in the Bible regarding the inspiration of the Apostles and Prophets, the inspiration of the various authors of the books of the Bible, is that truth hidden from men for ages, and which they had not discovered, and could not discover, by the unaided processes of human reasoning, even human reasoning at its very best and highest, has been revealed to Apostles and Prophets in the Holy Spirit. We find this very clearly taught in Eph. 3:2-5: "If so be that ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward; (3) how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words, (4) whereby when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; (5) which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit." The meaning of these words is unmistakable. Paul here declares in words the meaning of which is perfectly plain, that God "in the Spirit" had revealed "unto His holy apostles and prophets" "the mystery of Christ" which in former generations had not been made known unto the sons of men, which they had not discovered and could not discover except by revelation from God; Paul and the other apostles and prophets knew it by direct revelation from God himself through the Holy Ghost. The teaching is inescapable that the Bible contains truth that men never had discovered and never could have discovered if left to themselves, but truth which the Father in great grace has revealed to His children through His servants the prophets and apostles. We see in this the folly, a folly so common in our day, of seeking to test the statements of Scripture by the conclusions of human reasoning, or by the intuitions of the "Christian consciousness." The revelation of God transcends human reasoning, and therefore human reasoning cannot be its test. Furthermore, a consciousness that is truly and fully Christian is the product of the study and absorption of Bible truth. It is not the test of the truth of the Bible,—it is the product of meditation on the Bible. If our "consciousness" differs from the statements of the Bible, it is not as yet a fully "Christian consciousness," and the thing for us to do is not to try to pull God's revelation down to the level of our consciousness but to tone our consciousness up to the level of God's Word.
III. THE REVELATION MADE TO THE PROPHETS BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WAS INDEPENDENT OF THEIR OWN THINKING
The third thing that the Bible makes perfectly clear as to the inspiration of the Prophets and Apostles is, that the revelation made by God through His Holy Spirit to the Prophets was independent of the Prophets' own thinking, that it was made to them by the Spirit of Christ which was in them, and that they themselves oftentimes did not thoroughly understand the full meaning of what the Spirit was saying through them, and that what they said was a subject of diligent search and inquiry to their own mind as to its meaning. This comes out very plainly in 1 Pet. 1:10-12, "Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come to you; searching what time, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things which now have been announced unto you through them that preached the Gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit sent forth from Heaven; which things angels desire to look into." Here again the meaning is as clear as day and inescapable. We are told that the prophets had a revelation made to them by the Holy Spirit, the meaning of which they did not thoroughly comprehend, and that they themselves "sought and searched diligently" as to the meaning of this revelation which was made to them and which they recorded. The Spirit, through them testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ (e.g. in Isa. 53:3, Ps. 22) and the glories that should follow them. They recorded what the Spirit testified, but what it meant they did not thoroughly understand. It was not merely that their minds were made keen to see things which they would not otherwise see, and which they therefore more or less accurately recorded. No, there was a very definite revelation, arising not from their own minds at all, but from the Spirit of God Who made the revelation to them and this they recorded, but it was not of themselves to that extent that they themselves wondered as to what its meaning might be. What they recorded was not at all their own thought, it was the thought of the Holy Spirit who spoke through them. How utterly different this conception is from that which is so persistently taught in many of our colleges and theological seminaries and pulpits,—how utterly different it is from the conception that was taught a week ago to-day in one of the pulpits of our own city.
IV. NO PROPHETIC UTTERANCE WAS OF THE PROPHET'S OWN WILL, BUT THE PROPHET SPOKE FROM GOD AND THE PROPHET WAS CARRIED ALONG BY THE HOLY SPIRIT AND NOT BY HIS OWN IMPULSE OR REASONING IN WHAT HE SAID
The fourth thing that the Bible makes perfectly clear is, that not one single prophetic utterance was of the prophet's own will (i.e., it was not in any sense merely what he wished to say), but in every instance the Prophet spoke from God, and the Prophet was carried along in the prophetic utterance by the Holy Spirit, regardless of his own will or thought. We find this stated practically in so many words in 2 Pet. 1:21 where we read: "For no prophecy (literally, not a prophecy) ever came (literally, was brought) by the will of man; but men spake from God being moved (literally, carried along, or borne) by the Holy Spirit." There can be no honest mistaking of the meaning of this language. The Prophet never thought that there was something that needed to be said and therefore said it, but God took possession of the prophet, carried him along in his utterance, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and he spake, not from his own consciousness, and not from his own reasoning, nor from his own intuition, but "from God." As God's messenger he spoke what God told him to say.
V. THE HOLY SPIRIT WAS THE REAL SPEAKER WHO SPOKE IN THE PROPHETIC UTTERANCES
The fifth thing that the Bible teaches regarding the Inspiration of the Prophets and the Apostles and their utterances, is that the Holy Spirit was the real speaker in the prophetic utterances, that what was said or written was the Holy Spirit's Word that was upon the Apostle's tongue, and not the word of the Prophet or Apostle. This is said in the Bible in so many words, over and over again. For example, in Heb. 3:7 we read: "Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit saith, To-day if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts, etc." The author of the epistle to the Hebrews is quoting Ps. 95:7, 8 and says that what the Psalmist is recorded as saying "the Holy Spirit saith." Again in Heb. 10:15, 16, we read: "And the Holy Spirit also beareth witness to us; for after He had said, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord: I will put my laws on their heart, and upon their mind also will I write them." Now the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is quoting Jer. 31:33, and he does not hesitate to say that the testimony that Jeremiah there bore is the testimony of the Holy Ghost, that the Holy Ghost was the real speaker.
Again we read in Acts 28:25, 26 that Paul said, "Well spake the Holy Spirit through Isaiah the prophet, unto your fathers, (26) saying, Go thou unto this people and say, By hearing ye shall hear and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive, etc." Here Paul is quoting Isaiah's words as recorded in the 6th chapter of Isaiah, the 9th and 10th verses, and he distinctly says that the real speaker was not Isaiah, but "the Holy Spirit" who spoke "through Isaiah the prophet."
