The Fundamentals: Volume 5

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RICHARD LINDAMOOD2700 GLENWAV AVE,

CtNCtNNATl 4 OHIO

TheFundan entals

Volun1e V

Compliments of

T wo Christian Laymen



R\CHAflD LINOAMO<?O

27 00 01..ENWAY AVE.- OHlO(;lf IICINNA tl 4, ·

I

'Io the Law and to the Testimony' ·~Isaiah 8: 2

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The undamentals

Testimony to the Truth

Volume V

Compliments ofTwo Christian Laymen

TESTIMONY PUBLISHING COMPANY .Not In c. )

808 La Salle Ave . 1 Chicago, Ill . U. S. A.



FOREWORD

.. The favor with which The Fundamentalshas been received all over the world is a great grat~ification to those who are engaged in the work; andthe opposition, bordering sometimes on bitterness,which it has provoked, has been also very gratifying.

The favor is from those who believe in thefundamentals of Christianity; and the opposition is,in the main, from the religious people who havereally ceased to be Christian in their faith, while,for some reason, they desire to retain the label ofChristianity. The fact that they have been reachedand led t think is cause for thanksgiving.

This volume goes to more than 275,000 pastors,evangelists, missionaries, theological professors,theological students, Y. M. C. A. secretaries, Y. W.C. A. secretaries, Sunday School superintendents,religious editors and Roman Catholic priests in the

English speaking world.We earnestly request all Christians who read

this to p ra y that the Word of God may continue torun and be glorified, that the unbelief, which in

pulpit and pew has been paralyzing ~he Church ofChrist, may be overcome, and that a world~widerevival may be the result.

(See Pu hlishers Notice, Page 125.)



CONTENTS

CK.tU'TRR

I. LIFE IN THE WORD ..........•• · • • • • • • • • • · •. . · · 7By PhEip Mauro,

Attorney-at-Law, New York City.

II. THE SCRIPTURES . . . . . . . • . • . . . . • . . • • . . . . . • . • 72By Rev. A. C. Dixon, D. D.,

Pastor Metropolitan Tabernacle Church, London, England.

III. THE CERTAINTY AND IMPOR TANCE OF THH BOD ILYRESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THR

DEAD . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . • . . . . . . . . 81By Rev. R. A. Torrey, D. D.,

Montrose, Pa.

IV. OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONVERSION AND APOSTLE-

SHIP OF ST. PAUL ••••.. . • • • • • • • . • . . • • • . 106By Lord Lyttelton.

(Analyzed and condensed by Rev. J. L. Campbell, D. D., Cambridge, Mass.)

·v. AP ·ERSONAL TESTIMONY .... ...•.••••••• • • • • · · 120By Rev. H. W. W ebb-Peploe,

Vicar of St. PauPs, London, En~land.



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the complete independence of humanity. If only the authority of the Scriptures be gotten rid of, mankind will have at

tained the long-coveted state of absolute independence, whichis equivalent to utter lawlessness.

The state of ideal democracy would be accurately described as lawlessness, since it is manifest that an individ ual or a society which is under no restraint except suchas is self-imposed, is really under no · restraint at all. To attain this ideal state is the end and purpose of present daymovements; and, in order to promote these movements, thatmighty spiritual intelligence who is designated the spirit thatnow works in the children of disobedience'> (Eph. 2 :2) verywisely, and with consummate subtlety, directs the attack, frommany different quarters, against the authority of the Bible.

The great mass of men, including the majority of theleaders of the age, are already completely absorbed in the activities of the world and utterly indifferent to the claims ofthe Bible. As to these, it is only necessary to take care thatthey are not aroused from their indifference. But the Biblenevertheless, by reason of its hold upon the consciences othe few, exerts, upon society as a whole, a mighty restraininginfluence, against which the assaults of the enemies of truth

are now being directed.· In some quarters the authority of the Bible is directlyassailed and its Divine origin disputed in the ,name of Scienceand of Scholarship. Much of ·the learning and theologicalactivity of the day are concentrated upon the attempt to discredit the Bible, and to disseminate views and theories directlyat variance with its claims of divine inspiration and authority.

In other quarters the attack takes the orrn of a. pretenseof conceding the inspiration of the Bible, coupled with theclaim that other writers and other great literary works wereequally inspired. God is not limitedt we are told, and canspeak to man, and does speak to ·man, in our day, -n likemanner as in the days of Moses, Isaiah, or Paul.



ife in the Word 9

Manifestly it makes practically no difference whether theBible be dragged down to the le ve l of other books, or otherbooks be exalted to the level of the Bible. The result is thesame in both cases; namely, that the unique authority of theBible is set aside. ·

But even in quarters where the Divine origin of the ,Bibleis fully recognized, the enemy is actively at work with a viewto weakening its influence. There is much teaching abroad

(heard usually in connection with certain spiritual manifesta-tions which have become quite common of late) to the effectthat those who have the Spirit dwelling in them, and speakingdirectly to and through them, are independent of the Word ofGod This is the form which the idea of a continuing revela-tion takes in quarters where a direct attack on the authorityof Scripture would fail. But the result is the same.

In such a state of things it is manifestly of the very highestimportance to insist unceasingly upon the sufficiency, finalityarid completeness of the Revelation given by God in His Word.With the desire to serve this purpose, even though it be in avery small degree, these pages are written. It would be, how-ever, a task far beyond the capacity of the writer to pr\esentall the unique characteristics of the Bible, whereby it is sodistinguished from other books that it occupies a class by itself.The writer has, therefore, singled out for consideration onespecial attribute or characteristic of the Holy Scriptures;namely, that signified by the word living.

If one is able to apprehend, however feebly, the tre-mendous fact that the Word of God is a LIVING Word, such

knowledge wiU go far towards affording him protection fromwhat is perhaps the greatest danger o these perilous times.

1. THE INCARNATE WORD, AND THE WRITTEN WORD:BOTH ARE LIVING

Of the many statements which th~ Bible makes concerningh d f f

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of greater importance to dying men, than the statement thatthe Word of God is a LIVING Word. ·

In Philippians 2 :16 we have the expression, ''The Word ofLife. The same expres sion occurs in 1 John 1 :1. It is hereused of Jesus Chri st, the Incarnate Word, whereas in Phil-

, ippians it is apparently the Written Word that is spoken of.The Written Word and the Incarnate Word are so identifiedin Scripture that it is not always clear which is r .eferred to.The same things are said of each, and the same charactersattributed to each. The fundamental resemblance lies in thefact that each is the revealer or tangible expression of theInvisible God. As the written or spoken word expresses, forthe purpose of communicating to another, the invisible andinaccessible thought, so Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Word,and the Holy Scriptures as the Written Word, express and

communicate knowledge of the invisible and inaccessible God.He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. Believe Methat I am in the Father, and the Father in Me (John14 :9,11 ).

In Hebrews 4 :12 we find the statement that The \t Vordof God is LIVING and powerful , and sharper than any twoedged sword . (R. V .) Clearly this refers to the Written

Word. But the very ne x t ver se, wi thout any change of su.bject, · directs our attention to the Searche1 of hearts (Rev.2 :23), saying, Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all thing s are naked and opened unto theeyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Again in 1 Peter 1 :23 we read of the Word of God whichliveth, or more literally, the Word of God living. Hereagain there might be uncertainty as to whether the IncarnateWord or the \f\ Tritten Word be meant; but it is generallyunderstood that the latter is in view, and the quotation from ·Isaiah 40 :6-8 would confirm thi s id ea.

From these passages ·we learn th at the Word of God is ,spoken of as a living \rVord T his is a very remarkable



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statement, and is w 1orthy of 011r closest exami .nation and mostearnest consideratio 1n. Why is tl1e Word of God thus spokenof ? Why is. the ex ·traord ·inary pi'op 1erty of LIFE, or vitality, ·attributed to it? ln what respects can it be said to be aliving WOrd ?

But the expre :ss ion '''living,J' as applied to the Word ofGod, manifestly means something more than partaking of thekind of life with which we are acquainted fr ,om observ~tion.

God sp1

eaks of Himself as the ''Living God.'t Th1

e Lord Jesusis the ''Prince of Life.'' (Acts 3 :15.) He announced Himselfto John in the vis ·ion of Patmos as . ''He , tha ·t liveth.'' Eternal.life is in Him. ( 1 John 5 :11.)

It is clear, then, that when we read, ''The Wo ,rd of God isliving,'' we : .ar ,e to understand the ·reby 't11at it lives ·with a.spiritual, an inexhaus ,tible, an inextinguisl1abie, in a word adivine, life. If the Word of God be indeed Jiving in this sense,then we have h 1ere a fa 1ct o ·f the most tremendous signi .ficance.In the world ,around us the beings and ~things which we tall'living'' may · just as ) appropriately be sp ,oken of as ''dying,''·~ , at we call ·''the land of th 1e living'' migh 't better be described

as the land of the dyi11g. Wherever we 1o6k we see that deathi., in poss 1ession, and is working according to its invariablemeth ·od of corruption and decay. Death is tl1e real monarchof this world, and we meet at ev,e·ry turn tl1e gn1esome evidencean 1d results of ·the u11iversal sway of him who has ''the power ofdeath, that is, the devil'' ( Heb. 2 :14). · ''Death reigned' 111

(Rom. 5 :17), and still reigns over ever ·ything. The mightyand awful power 10£ death has m.ade this ,earth of our ,s a great

burying ground a gigantic cemetery.Can it b1e that t 'here is an excepti ,on to th rs, appar. ·en ·tly

•u n1v,ersal rule? Is there; indeed, in this world of dying beings,,w ·l1ere the forces of corruption fasten immediately uponeverything int 10 ,vhich life l1as enter ·e,d, ,and upo ,n all the W 10:-ks.of so-called · living creatures, one object which is rtt.ally·



ife in the Word 13

to furnish such a definition only serve to exhibit the futility 0£the attempt.

Herbert Spencer, who has made the most ambitiousattempt of modern times to explain the visible universe, givesthis as the result of his best efforts to define life: "Life is thecontinuous adjustment of internal relations to externalrelations."

This definition manifestly stands as much in need of ex

planation as that which it purports to explain. But it willserve at least to remind us that the wisdom of men is foolishness with God.

Another eminent man of science defin~d life as "the twofoldinternal movement of composition and decomposition, at oncegeneral and continuous."

These modern definitions are scarcely an improvement upon

that of Aristotle, who defined life as "the assemblage of theoperations of nutrition, growth, and destruction."

What a marvellous thing is life, and how far it transcendsthe comprehension of man, since his best efforts to define itgive results so ridiculously inadequate

The ignorance of scientific men on this subject is franklyconfessed by Alfred Russell Wallace, who in one of his latestbooks, "Man's Place in the Universe," says, "Most people givescientific men credit for much greater knowledge than theypossess in these matters." And again: "As to the deeper problems of life, and growth, and reproduction, though our physiologists have learned an infinite amount of curious and in- ·structive facts, they can give us no intelligible explanation ofthem."

But, if none of us can say what life is, we can all distinguish ·between that which is living ( even in the ordinary senseof the word) and that which is not living; and our best ide~of the meaning of life is obtained by comparing that which haslife ( whether animal or vegetable) with that which has not life,



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The Fundamentals•

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the two there is a great gulf, whi .ch only divine power ca·ns,pan; for it is only the living God who can impart life to that

which is Iif ele .ss. ·We look then at the Written Word of God to see if it

manifests char ,acteristics which are found only in living things,,and to see if it exhibits, not me :rely the p 1ossession of life ofthe perishable and corrupti 'ble sort with whicl1 we ar ·e soflamiliar by observation, and which is in each of us, but life ofa different or ,der, imperi ,shab le and incorruptible •

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III. PERENNIAL FRESHNESS

The Bible differs ·radically from lall ot .her books in its perpe ,t·ua] freshness. This char :acteristi 1c will be , recognized onlyby those who know tl1e Book in that intimate way which comesfr 1om living wi.th it, as with a member of on ·e's family. I men

tion it first becaus 1e it was .one o,f the first unique pr 1op,erties ofthe B ,ible which impre ssed me after I b,egan to r ,ead it as a believer in Christ. It is a veiy re .marka 'b1e f ·act that t'he Biblenever becomes exh .austed, n 1ever a .cquires samene ,ss, never

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diminishes in its pow 1er ,of re ,sponsiveness to th 1e ·qui 1cke·ne,d soulwho comes to it. The most familiar passages yield as much(if not more) refreshment at the thousandth perusal, as , at thefirst. It isl indeed as a. f,ountain ,of living water. Th .e fountainis the same, but th 1e water is alw ,ays fresh, and always refr ·esl1-ing. We can comp ,are this to nothing bu 't what ·we find in a),iv.in.g companio 1n, whom we love and to whom we go for helpand fellowship. The . person is always the sam 1e, and yet without sameness. New conditions evoke new respon ses; and so

it is with the B_ble. As a l .iving Book it adapts it self to thenew phas 1es of our experience and th 1e new conditions in whichwe find ourselves. · From th 1e most · familiar p 1assage tl1erecomes again and again a new mcssag e; ,ju ~t as our mostfam iliar friend or companion will have sometl1ing new to say,as changed 1conditio ,ns an 1d new situations [ require it from . time



Lif e in tlie ii ord 15•

This is true of no ot her book. What man s bo ok has to saywe can get th .e first time ; and the exceptions arise merely fro1n ·lack of clearness o,n the writer s part, or lack of apprehensionon the part of the r·eader. Man can touch only the surface ofthings, and he 1care s only abou ·t su rf ace appearan ,ces. So, in allhis writings, whatever substance they contain lies on the sur;-f ace, and can be gathere .d by a 1capable rea ,der at Ollce. If theWord of God may be compared i·n t his particular to a liv in ,g

person, the books of men may be compared ·. o pictures orstatue ,s, of living perso .ns. Howeve ·r beautifu .lly or artisti ic.a,Jlyexecuted, a ~ingle view may readily exhaus ,t the latter, and aseco ,nd and thir 1d look will be mere repetition ,s. The differenceis th lat which ex :sts between the living and . the dead. Tl1.eWord of God is LIVING~ ,

But while the Bible resembles in this impo ·rtant r 1espect aliving person, who is our familiar, sympatbe ·tic, and respon .sivecomp .anion, it differs from su ,ch a human ~ompa.nion in thatthe : co 1unsel, comf ·ort, and supp 1ort i·t furnishes are far aboveand beyond what any human be ·ing can supply; and the onlyexplanation of thi s is that the source 10£ its . life and powe ·rs is l

no·t human, but Divine.•

IV. ·THE BI BLE DO E S NOT BEC ,OME O BS·OLETE•

One o f the most prominent characteristics of books writtenby men for the purpose of imp .arting inf 1ormation and instruction is that they very quickly become obsolete, and must be castaside and replaced by others. This is particularly true of bookson science, text-books, . scbool-bo 1oks and the like. Indeed it is

a matter of boasting (thottgh it would be hard to explain why)that progress is so rapid in all departments 0£ learnin .g as torender · the scientific books of one generation almost worthlessto the next. Changes in human Icnowledge, thought andopinion occur so swiftly, that books, which were the standardsyesterday, are set aside today for others, wl1ich in turn will be

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book which is written for a serious pur:pose beg -ns to become10bsolete be ·£ore the ink is dry on the page. This may be made

the oGcasion of boasting of the great prog~ss of humanity, andof the wonderful advances of ''science;'' .but the true signifi-can 1e of the fact is that man's [books are all, like himself, 1dying ·creatures. •

The B ible, on the other ha .nd, although it tr 1eats ,of thegreatest an ,d most serious of all subjects, such as God, Christ,eternity, life, de ·ath, sin, righteo 1usnes .s, judgmen .t, ,·redemp ·ti 1on ...... is always the : latest, best, and only authority o,n all these andother ·w·eighty n1atters w·her 1eo£ it trea ·ts. , C 1enturies of''progr 1ess'' and ''advancement'' h.ave adde 1d absolittely nothingto the sum of knowledg 1e on any of t·t1ese Sttbjects. The Bible isalways , fresh and thoroughl ,y ''up to date.'' Indeed it is far, farahead of human sci~nce. Progress cannot overtake it, or get ·

beyo11d t~ Generation succeeds generation, but each fin ,ds theBible waiting for it with its ever fresh and never failing storesof ·in .formati .on touching ' m .atters of tl1e highest concern, touc 'hing everythi ig that affects the welfare of human bei11gs.

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V. SCIENCE AND T .HE BIBLE

Human . teacl1ers and teachings h1ve, i11deed, f ·req ·uen ,t1y s,,tthemselves in opposition t 10 some of the statements of the Bible;a·nd it 'has often been a11nounced, upon human authority, thaterrors in history and in matters of science have been detected inthe Bible. Some, I indeed, hav 1e endeavo ·1~ed to save ·the reputation ,and .authority of th ,e Bible by saying th .at it was not writtento , teach men ''science.'' In a sense this is ·true. The Bible ¥.ras

not . written to1

impart that kind of l<:nowledge whi ,cl1 ''pt1ffethup,'' b1t just the contrary. It was written to impart that kindof information wl1ich takes man dow ,n by showing hi1n 'histrue position as a ruined, perishing creature, under the 1Conde 'mn ,a:tion and pow 1er of <;Ieatl1, nd utterly ' 'witho 1ut str ,ength,''that is to say, incapabl 1e of doing a 1ything to deliver himself



Life in · the Word 17

think that he knoweth anything he knoweth nothing yet as heought to know ( 1 Cor. 8 :2). Such is the plain declaration ofScripture as to the limitations of all human knowledge; and hewho knows the most is mo st con scio us of these limitations.But if, by the statement that the Bible was not written to teachscience, ·it be meant that the Bible is unscientific, that state

ment is not true. On the contrary, the Bible is the only bookin the world that is truly scientific; ' for it is the only book

which gives precise, accurate and absolutely reliable informa•tion upon every subject whereof it treats. It is the onlybook in the world upon every statement of which one maysafely put implicit confidence. Countless millions have believedthe statements of the Word o God, every one of them to hisunspeakable advantage, not one of them to his hurt.

We used to hear a great deal, some thirty years ago, about

the many mistakes of Moses, and the errors which ' 'science,with her keen eye, had detected in the Scriptures. But we hearvery little today from scientists themselves about the conflictsbetween science and religion. These conflicts have, one byone, ceased, as science has revised her hasty conclusions andcorrected her blunders. The writer has been a diligent studentof the physical sciences and of the philosophies based on then1,for upwards of twenty-five years, and a practicing lawyer fora still longer period, and having now acquired a fair knowledgeof the text of Scripture, he can say that he is aware of nodemonstrated fact of science which is in conflict with a singlestatement of the Bible. Among all the assured results ofscience there exists not, to his knowledge, evidence sufficientin character and amount to convict the Bible of a single erroror misstatement. f course, such evidence could not exist.The Lord , Jesus said of the Word of God, Thy Word is .truth (John 17 :17) ; and of course, true knowledge of God'screation cannot conflict with His Word.

A recent book by Alfr.ed Russel Wallace entitled, Man'sPlace in the Universe ( 1904) furnishes a striking illustration



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on a large scale, of the way in which science, after leadingthe thought of cultured and highly educated minds away frottlthe truth revealed by Scripture, sometimes lead s it back again.

The reading .of Scripture undoubtedly gives, and wasclearly intended to give, the impre ssion that the earth is thecenter of intere st in the universe, and the object of theCreator's special care; that it was fitted with elaborate pains tobe the habitation of living creatures, and e specially of man;

and that th~ sun, moon and stars were created with specialreference to their service to the earth. Hen ·ce, for many centuries, man believed that the earth was the center of the universe, and ( though the Bible does not say so) that the sun andstars were relatively small bodies which moved around andwaited upon it.

But these ideas have been completely upset by the dis

coveries of modem astronomers, who ascertained, at least totheir entire satisfaction, that not only is the sun enormouslylarger than the earth, but that it is attended y other planets,the large st of which is twelve hundred times larger than theearth. Moreover, it has al so been learned, so we are told, that 1our sun it sel f is but one of an almost infinite number of stars,many of whi ch are immen sely greater in size , and which, itmay be a ssumed , are themsel ves the centers of planetary sy stems on a much grander scale than our little solar system.

In such a universe as modern astronomy has brought intothe view of man our little earth, once thought to be its centerof interest and importance, shrinks into utter insignificance.In proportion to the vast universe of which it is a member its

size is relatively le ss than that of a tiny particle of dust inproportion to the mass of the earth it self. How, therefore,can it be supposed that the Creator of so inconceivably greatand complex a universe would have a special regard for thisinsignificant attendant of a fourth-rate sun, and for the stillmore insignificant creatures who dwell upon it? The earth



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ife in the Word 19

niore missed than a sing ·te grain of sand from the seas,hore ora si,ngle drop of water from the ocean.

It is . inevitable that these teachings of astronomy concerning the ·universe sh,ould have produ 1ced ·impress .ions directlyopposite to those produced by Scripture, and sl1ould have

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·placed ,obsta ,cles in the way of believing the 1doctrine o ,f rede ·mp-ti,on ~ · the in ,carnation and s.a.crific ial death of the Son of God.

But now comes Mr. Wallace, the contemporary of ' Charles

Darwin, and probably a .t the pre s1

ent day one of the ·most prominent men of science, and rev ,er ses the ideas which have been sowi,dely dissem ·i.nat ,ed in the name of science. Mr. Wallacemasses a great body of evidence, derived both from ,astronomyand physics, to support the proposition s, First, that the solarsystem oc ,cupies (and always has occupied) approximately tl1ecentr ,al portion of this vast universe, getting all the advantagesdu 1e to SUch favorab ,:e position; ,Second, that the eartl1 iscertainly the only habitabl ,e planet in the solar system, and pre·s.umably the o·nly h.abi ·table spot in the whole universe. Mr.Wallace, by a vast a 1ccumulation of facts and inferences, sho\VSthat ·the physical conditions nece ssary f 'or the maintenance o ·flife de :pen .d upon a great variety ,of c.omplex ,and delicate adju st

ments, such as distance from the sun, the mass o ,f the _planet, ,its obliquity to its or ·bit,, ·the amount of water · as comp :ared withJ,and, the surface di stributi ,on of lan 1d and water, the pe ·rmanenee of tl1is distributio 1n,. the ,density of the earth, the volumean ,d density of the atmosphere, the amount of carbon--dioxidetherein, etc. These, and other essential rconditions, are met( says Mr. Wallace) o,niy in a planet such as this earth, situatedand constructed as it is. From Mr. Wallace's premises, if the•universe is as sumed to , be· the work of ' an intelligent Creat~r,it would foil ow that everything in this inconceivably va ·st andcomplex univer se has been planned and arraµged with specialreference to in.a.king his little earth of our a place suitable forthe habitation of living beings and especially of mankind

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says: This completes my work a,s a c ·onnected a~gument,founded wholly upon the facts and principles ac .cumiilated bymode ·rn science; and it leads, if my fa,cts are substantially

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correct and my r .easoning sound, to on·e great and definite co,i-clusion, that man, t.he citlmination of conscious organic life,has been develo ,pe1d HERE ONLY in the whole V1aS t ma ,ter ·ialutiiverse we see aro ·und its.

Thus we have the sur .prising fact that one of . the foremost

living e·xponents of the teacl1ings of science, a. man wh10 , cer

tainly attaches no importance to the tea ,chings of Scripture,has be ·en at gr 1at pains to sh .ow that the earth .is1 after allt th 1ecenter of, and m 1os,t im ·portant place in, the whole universe;and that, so far as any purp ,ose can be detected in it, theunive .rse may well be supposed to exist for the sole benefit of

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the earth, and ).or the sake of pr:o·du .cing therein those pect1liar conditions necessary for the existence and maintenance of life.

We may say thE:n hat, considered merely as a book of in~struction, the Bible .is, as to eyery s·ubjec .t whereof it treats,not mere]y abreast of, , but fa:r ahead of, the learning of these

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an 1d all other ·times, whetl 1er past or future. The impressionsit makes upon believing min ,ds are the i1npressio 1ns of trutli,

even though (as in the instance we have just been considering)contemp ,orary science ma .y give, .a ,s its s,ettle .d ~.onclus .ion ,s,, im·pressions directly to the contrary. • . r

Unlike other books of instruction THE BIBLE DOESN0 1T BECOME OBSOLETE .. Tl1is is a fa ,ct of immens ·esignificance; and its only exp ,lana .tion is 1 tl1at the Bible is aLIVING book, the Word of the living God. All othe ~ bookspartake of the infirmity oif their antho 1r·s,. and .ar 1e either d.yingor dead. On the ·o,tl1er hand, The Word of God is living.

VI. THE BIBLE IS INDESTRUCTIBLE•

The Bible manifests the possession o t inherent and im--•

i h bl lif i h i i ll h li h

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Li e in the Word 21

T 'he Bible is the only boo,k ,in the world t'hat is truly hated.The hatred it ,arous .es is bitter, persistent, murderous. From

g,enera ,tion to gener ,ation this hatred has b,een k ept alive. The ·reis doubtless a supernatural explanation for this continuousdisp ·lay of hos ,tility towards th 1e ·w 1ord of God, for that Wordhas a supernatural enemy who has personally experienced itspower , (Matt. 4 :1-10.) .

But the natural ,explanation of this hatred is that the _Bible

differs notab 'ly from other books in that it gives no flatter ,ingpicture of man and his wo ,rld, but , ju .st the rever ,se. The Bibledoes not say that n1an is a noble being, ever a .spiring towardsthe attainm ,ent 1of ,exalted ideals~ It does not 1describe thecareer of humanity as ''progress,'' as the brave and successfulstruggl le of man ,agai .st the evil ,s 1of his environment; butquite the conti-ary, declares it to be a career of disobedience andde·parture from Go ,d, a prefe ·rence for 1darkness ratl1er t,han forlight, ''because their deeds are evil.''

The Bib ,le does not ·represen ·t man as having come, witho ·utany fault of his own, into adverse circumstances, and as beingengaged in gradually overcomi11g these by the development and

exercise of his inherent pow ,ers. It does not applaud l1isachie ·vements, and extol h .is w onderful civilization, Quite ·tl1econtrary . It records how 1God saw that the wickedness of manwas great in the ea ·rt ·h, and that every imagination of thethoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ( Gen. 6 :5.)It speaks of man as ''being filled with all unrighteousness,f oruic .ation, wickedness, , cov ietousness, l maliciousness, full of

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envy, murder , strife , gu ile, evil dispositions; wl1isperers,

slanderers, hateful to God, inso]ent, proud, vaunting, inventorsof evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding,perfid .ious, without natural affection, im p lacable, unm .erciful''(Rom. 1:29-31 Gr.). It says that ''They are all under, sin,''that ''Ther le is none righteous, n,o not 011e. Tl1ere is none thatunderstandeth, tl1er e is none t l1at seeketh after God. They are

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. there is none that doeth good, no not one (Rom. :10-12).

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Man's 1conditio11 by nat ttre is d 1escribed a ,s dead in tres .passes

and sins,'' ''children of disobedience ; among who1n also we allhad our con 1duct in ti1nes past in the lusts of our flesl1, fulfilli ng the desires of the flesli and of the m ind; and were bynatitre tl1e children of wrath'' (Eph. 2:1-3). ·

T ·he Bib 1]e has ·nothing to say · in praise · o,f man or of l1isnatura ·1 1endo ,wment .s . On tl1e contrary, ·it de :rid~s his wi sdon1

as ''foolishness witl1 God4'' It declares tha t God has ma1

defoolish the wisdom of this age ( 1 Cor. 1 :20) ; that the naturalman is incapable of receiving the things of the Spirit of God( 1 Cor. 2: 14) ; and that if any ·man thinks that he knows anythi11g, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know . ( 1 Cor .8 :2.) . '

•

Nor does the Bible pre ·dict the ultimate triumph of ''civili-

zat 1on. '' It does not say that the progress of humanity shallb,ring it eventually to a vastly better state of things. It does notsay that human nature shall improve under the influences o,feducation and self-cultur ,e, ·even with tha .t of Christia11ityadded. On the contrary, it declares that evil men ''shall ,vaxworse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived'' ( 2 Tim.3:13). . . -

Even of ''this present evil age'' (Gal. 1 :4 ), during whichthe professing churcl1 is tl1e mo st conspicuous object on earth,and during which the world has the enormous benefit resultingfrom the light of revelation and an open Bible, it is not pre -

•

- dieted that . man and his world \\·ould ttnde ,rgo an ,y impr ,ove-. ment, or that the develo ,pm .ents of the age would be in the

direction of ·better conditions o ,n ea ,rth. On tl1e contrary, th ·eBible declares that ''in the Jast days perilous [ or difficult]fimes shall c,ome. For men shall b.e lovers of their own .selves,lovers of money, vaunting, proud, evil speakers, disobedientto parents, untruthful, unholy, without natural affection , i111-placable, slanderers, inconsistent, sa vage, not lovers of good,



r

Life iii tlic T¥ ord ' 23•

l,overs of God; having a form of piety, but denying the powerof it'' (2 Tim. 3 :1-5 Gr.). ·

Such is the ,ch ,aracter of 1nan, and such is to be the result,as Scri ,ptur 1e fo1 . te}ls, it, of a'll his sche1nes of betterment,educati 1on, development, self-culture, civilization and character-b 11ilding. And b 1cause of this the Bible is heartily detested.. Men have · s,ought nothing more earnes ,tly than th ,eyhave sought to destroy this appallingly accurate portrait ofthems ,elves an cl th~ir doin ,gs. How as .tonishing it is that anyintelligent person should supp 1ose that man drew , this picture .of him se lf, . and pre ,dicted this as , the out 1come of all his ownefforts r No , wonder the Bible is hated, ,and f 'or the sin1pleand sufficient reason that i,t declares th 1e trutl1 about man andhis world. The Lord Jesus set forth clearly both the fact and

its explana ,tion when He s,a,id to His unbelievi11g brethren,''The world cannot hate you ; but Me it hateth, because 1te st ,ify o,f it that tlie ,worlis ,there ,of are 1evil'J J ol1n 7 :7 .).

Again, , the Bible is ha ted because it c'laims the , rigl1t to ex-er lcis,e,,a ,nd assumes t1 exercise, authority OV( r man. It spea~sas one having autliority. It issues commands to , ,all. It says,

''Thou sha lt '' and ''Thou shalt not. It does not simply aclvi,,eor commend one course of action rather than anotl1er, as one•

wo 1uld a 1ddr ,es,s an 1qual, but it dir 1ects men im perative ly whattl1ey shall do, and what they shall not clo . In this manner itaddresses all ranks and cond ,itions of men kings and governors, parents and cl1ildren, husbands and wives 1

1 masters andservants, rich and poor, high and low, free and bond. In this,too, we have a characteristi ·c of the Bible which distinguisl1esit from all other books. lt is no respecter of persons. Butfor this cause also it is hated; for 1nen are becoming more andmore iD?patient of }ll fextern ,al .authority } Tl1e principles ofdemocracy, the esse~ce of wl1ich is the supremacy ( virtuallytl1e divinity of man bas thorougl1ly leavened a11 society in

t



l

•

•

24•

1 .he F u,idamentals

[abroad, ~which finds frequent exp 1·ression and me ·ets alway~with a symp ,athetic reception, to the effect that man has beensha 1ckled thr ough the ages . by n.arrow tl1eological ideas whereofthe Bible is the source, and that the time has arrived for himt.o ·throw off thjs bondage, to arise in his true might a .ndmajesty, and to do great thing s for him self. ·

It is a most impressive fact th .at, in all th 1e visible univ ,erse,there is nothing that assumes authority ov 1er ma11, or that •

impo1

ses laws , upo n hin1, exce .Pt .the Bi 1ble. Once thor ou .gl11yrid of that troublesome bo 1ok , and man will be fina ·lty rid of allauthority, and will have arrived at that sta te of lawl essn 1esspredicted in the New Testament proph 1ecies, wherein societywill be ready t 10 a ·ccept th ·e leader ship of tpat lawless . one,w ho 1se ·Coming i .s to be after the working of Satan, w·i·th allpower, and sign s, and wonders of fal sehood, and with alldeceit o ·f ·unrighteousness in ·them that pe 1rish, be :cause t·heyrece ived not a l·ove of the truth that they might be saved . (2

, Thess. 2 :.7-10.)

This is perhaps the main purpose of the persistent att ,emptsin our day, mo 1stly in the nam 1e of scho l;arship , ,a.nd l·ibe :raltheology, to break down the .attthority o Scripture; and

we m.ay see , with ·our 01

wn eyes th1

at the measur«; of s.uccess ofthis great apos .tasy is just what t he Bible has fo 1eto ld.Other books arouse no hatr ,e9. There ma ,y be bo,oks which

men dislike, and such they simply let alone. But the Bib ,le· is,and always has been, hat ed to the deatl1. It is tl1e one bookthat has bee ·n pursued £1-0m century to century, as m 1en pursuea mortal foe. At first its destruction has been sought byvio1en .ce. All human po ,wers, po 1litical a11d ecclesiastical, havecombined to put it out of existence. Death has been thepena l·ty f 0 ,1· po ·ssess ,ing ,0 1r read .in .g a copy ; and s.uch copies a·s~vere found l1ave been turned over to th ,e pt1blic exect1tionert .o b 1e tr ,eated as was the , Incarn .ate W 1ord. No exp 1edient t hat

•

h i it ld d i hlt lt t1t i t ff t



Life in the Word 5

book out of existence. But the concentrated power 0£ manutterly failed in the attempt. Why?