Turning now to the old Testament we read in 2 Sam. 23:2 this assertion by David regarding the things that he said and wrote: "The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and his word was upon my tongue." There can be no mistaking the meaning of these words on the part of any one who goes to the Bible to find out what it really claims and teaches. The Holy Spirit was the real speaker in the prophetic utterance. It was the Holy Spirit's utterance that was upon the prophet's tongue. The prophet was simply the mouth by which the Holy Spirit spoke. Merely as a man, except as the Holy Spirit taught him and used him, the prophet was fallible as other men are fallible, but when the Spirit was upon him, when he was taken up and borne along by the Holy Spirit, then he became infallible in his teachings; for his teachings were not his, but the teachings of the Holy Spirit. It was God who was then speaking, not the Prophet. For example, Paul merely as a man, even as a Christian man, doubtless had many mistaken notions on many things, and was more or less subject to the ideas and opinions of his time, but when he taught as an Apostle, under the power of the Holy Spirit he was infallible, or rather the Spirit who taught through him was infallible, and the teachings that resulted from the Spirit's teaching through him, were infallible, as infallible as God. Common sense demands of us that we carefully distinguish between what Paul may have thought as a man, and what he actually taught as an apostle. In the Bible we have the record of what he taught as an Apostle. Some one may cite as a possible exception to this statement 1 Cor. 7:6, 25, where he says: "But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. . . . Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be trustworthy." There are those who think that Paul does not seem to have been sure here that he had the word of the Lord in this particular matter, but that is not the meaning of the passage. The meaning of v. 6 is that his teaching which he had just given was by way of concession to their weakness, and not a commandment as to what they must do. And the teaching of v. 25 is that the Lord, during His earthly life, had given no commandment on this subject, but that Paul was giving his judgment; but he says distinctly that he was giving it as one who had obtained mercy of the Lord to be trustworthy and furthermore, in the 40th verse of the chapter he distinctly says that in his judgment he had the Spirit of God. But even allowing that the other interpretation of this passage is the correct one, and that Paul was not absolutely sure in this case that he had the Word of the Lord and the mind of the Lord, that would only show that where Paul was not absolutely sure that he was teaching in the Holy Ghost he was careful to note the fact, and this would only give additional certainty to all other passages that he wrote.
It is sometimes said that Paul taught in his earlier epistles that the Lord would return during his lifetime, and that in this matter he certainly was mistaken. But Paul never taught in his earlier epistles, or any other epistles, he never taught anywhere, that the Lord would return during his lifetime. This assertion is contrary to fact. He does say in 1 Thess. which was his first epistle, the 4th chapter and 17th verse: "Then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them (i.e., the believers who had already fallen asleep) be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." He does here put himself in the same class with those who were still alive when he wrote the words. He naturally and necessarily did not include himself with those who had already fallen asleep. In speaking of the Lord's return he does not say nor hint that he will be still alive when the Lord returns. It is quite probable that Paul did believe at this time that he might be alive when the Lord returned but he never taught that he would be alive. The attitude of expectancy is the true attitude in all ages for every believer. This was the attitude that Paul took until it was distinctly revealed to him that he would depart before the Lord came. I think it very probable that Paul in the earlier part of his ministry was inclined to believe that he would live until the coming of the Lord, but the Holy Ghost kept him from so teaching, and also kept him from all other errors in his teachings.
VI. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE APOSTLES GAVE NOT ONLY THE THOUGHT, BUT THE WORDS IN WHICH THE THOUGHT WAS TO BE EXPRESSED
The 6th thing that the Bible makes clear as to the inspiration of the apostle and prophets is that, the Holy Spirit in the Prophets and Apostles gave not only the thought but also gave the words in which the thought was to be expressed. We find this very clearly stated in 1 Cor. 2:13: "Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words." One of the most popular of the false theories of Inspiration in our day is that the Holy Spirit was the author of the thought, but that the Apostles were left to their own choice of words in the expression of the thought, and that therefore in studying the Bible we cannot emphasise the exact meaning of the words, but must try to find the thought of God that was back of the words, and which the writer has more or less inaccurately expressed. There are many teachers in our theological seminaries to-day, and in our pulpits, who speak very sneeringly and superciliously of those who believe in Verbal Inspiration,—i.e., those who believe that the Holy Spirit chose the very words in which the thought he was teaching was to be expressed, but however sneeringly they may speak of those who believe in Verbal Inspiration, certainly the Bible claims that it was verbally inspired. The passage which I have just read makes it as plain as language can possibly make it that the "words" in which the Apostle spoke were not "words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth." Now if this is not the fact, if only the thought that was given to Paul was the thought of God, and he clothed the thought in his own words, then Paul was a thoroughly deceived man on a fundamental point, in which case no dependence at all can be placed in his teachings on any point, or else he was a deliberate fraud, in which case the quicker we burn up his books the better for us and all concerned. There is no possibility of finding any middle ground, and the attempts to find a middle ground have landed those who have tried it in all kinds of absurdities. If you have an exact and logical mind, you must take your choice between Verbal Inspiration and bald infidelity. Paul distinctly states that the words in which he conveyed to others the truth that was revealed to him were the words which the Holy Spirit taught him. The Holy Spirit himself has anticipated all these modern ingenious, but wholly unbiblical and utterly illogical and entirely false theories regarding his own work in the Apostles. The theory that "the concept" was inspired but the words in which the concept was expressed were not, was anticipated by the Holy Spirit Himself and exploded 1800 years before our supposedly wise 19th century theological teachers conceived it, and attempted to foist it upon an unsuspecting public. It was exploded eighteen centuries before it was exploited. Furthermore, the theory is absurd in itself. As the only way in which thought can be conveyed from one mind to another, from one man's mind to another man's mind, or from the mind of God to the mind of man is by words, therefore if the words are imperfect the thought expressed in those words is necessarily imperfect. The theory is an absurdity on its very face, and it is difficult to see how intelligent men could have ever deceived themselves into believing such a thoroughly illogical theory. If the words are not inspired the Bible is not inspired. Let us not deceive ourselves; let us face facts.
Furthermore, the more carefully and minutely one studies the wording of the statements of this wonderful book—the Bible—the more he will become convinced of the marvellous accuracy of the very words used to express the thought. To a superficial thinker the doctrine of Verbal Inspiration may appear questionable or even absurd, but any regenerate and Spirit-taught man who ponders the words of the Scripture day by day, and year after year, will become thoroughly and immovably convinced that the wisdom of God is in the very words used as well as in the thought which is expressed in the words. It is a significant and deeply impressive fact that our difficulties with the Bible rapidly disappear as we note the precise language used. The changing of a word or letter, or of a tense, case or number, would oftentimes land us in contradiction or untruth, but taking the words exactly as written, difficulties disappear and truth shines forth. Countless times people have come to me with apparent difficulties and supposed contradictions in the Bible and asked a solution, and I have pointed them to the exact words used and the solution was found in taking the words exactly as written. It was because they changed in a slight degree the very words that God spoke that a difficulty had seemed to arise. The Divine origin of nature shines forth more and more clearly the more closely we examine it under the microscope. As by the use of a powerful microscope we see the perfection of form and the adaptation of means to end in the minutest particles of matter, we are overwhelmingly convinced that God, a God of infinite wisdom and power, a wisdom extending down to the minutest parts of matter, is the author of the material universe: so likewise the divine origin of the Bible shines forth more and more clearly under the microscope. The more minutely we study the Bible the more we note the perfection with which the turn of a word reveals the absolute thought of God.
An important question, and a question that has puzzled many writers at this point, is: If the Holy Spirit is the author of the very words of Scripture how do we account for the variations in style and diction? How is it, for example, that Paul always used Pauline language, and John used Johannean language, and Peter used language that was characteristic of himself? The answer to this question is very simple and is two-fold: First, even though we could not account at all for this fact, it would have little weight against the explicit statement of God's Word with any one who is humble enough and wise enough to recognise that there are a great many things which he cannot account for at all which could be easily accounted for if he knew a little more. It is only the man who has such amazing and stupendous conceit that he thinks he knows as much as God, in other words, that he is infinite in wisdom, who will give up an explicit statement of God's Word simply because he sees a difficulty in the way of the acceptance of that statement, which he in his limited knowledge cannot solve. But there is a second answer, and an all-sufficient one, and that is this: these variations in style and diction are easily accounted for. The Holy Spirit is infinitely wise. He Himself is the Creator of Man, and of man's power of speech, and therefore he is quite wise enough and has quite enough facility in the use of language in revealing truth to and through any individual to use words, phrases and forms of expression that are in that person's ordinary vocabulary and forms of thought, and He is also quite wise enough to make use of that person's peculiar individuality in revealing the truth through him. It is one of the marks of the Divine wisdom of this book that the same Divine truth is expressed with absolute accuracy in such widely variant forms of expression.
VII. ALL SCRIPTURE IS INSPIRED OF GOD
The seventh thing that the Bible makes plain regarding the work of the Holy Spirit in the various writers of Scripture, is that all Scripture, that is everything contained in all the books of the Old and New Testament, is inspired of God. We are distinctly taught this in 2 Tim. 3:16, 17. Here we read, "All Scripture (more exactly, every Scripture) is given by inspiration of God (more literally, God-breathed), and is profitable for doctrine, (or teaching), for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (rather, instruction which is in righteousness), that the man of God may be perfect (rather, complete) thoroughly furnished (better, furnished completely) unto all good works (rather, every good work)." An attempt has been made to obscure the full force of these words by a revised translation given in both the English Revision and American Standard Version. In this revised translation, the words are rendered as follows: "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work." There is absolutely no warrant in the Greek text for changing "Every Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, etc.," into "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, etc." "Every" is in the Greek. There is no "is" in the Greek. It must be supplied, as is often the case in translating from Greek into English. "Is" must be supplied somewhere, either before "given by inspiration" (or God-breathed), or else supplied after it, in the latter case necessitating the change of "and" into "also" (a change which is possible, but very uncommon); and there is not a single instance in the New Testament outside of this in which two adjectives coupled by the simplest copulative "and (kai)" are ripped apart and the "is" placed between them and an "and" changed into "also." The other construction, that of the Authorised Version, is not at all uncommon. The translation of the Revisers does violence to all customary usage of the Greek language. But we do not need to dwell upon that, for, even accepting the changes given in the Revision, the thought is not essentially changed; for if Paul had said what the revisers make him say that "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, etc.," there can be no question but by "every scripture inspired of God" he referred to every Scripture contained in the Old Testament. Here, then, taking whichever translation you will, we have the plain teaching that every Scripture of the Old Testament is "God-breathed" or "inspired of God." Certainly if we can believe this about the Old Testament there is no difficulty in believing it about the New, and there can be no question that Paul claimed for his own teaching an equal authority with the O. T. teaching. This we shall see clearly under the next head. And not only did Paul so claim, but the Apostle Peter also classes the teaching of Paul with the O. T. teaching as being "Scripture." Peter says in 2 Pet. 3:15, 16, "Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, wrote unto you; (16) as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction." Here Peter clearly speaks of Paul's epistles as being "Scripture."