Here is one book among countless millions which is singledout for relentless hatred, and that fact alone is sufficient toprovoke astonishment and invite the closest scrutiny toascertain the explanation of the unique phenomenon. Whatcharacteristic is it that distinguishes this Book from all otherbooks in so strange a fashion? Has its influence upon men

been corrupting or otherwise evil ? Does it teach doctrinesdangerous to individuals or communities ·? Does it promotedisorder, vice or crime? On the contrary, it will not be questioned that it; influence, wherever ·it has gone, has been beneficial beyond that of all other books combined, and that themost fruitful human lives are those which have been moulded

y its teachings. One explanation alone will account for the

astounding fact that such a Book should be the only one nowor ever in existence to provoke active and persistent animosityamong men who refuse to acknowledge it as from God;namely, that it declares man to be a fallen creature, and hiswhole career to be the mere outworking of his corrupt naturein the path of disobedience; and that it predicts in plain Janguage what the end of that path will be for all who do notaccept God's method of deliverance out of it through ] esusChrist.

But, violence having failed to rid man of the Bible, other .means have been resorted to in the persistent effort to acco1nplish that object. To this end the intellect and learni ng ofman have been enlisted. The Book has been assailed fro1n

every side by men of the highest intelligence, culture andscholarship. Since the art of printing has been develop edthere has been in progress a continuous war of books. Manybooks against THE Book-man's books against God's Book.Its authority has been denied, and its veracity and even itsmorality have been impugned, its claims upon the consciences



6 The Fundamentals

bring out more conspicuously the fact that the Word of Godis LIVING,'~ and with an indestructible life.

Should any other book incur the hatred of man ( which noother book ever has, seeing that all others are man's own productions) it would not be necessary to take measures for itsdestruction. A book produced by dying men need only be letalone to die of its own accord. The seeds of death are in itfrom the start. One Book alone has incurr ed man's hatred,because it is the one Book that is not his own. It is the onlything in the whole world that is hostile to the whole worldsystem. One Book only has man attempted to destroy; andyet., in this attempt, thou gh in it all his powers and resourceshave been employed, he h~s most conspicuou sly and ignominiously failed. Why?

A little less than a century and a half ago a book made its

appearance which attracted wide attention, particularly in theupper circles of intellect and culture. It was vauntingly entitled the HAge of Reason, and it s author, Thomas Paine,was probably without super ior in intelligence among his con·temporaries. So confident was the author of this book thathis rea sonings proved the untrustwo rthiness of Scripture, anddes troyed it s claim upon the consciences of men as the revelation of the living God, that he predicted that in fifty years theBible would be practically out of print. But nearly thrice fiftyyears have pas sed since this boast was uttered. The boasterand his book ha ve passed away; and their very name s are well·nigh forgotten. Bu t the Word of God has maintained itsplace, and not by human power. They who believe and cherishit are a feeble folk. Not many wise, not many mighty, notmany high-born are among the m. They have no might of theirown to stand against the enemies of the Bible. The situationresembles a scene recorded in 1 Kings 20 :27, wher e the Israelites went out against the Syrians, and we read that Thechildren of Israel pitched before them like two little flocksof kids; but the Syrians filled the country ''



Life in the r ord 27

But notwithstanding such great odds, the victory is cer-tain. · The enemies of the Bible have indeed filled the country.'Yet, they shall all pass away; but the Word of the Lord shallnot pass away.

Again, in more recent times, a book of man was put forth,and was hailed as a work which would quickly destroy thecredibility of Scripture and put an end to its authority andinfluence. This was Charles Darwin's Descent of Man, a

book whose influence has been greater, doubtless, than anyother that has made its appearance during a century past. ,The main feature of this work was that it set forth an ex-planation of the origin of living beings, including mart, rad ....ically different from that of Genesis, and propounded a the -ory of propagation of living species directly contrary to thegreat and immutable law declared nine times over in the first

chapter of the Bible in the brief but · significant expression,after · his kind.The delight which Darwin's book cau sed among the en-

emies of the Bible, and the spirit in which its appearance was'Welcomed, are well illustrated by the title bestowed upon 'itby the eminent naturalist Haeckel, who called it the Anti-Genesis, declaring that by a single stroke Darwin had anni·

hilat~d the dogma of Creation. But it was not because of itssupposed contribution to truth that Darwin's book was sowidely and cordially received, and his utterly unproved hypoth-esis so readily accepted as an assured result of science.''Its vogue was largely due to the £act that it struck at theVery foundation of Scripture. It is useless to pretend thatDarwin's theory might be true, and the Bible nevertheless e~-

titled to respect. The Lord Jesus said to a learned man ofBis day, If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not,how shall ye believe i I tell you of heavenly things? (John3 :12). If the Bible does not give us a truthful account ofthe events of the six days recorded in its first chapter, it isnot to be trusted as to any of its statements.



8 The undamentals

But we have now the record of about half a century sincethe publication of Darwin's book; and, though the great move

ments of unbelief and apostasy are swiftly running their predicted course, there never was a time when the absolute anddivine accuracy of Scripture from beginning to end, was morefirn1ly grasped and tenaciously held by those who know itbest, and never a time since science began to be looked to asan authority and instructor of men when there was le ssscientific basis for the prevalent questioning of the state-

ments of the Bible. 'There can be, of course, no real conflict between the Bible

and any true discovery of science. Such conflicts as havebeen supposed to exist arose from hasty and incorrect conclusions, whose chief value in the eyes of many lay in the factthat they contradicted the Bible. As science has been com

pelled, however reluctantly, to correct her blunders, or toacknowledge that supposedly demonstrated truths were atbest but unproved conjectures, the conflicts have died out;so that, at the present time, the a~sured teachings of science afford no weapons against the statements of the B'ible.On the contrary, the investigations of men, in fields of geology, physics, and palreontology, have brought into view much

information recorded ages ago in the Bible, information which,at the time the latter was written, was not in the knowledgeof man. As has been al re ady said, there i s not a sing le assertion of the Bible that is in conflict with any demon st rated factof science. All the investigations, o f all the searchers, in allthe various fields of sea rch, have not availed to produce evidence sufficient in character and amount to convict Scriptureof a single fal se statement.

But i.t is time to bring to a close our remarks under thi~heading, though they might be greatly extended.

We have call ed attention to the strange fact that, of allthe millions of bo oks that have existed, the Bible is the onlyone that has excited deep and persistent hatred the only Book



ife in the Word 29

Which men have sought to get rid of, and that by every con

c~ivable means. We have further called attention to the stillstranger fact that, in this attempt · to destroy the Bible, thePowers ·of state, of religion, and of · learning, have all beenenlisted, and that, nevertheless, the number of copies of the~ible goes on steadily increasing. How can these facts ' beexplained except by the statement that the Word of God isLIVING, and .that the source of its life is beyond the reach

of man-in the very Being of the Living God? ..VII. THE BIBLE IS A DISCERNER OF HEARTS

The power of discernment belongs only to an intelligentliving being; and the power of discernment possessed by mandoes not go beneath the surface of things. Yet the passage inllebrews, already quoted ( 4 ·:12 , asserts that the Word ofGod is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

This is a very remarkable statement, yet it is true, and millions of men have felt and recognized the searching and discerning power of the Word of God. We go to it not so mqchto learn the thoughts of other men, as to learn our ownthoughts. We go to other books to find what was in the heartsand minds of their authors; but we go to this Book to findWhat is in our own hearts and minds. To one who reads itWith ever so little spiritual intelligence, there comes a perception of the fact that this Book understands and knows all abouthim. It lays bare the deepest secrets of his heart, and bringsto the surf ace of his consciousness, out of the unf ath-omabledepths and unexplorable recesses of his own being, though,ts

ndintents'' whose existence was unsuspected. It revealsman to himself in a way difficult to describe, and absolutely

Peculiar to itself. It is a faithful mirror which reflects us exactly as we are. It detects our motives, discerns our needs;and having truthfully discovered to us our true selves, it counsels, reproves, exhorts, guides, refreshes, 'strengthens, and ill



30 The Fundamentals

It has been pointed out that the Greek word rendereddiscerner in Hebrews 4 :12, means literally critic (kriti-

kos), and that this is its only occurrence in Scripture. Howvery signip.cant is it that the designation higher critics hasbeen assumed by that little coterie of men who claim . to beable, by their own powers of literary discernment, to assignthe dates of production of books and parts of books of Scrip ..ture, to detect spurious passages, alleged interpolations, and

the like, and to split up books into fragments, assigning bitsto one imaginary author and other bits to another; whereasas a matter of fact, it is the Bible itself that is the Criticof men.

This is in keeping with the subversive principles of thispresent evil age, wherein man is seeking to put himself in theplace of God. This is man's day. Man is now the criticof everything, and particularly of God's Word. f that he

is a higher critic.There is, however, no external evidence to support the

higher critical views as to the late origin of the Pentateuch,Daniel, the latter part of Isaiah, etc.; per contra every per-tinent discovery in the ruins of ancient cities corroborates the

statements of Scripture. These theories rest entirely upon thealleged intuitive perceptions of sinful men, compassed about byinfirmity, who claim to be able to pass infallibly upon thestyle and contents of each book of the Bible, to decide when itwas written, by whom it could not have been written, andeven to divide it up into various portions, assigning each toa different source. ·

But high scholarship is not incompatible with belief in thefull inspiration and accuracy of Scripture. Dean Burgon, oneof the famous scholars of Oxford, says :

I must be content with repudiating, in the most unqual-ified way, the notion that a mistake of any kind whatever isconsistent with the texture of a narrative inspired by the Holy



Life in the Word 31

The Bible is none other but the vVord of God, not son 1epart of it more and some part of it less so, but all alike the

utterance of l-Iim that sitteth upon the throne~ absolute , faultless, unerring, supreme-'The witness of God which He hathtestified of His Son.'

The time is at hand when the haughtiness of man shall bebrought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.Then the Word of God shall judge the critics.

Meanwhile, the living Word shall continue to be the dis

cerning companion of all who resort to it for the help whichis not to be had elsewhere in this world of the dying. In going to the Bible we never think of ourselves as going back toa book of the distant past, to a thing of antiquity; but we goto it as to a book of the present-a living book. And so indeed it is, living in the power of an endles s life, and, able tobuild us up and to give us an inheritance among all them thatare sanctified. ( Acts 20 :32.)

VIII. THE TRANSLATABILITY OF SCRIPTURE

The Word of God n1anifests itself as a living Word in thevery unique property it has of adapting itself and its messageto all peoples, and of speaking in all languages, tongues and

dialects. The extreme mobility and adaptability of Scripture,as manifested in this way, is comparable only to the powerwhich a living being has of making himself at home in di fferent countries from that in which . he was born.. We have here again a characteristic which distingui sh es

the Bible from all other books, as any one may, with a littleattention, clearly perceive. It is a universal rul~ that a book

does not thrive except in the language in which it was written. Men's books will not always bear translation; and thegreater the literary value of a book the m ore it is likely tosuffer loss in being translated from one langua ge into another.Change of locality is, to the great majority of books, absolutely destructive.



32 The undamentals

But to this rule the Bible is a marvellous exception. Itseems to run freely into the mould of every language to

adapt it self perfectly thereto and to speak with equal directness clearness and authority to all people s and tribes and nations in their mother tongue. It does not occur to u s · hat inreading our _common English Bible w are reading a translation of an Oriental book; and indeed when an example of

the purest and best English is desired men go with one accord to the Bible.

Considered merely as a poem there is nothing more exquisite in the English langua~e than the Twenty-thi rd Psalm;and it has been stated that in other languages besides Englishthis Shepherd Psalm is a model of poetical excellence. Itnever occurs to one reading it that he is reading a translationfrom another and very different language.

Is not this indeed a very extraordinary fact and the moreso when we consider that the Bib le though a unit is at thesame time highly composite? It comprises specimens of everykind of literature historical poetical biographical didacticprophetic epistolary etc.

Moreover it is not the production of a single human being clothed in a uniform literary style of dress. On the con•trary its several parts were penned by men in widely varying stations in life from herdsmen and unl ea rned fishermento kings and statesme n; and its sty les are as divergent as itswrit~rs.

Nor was it the product of one era or period which wouldtend to impart some comn1on characteristics and to prevent

wide divergencies. As much as fifteen hundred years elapsedbetween the writing of its first and its last pages. Yet all partsand styles alike accommodate themselves to the change of language far more readily and per£ ectly than any human beingis able to do when acquiring another tongue.

The property we are now considering is the more remark



ife in the Word 33

Volume has come. The Jews were anything but a literary?eopie. They were not at all rem~rkable for culture, le arning, art, or philosophy; and they were quite cut off by theirPeculiar customs, traditions, and religious institutions, from~heprogressive nations around the1n. There is no other Jew-1sh literature that is worth talking about. Yet, from such aPeople has come a volume whose sixty-six books, now thatWe have them all ·together, evidently constitute one complete

structure, unitary in design, yet which was fifteen centuries inattaining its completed state. This book, after the JewishPeople were disintegrated and scattered,- - even as that veryhook ad distinctly foretold,-and had become the most despised and persecuted people on earth, has entered into thePlace of supremacy in every nation which has attained to anydegree of civilization, and has held that place without a rival

for eighteen centuries, , during which period of time everyhuman institution has been overturned, not once only, butagain and again. .. Why is it that the universal Book did not have its origin111the literature of Greece, or of ancient Rome, or in the Elizabethan epoch of English literature? Why is it that nationsWhich have been famed for their culture and literary geniushave produced nothing comparable to the Bible? What colection of sixty-six books from the writings of about thirty

authors of any nation could be made that would pre sent anyof the characteristics we have been noticing? Yet, it is certainthat, if the Bible had a natural, in stead of a supernatural

• •

rig1n, it would be far surpassed by the literary product ofhe literary nations of the earth .. This property of adaptability to all languages and peoples

Will mpress us still more if we compare it in this respect withher Orient.al books. The mere fa:t that it ~s an ?riental

0 k makes its career among the Occidental nations still moreniraculous. All attempts to dome sticate other Oriental books,P i l l d b k h b COilJ l il O h



4 The Fundamentals

Oriental books are sought by scholars only, or by others whohave a special interest for inquiring into their contents.

Already the Bible, or portions of it, has been translatedinto upwards of four hundred languages and dialects; so thatit is revealing the grace of God in the gift of His Son, to practicalJy every nation, kindred, tongue and tribe, throughout theworld, and is speaking to all peoples in their own nativetong ues.

Like a living person, the Bible has made its way into allland s, has adapted it se lf to all environments, entered into re·lations of the most intimate kind with all peoples, and has ex·erted upon them all its own unique influence. It makes nodifference what the people are to whom it goes, how radicallydifferent all their customs and institutions from those of thatvery peculiar people Israel ; the Bible makes it self perfectly

at home, and takes its own place without delay . Can this, oranything remotely approaching it, be said of any other book?And if not, are we not compelled, if we would have an explana·tion of this extraordinary difference, to fall back upon thestatement that the "Word of God is living"? No other e.xplanation will account for any of the facts w ·e have been con·sidering. This explanation accounts for them all.

The fact we are here considering, that is to say, the careetof the Bible among the peoples of the earth, is, indeed, a stupendous and continuing miracle. Why has this particularBook gone to the ends of the earth, and assumed everywhere,and maintained against all opposition, the place of supremacy 1What has given to this collection of writings, coming from atJ

insignificant, peculiar, narrow-minded and isolated people, it•universal character? Why is it that all other books, or col'lections of books, including the productions of the mightiestintellects and embodying the most superb and lofty specimefllof human thought, wisdom, learning and experience, have beet'narrowly .circumscribed in their area of influence, both as to



Life in the Word 35

Widening its sphere of influence as the centuries pass, whileevery other book, after its first vogue, steadily contracts anddwindles ? Why does this Book increase while all others de-crease?

There is no natural explanation for these remarkable facts.In this day, when a natural explanation is sought for all things,he wise men can advance no theory to account for these facts.

e sometimes hear, from the enemies of the truth, the adnission that the Bible is inspired, but coupled with the statenent that other books are equally inspired. For example, a

Prominent preacher in New York city recently said in anarticle published in a popular magazine, God spake to Abraham, and to Samuel and to Isaiah. He has spoken to HenryWard Beecher, to Tennyson, and to Ruskin. But neither thisProminent preacher, nor any other man who is trying in like

nanner to put the Word of God on the same level as otherhooks, is able to tell us why the writings of these other ''inspired men do not afford some indications of their divine0 tigin similar to those characteristics of the Bible to which\re are now calling attention.

The Apostle Paul in the la st of his writings (2 Tim. 2:8, 9) said, Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David

as raised from the dead according to my gospel; wherein I~llffer as an evil-doer even unto bonds; but the word of Gods not bound. ,

In these words we have the sufficient and the only exPlanation of the extraordinary and unique career of the Bible.l'he human custodian of the Word of God may be bound, andlllay be treated as a malefactor £or merely being the bearerOf he message; but the living Word of the living God is not,~d cannot be, bound. Jehovah Himself has said, So shall

Y Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth. It shall not~turn unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which IJ)lease, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent itnsa.5:11).