VIII. THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD
The eighth thing that the Bible teaches concerning the extent of the inspiration of its writings is that because of this inspiration of Prophets and Apostles, the writers of the Bible, the whole Bible as originally given becomes the absolutely inerrant Word of God. In the O. T. David says of his own writings, in 2 Sam. 23:2, a passage already referred to, "The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and His Word was upon my tongue." In Mark 7:13 Our Lord Jesus Himself calls the law of Moses "the Word of God." He says "making void the Word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered." In the verses immediately preceding, He has been drawing a contrast between the teachings of the Mosaic law (not merely the teachings of the Ten Commandments, but other parts of the Mosaic law as well) and the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, and has shown how the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees flatly contradicted the requirements of the law as given through Moses, and in summing up the matter he says in the verse just quoted, that the Scribes and Pharisees made void "the Word of God" by their traditions, thus calling the law of Moses "the Word of God." When I was in England a high dignitary and scholar in the Church of England in a private correspondence tried to call me down by saying that the Bible nowhere claimed to be "the Word of God," but I replied to him by showing him that not only did the Bible claim it, but that the Lord Jesus Himself said in so many words that the law given through Moses was "the Word of God." In 1 Thess. 2:13 the Apostle Paul claims that his own epistles and teachings are "the Word of God." He says: "And for this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that when ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe." Here the Apostle Paul claims for his own teaching in the most absolute way that the message that he gave was "the Word of God." When we read the words that Jeremiah wrote and Isaiah wrote and Paul wrote and John wrote and James wrote and Jude wrote and the other Bible writers wrote, we are reading what God says. We are not listening to the voice of man, but we are listening to the voice of God. "The Word of God" which we have in the Old and New Testaments, as originally given, is absolutely inerrant down to the smallest word and smallest letter or part of a letter. Our Lord Jesus Himself says of the Pentateuch in Matt. 5:18: "For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law till all things be accomplished." Now a "jot" is the Hebrew character "yodh," the smallest character in the Hebrew alphabet, less than half the size of any other letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and a "tittle" is a part of a letter, the little horn put on some of the Hebrew consonants, less than the cross we put on a "t," and here our Lord says that the law given through Moses was absolutely inerrant, down to its smallest letter or part of a letter. That certainly is verbal inspiration with a vengeance. Again he said, as recorded in John 10:35, after having quoted from the 82nd Psalm and the 6th verse, as conclusive proof of a point, "The Scripture CANNOT BE BROKEN," thus asserting the absolute irrefragability or inerrancy and finality of the Scriptures. If the Scriptures as originally given were not the inerrant Word of God, then not only is the Bible a fraud, but Jesus Christ Himself was utterly misled and is therefore utterly unreliable as a teacher. I have said that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as originally given were absolutely inerrant, and the question of course arises to what extent is the Authorized Version, or the Revised Version, the inerrant Word of God. The answer is simple; they are the inerrant Word of God just to that extent that they are an accurate rendering of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as originally given, and to all practical intents and purposes they are a thoroughly accurate rendering of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as originally given. There are, it is true, many variations in the many manuscripts we possess, thousands of variations, but by a careful study of these very variations, we are able to find with marvellous accuracy what the original manuscripts said. A very large share of the variations are of no value whatever, as it is evident from a comparison of different manuscripts that they are mistakes of a transcriber. Many other variations simply concern the order of the words used, and in translating into English, in which the order of words is often different from what it is in the Greek, the variation is not translatable. Many other variations are of small Greek particles, many of which are not translatable into English any way. When all the variations of any significance have been reduced to the minimum to which it is possible to reduce them by a careful study of manuscripts, there is not one single variation left that affects any doctrine held by the evangelical churches, and the Scriptures as we have them to-day translated into our English language, either in the A. V. or R. V., are to all practical intents and purposes the inerrant Word of God.
II
The Christian Conception of God, or the God of the Bible as Distinguished from the God of Christian Science and the God of Modern Philosophy
"God is Spirit."—John 4:24.
"God is Light."—1 John 1:5.
"God is Love."—1 John 4:8, 16.
Our subject this morning is "The Christian Conception of God, or The God of the Bible as Distinguished from the God of Christian Science and the God of Modern Philosophy." I have three texts: John 4:24: "God is Spirit." 1 John 1:5: "God is Light." 1 John 4:8, 16: "God is Love." These three texts give three of the most remarkable statements that were ever uttered and set before us in the clearest possible way the Christian conception of God as distinguished from every other conception of God. The Christian Scientists constantly quote one of our texts: "God is Love." In fact they quote it more than almost any other passage in the Bible, but they do not mean at all by "God is Love" what 1 John 4:8 or 1 John 4:16 evidently mean when taken in their connection. By "love" the Christian Scientists do not mean a personal attribute of God, but an impersonal abstraction which is itself God. Mrs. Eddy frankly and flatly denies the personality of God. The Christian Scientists not only say, "God is love," but they also say, "Love is God." They not only say, "God is good," but they also say, "Good is God." To say "Love is God" is an utterly different statement from saying, "God is love." You might just as well say "Spirit is God," because God says, "God is spirit," but all spirit is not God. Or you might as well say, "Light is God," because "God is light," but light is not God and love is not God, though God is love and God is light and God is spirit. What is meant by "love" in the inspired statement, "God is Love"? What is meant by the statement, "God is Love," is shown by the definition or description of love given in the context and in the immediately preceding chapter—1 John 3:13-18. These verses clearly show that by the statement in 1 John 4:8 and 1 John 4:16, "God is Love" is not meant that God is an abstract quality, "love," and that the abstract quality of love is God, but what is meant is that God is a person whose whole being and conduct are dominated by the quality of love, that is, by a desire for and delight in the highest welfare of others. This will be evident to you if I read from the immediately preceding chapter (1 John 3:13-17): "Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you. (14) We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. (15) Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. (16) Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. (17) But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? (18) My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth." And from this chapter (1 John 4:7-17): "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. (8) He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (9) Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. (10) Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. (11) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (12) No man hath beheld God at any time: If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us: (13) Hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his spirit. (14) And we have beheld and bear witness that the father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. (15) Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God. (16) And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is Love; and he that hath abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. (17) Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, even so are we in this world."
The God of what is called "Modern Philosophy" is "The Absolute," and by "The Absolute" is generally meant a cold abstraction and not a clear, definite and warm personality Who loves, grieves, suffers, and Who works intelligently for others. And oftentimes the God of modern philosophy is not only "in all things" but is all things and all things are God. Such a God is no God at all. Whereas the God of the Bible, as we shall see as we proceed, is a Divine Person who exists apart from the world which He has created and Who existed before the world He created, Who bears definite relations to the world He has made and Who works along definite and clearly revealed lines. So we come face to face with the question, What sort of a Being is the God of the Bible, the real God, the one true God, the God of Christianity, the only God Whom we should worship and love and obey? The Kaiser also talks much about God and his followers are fond of saying, "Gott mit uns," but if any one will carefully study the Kaiser's utterances it becomes plain that he does not mean by God the God of the Bible, the Christian God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I. GOD IS SPIRIT
First of all "God is Spirit." This we read in our first text: John 4:24, "God is Spirit." You will note that in your Bible, both the Authorised and Revised Versions, you read, "God is a Spirit." But there is no indefinite article in the Greek language, and wherever it is necessary in the English translation to fit the English idiom, it has to be supplied, and it is supplied, in this case. But there is really no reason for supplying it here any more than there is for supplying it in 1 John 4:8 and translating, "God is a Love," or in 1 John 1:5 and translating "God is a Light." The preferable translation is as I have given it: "God is Spirit." This is a definition of the essential nature of God. What does it mean? Our Lord Jesus Himself has defined what is meant by "spirit" in Luke 24:39, where He is recorded as saying after His resurrection: "See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me, and see, for a spirit not flesh and blood, as ye behold Me having." It is evident from these words of our Lord that spirit is that which is contrasted to body. That is to say, spirit is incorporeal, invisible reality. To say, "God is Spirit" is to say that God is essentially incorporeal and invisible (cf. 1 Tim. 6:16), that God in His essential nature is not material but immaterial and invisible, but none the less real. This thought is also found in the very heart of that revelation of Himself which God made to Moses in the first division of the Old Testament. For example, we read in Deut. 4:15-18: "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that Jehovah spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; (16) lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, (17) the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flieth in the Heavens. (18) The likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth." This is a plain declaration way back fifteen centuries before Christ, of the spirituality of God in His essential nature. God is essentially invisible spirit.
But it is also clearly revealed in the Word of God that "spirit" may be manifested in visible, bodily form. We read in John 1:32 these words of John the Baptist speaking about what his own eyes had seen: "And John bore witness, saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon him." Here, then, we see Him who was essentially spirit manifesting Himself in a bodily, visible form.
Furthermore in the Bible we are told that God has manifested Himself in visible form. We read in Ex. 24:9, 10: "Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: (10) and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness."
What they saw was not God in His essential nature as Spiritual Being. Indeed, what we see when we see one another is not our essential self, but the house we live in, and so John could say, as he does say in John 1:18: "No man hath seen God at any time." And so I could say to you now that you do not see me. Nevertheless, it was a real manifestation of God Himself that they saw, and so it could also be said, and said truthfully, that they had seen God, as it could be truthfully said, "you see me."
Furthermore still, though God is essentially spirit, God has a visible form. This is taught in the most unmistakable terms in Phil. 2:6, where we are told of our Lord Jesus that He existed originally "in the form of God." The Greek word which is translated "form" in this passage means "visible form," "the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision," "the external appearance." It cannot mean anything else. This is the definition given in the best Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament, of the word here translated "form." Now as Jesus existed originally "in the form of God," it is evident that God Himself must have a form, this form in which our Lord Jesus is said to have existed originally.
That God in His external form, though not in His invisible essence, is seeable, is also clear from Acts 7:55, 56, where we read: "But he (i.e., Stephen), being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens open, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Now if God has not a form that can be seen, then, of course, the Lord Jesus could not be seen standing upon the right hand of God. God is, as we shall see later, everywhere; but God is not everywhere in the same sense. There is a locality where God is visibly and manifestly present in a way in which He is not present anywhere else. There is a place where He is present visibly and manifests Himself as He does not elsewhere. The place of God's visible presence and full manifestation of Himself is Heaven, though in His spiritual presence He pervades the universe. This is evident from many passages in the Scriptures. For example, it is clear from the prayer that our Lord taught us—a portion of Scripture that many accept who reject most of the Bible. Our Lord began the prayer that He taught His disciples with these words "Our Father Which Art in Heaven." If these words mean anything, they certainly mean that God, our Father, is in heaven in a way in which He is not elsewhere. That was where God was when Jesus was addressing Him. We read again in Matt. 3:17: "Lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." If these words mean anything, they mean that God was in heaven and that His voice came out of the heavens to the Lord Jesus who was here on earth. Again in John 14:28 Jesus is recorded as saying:
"Ye heard how I said to you, I go away and I come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I." If these words mean anything, taken in the light of the events that were to follow on the next day and the days following, they mean that Jesus was going away from the place where He then was—earth—to another place where He was not when He spoke, i.e., heaven—and that in going to heaven he was going to where God was, from earth where God was not in the sense in which He was in heaven. Again we read in Acts 11:9: "A voice answered the second time out of heaven, What God hath cleansed make not thou common." Here again God is represented as speaking from heaven where He was. Again our Lord Jesus Christ is recorded in John 20:17 as saying to Mary Magdalene after His resurrection: "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto my brethren and say to them, I ascend unto my father and to your father and my God and your God," from which it is unmistakably evident that in the conception of our Lord Jesus after His resurrection there was a place where God was and to which He was going, and that place was up in heaven. There is no possibility of explaining this away by saying it is a figure of speech, the whole passage loses its meaning by any such interpretation, and to attempt to so explain it is a trick and a subterfuge that will not bear close examination. Again the Apostle Paul tells us regarding our Lord Jesus Christ that God the Father "raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:20) which makes it as clear as language can make anything that there is a place, heaven, where God is in a sense that He is nowhere else, and where one can be placed at His right hand. The same thing is evident from the verses that we have already quoted in another connection, Acts 7:55, 56, where we are told that Stephen "being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens open, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." The meaning of these words to anybody who wishes to know what words are intended to convey and not merely to distort them to fit his own conception, is that God is in heaven locally present. There is no escaping this by any fair, honest interpretation. Men who are skilful in the art of discrediting truth by giving it bad names, and names that sound very scholarly, may call this "anthropomorphism," and that sounds very learned. Nevertheless, be it "anthropomorphism" or what not, this is the clear teaching of the Word of God in spite of this or any other frightful terms used to scare immature college boys and immature college girls. There is no mistaking that this is the teaching of the Bible, and we have already proven that the Bible is God's Word, and is to be taken at its face value in spite of all the attempts that men, who "counting themselves wise, have become fools," make to explain it away.
II. GOD IS A PERSON
The next thing that the Bible teaches about God is that God is a person. That is to say He is a being who knows, feels, loves, hears prayer, speaks, acts, a being who acts intelligently upon us and upon whom we can act.
While God is in all things, He is a personality distinct from the persons and things in which He is, which He has created. The Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments is full of this vital conception of "a living God" as distinguished from the mere cold abstraction of "The Absolute," or "The Infinite," or "The Supreme Being," or "The Great First Cause" of which "Modern Philosophy" loves to prate. For example, we read in Jer. 10:10-16: "But Jehovah is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation. (11) Thus shall ye say unto them, the gods that have not made the heaven and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens. (12) He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens. (13) When he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries. (14) Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. (15) They are vanity, a work of delusion; in the time of their visitation they shall perish. (16) The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Jehovah of hosts is his name." In this passage God is distinguished from idols which are things and not persons, things which "speak not" "cannot act," "cannot do good neither is it in them to do evil"; and we are told that Jehovah is wiser than "all the wise men." Is "the living God," "an everlasting King," a being who hath "wrath and indignation," separate from His creatures—"at His wrath the earth trembleth and the nations are not able to abide His indignation."