.36 The Fundamentals

But there is more to be noted under this heading. TheBib le is the universal Book also in that it not only speaks to

all peoples in their own mother tongue, but it addresses itselfto all classes of society. Missionaries from e~ry part ofthe world have reported how the most depraved, ignorant andvicious people will listen at once to the words of Scriptureas to no other book, and will recognize them as good words.''Like God I-Iimse lf His Word is no re specter of persons. lt1deed, its sternest denunciations are addressed to persons of

rank and of social, ecclesiastical, or political prominence. Itsbest promises are for the meek and lowly. It has a messagefor all men, and to the highest as well as the lowe st it spea kswith authority, never exhorting from the standpoint merely

of supe rior human wisdom and intelligence, but always as de'livering the message of God.

The Bible adapts itself thus to successive generations ofmen, exhibiting to each individual human being an intimateknowledge of his characteristics, trials and needs. It seet

to be waiting for an opportunity to become acquainted witbeach child of Adam, to direct the steps of his life-journe1through this great and terrible wilderness, to warn him of

dangers and pitfalls, and to be the man of his counsel to

every one who wills not to reject its offer of fellowship. Doesnot this warrant us in saying that the Word of God is LIV'ING ?

IX. THE WORD EXHIBITS THE CHARACTERISTICOF GROWTH

Growth is one of the charac~eristics of a living being. Tbt

Word of God iodges. and grows in human hearts, for there~its real lodgment, rather than in the printed page. The PsalJlJ'ist says, Thy Word have I ~id in 1ny heart (Ps. 119:11) .

The book of Deuteronomy has much to say about ·the Wot

of God. In chapter thirty it declares ( verse 14) that ''T}leWord is very nigh unto thee , in thy mouth and in thy · heart,''



Life in the Word 37

This is repeated in Romans 10 :8, with the addition, ''that is,the wo~·d of faith w11,ich we preach .

In 1 Thessa lonian s 2 :13 Pa ul says to the Thessa lonians,When ye received the Word of God which ye heard of u s, .Ye r eceived it not as the word of 1nen, but as it is in tru th,the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you thatbelieve. The believing heart is its lodgi nent, and there itWorks to effect some definite results.

In Colossians 3: 16 we have the adn1onition, Let the word

of Christ dwell in you rich ly in all wisdom. It is in the believing heart that the Word dwells richly.

The Lord Jesus, in explaining th e parab le of the sower,said, The seed is the Word of God (Luke 8:11); and again,''T he sower sowet h th e Word (Mark 4: 14). (A see·d, ofcour e, is worthless except it have life in it.) And He fur th ere}(:plain d th at the seed which fell on good ground are they

Which, n an honest and good heart, having heard the Word1<eep t, and bring forth fruit with patience (Luke 8 :15). Tothe unbelieving Jew s the Lord said, And ye have not His~Ord abiding in you; for whom He h ath sent, Him ye believe not (John S :38) .

In Co loss ians 1 :5, .6, Pa ul speaks of the Word o f th etruth of the Gospel, which is come unt o you, as it is in all the-World, and bringeth forth f ruit. ''

In these passages we have presented to us the thought ofthe Word as a living seed or germ, first finding lodgment inthe heart of man , and then abiding and growing there .. The growth of the Word of God is specifically mentioned1n several striking passages in the Acts of the Apostles. Acts'6 7: And the Word of God increased; and the number ofthe disciples multiplied in Jeru sa lem greatly.

Here we are told specifically that the Word of God intteased. We learn from this that the mere multiplication ofCopies of the Scriptures is in itself of no importance. It is(}f no avail to have the Book in the house, and on the shelf



38 The Fundame11,tals

or table, if it be not taken into the heart. But when so received into the heart, the Word of God grows and increases,

It is assimilated into the life of him who receives it, andhenceforth is a part of himself.It is important to note what stimulated this recorded in

crease of the Word of God. The Apostles, who were its cus .todians or depositories, had found themselves taken up withministering to the material wants of the flock, and theybrought this matter before the body of disciples saying, It is

not reason that we should leave the Word of God and servetables, and they asked that suitable men be appointed for

that service while they should give themselves continually toprayer and the ministry of the Word.

The growth of the Word then, accompanied by a great multiplication of the number of disciples, was the result of faith ..ful ministry of the Word-.a ministry which was sustainedby prayer.

This method o promoting the growth of the Word ofod is highly important. Every believer, ha ing the Word it1

his heart and in his mouth, may be and should be the means ofits propagation; and the extent to which the Word has beeflspread abroad in this inconspicuous way will not be knowtluntil the time when all things shall be manifested. There aregreat 1nultitudes who would never get the Word from thepr i;-ied page, or from the spoken sermon or address. Hencethe importance of these epistles of Christ written not witbink, but with the SPIRIT of the living God, not in tablets ofstone, but in the fleshy tablets of the heart. (2 Cor. 3 :3.)Such epistles are read by many who never read the printed

page ; and the eternal destiny of many souls may depend upcflthe distinctness and legibility of that writing. May our lives,as believers, ·be so transparent that the Word written in our

hearts may be distinctly seen; and thus, as sons of God wtshall shine as lights in the world holding forth the Word oflife (Phil. 2:15, 16).



Li/ e in tlic Word 39

The second passage which speaks expressly of the growthof the Word of God is Acts 12 :21-24. In this chapter are

narrated the last episodes in the life of Herod Antipas. Inthe first part of the chapter we read how he killed James, thebrother of John, with the sword, and finding this course tobe popular with the Jews, he apprehended Peter also, and puthim in custody, intending after the passover to n1ake this leaderof the Apostles the object of a public demonstration, whichdoubtless would have strengthened Herod still further in the

regard of the people. But Peter was delivered from prisonby an angel of the Lord who was sent for that purpose.

The closing verses of the chapter tell of a disagreementbetween Herod and the citizens of Tyre and Sidon, some undescribed incident having occurred which caused the former tobe highly displeased with the latter. But they, having gainedthe favor of King Herod's chan1berlain, one Blastue, made

overtures of peace and sent a delegation to the king. The reception of this embas sy was made an occasion of much pompand circumstance. Herod put on his royal apparel, sat uponhis throne, received the delegation, and made an oration untothen1. Thi s oration was receiv ed with extravagant demon-

. strations. The people gave a shout, saying, It is the voiceof a god, and not of a man.

I-Ierod accepted this tribute, and no doubt was highlypleased therewith. But it is a dangerous thing for n1ortal andsinful man, however high his station, to accept glory whichbelongs to God alone. For immediately the angel of the Lordsmote him, because he gave not God the glory; and he waseaten of worms and gave up the ghost. But the word of Godgr ew and multipled.

There .is a tremendous lesson here for the many who, inthese closing days of the age, are participating in the variousmovements which, however diverse in appearance, have all thecon1mon object of putting man in the place of . God, . and theWord of .man in the place of the Word of God. Herod was



40 The undamentals

not stricke n down for persecuting the Church, for imprisoningPeter, or for putting James to death, nor yet for his previousmurder of John the Baptist. He was . smitten for permittinghis word to be acclaimed as the Word of God. Herod hadoften heard the Word of the Lord, for he had listened atten-tively to the preaching of the Baptist. He had heard of theministry and miracles of the Lord Jesus, and had even seenHin1 on that dark betrayal night. He wa s, therefore, not smit-ten for something done in ignorance.

The angel of Jehovah had two mini stries in that chapter.One was to deliver Peter, who, according to the word of hisLord, was to se rve Him to old age (John 21 :18) . The otherwas to declare, by smiting the King, the difference between theWord of God and that of the mo st important man of thecountry.

Doubtless that was a great oration which Herod deliveredon that day. It contained most probably striking utterances,pregnant with wisdom and garbed in the attractions of humaneloquence. It was, moreover, the King on his throne whospoke, and we know how the throngs ga ther to listen on suchoccasions.

On the other hand, and in striking contrast, the Word ofGod was in the charge of unlearned and ignorant men, adespised and persecuted company, whose Leader had but justsuffered the ignominious death of a malefactor. What thenhas become of the words of King Herod? All have utterlyperished, centuries ago, from the memory of men. He hirn-self was eaten of worms; But the Word of God grew andmultipled, and has continued so to do from that time to the

present.Not very long ago, at the convening of the American Con-

gress, a message from the President was addressed to thatbody. Much comment was made on that message because ofits great length. Some industrious person counted the words,and found th ~m to be upwards of thirty t.housand. The1



42 The undamentals

This is, indeed, a very notable event-a grand demonstration of the power and sufficiency of the Word of God. The sebooks, intrinsically worth so great a sum as fifty thousandpieces of silver, became worse than worthless in the hands oftheir owners after the latter had received the Word of God.

· The books thus de stroyed had been held in the highe st e sti1nation, because they were the manuals of necromancy, or occultarts. They instructed their readers in ju st such thing s a s are,coming into great favor in the pre sent day. But when theirowners "believed," they could no longer practice the " curiousarts," or even retain the books that de scribed them.

It is very ea sy to destroy the book s o men . Great andmighty as are the powers of darkne ss which were back of thebooks burned at Ephe sus, tho se evil power s are not comparable to that which has directed the career of the Word ofGod. Many have been the attempts to con sume it in the

flames, but in vain; for the Word of God i s living ..This scene at Ephesu s has been re -enacted in many ahuman life. When in que st of help, enligh tenment, wi sdom,guidance, and know edge of the un seen, men turn to b ok s ;and though di sappointed again and again, the inquiring mind,which has felt the need of a source of light e x ternal to it se1£,and has realized that there mu st be such a sou rce somewhere,

never shakes off the habit of s eeking it in book s. Thereappears to be a deep- seated con sciou sne ss that the desired helpis to be found in some book. But men canno t impart to thebooks written by them what is n ot in them selve s ; and so theywho gather many books gain little to comp ensate for their costand labor. Conjectures and human opinion s, philo sophies andvain deceits, with all the obscurities and contradictions con ..tained in them, do but leave the mind in perple x ity and be·wilderment concerning every matter of real importance,And, after all, if one cannot have certaintie s, but mu st put upwith mere opinions, why should he not pref er his own to

another man' s, s~eing that all are at the best but. mere guesses,



ife itt tlie Word 43

Whereof one is as likely to be true as another? The wisemen can tell us nothing, for Io, they have rejected the Word

of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them? (Jer. 8:9).But when, to one who has undergone this weariness ofvain quest for something sure and satisfying in the books of

men, the Word of God comes with the convincing power whichit alone possesses, and with the restful assurance which it alonecan impart, the books of men become worthless-mere rubbish, fit only to be food for flames. Conjectures are now ex

changed for certainties, and profitless speculations for knowledge certified by the sure te stimony of Him who knoweth andunderstandeth all things.

The writer lateJy heard a servant of Christ relate an incident in his own life which aptly illustrates what we have beensaying. Speaking on the injunction of Ephesians :10, Bestrong in the Lord, he said, I well remember a section in myhook-case long ago which contained a highly prized set ofEmerson's works. One essay in particular I read and re-read,and had marked favorite passages in it. The burden of it was,'Young man, be strong.' This phrase occurred again and again,and it thrilled and excited me. But it pointed me to no sourceof strength, for the writer knew of none. He never once said,

'Be strong in the Lord;' and the time came when, realizing thecruel mockery of the words, and the emptiness of this entiresysten1 of philosophy, I put the set of well-printed and choicelyhound volumes into the flames. · He discovered in the Biblethe Source of all strength, and the Book di sp laced the entireset of man's philosophies and empty deceits. So mightilygrew the Word of God and prevailed.

Happy is the man who has received the Word of God(Acts 8:14; 11:i, etc.), who has made room for it i11 his life,and in whose heart and mind it has grown and prevailed.

X. A LIFE-GIVING WORDNe come now to something higher and deeper. The great

tnystety of a living thing i the power it possesses of propa-



The undamentals

gating its kind. To trace the stream of life to its source isconfessedly impossible to man, nor does any philosophictheory account for that stream. The attempt made in recentyears to exp lain life as a me.re property of atoms of non-livingmatter grouped in certain complex combinations, has been confessedly a failure. Professor H uxley, probably the ablestdefender of this theory, and who at one time predictep that''protoplasm ( as he named the physical basis of life) mightone day be produced in the laboratory, was constrained toadmit, before his death, that there was no known link betweenthe living and the non-living.

I n the era of great scientific activity which marked the la stha1f of the nineteenth century, many and persistent effortswere made to bring about spontaneous generation; that is tosay, to demonstrate that life could be caused by humanmanipulation to spring up out of non-living matter, and apart

from antecedent life. Great was the desire of unbelieving menof science to find a support for this theory, for if establishedit would flatly contradict the first chapter of the Bible, andthus discredit the statements of the latter upon a sub ject ofthe highest importance . In that chap~er the first law of biologyis enunciated in the words af ter his kind; and this law isapplied both to the vegetable kingdom and to the animal--to

grass, and herb, and fruit tree, to fowl and fishes, and creepingthings, to wild beast and tame beast. Each was commanded tobring forth after his kind; and it is needle ss to say thateach has strictly obeyed that Divine command.

The inspired account of Creation does not describe themethod whereby God brought into existence the several species-0£ iving creatures, and gave to each the distinct characteristics

which were to be it s perpetual and unvarying endowment. Thismatter, therefore, belongs to the realm of speculation, intowhich it is unprofitable to enter. What concerns us is the fact,.distinctly stated, and manifestly deemed by the Spirit of Godto be of great- importance for our instruction in the truth , that



ife in the Word 45

God, in creating the numerous species of living creatures,vegetable and animal, put a permanent difference between

the · , rigidly confining each species to the reproduction of itsown kind.

So iinportant was this law in the mind of the Creator, andso careful was He to impress it upon the mind of man, that theformula is stated nine times in the first chapter of Genesis.There is an emphasis in this which has great significance inview of the theory of organic evolution, which, but a few years

ago, was advanced as a scientific .explanation of the originof species of living beings, and was accepted as such by nearlyall the wise and learned of this world.

After many years' investigation of the philosophy ofevolution, an inve stigation carried on in full sympathy withthe widest application of that captivating theory, I have yet tosee proof of a single fact showing, or tending to show, theoperation of the so-called law or principle of evolutionin the world of Nature. No instance has ever been found oi aliving thing of one species coining from ancestors of anotherspecies; and there is not the slightest ground for the beliefthat such a thing ever happened. On the other hand, everyone of the countles s billions of reproductions of living creatures-the grass, the herb yielding eed, and the fruit treeyielding fruit-which occur every year, are in accordance withthe divine comn1and recorded in the first chapter of Genesis.Oak trees have never betrayed the slightest tendency to produceany fruit but acorns, nor acorns to produce any trees but oaks.The theory of organic evolution, promulgated by Darwin andWallace, has nothing to commend it except that it offers analternative to · the acceptance of the account of the origin ofspecies given in the Bible.

The attempts n1ade by the empiricists of the last century tobring about, or to demonstrate the possibility of , spontaneousgeneration of living organisms y human manipulation apartfrom pre -exi sting organi ins of the same species, were at first



The F u1idamentals

thought to , have been successful. Infusions of hay were p.re- .pared which, after being tightly sealed in suitable flasks, wereheated to a temperature sufficiently high ( as was supposed) todestroy all life within the flasks. These were then set aside forawhile, and kept under observation; and in the course of timethey were found to contain minute livng organi sms. Theseresults of science were heralded far and wide, and great

was the rejoicing occasioned thereby.

But other men of science, among whom the most prominentwas Liebig, went over' the ground again, repeating the experiments more carefully; and their results showed that, in theearlier experiments, either the flasks had not been tightlysealed, or el se the heat to which they were exposed had notbeen sufficiently great to destroy all the living organismstherein. So conclusive were these later experiments that thetheory of spontaneous generation ( or abiogenesis ) ha s hadno standing whatever from that time to the present.

The following quotations will accurately inform the reader ·as to the best scientific opinion on this subject. -

Lord Kelvin who, until his recent death, held the leadingplace among scientific men; used this positive language ;

Inanimate matter cannot become living except under theinfluence of matter already living. Thi s is a fact in sciencewhich seems 'to me as well ascertained as the law of gravitation.'' '

Again he said: , _ I am ready to accept as an article of faithin science, valid for an ime and in all space, that life is pro-duced y life and only by life.

Professor Huxley, the advocate of the theory 0£ animalautomatism, who at one time contended earnestly that vitalitywas merely a property of protoplasm,'' ( that is to say, theproperty of a particular chemical compound of carbon,oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen) left this record before hisdeath: The pre sent state of knowledge furnishes us with no



ife in the Word 47

Professor Tyndall says: Every attempt made in our dayto generate life independent of antecedent life has utterlybroken down.

Such has indeed been, and such must ever be, the result ofall hun1an attempts to start the flow of a stream of life, or todivert one which God has started, so as to change the form oftnanifestation which the Author and Giver of life has given toeach species of living creature s.

We wi sh the reader to understand that. we rest nothingwhatever upon the outcome of the foregoing scientific con-trover sy, nor upon the above quoted ( or any other) statementsof human opinion however high their source. Faith has nofoundation other than the Word of God.