In Acts 14:15 we read: "Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from these things unto the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea, and all that in them is." Here also we have the representation of God as a personal being distinct from His created work, and also to be clearly distinguished from the idols which are not living gods. In 1 Thess. 1:9, the converts at Thessalonica are represented as turning from dead gods, "idols, to serve the living and true God."
In 2 Chron. 16:9 we are told that "The eyes of Jehovah run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him," and in Ps. 94:9, 10 we read: "He that planteth the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that punisheth nations, shall not he correct? Even he that teacheth men knowledge?" This is clearly the representation of a personal God and not a mere abstraction like "The Absolute," or "The Infinite," or "The Supreme Being." The clear distinction between God, who is immanent in all things, and dwells in believers, and the beings and persons in whom He dwells, is brought out very clearly by our Lord Himself in John 14:10: "Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: But the Father abiding in me doeth his work." And again in the 24th verse of the same chapter where our Lord Jesus distinguishes between His own personality and that of the Father, who dwelt in Him, in these words: "He that loveth me not keepeth not my words: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me." This conception of God pervades the entire Bible. The view of God presented in the Bible is utterly different from the conception of Pantheism and Buddhism and Theosophy and Christian Science. This conception is found in the opening words of the Bible, Gen. 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Here the God of the Bible is clearly differentiated from the so-called God of Pantheism, and the God of Christian Science. And this same conception of God is found in the last chapter of the Bible, and it is found in every chapter of the Bible between the first and the last. The God of the Bible is a Personal Being Who, while He created all things and is in all things, is a distinct personality separate from the persons and things He has created.
III. GOD'S PRESENT RELATION TO THE WORLD AND TO MEN
We turn now to a consideration of the present relation of this Personal God presented to us in the Bible, to the world He has created and to the men whom He has created.
1. In the first place we find that God sustains, governs and cares for the world He has created. He shapes the whole present history of the world. This comes out again and again. A few illustrations must suffice. We read in Ps. 104:27-30: "These wait all for thee, that thou mayest give them their food in due season. (28) Thou givest unto them, they gather; thou openest thy hand, they are satisfied with good. (29) Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. (30) Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground." And again in Ps. 75:6, 7: "For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south, cometh lifting up. (7) But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and lifteth up another." All these passages and others that could be cited, set forth the same conception of God's present relation to the world which He has created. They show, as we have said, that God sustains, governs and cares for the work He has created; that He shapes the whole present history of the world.
2. Now let us look at His relation to the affairs of men. We will find that God has a present, personal interest and an active hand in the affairs of men; that He makes a path for His people and leads them; that He delivers, saves and punishes. Here four illustrations from the Bible must suffice. First of all Joshua 3:10: "And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite." Now turn to Dan. 6:20-22, 26, 27. "And when he came near unto the den to Daniel, he cried with a lamentable voice: the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? (21) Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. (22) My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." . . . "(26) I make a decree, that in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed and his dominion shall be even unto the end. (27) He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions." Now turn to 1 Tim. 4:10: "For to this end we labour and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe," and now turn to Heb. 10:28-31: "A man that hath set at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: (29) Of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God? and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (30) For we know him that said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. (31) It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." In all of these passages we have this same conception of God in His relation to man, viz., that God has a personal interest and an active hand in the affairs of men; that He makes a path for His people and leads them; that He delivers, saves and punishes them.
The God of the Bible is to be clearly distinguished not merely from the God of the Pantheists who has no existence separate from His creation, but also from the God of the Deists who has created the world and put into it all the necessary powers of self-government and development and set it going and left it to go of itself. The God of the Bible is a God who is personally and actively present in the affairs of the universe to-day. He sustains, governs, cares for the world He has created, He shapes the whole present history of the world. He has a present personal interest and an active hand in the affairs of men and He it is that is back of all the events that are occurring to-day. He reigns and makes even the wrath of men to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath doth He restrain. The Kaiser may rage, armies may clash, force and violence and outrage may seem triumphant for the passing hour, but God stands back of all; and through all the confusion and the discord and the turmoil and the agony and the ruin, through all the outrageous atrocities that are making men's hearts stand still with horror, He is carrying out His own purposes of love and making all things work together for good to those who love Him.
III
The Christian Conception of God—The Infinite Perfection and Unity of God
"God is Light."—1 John 1:5.
"God is Love."—1 John 4:8, 16.
"With God All Things are Possible."—Matt. 19:26.
"His Understanding is Infinite."—Ps. 147:5.
We are to consider again to-day the Christian conception of God. We saw a week ago to-day that God is Spirit, that God is a person and that God has a personal interest and an active hand in the affairs of men to-day, that He sustains, governs and cares for the world He has created and that He shapes the whole present history of the world.
I. THE INFINITE PERFECTION OF GOD
The next thing to be noted about the Christian conception of God is, that God is perfect and infinite in all His intellectual and moral attributes and in power.
1. First of all, fix your attention upon our first text: "God is Light" (1 John 1:5). These three words form a marvellously beautiful and overwhelmingly impressive statement of the truth. They set forth the Absolute Holiness and Perfect Wisdom of God. The words need rather to be meditated upon than to be expounded. "In Him is no darkness at all." That is to say, in Him is no darkness of error, no darkness of ignorance, no darkness of sin, no darkness of moral imperfection or intellectual imperfection of any kind. The three words, "God is Light," form one of the most beautiful, one of the most striking and one of the most stupendous statements of truth that was ever penned.
2. To come to things more specific, the God of the Bible is omnipotent. This great truth comes out again and again in the Word of God. One direct statement of this great truth especially striking because of the connection in which it is found, occurs in Jer. 32:17, 27: "Ah Lord Jehovah! Behold, thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power and by thine outstretched arm: there is nothing too hard for thee." Here it is Jeremiah who makes the statement, but in the 27th verse it is Jehovah Himself who says: "Behold, I am Jehovah, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?"