Men of science may be right or wrong in their deducti onsfrom the fragmentary information possessed by them. Gen-

erally they are wrong, as is clearly enough shown by the factthat a large part of the work of each generation of men ofscience consists in overturning or modifying the theorie s oftheir predecessors. The foregoing is given a s an illustrationof the utter futility of setting up the deductions of the hu1nanreason against the a ssertions of the Word of God, and as acaution . to the reader, if he be a child of God through faith inJesus Christ, not to give the lightest cr ,edence to any state-tnents made in the name of science or scholarship whichcall into question what is written in the inspired Scriptures.

We may ask then, Is the Word of God a living Word inthis particular sense? Does it have the mysterious power ofimparting life; and if so, is the life it imparts of the same sortas its own? Does it reproduce after its kind ?

This brings up the great subject of spiritual conception and?eneration, concerning which the Scripture gives not a littleinformation. Into this highly interesting but difficult subject

e will not now enter. Even the beginning and maintenance ·of physical life in plants and animals ( including man) are

d i bl i Thi i i ll f



48 The F unda1nentals

the process, particularly in the initial stage of germination,.which is the beginning of a new individual existence by thequickening of a seed derived fron1 a previously existing individual of the same species. How much more mysterious, then,mu st be the process of spi ritual generation The Lord Jesus,in His conversation with the learned and intellectual Pharisee,Nicodemus, indicated that the subject was a very mysteriousone, by the words, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and

thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence itcometh, and whither it goeth: s is every one that is born [ orbegotten] of the Spirit." ·

Therefore, even after we have learned all that is given us .to know concerning the beginni11g of physical life in the naturally begotten, and of spiritual life in the supernaturally begotten, the subject remains as mysterious as ever, since the

Author of life has reserved it am .ong the "secret things'' which"belong unto the Lord our God" (Deut. 29 :29).

But the fact of natural generation cannot be questioned,though the process be involved in unfathomable 1nystery. Thefact of spiritual generation is equally sure to all who believethe Word of God. The Bib1e plainly declares it, and thosewho believe on the Christ of God know also by experience thebeginning of a new kind of life in their own souls.

For present purpo ses it is sufficient to point out that spiritual generation i s analogous ( as might be expected) to naturalgeneration, being effected by means of a seed, which, havingbeen depo sited in a prepared p1a .ce, is quickened by the Spiritof God, and becomes it self "spirit,"-that is to say a new

nature which is sp iritual in it s character; for "that which isborn [or begotten J of the Spirit is spirit " (John 3 :6).

The fact of spir itual conception, and the nature of the seedwhereby it is effected, are plainly declared in Peter 1 :23 :"Being born [or having been begotten] again, not of corruptible s~ed but of incorruptible, by THE WORD OF GOD



Life in the .Word 49

There is an immense amount of truth of the highest im-portance contained in this pas sag e ; but the stateme nt which

especially concern s u s is that the seed of the n ew birth is fromthe living Word ( the Word which LIV E T H ). This state-ment plainly teache s that the Word of God po sses ses theh ighest endowment o f a living being , namely, that of impartingli fe . And with this agree s the teaching of the Lord Je sus inthe parable of the sower, in the ,explanation of which He said,The see d i s the Word of God'' (Luke 8 :11). ,

In c on equence of the tran sgre ss io~ and fall of the fir sttnan, who wa s the original depo itory of the life of humanity( Gen. 2 :7), the life in hi m, being corruptible, becamevitiated. Hence, by inexorable law, the se ed o f his generationsal so became corrupted. I t follow s that all men in their naturalgeneration are begotten of corruptible ( and co rr upted) seed;and have received ( and hence n1u st impart to th eir succeedinggeneration s ) a corrupted life. What, therefore , was needed,in order to bring into existence a hun1an family an swering toGod's purpo se in the creation of n1an ( Gen. 1 :26), was a newand 1·ncorruptible se ed. This has been supplied in the Word ofGod. A 1 who believe that Word are begotten again ( or fromabove) ; not this time of corruptible seed, but of incorruptib le, ·by the Word of God which liv eth. It is a living Word.

It is to be noted that this Scripture testifies that the seedo the living Word is not merely uncorrupt ed, but is incor-ruptible. It partakes, therefore, o the nature of the uncor-tuptible God (Rom. 1 :23).

This is the guaranty to us that the Word of God is notsubject to the corrupting influence s of the corrupted and de-

caying .world into which it is come. It is the only thing whichhas not succumbed to the forces of decay and death whichreign universally in the earth. Indeed, it has not been affectedin the slightest degree by those forces . This has been pointedout at length in the foregoing pages ; but the grand truth comesto u s with peculiar force in connection with the passage in 1



I

50 The Fundamentals

Peter. We need not be at all concerned as to whether the truthof God, embodied by Him in His word, has been corrupted,

for it is incorruptible. And by that Word they who believeare begotten again through the operation of the Holy Spirit.To them the Spirit is life (Rom. 8 :10).

The same truth is declared in James 1 : 18, in the words,Of His own will begat He us with the Word of Truth.

Such is the spiritual conception of the sons of God.''These are born, or begotten. In no other way is a son

brought into existence save by being begotten - of a father.The sons of God must be begotten of God. The Apostle Johntells us that they are begotten, not of the will of the flesh, norof the will of man (John 1 :13). The Apostle James tells usthat of His own will they are begotten. Therefore, thoughthe process be inscrutably mysterious, there can be no doubt asto the fact. When the Word of God is truly heard andthereby received into a prepared heart, that word becomestruly a seed, spiritual and incorruptible in nature, which, whenquickened by the Spirit of God, becomes the life-germ of a new

·creature-a son of God.The same truth is very clearly taught in our Lord' ·s ex

planation of His parable of the sower, to which reference hasalready been made. Inasmuch as we have His own interpretation of this parable, we need be in no uncertainty as to itsmeaning. He says, Those by the wayside are ~hey that hear;then cometh the Devil and taketh a way the Word 01 t of theirhearts lest they should believe and be saved (Luke 8 :12).And again: But that on the good ground are they which, inan honest and good heart having heard the Word keep it and

bring forth fruit with patience.The method of spiritual conception set forth in these Scrip

tures, which is effected in a n1anner quite analogous to naturalconception, furnishes the explanation of the connection be-

b 1· . d 1 f d .ween · e 1ev1ng an 1 e re erre · to 1n many passages ofScripture. One of the ~ost familiar of these is John 5 :24



Life in the Word 51

where the Lord Jesus states in the simplest language that theman who hears His Word and believes on Him who sent Him

has everlasting life, and i s passed out of death into life. Sucha rnan receives the seed in his heart, and the seed is therequickened into life.

Indeed, the great purpose of the Written Word is to impartlife-even eternal ( that is to say divine) life - to those who aredead through trespasses and sins. The Go spel of John, whichis devoted largely to the great subject of eternal life, and from

which a large part of our information concerning it is derived,was written that ye might believe that Je sus is the Christ;the Son of God and that beli eving ye might have life throughhis name (John 20:31).

Th.e same truth i s declared in the familiar pas sage i11Romans 10 :9, which sets forth very definitely the special truthwhich constitutes the sub stance and marrow of God's revelation in His Word, and which He calls upon men to believe andobey through the preach ing of the Go spel, namely that JesusChrist, who died for sinner s, has been rais ed from the deadand that He is Lord of all, to the glory of God the Father.

The main point to be apprehended in thi s connection is thata certain state of preparedness of heart is nece ssary in orderthat the good seed of the Word may ge rminate and growthere. Such a prepared heart i s de scribed in S cripture as abelieving heart. That prepared state i s manifested when aman believes God as Abraham did (Ron 1. 4 :17); or, in otherwords, when a man i s ready to receiv e the Word of God asthe Word of God, a s the Thessalonians d id ( 1 Thess. 2 :13).

When a man · ha s been br ought, by the operation 0£ the

Spirit of God, who i s the Spirit of LI F E in Christ Jesus

(Rom. 8 :2, 10), into this state of preparation, then the \,Vordof God, being received into the heart, acts as a seed fallinginto good soil. Though it be (as we might say) but the tiniestportion of God's truth as revealed in His Word which is thusreceived by faith, yet it suffices through His power as the



52 The Fundamentals

means whereby I-Ie may quicken a dead soul. For surety thelife of the Word is in every part thereof.

Such is the power of the living truth to impart life; andherein lies the difference between the truth which God has revealed in His Word, and truth which may be found elsewhere.For there is much truth which is not livin truth. The multiplication table is truth; but it is not living truth. It has noqu ick ening power. The theorems of geometry are truth; butthey are not living truth. Never yet has any man been heard totestify that he had been the wretched and hopeless slave of sin,and had continued in spiritual darkness, fast bound in miseryand vice until his eyes were opened by the great truth thattwo and two make four, or that three angles of a triangle areequal to two tight angles; and that thereby his life had beentransformed, his sou l ·delivered from bondage, and his · heartfilled with joy and peace in believing. On the other hand, inthe case of true convers ion, it may have been but the short estand sin1plest s tat ement of the Word of the truth of theGospel ( Col. 1 :5) that was heard and believed, su ch as thatChrist died for the ungodly ( Rom. 5 :6), yet it suffices,

through the mighty power of Him who raised up Christ fromamong the dead, to quicken together with Christ a sou l that

previously was dead in trespasses and sins ( Eph . 1 :20; 2 :5).Thu s the Word of truth becomes, in some inscrutable ·w y~ thevehicle for imparting that li fe of which the risen Christ, theIncarnate Word, is the only Source. Eterna l life for the individual soul begins through believing the testimony of God( 1 Cor. 1 :2), and the testimony of God which He has in gracegiven to perishing sinners that they may believe and be saved,

is concerning His Son (Rom. 1 :3; l John 5 :10). ''And thisis the record [ or testimony], that God hath given to us eternallife, and this life is in His Son ( 1 John 5 :11). Therefore itis written of those who experienced the new birth, Forye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus( Gal. 3 :26).



Life in the Word 53

The teaching and preaching of the day are la rgely per

meated by a notion to the effect that science is in some undefined way supplying to a greater or less extent new foundations for religious faith. We cannot,. therefore, insist toostrongly upon the vital difference (-for it is vital-being adifference upon which life depends) between truth revealedby God through His Word) and tr uth discovered by the investigations of man, and generally spoken of as scientific truth.

Truth thus obtained has no relation whatsoever to faith 'and.eternal life; and the effort to su bstitute it for, or to oppose itto the truth revealed in God's Word as the basis of faith,1nust be a scr ibed to the activity of the spiri t of error.

Many unspiritual teachers in these last days, and manysuperficial readers of Scripture, deem it incredible that salvation, which is the beginning of the life of the risen Christ in

the soul of a perishing man, should be wrought through anoperation so apparently simple as that of receiving God 'sWord, through faith, into the heart.

The clear declarations of God's Word on this subject areinde ed frequently ridiculed in pulpit utt _rances. But to suchminds the germination of a seed by merely casting it into theground would be equally incredible. These spiritually-blindedones, wise in their own conceits, miss altogether the teachingof the Bible conc er ning the wonderful process of spiritual conception and generation, which, in view of the equally mysterious process of natural conception, should not be deemed athing incredible. For the invisible things of Him from thecreation of the world are clearly seen, being understood bythe thin gs that are made (Rom. :20).

The passage in 1 Peter 1 sets forth, moreover, the fact thatspiritua l generation throu gh the Word of God conforms to thegreat biological law stated with such emphatic iteration in thefirst chapter of Genesis, nam ely; that the life imparted is thesame in kind as that of its source, all the characteristics ofthe latt er being reproduced in it Emphasis is laid on the fact



54 The Fundamentals

that the seed is incorruptible, and that the Word, which is its

source, is eternal. Moreover, a s in John's Gospel, the new,incorruptible, and ,eternal life, which proceeds from spiritualconception by the Word of God, i s put into direct contrastwith the natural life or fle sh. For, continues the ApostlePeter, all fle sh i s a s gras s, and all the glory of man as theflower of gra ss.'' The prominent characteristic of grass is thatit withereth, and of the flower of gra ss , or of plant life, is that

it falleth away. The grass withereth, and the flower thereoffalleth away: but -in direct contrast with this- the Wordof the Lord endureth for ever. So it does, and so do all theywho are begotten of the incorruptible seed of the Word.

The passage closes with the unmistakably plain statement,''And this is the Word which, by the Gospel, is preached untoyou.

The result of spiritual generation is, of course, a spiritualinf ant - a babe. Consequently the next words of the inspiredApostle are in full keeping with, and in copfirmation of, thtruth we have been con sidering. Wherefore, laying aside allmalice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evilspeakings (which are characteristics of the old man,') asnew-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that yemay grow thereby ( 1 Peter 2 : 1, 2). We all know that it isof the fir st importance that a babe should have appropriatenourishment in order that it may grow; but this belongs to thesubject of spiritual nutrition, which will be considered later on.

Other Scriptures testify with equal clearne ss to the greatand gloriou s truth that those who are begotten o the Spirit,

through the incorruptible seed of the Word, rece~ve a natureof the same sort as that of th ~ Divine Source of th eir life. Inthe eighth chapter of Romans there is a section devoted to thesons of God, in whom the Spirit dwell s ( ver ses 9- 16) ; and

of these it is declared that God prede stinated them to be conformed to th e ima ge of His Son, that He might be the first



'

Life in the Word 55

Here the truth of likeness with the Son of God i broadly

stated. Other passages declare specific features included inthis general liken~ss. Thus 1 John 3 :9 states that whosoeveris born of God doth not commit [ or practice] sin; for His[God's] seed ren1a.ineth in him; and he cannot sin because heis born [begotten] of God. In this the children of God aremanifest. The new nature which characterizes the newcreature is one that cannot sin; and hence, when this newnature begins to manifest itself in the quickened soul, there isa struggle between its desires and those of the old nature( the flesh ); for the flesh has desires against the Spirit, andthe Spirit has desires against the flesh, and these are directlyopposed, the one to the other (Gal. 5 :17). Every one who hasbeen begotten from above knows from experience v.rhat this

struggle means.Again, in 1 John 3 :2, 3, it is stated that now , even at thepresent time, are we (believers) the sons of God, though weappear so little like it. What we shall be does not yet appear;but we know, upon the clear testimony of Scripture, that''when He shall appear we shall be like Him for we shall seeHim as He is.

These statements are so clear that it is not necessary to citeto those who believe the Word of God other passages ,vhichdeclare that spiritual procreation is according to the law re-peated nine times in Genesis 1 after his kind.

In closing this important section of our subject ( whichmight be greatly amplified if our purpose were to treat ex-

haustively the great truth of spiritual generation) it will beprofitable to notice briefly the close relation between theWritten Word and the Incarnate Word in the 1natter of theimpartation of spiritual life.

This truth brings before us the Son o ·f God in His wonder-ful and unique character of the Source of Life to a world anc.t



56 The Fundamentals

Through one man [Adam] sin entered th~ world, and death

through sin, and so death passed upon (lit. passed through to]all men ( Rom. 5 :12). Thus death entered and establishedits universal sovereignty over all men. Such expressions asdeath reigned, sin reigned unto death (Rom. 5 :14, 17,

21), state a fact whereof the evidences meet our eye whicheverway we look.

Therefore, after Adam's transgres sion and the ruin

wrought by it, the most urgent need of the world was LIFE.To this end the Son of God became a partaker of flesh andblood, that through death He 1night de st roy him who had thepower of death, that is the devil (Heb. 2 :14 ). I am come,He said, that they might have Zif (John 10 :10).

In the Gospel by John, the first thing asserted of Him, afterse tting forth His eternal Deity, and His mighty . work asCreator, i s the significant statement, In Him was IFE(John 1 :4). This is He who cometh down from heaven andgiveth life unto the world (John 6 :33). ·

We need not cite the many passages of Scripture whichwitness to Christ as the new Source of life to a world that hadfallen under the power of death; but would call attention onlyto a few of tho se which connect Him directly with the won-derful proce ss of spiritual generation.

The very first of all prophecies, that concerning thewoman's seed (Gen. 3 :15) is thu s fulfilled in Him; and thedesignation seed , thu s at the very beginning applied to Himas coming in flesh and blood, carries with it the great promiseof a new humanity which was to spring up from and out of

Himself.Again, as the seed of Abraham, He is the inheritor ( for

Him .self and for His generations) of all the promise made toAbraham and his eed. That we might not miss the meaningof this truth, so precious to those who, throu gh faith, are thechildren of Abraham ( Gal. 3 :6), it is expressly stated as

•



Life in the Word 7

tnade. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as ofONE, And to thy SEED, wl;tich is Christ ( Gal. 3 :16).

Finally, a ·s David's seed He is the rightful eir to the kingdom, which he will establish on the earth in the com ing age. InPromise of this there are many passages such as these: I willraise up thy seed after thee , which shall be of thy sons; andI will establish his kingdom ( 1 Chron. 17: 11). Upon David,and upon his seed and upon his house, and upon his throne,shall there be peace forever fro1n the Lo rd ( 1 Kings 2 :33).I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn unto

David My servant, thy seed will I establish forever, and buildUp thy throne to all generation s ( Psa. 89 :3, 4). IIis seedshall endure forever, and his throne as th e s un before Me( Psa. 89 :36).