In Job 42:2 we read these words of Job, when at last he has been brought to see and to recognise the true nature of Jehovah: "I know that thou canst do all things and that no purpose of thine can be restrained." In Matt. 19:26 our Lord Jesus says: "With God all things are possible." Taking these passages together, we are plainly taught by our Lord Himself and by others that God can do all things, that nothing is too hard for Him, that all things are possible with Him. In a word, that God is omnipotent. A very impressive passage in the book of Psalms setting forth this same great truth is Ps. 33:6-9: "By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. (7) He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap: he layeth up the deeps in storehouses. (8) Let all the earth fear Jehovah: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. (9) For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." Here we see God by the mere utterance of His voice bringing to pass anything that He desires to be brought to pass. We find this same lofty conception of God in the very first chapter of the Bible, that chapter that so many people who imagine themselves scholarly are telling us is outgrown and not up to date, and yet which contains some of the sublimest utterances that were ever written, unmatched by anything that any philosopher or scientist or platform orator is saying to-day. The very first words of that chapter read: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. 1:1), a description of the origin of things that has never been matched for simplicity, sublimity and profundity; and two verses further down, in the third verse, we read: "And God said, Let there be light: and light was." These words need no comment. There is here a sublimity of thought in the setting forth of the omnipotence of God's mere word before which any truly intelligent and alert soul will stand in wonder and awe. There is nothing in poetry or in philosophical dissertation, ancient or modern, that can for one moment be put in comparison with these sublime words. Over and over again the thought is brought out in the Word of God that all nature is absolutely subject to God's will and word. We see this, for example, in Ps. 107:25-29: "For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. (26) They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths: their soul melteth away because of trouble. (27) They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. (28) Then they cry unto Jehovah in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. (29) He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still." Another description of a similar character is found in Nahum 1:3-6: "Jehovah is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means clear the guilty: Jehovah hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. (4) He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. (5) The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt; and the earth is upheaved at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. (6) Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by him." What a picture we have here of the omnipotence and awful majesty of God!
Not only is nature represented as being absolutely subject to God's will and word, but men also are represented as being absolutely subject to His will and word. For example, we read in Jas. 4:12-15: "One only is the lawgiver and judge, even he who is able to save and to destroy: But who art thou that judgest thy neighbour? (13) Come now, ye that say, to-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: (14) Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (15) For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that."
Happy is the man who voluntarily subjects himself to God's will and word, but whether we voluntarily subject ourselves to God's will and word or not, we are subject to His will and word whether or no. The angels also are subject to His will and word (Heb. 1:13, 14) and even Satan himself is, although entirely against his own will, absolutely subject to the will and word of God, as is evident from Job 1:12 and Job 2:6.
The exercise of God's omnipotence is limited by His own wise and holy and loving will. God can do anything, but will do only that which infinite wisdom and holiness and love dictate. This comes out, for example, in Isa. 59:1, 2: "Behold, Jehovah's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: (2) But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."
3. The God of the Bible is also omniscient. In 1 John 3:20 we read: "God knoweth all things." Turning to the Old Testament, in Ps. 147:5, we read: "Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; his understanding is infinite." The literal translation of the last clause of this passage is "Of his understanding there is no number." In these passages it is plainly declared that "God knoweth all things" and that "His understanding is infinite." In Job 37:16 Elihu the messenger of God is represented as saying that Jehovah is "perfect in knowledge." Along the same line, in Acts 15:18 we read: "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." The Revised Version makes a change in the translation of this verse but this change does not alter the sense of the truth here set forth that God knows all His works and all things from the beginning of the world. Known to Him is everything from the most vast to the most minute detail. In Ps. 147:4 we are told that, "He telleth the number of the stars; he knoweth them all by name." While in Matt. 10:29 we are told that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without Him. The stars in all their stupendous magnitude and the sparrows in all their insignificance are all equally in His mind.
We are further told that everything has a part in His purpose and plan. In Acts 3:17, 18, the Apostle Peter says of the crucifixion of our Lord, the wickedest act in all the history of the human race: "And now, brethren, I wot that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But the things which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled." In Acts 2:23 Peter declared on the day of Pentecost (although the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was the wickedest act in all history) that nevertheless the Lord Jesus was "Delivered up by the determinate council and foreknowledge of God." According to the Psalmist (Ps. 76:10) God takes the acts of the wickedest men into His plans and makes the wrath of men to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath doth He restrain. Even the present war with all its horrors, with all its atrocities, with all its abominations and all its nameless wickednesses, was foreknown of God and taken into His own gracious plan of the ages; and He will make every event in this present war, even the most shocking things, designed by the vilest conspiracy of unprincipled men, utterly unhuman and beastly men and Devil inspired men, work together for good to those who love God, for those who are the called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).
The whole plan of the ages, not merely of the centuries, but of the immeasurable ages of God, and every man's part in it, has been known to God from all eternity. This is made very clear in Eph. 1:9-12, where we read: "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will; to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who before hoped in Christ." And in Eph. 3:4-9, we read: "Wherefore when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy prophets and apostles in the Spirit; to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages has been hid in God who created all things." There are no after-thoughts with God. Everything is seen, known, purposed and planned for from the outset. Well may we exclaim: "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God: how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out." (Rom. 11:33.) God knows from all eternity what He will do to all eternity.
4. God is also absolutely and infinitely holy. This is a point of central and fundamental importance in the Bible conception of God. It comes out in our first text: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." John when he wrote these words gave them as the summary of "The message which we have heard from God." (1 John 1:5.) In Isa. 6:3 in the vision of Jehovah which was given to Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died, the "seraphim," or "burning ones," burning in their own intense holiness, are represented as standing before Jehovah with covered faces and covered feet and constantly crying, "Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of Hosts." And in 1 Pet. 1:16 God cries to us, "Be ye holy, for I am holy."
This thought of the infinite and awe-inspiring holiness of God pervades the entire Bible. It underlies everything in it. The entire Mosaic system is built upon and about this fundamental and central truth. Its system of washings; the divisions of the tabernacle; the divisions of the people into ordinary Israelites, Levites, Priests and High Priests, who were permitted different degrees of approach to God under strictly defined conditions, insistence upon sacrifices of blood as the necessary medium of approach to God; God's directions to Moses in Ex. 3:5, to Joshua in Josh. 5:15, the punishment of Uzziah in 2 Chron. 26:16-26, the strict orders to Israel in regard to approaching Sinai when Jehovah came down upon it; the doom of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in Num. 16:1-33; and the destruction of Nadab and Abihu in Lev. 10:1-3: all these were intended to teach, emphasise and burn into the minds and hearts of the Israelites the fundamental truth that God is holy, unapproachably holy. The truth that God is holy is the fundamental truth of the Bible, of the Old Testament and the New Testament, of the Jewish religion and the Christian religion. It is the preëminent factor in the Christian conception of God. There is no fact in the Christian Conception of God that needs more to be emphasised in our day than the fact of the absolute, unqualified and uncompromising holiness of God. That is the chief note that is lacking in Christian Science, Theosophy, Occultism, Buddhism, New Thought, the New Theology and all the base but boasted cults of the day. That great truth underlies those fundamental doctrines of the Bible,—the Atonement by Shed Blood and Justification by Faith. The doctrine of the holiness of God is the keystone in the arch of Christian truth.
5. God is also love. This truth is declared in one of our texts. The words "God is love" are found twice in the same chapter (1 John 4:8, 16). This truth is essentially the same truth as that "God is light" and "God is holy," for the very essence of true holiness is love, and "light" is "love" and "love" is "light."
6. Furthermore, God is not only perfect in His intellectual and moral attributes and in power, He is also omnipresent. This thought of God comes out in both the Old Testament and the New. In Ps. 139:7-10 we read: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? (8) If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in Sheol, behold thou art there. (9) If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea; (10) Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." There is no place where one can flee from God's presence, for God is everywhere. This great truth is set forth in a remarkable way in Jer. 23:23, 24: "Am I a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off? (24) Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith Jehovah. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith Jehovah."
Last week we saw that God has a local habitation, that there is a place where He exists and manifests Himself in a way in which He does not manifest Himself everywhere; but while we insist upon that clearly revealed truth, we must also never lose sight of the fact that God is everywhere. We find this same truth set forth by Paul in his sermon to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill, Acts 17:24-28: "The God that made the world, and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands: (25) Neither is served by men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life and breath and all things. (26) And he made of one every nation of men who dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitations. (27) For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring."
From these passages we see that God is everywhere. He is in all parts of the universe and near each individual. In Him each individual lives and moves and has his being. He is in every rose and lily and blade of grass.
7. There is one other thought in the Christian conception of God that needs to be placed alongside of His omnipresence and that is His eternity. God is eternal. His existence had no beginning and will have no ending, He always was, always is and always shall be. God is not only everywhere present in space, He is everywhere present in time. This conception of God appears constantly in the Bible. We are told way back in Gen. 21:33 that Abraham called "On the name of Jehovah, the everlasting God." In Isa. 40:28 we read this description of Jehovah: "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding." Here again He is called "The Everlasting God." Habakkuk in Hab. 1:12 sets forth the same conception of God. He says, "Art not thou from everlasting, O Jehovah my God, mine holy one?" The Psalmist gives us the same representation of God in Ps. 90:2, 4: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. (4) For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night." We have the same representation of God in the 102nd Ps., verses 24-27: "I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: Thy years are throughout all generations. (25) Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. (26) They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; (27) But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end."
The very name of God, His covenant name, Jehovah, sets forth His eternity. He is the eternal "I am," the One who is, was and ever shall be. (Cf. Ex. 3:14, 15.)
II. THERE IS ONE GOD
One more fact about the Christian conception of God remains to be mentioned and that is: There is but one God. The Unity of God comes out again and again in both the Old Testament and the New. For example, we read in Deut. 4:35: "Jehovah he is God. There is none else beside him." And in Deut. 6:4 we read: "Hear O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." Turning to the New Testament in 1 Tim. 2:5 we read: "There is one God, one mediator also between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus." And in Mark 12:29 our Lord Jesus Himself says: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."
But we must bear in mind the character of the Divine Unity. It is clearly revealed in the Bible that in this Divine Unity, in this one Godhead, there is a multiplicity of persons. This comes out in a variety of ways.
1. First of all, the Hebrew word translated "One" in these various passages given denotes a compound unity, not a simple unity. (Cf. 1 Cor. 3:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:13; John 17:22, 23; Gal. 3:28.)
2. In the second place, the Old Testament word most frequently used for God is a plural noun. The Hebrew grammarians and lexicographers tried to explain this by saying that it was the "pluralis majestatis," but the very simple explanation is that the Hebrews, in spite of their intense monotheism, used a plural name for God because there is a plurality of persons in the one Godhead.
3. More striking yet, as a proof of the plurality of persons in the one Godhead, is the fact that God Himself uses plural pronouns in speaking of Himself. For example, in the first chapter of the Bible, Gen. 1:26, we read that God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." And in Gen. 11:7, He is further recorded as saying: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they cannot understand one another's speech." In Gen. 3:22 we read: "And Jehovah God said, Behold, man is become as one of us to know good and evil." And in that wonderful vision to which reference has already been made, in which Isaiah saw Jehovah, we read this statement of Isaiah's in Isa. 6:8: "And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."
4. Another illustration of the plurality of persons in the one Godhead in the Old Testament conception of God is found in Zech. 2:10, 11; where Jehovah speaks of Himself as sent by Jehovah in these words: "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Jehovah. (11) And many nations shall join themselves to Jehovah in that day, and shall be my people and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that Jehovah of hosts hath sent me unto thee." Here Jehovah clearly speaks of himself as sent by Jehovah, thus clearly indicating two persons in the Deity.
5. Another indication of the plurality of persons in the Godhead in the Old Testament conception of God is found in the fact that "The Angel of Jehovah" in the Old Testament is at the same time distinguished from and identified with Jehovah.
6. This same thought of the plurality of persons in the one Godhead is brought out in John 1:1, where we reach the very climax of this thought. Here we are told in so many words: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." We shall see later, when we come to study the Deity of Christ and the Personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are clearly designated as divine beings and at the same time distinguished from one another, and from God the Father. So it is clear that in the Christian conception of God while there is but one God there is a multiplicity of persons in the one Godhead.
In these two sermons on "The Christian Conception of God" we have very inadequately stated that conception. This conception of God runs through the whole Bible from the first chapter of the book of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation, and this is one of the many marvellous illustrations of the divine unity of the Book. How wonderful is that Book, in that there is this unity of thought on this very profound doctrine pervading the whole book! It is a clear indication that the Bible is the Word of God. There is in the Bible a profounder philosophy than is found in any human philosophy, ancient or modern, and the only way to account for it is that God Himself is the author of this incomparable philosophy. What a wondrous God we have! How we ought to meditate upon His person! With what awe and at the same time with what delight we should come into His presence and bow before Him in adoring contemplation of the wonder and beauty and majesty and glory of His being!