Thus Christ is set forth as the Seed of the woman, as theSeed of Abraham, and as the eed of David.But the great purpose of a seed, and its marvelous in

herent power , is to reproduce its kind; and the de ignation''seed'; as applied to the on of Man has thi s significance also.lie Himself take s up this great lesson when he refers to Himself as the kernel of wheat, sayi ng: Veril y, verily, I say unto

tou, Except a corn [kernel] of wheat fall into the ground anddie, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth muchfruit (John 12 :24). ·

Thus th e One who alone had a titl e to live as a man of fleshanq blood, laid that life down , submitting voluntarily to thePower of death , in order that , in stead of dwelling forever

c

alone ( as man) He-n1ight bri11g forth much fruit. Theseare Hi gen eratio ns the many sons which He brin gs into~Jory (Heb. 2: 10) , the children of whom I--e peaks sayingBehold I , and the children which God hath given me (Ileb.

2:13).

If we keep in mind the fact that the grains of wheat in the;arre aU reprodu:tions of the original see d we sha ll see ho';



58 The Fundamentals

teaches the lesson of spiritual generation. The life in thosewho have been quickened together with Christ ( Eph. 2 :5) istruly His life reproduced in them by the Holy Spirit, who isthe Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and whose law sets us freefrom the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2). We may thus say,Christ who is our life ( Col. 3 :4) ; and as this new life un

fold s itself in the being of the believer, and manifests thecharacteristics of the One who is its source, the former is ablealso to say, For me to live is Christ'' ( Phi l. 1 :21).

Whether, therefore, we are regarding the Written Wordor the Incarnate · Word, it is true ( as has been well said) that

the Word is the whole matter or substance of what God hasrevealed; but it is also true that any portion of that matter orsubstance which enters into a human heart, and which, as a

seed, germinates and performs there the stupendo us miracle ofreproduction, is also the Word, imparting life · after hi s kind''-life incorruptible and everlasting as the Word itself.

Thus, in the highe st sense of which we can take knowledge,the Word of God is a Word of Life -living and reproducingits kind; and thus is being fulfilled the promise to Him whodied that we might live, of Whom it was said of old, He shall

see His seed He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure ofthe Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travailof His soul and sha ll be satisfied (Isa. 53 :10, 11).

The believer, too, may say with David, As for me, I wiU

behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, whenawake, with Thy likeness (Psa. 17 :15). That will be glor1£or us; but, what is more important, it will be glory also fof

Him.XI. THE LIFE -SUSTAINING WORD

The life possessed by human beings is not only a derive.dlife, that is, a life obtained from an external source, but it 19

a dependent life, requiring continual sustenance. It must t e

sustained by constant and suitable nutrition received into the



Life frt the i vord 59

and indeed his very existence in the body, are dependent on

food, and this food itself must be organic matter, that is to say,matter which has once been living. The fact of this dependence upon food, and upon food which man is utterly unable totnake for himself out of inorganic matter, though all thematerials are within his reach, should teach him a lesson inhurnility; but it seems not to have that effect.

We say that man is utterly unable to produce food-stuffthough all the materials whereof it is composed are abundantlyat hanq. This is a pertinent and obvious fact, though oneWhereof little account is taken. God has imparted to the lowlyPlant the ministry of supplying food to all the animal creation,and has taught to it, and to it alone, the marvelous secret ofconverting the minerals of the earth and air-inert, lifelesselements, utterly incapable of furnishing nourishment toanimals or man--into living ti~sue, endowed with the propertyof nourishing living creatures higher in the scale of life. Hecauseth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for theservice of man; that he may bring forth food out of the earth(Ps.a. 104 :14).n· The humble vegetable organism knows how to extract the

~trogen from the earth, and the carbon from the carbondioJ<:iden the atmosphere, and to combine these, in exactly the~toper proportions, with the oxygen and hydrogen in water,a?d with traces of lime and other elements, forming with theatd of heat and light from the sun, living tissue, suitable andllecessary for food. This wonderful operation of chemical?nthesis is carried on by the modest vegetable so unostenta

t~0Usly s to attract little notice; and though it has been undere observation of inquisitive and imitative man for thousands

;: Years he has not the faintest notion of how it is done. Allt e learning and skill of all the chemists in the world, with thea:sources of all the laborat ories in the world, coul? n~t ~roduce

ounce of food, though the elements out of which t s madet3<:



60 The undamentals

But God, having imparted physical life to His creatures,

has also made amp le provision for the maintenance of that life,by supplying through the inscrutable syn~hesis carried on unceasingly by the vegetable 1.<:ingdom, bundant food, capable,when taken into the body and properly assimilated, of supp ly-

'ing the waste that is constantly in progress in every part of thebody, and of maintaining the strength thereof.

Furthermore, if the conversion of minerals into food-stuff

by the m.embers of the vegetable kingdom is a process displaying the marvelous wisdom of God, the proce ss of digestionand nutrition is not less so. Nothing could be more improbablethan that food, taken into the body by way of the mouth,should, without any attention or supervision from the tenant ofthat body, be digested, the valuable parts separated from theworthless, the latter discharg ed from the body, t}:le formerconverted into tis sue, muscle; bone, sinew, nerve-cell, bloodcorpuscle, hair, nail s, etc., and distributed automaticallYthroughout the body, each to the place requiring it, and all illdue proportion.

·

In this we have again a process far transcending the coftlprehension of the most learn ed men, who must eat and benourished like other men, and who are equally ignorant of thtprocess whereby their lives are sustained, and whereby the1gain the strength which they use to deny God and glorif1man.

Men boa st in these days of their ''independence, and maken1uch of self-reliance.'' But this is the height of presutnP'tuous folly; for man is a mo st he lples sly dependent creature,

not even able, like the pla n t, to prepare his own food from tbtmineral elements, but dependent daily upon living creaturesn1uch lower than him self in the sca le of being. And so f31

from having a basis for self-reliance, he doe s not know howto conduct the simplest of the vital processes of his own bodY.If hi s Crea tor, of whom principally man love s to fancy himselfi d d h ld hi h i f h l



Life in · the Word 61

of those essential processes £or the briefest time, the poorcreature would miserably perish.

As with the physical life, so is it with the spiritual life ofthose who have been begott en a ga in of the incorruptible seed of

he Word. The se spiritual beings require appropriate food ;and God has abundantly provided for this need. In studyinghe important subject of sp iri tual nutrition we shall learn againhe relation between Christ, the Incarnate Word, and tne

Written Word. Both are spoken of repeatedly as food for thechildren of God.The third, fourth and fifth chapters of the Gospel by John

reat of the imparting of eternal life as the free gift of Godhrough Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to all who believe on

B:im; and the sixth chapter treats of spiritual nutrition.Therein, after feeding the multitude miraculously, thus show

ng Himself as the one by whose power food is multiplied inhe earth, He reveals Himself as the Bread of Life. Twicelie says, I am that bread of life ( verses 35 and 48) and inrerse 33, For the bread of God is He which cometh downfrom heaven, and giveth life unto the world. He Who giveshe life is the One who also sustains it. Again He says, Iam the living bread which came down from heaven (verseSI). And of I-Iis words He says, It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the wo rds that I speak untoYou, they are spirit, and they are life (verse 63). '

These sayings to the natural mind are, of course, mean --

•nglcss; but they are addressed to faith. How can this man&ive us His flesh to eat? is the question which the unbelieving

heart asks. How Christ can impart Himself to sustain the'inner man is a question to which no answer can now be had.the process is incomprehensible to man. But we have seen

that the process of physical nutrition is equally beyond humancomprehension and contrary to all a priori probabilities.

Looking more particularly at what is said in this connectionh k d f d f d h



6 The undamentals

the Word 0£ God is living in the sense that, like other livingsubstance, it has the property of furnishing nutrition, andthereby sustaining life. It is a life-sustaining Word. But herea notable difference attracts our attention. Physical foodcomes up out of the earth ( Psa. 104 :14), while spiritual foodcomes down out of heaven. (John 6:50.)

Reference has already been made to the fact that, aftersetting forth the great truth of spiritual conception and generation through the incorruptible seed of the Word of God,the Apostle Peter enjoin s attention to spiritual nutrition,Wherefore, he says, as new -born babes desire the sincere

milk of the word that ye may grow thereby (1 Peter :1, 2)·Evidently his Lord's threefold injunction, Feed My sheep,''Feed My lambs, had impressed upon him the importance of

spiritual nutrition. But proper feeding requires appetite for

wholesome food, and so he seeks to excite a desire in youngChristians for that whereby they may grow. And he imme'diately connects the Word with Christ saying, If so be yehave .ta sted that the Lord is gracious.

The importance of nourishing and sustaining the new tifereceived upon coming to Christ, and the unhappy consequenceswhich alway s resnlt from neglect of the appropriate diet, have

been so of ten and so forcibly stated by the servants of Christthat it seems hardly necessary to dwell upon this matter,What our subject specially calls for i s to note the correspondence between God's way of sustaining man's physical Iife bYfood derived from a living source, and ·His way of sustainingthe believer's spiritual Hfe by food from a living source, thatis to say from the living Word. ·

The passages which present the Word of God as the foodfor His children are ,very familiar; and in bringing them to

mind again we would impress it' upon our readers that thesestatements a re not to be taken as if they were poetical or

,figurative, but as very literal, practical and immensely irtlportant In making man it was not God's plan that he should



64 The ·Fundamentals

him in his most difficult and trying ministry, from whicli; be-cause of his timid and sensitive disposition, he shrank back inagony of soul. To be a good and effective minister of Christit is necessary that one be well nourished through partakinglargely of the abundant spiritual food which the living Wordsupplies. Thus Paul admonished his child in the faith, Tim-othy, to whom he wrote, ''If thou put the brethren in re-membrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of

Jesus Christ, nourished ,up in the words of faith and of good

doctrine ( 1 Tim. 4 :6).

One practical point with reference to the process of nu-trition should be noted. While the living creature cannot com-prehend the process, and has no part whatever in supervisingit, or carrying it on, and while he is therefore not responsiblefor the results, the process cannot be carried on unless he takes

the food into his being and properly masticates it. Therefore,up to the point of swallowing the food, the living being is re-sponsible, and his volition is exercised. After that the processpasses beyond his knowledge and control. Food may be ofthe best quality, and may be in greate~t abundance, but itimparts no nourishment while it remains in the pantry, or onthe table.

In like manner the responsibility is with the child of Godto partake of the spiritual food so plentifully provided, and tomeditate therein day and night ( Psa. 1 :2). Meditation uponwhat is read is to spiritual nutrition what mastication is tophysical nutrition; and it takes time. The result, however, isample compensation for tin1e so occupied, for we read of him

who observes this simple rule of spiritual dietation that Heshall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that bririgethforth his · fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither;and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper'' ( Psa. 3). It meansa fruitful life, a vigorous and healthful life, and a prosperouslife.



ife in the Word 65

These results are just as sure to follow obedience to thelaws of spiritual diet as physical nutrition is to follow attention

to the proper reception of material food; and the contrary results are just as sure to follow neglect of those law s in the onecase as in the other. The . natural mind would be likely to demand an explanation; but faith does not require to know theprocess, it being sufficient to hear the command. If one refusedto partake of his natural food until in structed as to the processof digestion he would starve. In each case the process in·scrutable, but the fact is certain.

XII. THE LIFE-TRANSFORMING WORD

FEEDING upon the Word of God, the bread of life, mustnecessarily be beneficial to the whole man, including hi intellectual and physical being as well as his sp iritual.

Much deference is paid in these days to the powers of themind. Intellectual prowess is what wins the victories in thefierce commercial struggle of the times. Business men are, ofcourse, keen to take advantage of this condition, as may beseen by the many and costly advertisements of brain food ;and many millions of dollars are annually acquired by theshrewd exploiters of these preparations. This, of course, could

not be unless there were multitudes who give heed to theassurance that, by the use of the adverti sed article ~it is possibleto produce a new set of brains. ·

The Bible doe s not speak of a new set of brains , but it doessay to believers, Be renewed in the spirit of your mind (Eph.4 :23), and , Be not conformed to this world [or age], butbe ye transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom.

12 :2). The new man requires a new mind, and provi sion istnade to that end. The old mind, with all its habi ts of selfoccupation ( a sure breeder of unhappiness and discontent),its morbid tendencie s, it s craving for excitement and sensatio n,its imaginations, appetites, tast es, inclinations and desires, andevery high thing that exalteth it self against the k nowled ge of



The undamentals

God, is to be displaced, and a new mind substituted ; for godliness has the promise of the vigor of the life that n9w is, as

well as of that which is to come.How, then, is this injunction to be carried out? It is of

importance to millions of anxious souls to have a clear answerto this question. And it may be had. The every-day incidentsand the atmosphere am;--' which the average man and womanspend their time are such as to produce mental disturbancesand disorders to an extent which, if understood, and if any

thing could impress this thoughtless and excited age, wouldcreate wide-spread alarm. It was stated recently that therewere twenty-eight thousand inmates of the insane asylums ofNew York State (a single state of the Union) prior to October,1907, and that in six months following the industrial convulsionof that month the number of inmates was increased by threethousand. The startling increase in the number of sucidesadds its forcible testimony; and the frequency with whichone encounters cases of mental depression, insomnia, melancholia, and other nervous disorders, tells of wide-spread andinsidious foes which attack the seat of reason, and which callfor methods and means of defense and repair which are ·be - .yond the resources of medicine.

The writer knows by experience · he indescribable horrorsof depressed and morbid mental states, and knows, too, what atran sfo rmation is effected by the renewing of the mindaccordi ng to the Biblical injunction. Full provision is madefor thi s marvelous transformation, and the conditions whereinit is effected are plainly set forth and are accessible to everybeliever.

In this case the study of the word used in the command( be transformed ) will make us acquainted with the conditi ons esse ntial to the tran sforma tion. The word in questionseems to have been set apart by the Holy Spirit for the purposeof teach ing the important and wonderful secret of the transfo rmati on of the be lieve r, during hi s ex istence in the body, into



Life n the Word 7

the likeness of Christ; so that all believers might be able tosay with Paul, vVe have the mind of Christ.

It will, therefore, surely repay the reader to note carefullythe usages of this particular word. Its first occurrence is inthe Gospel narratives of tqe Transfiguration of Jesus Christ,and is in fact the very word there translated transfigured( Matt. 17 :2; Mark 9 :2). The word is literally metamorphosed. His face did shine as the sun, and I-Iis raiment waswhite as the 1ight. This may well serve to teach the nature

of the change contemplated. It is one that brings the radianceof heaven into the mind and tinges even the commonplacethings with glow of heavenly light.

The next occurrence of the word is, as we have alreadyseen, in Romans 12 :2, where believers are enjoined to be notcut out on the pattern of this age, but to be metamorphosed ortran sfigured by the renewing of their n1inds.

The third and last occurrence of the word tells us plainlyhow this great tran sfo rmation is brought about. For the Bibleis a very prac tical book. It comes, moreov er, fron1 One Whounder stands perfectly the Ii1nitations of man, '\i\Tho knows an ddeclares that the latter is, in his natural sta te, withoutstrength, that is to say, utterl y impotent (R01n. 5 :6). vVetnay be sure , therefore, that when God calls upon the quickenedsou l to do a thing, He puts the means required for it withinBis reach. And so, in these plain words we read the conditions requisite for effecting the desired tran sfor,.na tion: vVeall, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory ofthe Lord, are changed into the same image from glory toglory , eve n as py he Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3 :18).

The word here translated are changed is the same word( metamorphosed or transfigured) used in the other passage scited; and these are . the only occurrences of that word in theBible.

The teaching is very clear. When the Jews read the Wordof God a veil is over their hearts, their minds being blinded



68 The F u,ndamentals

(verse 14). Or, as stated in Romans 11 :25, blindness in partis happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come

in. Hence, they do not behold there Him of whom theScriptures testify. But, for us who believe, the veil is doneaway in Christ, and consequently, all we beholding are trans ..figured into the same image by the Divine and irresistibleoperation of the Holy Spirit.

If, when we look into the Word of God, we do not seeChrist there we look to no purpose, for He is everywhere inthe Book.

Let it be carefully noted that this transformation is not thework of the man who beholds Christ in the Word; for theprocess is carried on while the former is not occupied withhimself at all, or with his transformation, but is absorbed inthe contemplation of the glory of the Lord. The transforma-tion is effected by the power of the Spirit of God; and wemay learn from this passage the important lesson that occu-pation with, and concern about, the work of the Spirit in uscan only hinder that work. Let it suffice us that He Who hasbeg1itn good work in us will perform it until the day of

Christ. ( Phil. 1 :6.) Our part, and it should be also outdelight, is to be continually beholding or contemplating the

glory of the Lord; and while so doing we are changed intothe same image , and all the faster if we are unconscious ofourselves.

Let it be al so noted that the transformation is a gradualoperation, calling for steadfa stness in contemplating the Objectplaced before us by the Holy Spirit. Little by little, as ourgaze is fixed upon Him, the old traits and dispositions which

are unlike Him are replaced by His own characteristics. Thusthe work proceeds from glory to gl~ry. The conformatiotlto His image, which is God's purpose for all the sons of God(Rom. 8 :29), \Snot accomplished, as some would have it, b)'an instantaneous tran sfig uration, a conv ul sive upheaval nd

displacement of the old nature, brought about by working one's



ife in the Word 69

emotions into an ecstatic state; but is accomplished graduallyWhile the believer is continually occupied with Christ ("beholding"). There is no hysterical short-cut to the desiredresult. For Christ must be known from the Written WordUnder the tuition of the Ho ly Spirit; and the process shouldconti nue during the whole term of the believer's existence inthe body.

Thus the living Word becomes the regulator and transformer of the minds of tho se who diligently seek it. Under itsPotent influence confusion of thought, perplexities, depressedtnental states, and other hurtful conditions are dissipated, andthe serene tranquillity and repose of the mind of Christ arereproduced in those who are redeen1ed by His precious blood.

We are passing through the domain of death, the count ry

of the last enemy that is to be destroyed, and who ha~ put allthings in this scene under his feet ( 1 Cor. 15 :26, 27). Onevery hand our eyes meet the unmistakable evidences of thesupreme sovereignty of death. But in this domain of deaththere is a Living Word-a Living Word in a dying world.he forces of corruption and decay cannot fas ten upon it, and

1t laugh s at the attacks of its enemies.

But that Word is here, not merely to manifest life, butrather to impart life to those who are perishing, and to bringthem into vital contact with the new Life-Source of humanity,the Son of God, the Second Man, the Lord from Heaven,Who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive forevermore,and has the keys of death and of Hades ( 1 Cor. 15 :47; Rev.l :18). He, as Man, has crossed the gulf between the realmof death ,and that of life. To that end He became "a partakerof flesh and blood," not to improve flesh and blood, but in

rder that ''through death He might destroy him that had the{)ower of death, that is, the devil ; and deliver them whothrough fear of death were all their lifetime subject tobondage" (Heb. 2 :14, 15). Hav ing Himself crossed. that gulf



7 The F itndamenta ls

IIe is the Way of life to all who believe on Him, who, havingheard His Word - the Word of life- .have likewise passed outof death into life (John S :24).

This is the wonderful provision of God for 'the deliveranceof dying men. In order that they might not die, and becauseGod wills not that any should ?erish (2 Peter 3 :9 , He hassent into thi s dying world a W v

4 d of Life. For God is not theGod of the dead, but of the living ( Matt. 22 :32).

In comparison with the provision of divine wisdom, powerand grace, from the God who quickerieth the dead ( Rortl·4 :17 ) , how pi tifully foolish and vain are all human schemesfor the bett ermen t , reform and cultivation of that old man whohas fallen under the sovereignty of death I Men are very in-genious, but none has yet brought forward a scheme forabolishing or escaping dea th, or for raising the dead. With

out that, of what avail are plan s of improvement? And whatend do they serve but to blind 1nen's minds to the truth thatthe y are dead, and so are bey ond all but the power of a Godwho rai ses the dead? Sur ely these schemes are the 1nost succe ss ful devices of the god of thi s age.

What men need is not 111orality, but Ii£e; not to makedeath re spectable, but to receive the gift of eternal life; not

decent interment, but a pathway out of the realm of death,1<1:ay men have brought forward their schemes for the up-'lift of hu1nanity ( though the results thereof are not yet discernible) ; but there is on ly One Man who tnakes, or ever1nade, the offer of eternal life. None other has ever sai d, ''la1n the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth on Methough he were dead yet hall he live. And whosoever }ivetb

and believeth on Me sha ll never die (John 11 :25, 26 ). ffeonly claims to be the Fountain of Living Waters (Jer. 2 :13;John 4 :14; 7 :37), and says to all who are suffering the thirst0£ death, Come unto Me and drink (John .7:37).

Therefore, in concluding the e reflections upon the Living'vVord, we obey the comn1and, Le t him that heareth s_a.J,



ife in the TtVord 71

Come, and would lovingly repeat the last invitation of gracerecorded in the Word of Life:

LET HIM THAT IS ATHIRST COME.AND WHOSOEVER WILL,

LET HIM TAKETHE WATER OF LIFE

FREELY.(Rev. 22 :17.)

I



..

C HAP TE R II

THE S CRIPTUR E S

BY RE V. A . C. DIXON, D. D. ,

P A STOR O F T HE M ETROPOLIT AN TA BE R N A CL E CH U RCH,

L O ND ON , E NG L AN D

When our Lord said, Search the Scripture s, every Jewto whom He spoke knew what He meant. There were otherwritings in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but the Scriptures werea body of writings marked off from all others by their sacred-ne ss and authority a s the Word ·of God. Their history can betraced from the time of 11o ses to Christ. In Exodus 7 14we read: And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a

memorial in a .book, and rehear se it in the ears of Joshua.''As to the writing material Mo ses u sed we do not know, but wedo know that in Egypt papyru s plant, linen and cotton cloth,the skin s of a n imal s an d s tone were u sed in making books ofvariou s ki n ds. The Ten C om mandment s were written ontables of ston e, and with E gyptian mummies we have preservedeven to thi s day cotton and linen cloth such as was frequently

u sed f or wr iting.In Deu t eronomy 31 :9 we have the historic record of the

fact that 1'Io ses obeyed the command of God: And Moseswrote thi s law and delivered it unto the priest s, the sons ofLevi, which bare the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord/' Andin ver se 2 4 : It came to pa ss when Mo ses had made an endof writing the word s of this law in a book, until they were

fini shed, that ~lo ses commanded the Levite s which bare theArk of the Covenant of th e Lord , saying, Take this book ofthe law and put it in the side o f the Ark of the Covenant of.the Lo r d your God. Th e ho ok w as fini shed and placed by theside of the Ark for safe kee ping .

72



The Scriptures 73

In Joshua 1 :8 we read: This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and

night, that thou 1nayest observe to do according to all that iswritten therein; for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous,and then thou shalt have good success. Now that the pillarof fire by night and of cloud by day has departed, the Book isto be the guide of Israel and their religion is to be to a largeextent a book religion. God is speaki ng to them out of the

ook of the Law.It is probable that the book which Joshua read was the

identical manuscript which Moses wrote in the wilderness .. There may have been copies 1nade ,of it, but we have no record

of the fact. Frequent mention of it is made through the booksof the Bible. The san1e book, or a copy of it, appears againa thou sa nd years afterward under the reign of Josiah, as welearn from 2 Kings 22 :8: And Hilkiah the high priest saidunto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law inthe hou se of the Lord. And I-Iilkiah gave the book to Sha-phan and he read it. .

In Ezra we find it again in the hands of the prophet onthe pulpit of wood in the open air, reading it and making itsmeaning plain unto the people. From these and other Scriptures three inference s may be fairly drawn:

1 The Bible is literature 'Written by the co nmand of God.l-Ie certainly commanded Moses to write the book of the law.To John on the Isle of Patinas a great voice as of a trumpetsaid, What thou seest write in a book, and send it unto theseven churches. And before the vision vanishes he is commanded to Write the things which thou hast seen, and the

thin g which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.Be is to write history , current events and predictions; andmuch of the the Scriptures may be clas sified under thesethree head s.

2. The Bible is literature written by the command of God,and under the guidance of God. In Peter 1 :21 we read: No



74 The Ft:t ndamentals

prophecy ever came by the will of 1nan, but man spake fromGod, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

3. The Bib le is literature written by the command of God,under the guidance of God, and pr eser v ed y the pro vid entialcare of God. Moses commanded that the book of the lawshould be placed by the side of the Ark . No safer pla ce couldha ve been found, and the more I study the history of the Biblethe more profoundly an1 I convinced that God has kept Hisbook by the sjde of some ark all through the ages. As theChurch has been under Hi care and protection, so has theBook.

It is not diffi cult for n1e to believe that the manuscrivt ,which Hilkiah found in the Te1np1e was the identical bookwhich Mose s wrote in the wil Jerne ss, and that this very manuscript was in the hands of Ezra on the pulpit of wood as hepreached in the open air. It is only one thou sand year fromJo shua to Jo iah and only one hundred and seventy -five yearsfrom Jo siah to E zra. There are now in our lib rarie s s cores ofmanuscript s which we know to be over a thousand years old,and two or three which have certainly been pre er ved morethan fourteen hundred year s. With the kindly oriental climateand the care whi ch the Jewi sh reverence for the book wouldnaturally lead the1n to have, it is not at all improbable that themanuscript of Mo ses should have been preserved for more thana thousand years. And the history of the Bible from the timeof Christ to the present confirms the proposition that it hasbeen preserved by the providential care of God.

Let us now look at the Scriptures in their own light. InJohn 5 :39 Je su aid: . Search the Scriptures, for in then1 yethink ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify ofMe. And in 2 Ti1nothy 3 :16 we read, All Scripture is Godbreathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for in ·truction in righteousness, that the man of God

,111ay be complete , thoroughly furnfahed unto all good works .''In these Sc riptur es are four things:



''The Scriptures 7

I. A BIBLICAL . DEFINITION OF THE BIBLE

The phras e, the Scriptures, suggests a synthetic definitionof the Bible. There were other writings, but these were thewritings. They had th~m in the Hebrew tongue, and also atranslation into the Greek, known as the Septuagint, madenearly three hundred years before Chris t. But it takes oursecond Scripture to con1plete this definition of the Bible Every Scripture is God-breathed. A noted scholar has taken

th e pains to collate the texts in the New Testament where thisGreek idiom occurs, and he declares that the l(ing James version, and not the ~evi sed, is the correc t translation, and several eminent scho la_r on the Committee of Revision agreedwith him. All Scripture is God-breathed is evidently whatthe Holy Spirit meant to write. f course, the writers wereinspired. The Ho ly Ghost spake by the mouth of David

(Acts 1 :16). The word of tl)e Lord came expressly untoEzekiel (Ezek. 1 :3). But the writings as well as the writerswere inspired, becau se all Scripture is God-breathed. God,who breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul, has al so breathed into Hi Book the breath f life ,so that it is the Word of God which liveth and abide th forever.

There are 1nany writers, but one Author. The se writerswere not automaton s. Each one shows his own style and personality which the IIoly Spirit uses.

II. A BIBLICAL USE OF THE BIBLE

It is four-fold: Profitab le for doctrine, for reproo f, for

correction, for instruction in righteou sness . Doctrine'' ir theteaching, not of the man as he may express his opinion in socialconverse, but of the ambassador who carries with him theweight of his government's authority; and in the Eible we findGod~ ofncial proclamation of love, pardon, cleansing, righteousness and peace.



76 The Fundamentals

The word reproof comes after doctrine, because it has todo with the character which doctrine makes. The Bible is

profitable not only for the doctrine which we get out of it,but it is the standard by which we try our doctrines. It provesand reprove s. t is the plumb-line that we drop by the wall tosee if it is straight. It is the yard-stick by which we measureevery creed.

The word correction means restoration and gives athought in advance of doctrine and reproof. It has in it thethought of making right what we have found to be wrong.The plumb-line may show that the wall lean s, but it cannot.straighten it. The yard-stick may reveal that the cloth is tooshort, but it cannot lengthen it. The Bible, however, not onlyshows us wherein we are wrong, but it can right us. WhenCanova saw the piece of marble which, at great expense, had

been secured for a celebrated statue, his practiced eye discovered a litt le piece of black running through it, and he rejectedit. He could discover the black, but he could not make theblack white. The Bible discovers the black and makes it white.

The fourth word, instruction, means literally child-cul~ture, and has in it all that the parent needs for the growth,development and maturing of the child. The Bible is a trainingschoo l in righteousness. Other books give training in music,rhetoric, oratory, but tr .. specia lt y of the Bible is training inrighteousness.

III . A BIBLICAL METHOD OF BIBLE STUDY

It is suggested by the two words search and profitab le.

Whatever is profitable is apt to cost labor. The worthless wecan get without effort. Hence the strength of the phrase,Search the Scriptures. It means to look through · and

through. It is the word used in the Scripture, The ~p iritsearcheth all things, yea, the deep thjngs of God. As Godsearches our hearts so let u s search th e Bible.



The Scriptures 77

The Bible unsearched is a mine unworked, the differencebetween the Klondyke years ago and the Klondyke · enriching

its industrious owners today. To learn the Word of God re-quires diligent and persistent searching . A man who died inan English almshouse severa l years ago gave to his relativesan unproductive piece of lan d, so worthless that he did nothave to pay taxes on it. The relatives searched it, and as a re -sult they are today 1nillionaires. The pauper was rich with-out knowing it, and he was ignorant of the fact because he did

not search his possessions.Every Christian with the Bible in hand is rich whether he

knows it or not. Let hin1 search and find hidden t reasures.This search implies sight and lig~t. There is need o spiritua ldiscernment. The natural man discerneth not the things o

God.'' And hence the need of inspiration which comes fromtrusting the Holy Spirit as the Revealer of Truth. WhenGalileo turned his little telescope to the heavens, he foundthat he really had a new pair of eyes. He could no w s ee the1nountains of the moon, the sa tellit es of Neptune, and the ringaround Saturn. So we read the Bible in the light of the Bible,and as more light c01nes, better sight is imparted; wh ile, onthe other hand, as better sight is imparted, 1nore ligh t is re-vealed.

The Chri stian with spiritual discernment can a ffo rd tosearch the Scriptures'' with the Holy Spi r it a lon e as his

guide. Con1mentaries are good, but not good a s ubs titutesfor independent search. When Alexander the G re at stoodbefore Diogenes a s he sat by his tub, the general as ked thephilosopher what he could do for him. The rather gri 1n reply

was, Simply get out of my light. And any sear cher has aright to say Get out of my light to every one who se shadowcomes between him and the Truth.

Any method of searching is good, though some may bebetter than others. The grasshopper method by which wetake a word or subject and jump from one place to another,



78 The undamentals

collating the texts which have the word or subject in them, isnot to be despised. God shook the world through Dwight L.

Moody, who was fond of this method. I have learned to lovewhat, for lack of a better word, I call the sectional method, ywhich one begins at a certain place and goe s through paragraph, chapter or book, gathering and classifying everythought. It reminds one of Mr. Spurgeon's say ing suggestedby the worm -eaten Bible which he found on the table of aScot tish wayside inn. Ho lding it up to the light, he noticedonly one hole through which the light shone. One worm, itseem s, had begun at Genesis and eaten through to Revelation,and Spurgeon prayed, Lord, make me a book-worm like that.Such a book~worm never turns in to an earth-worm. It willhave wings by and by.

But whatever be your method, do not fail to read the Bibleby books. Read Genesis at a sitting. You can do it in lessthan three hours. Then take Exo dus; then Leviticus, and soon thr oug h the whole library of sixty-s ix volume s. The astron,.01ne r should look at the heavens as a whole before he takesto his telescope. The botanist should look at the fields andgardens before he takes to his microscope. If you have notre ad the Scriptures, a book at a sitting, you may take it for

grant ed that you do not know your Bib le.A study of words yields a rich harvest of kn owledg e andble ss ing.

L uther sai d that he studied the Bible as he gathered apples.First, he shook th e whole tree, that the ripest might fall. Then

.he climbed the tree and shook each limb, and when he hadshaken each limb, he shoo k each branch, and after each branch

every twig, and then looked under each leaf. Let u s searchthe Bible as a who le; shake the whole tree ; read it as rapidlyas you wou ld any other book; then shake every limb, studyingbook after book. Then shake every branch, giving attentionto the chapters when they do not break the sense. Then shakeevery twig by careful study of the paragraphs and sentences,



''The Scriptures 9

and you will be rewarded, if you will look under every leaf,by ·searching the meaning of words.

IV. A BIBLICAL MOTIVE FOR BIBLE STUDY

This is two-fold:1 That we may have right thinking about eternal life.

''In them ye think ye have eternal life. In Christ we haveeternal hfe, but in the Sc rip tures is our thinking about it. Wehave the blessedness of the man whose delight is in the law

of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night.My arch of salvation rests upon two pillars. The first pillaris what Christ did for me, and that is always the same length.Tiine was when the second pillar was assurance of salvationthr ough my feelings. If I felt well and happy, that pillar wasof the righ t length, and seemed solid enough, but when depres sed feelings came , the pillar seemed shorter and threatened the arch. One day, however, I read 1 John 5 :13: Thesething s have I written un to you that believe on the name of theSon of God, that ye n1ay k no w that ye have eternal life.'' AndI sa w that I was expected to trust the Scriptures and not myfeelings for as su rance. Fro m that day the pillar of assurancehas been all the time of the same len gth , for God's Word never

changes. Feelings may come and go, but I keep on believingthe promise. I think I have eternal life, not because I feel soand so, but because God says so . Now the pillar of Chrisf stnerit and the pillar of I-Iis promi se are of the sa1ne length, and~he ar ch of sa lvation is no longer thre a ten ed by changi ng feeling s.

2. That we may lea rn of Jesu s. They are they which

te st ify of Me. Few things are n1ore intere sting and noneltlore profitable than tracing the Messianic idea through theBible. It begins with t h e cur se u po n the serpen t in Genesis,and closes w ith t he Lamb a it had be en slain in the midstof the th ro ne in Revel ation. In Chri sti an character the i1nageof Christ is marred by imp ·erfecti ons, but in t he Scriptures th e



80 The undamentals

portrait is per£ ect. A friend described to me a painting whichhung on the wall of his poyhood home. When you first saw it,

it was a beautiful land scape with trees, streams, houses andpeople, but, while gazing upon it, all these beautiful things be .gan to form into a human face. On a closer inspection youperceived that the whole picture was intended to give the faceof Christ. The devout student of the Scriptures is constantlyhaving experiences like this. He sees in the Bible trees offaithfulness, streams of truth, landscapes of loveliness in deedand character, but they are all so arranged in their relation toChrist as to · bring out the features of His character. Whilewe thus see Him as He is, we become more and more likeHim, until by and by we shall see His unveiled face and e

completely transforn1ed into His likeness. Search the Scrip-tures for a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ.



CHAP TE R III

THE CERTAINTY A ND I MPORTANCE OF THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS C I-IRIST

FROM T H E DEAD

BY REV. R. A. TORRE Y, D. D.

(Copyrigh te d by R. A. T orr ey in Gr eat B rit ain and Ameri ca aud pu blish ed

h erewith by p ermiss ion.

The re surrection of Je sus Christ from the dead is the corner-stone of Christian doctrine. It i s mention ed directly onehundred and four or more time s in the New Te stament. It

as the most promin ent and cardinal point in the apostolictestimony. When th e apo stolic company , after the apo stasyof Judas I scariot, felt it nece ssary to complete their numberagain by the addition of one to take the place of Juda s Iscariot,it was in order that he might be a witne ss with us of Hisresurrection (Act s 1 :21 , 22). The re surrection of JesusChri st was the one point that Peter empha sized in hi s greatsermon on the Day of Penteco st. Hi whole sermon centered in that fact. It s key -note wa s, Thi s Je us hath God

raised up, whereof we all are witne sses ( Act s 2 :32 , cf. vs.24 .31) . When the Apo stle s were filled again with the HolySpirit some day s later , the one central re sult wa s that withgreat power gave the Apo stles witness of th e re s.iwr ec tion ofthe Lord I esus. The central doctrine that the Apo stle Paul ·Preached to the Epicurean and Stoic philosopher s on Mar sliiJI was Jesus and th e r esu r rectio n . (Act s 17 =18 cf. Act s

23 :6; 1 Cor. 15 :15.) The re surrection of Je sus Ch.i st is oneof the two fundamental truth s of the Go spel the other beingliis atoning death. Paul say s in 1 Cor. 15 :1, 3, 4, Moreover ,breth,en, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached untot9u, which also ye have received ,. and wherein ye stand; For I

81



82 The Fundamentals

delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, howthat Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; Andthat He was buried, and that He rose again the third dayaccording to the Scriptures. This was the glad tidings, first,that Christ djed for our sins and made atonement; and second,that He rose again. The crucifixion loses its meaning witho utthe resurrection. Without the resurrect ion, the death ofChrist was only the he roic death of a noble 1nartyr. Wit hthe resurrection, it is the atoning death of the Son of God . Itshows that death to be of sufficient value to cover all our sins,for it was the sacrific e -0£ the Son of God. In it we have anall-sufficient ground for knowing that the black est sin isatoned for. Di sprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ andChristian faith i vain. If Christ be not risen, cries Paul,''then is our preaching vain and your faith i s also vain ( Cor,

15 :14). And later he adds, If Christ be not ri sen, yourfaith i s vain. ' ou are yet in your sin s. Paul, as the conte){tclearly shows, is talking about the bodily resurrection of JesusChri st. The doctrine of the re surrection of Je sus Christ is theone doctrine that has power to sa ve any one who believes itwith the heart. As we read in Rom. 10 :9, If th ou sha lt cowfes s with thy mouth th e Lord Je sus, and shalt believe in thine

heart that God hath raised I- i1n from the d ead , thou shalt besaved. To know the power of Chri st 's resurrection is oveof the highest a1nbiti ons of the intelli ge nt believer, to attainwh ich he sacrific es all thing s and count s them but refu e (Phi l,3:8-10 R . V.).

While the lit era l bodily resurrection of Jesus Chri t is thecorner-stone of Christian doctrine, it is al so the Gibraltar ofChristian ·evidence, and the Waterloo of infidelity and rationalism. If the Scriptural a sse rtions of Christ's resurrection cat1be established as hi storic certainties, the claims and doctrinesof ·Chri stianity rest upon an impregnable foundation. On tbeother hand, if the re surrection of Jesu Christ from the deadcannot be e tabli shed Chri stianity must go It was a u1 1



The Resurrection of esus h ist 83

instinct that led a leading and brilliant agnostic in Englandto say, that there is no u se wasting time discussing the othermiracles. The essential question is, Did Jesus Christ rise fromthe dead? adding, that if I-Ie did , it was easy enough to believe the other miracles; but, if not, the other miracles must go.

Are the statements contained in the four Gospels regardingthe resurrection of Jesus Christ statements of fact or are theyfiction, fables, myths? There are three separate lines of proof

that the statements contained in the four Gospels regardingthe resurrection of Jesus Chri st are exact statements of historic fact.

I THE EXTE RNAL EVIDENCE OF THE AUTHENTICITYAND TRUTHFULNESS OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE S

Th is i s an altogether satisfactory argument. The external

proofs of the authenticity and truthfulnes s of the Gospel narratives are overwhelming, but the argmnent is long and intricate and it would take a volume to discuss it sa ti sfactorily.The other ar gument s are so completely sufficient and overwhelming and convincing to a candid n1ind that we can dowithout thi s, good as it i in its place.

The next argument is from-

II. THE INTERNAL PROOFS OF THE TRUTHFULNESSOF THE GOSPEL RECORDS

This argu1nent is thoroughly conclu sive, and we sha ll stateit briefly in the pages which follow. We sha ll n ot as su n1e anything whatever. We shall not assume that the four Gospel

records are true hi tory; we shall not assume that the fourGo pe ls were written by the n1en whose name s they bear,tho ugh it could be easily proven that they were; we sha ll noteven assume that they were written in the century in whichJesus is alleged to have lived and died and risen again, nor inthe next century, nor in the next. We will a u1ne ab so lutely



84 The Fundamentals

to be a fact, namely, that we have the four Gospels today,whoever wrote them and whenever they were written. Weshall p1ace these four Gospels side by side, and see if we candiscern in them the marks of truth or of fiction.

1. The fir st thing that strikes us as we compare theseGospels one with another is that they are four separate andindependent accounts This appears plainly from the apparent discrepancies in the four different accounts. Theseapparent discrepancies are marked and many. It would havebeen impo ssible for the se four accounts to have been made upin collu sion with one another, or to have been derived fromone another and so many and so marked discrepancies to befound in them. There is harmony between the four accounts,but the hai-mony does not lie upon the surface; it comes outonly by protracted and thorough study. It is precisely such

a harmony as would exist between accounts written or relatedby several different persons, each looking at the events recorded from his own standpoint. It is precisely such a harmony a s would not exi st in four accounts manufactured incollusion, or derived one from the other. In four accountsmanufactured in collusion , whatever of harmony there mightbe would appear on the surface . . Whatever discrepancy there

might be would only c ome out by minute and careful study.But with the four Gospels the case is just the opposite. Harmony comes out y minute and careful study, and the apparentdiscrepancy lies upon the surface. Whether true or false,these four accounts are separate and independent from oneanother. The four accounts also supplement one another, thethird account sometimes reconciling apparent discrepanciesbetween two.)

The se accounts must be ,either a record of facts that actu ..ally ~ccurred or else fictions. If fictions, they must have beenfabricated in one of two ways-either independently of one another, or in collusion with one another. They cannot havebeen fabricated independently of one another; the agreements



The Resurrection of Jesus Christ 85

are too 1narked and too many. It is absolutely incredible thatfour persons sitting down to write an account of what neveroccurred independently of one another should have madetheir stories agree to the extent that these do. On the otherhand, ' they cannot have 'been made up, as we have already seen,in collusion with one another; the apparent discrepancies aretoo numerous and too noticeable. It i s proven they werenot made up independently of one another; it is proven they

were not made up in collusion with one another, so we aredriven to the conclusion that they were not made up at all,that they are a true r ~lation of facts as they actuall y occurred.We might re st the argument here and reasonably call th e casesettled, but we will go on still further:

2. The next thing we notice is that each of th ese ar-counts bears striking indications of having been deriv ed from

eye witnessesThe account of an eye witnes s is readily distinguishable

from the account of one who is n1erely retailing what othershave told him. Any one who is accustomed to weigh evide ncein court or in historical study soon lea r ns how to di stinguishthe report of an eye witness from mere here say evidence.Any careful st udent of the Gospel records of the resurrection

will readily detect many marks of the eye witness. Someyears ago when lecturing at an American univer sity, a gen-tleman was introduced to me as being a skeptic. I askedhim, What line of study are you pur suing? He repliedthat he was pursuing a post graduate course in hi story witha view to a professorship in history. I said, Then youknow that the account of an eye witness differs in markedrespects f ron1 the account of one who is simply telling whathe has heard from others? Yes, he replied. I nextasked, Have you care£ ully read the four Gospel accountsof the resurrection of Christ? He replied, I have. Tellme, have you not noticed clear indications that they werederived from eye witnesses? Yes he replied I have



86 The Fundamentals

been g~eatly struck by this in reading the accounts. Anyone who carefully and intelligently reads then1 will be struck

with the same fact.3. The third thing that we notice about these Gospel

narrati ves is their naturalness straight/ orwardness artless-ness and simplicity.

The accounts, it is true, have to do with the supernatural,but the accounts themselves are most natural. There is a remarka ble absence of all attempt at coloring and effect. There

is nothing but the simp le, straightforward telling of facts asthey actua lly occurred. It frequently happens that when awitne ss is o n the witne ss stand, the story he tells is soartle ss, so straightforward, so natural, there is such an entire absence of any attempt at coloring or effect that his testimony bears weight inde pende ntly of anything we may knowof the character or prev iou s history of th e witness. As welisten to his story, we say to ourselves, This man is tellingthe tru th . The weight of this kind of evidence is greatlyincrea sed and reaches pract ica l certainty when we have several independent witnesses of thi s sor t, al.I b ea rin g testimonyto the sam e essentia l fact s, bu t with varieties of detail, oneomitting wha t anoth er tells, and the third unconsciou sly

reconcili ng apparent discrepancies between the two. Thi s isthe preci se case with the four Go spe l narratives of the resur ..recti on of Christ . The Gospel writers do not seem to havereflected at all upon the n1eaning or bearing of many of thefacts which they relate. They simply tell right out whatth ey saw in all simplicity and strai ghtforwardness, leavi ngthe philosophizing to others. Dr. William Furness, the great

Unitarian scholar and critic, who certainly was not over-1nuchdi sp,osed in favor of the supernatural, says, Nothing can ex ..ceed in artle ssness and simp licity the four accounts of thefirst appearance of Jesus after l-Iis crucifixion. If thesequalities are not discernible here, we mus t despair of everbei ng able to discern them anywhere.




Suppose we should find four accounts of the battle ofMonmouth. Suppose, furthennore, that nothing decisive was

known as to the aut}:lorship of these four accounts, but, whenw laid then1 side by side, w found that they were manifestly independent accounts. We found, furthermore, striking indications that they were f ro1n eye witnesses. Wefound them all marked by that artlessness, straightforwardness and simplicity that always carries conviction; we foundthat, while apparently disagreeing in 1ninor details, theyagreed substantially in their account of the battle-eventhough we had no knowledge of the authorship or date ofthe se accounts, would we not, in the absence of any otheraccount s, say, Here is a true account of the battle of Monmouth? Now this is exactly the case with the four Gospelnarratives. Manifestly separate and independent from one

anoth er, bearing the clear n1ark s of having been derived fromeye witnesses , characterized by an unparalleled artlessness,simplicity and straightforwardness, apparently disagreeing inminor details, but in perfect agreement as to the great centralfact s related. If we are fair and hone st, if we follow thecanon s of evidence followed in court, if we follow any soundand sane law of literary and historical criticism, are we not

logically driven to say, Here is a true account of the resurrection of Jesus. Here · again we might re st our case and callthe r esurrectio n of Je sus from the dead proven, but we goon still further :

4. The next thing w notice is the Unintentional evidenceof wor ds, phrases, and accidental d etails.

It of tentimes happens that when a witness is on the stand,th e u ninte ntional evidence that he bears by words andphras es which he uses, and by accidental details which he introduce s, is 11ore convincing than his direct t esti mony, becauseit is not the testimony of the witness, but a testimony of thetrut h to itself. The Gospe l accounts ab ound in evidence ofh



The undamentals

Take, as the first instance, the fact that in all the Gospelrecords of the resurrection, we are given to understand that ·

Jesus was not at first recognized by His disciples when Heappeared to them after His resurrection, e. g.; Luke 24: 16;John 21 :4. We are not told why this was so, but if we willthink awhile over it, we will soon discover why it was so.But the Gospel narratives simply record the fact without attempting to explain it. If the stories were fictit iou s, theycertainly would never have been made up in this way, for thewriter would have see n at once the objection that would arisein the minds of tho se who did not wish to believe in Hisresurrection, that i s, that it was not really Jesus Whom .thedi sciples sa w. Why, then, i s the story told in this way? Forthe self-evident reason that the evangelists were not- makingup a story for effect, but simply recording events precisely asthey occurred. This is the way in which it occurred, thereforethis is the way in which they told it. It is not a fabricationof imaginary incident s, but an exact record of facts carefully ob serve d and accurately rec ord ed.

Take a second in stanc e: In all the Go spel record s of theappearance s of Jesus after His resurrection, there is not asingle recorded appearance to an enemy or opponent ofChri st . All His appearance s were to tho se who were alreadybelievers. Why this was so we can easily see by a littlethought, but nowhere in the Go spe ls are we told why it wasso. If the stori es had been fabricated, they certainly wouldn ever have been made up in thi s way. If the Gospels were,as some would have us believe , fabrications constructed onehundred, two hundred, or three hundred years after the al

leged events recorded, when all the actors were dead andgone and no one could gainsay any lie s told, Jesus would havebeei:i repre sented a s appearing to Caiaphas, and Annas, andPilate, and Herod, and confounding them by His re-appearancefrom the dead. But there is no suggestion even of anythingof th is kind in the ·Gospel stories. Every appearance is to



The Resurrection of Jesus hrist 89

one who is already a believer. Why is this so? For theself-evident reason that this was the way that things occurred, and the Gospel narratives are not concerned withproducing a story for effect, but simply with recording eventsprecisely as they occurred and as they were observed.· V./ find still another instance in the fact that the recorded appearances of Jesu s after His re surrecti on were onlyoccasional. He would appear in the midst of His disciples

and disappear, and not be seen again perhaps for severaldays. Why this was so, we can easily think out for ourselves-He was evidently seeking to wean His disciples fro1ntheir old ~time communion with Him in the body, and toprepare them for the communiop with Himself in the Spiritthat was to follow in the days that were to come. We arenot, however, told this in the Gospel narrati ves. We are

left to discover it for ourselves, and this is all the more significant for that rea son. It is doubtful if the disciples themselves realiz ed the meaning of the facts. If th ey had beenmaking up the story to produce effect, they would hav e represented J esus as being with them constantly, as livin g withthem, eating and dri nking with then1, day after day. Whythen is the story told as recorded in the four Gospel s ? Because this is the way in which it had all occurred. The Gospel writers are simply concerned with giving the exact repre ·s.entation of the facts as witnessed by them selves and others.

We find another very striking instance in what is recorded concerning the words of Jesus to Mary at their firstmeeting. (John 20:17.) Je sus is recorded as saying to Mary ,

Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.,.We are not told why Jesus said this to Mary. We are leftto discover the rea son for it i we can, and the commentatorshave had a great d ea l of trouble in di scovering it. Their explanations vary widely one from another. I have a reasonof my own which I have never seen in any commentary, but



9 The undanientals

ably be difficult to persuade others that it was the true reason. Why then is this little utterance of Jesus put in the ,Gospel reco rd without a word of explanation, and which ithas taken eighteen centuries to explain, and which is notaltogether sa tisfactorily explained yet? Certainly a writermaking ·up a story would not put in a little detail like thatwithout apparent meaning and without an attempt at an explanation of it. Stories that are made up are made up fora purpose; details that are inserted are in serted for a purpose, a purpose more or le ss evident, but eighteen centuriesof study have not been able to find out the p urpose why thiswas inserted. Why then do we find it here? Bec ause thisis exactly what happened. This is what Jesus said; this iswhat Mary heard Jesus say; this is what Mary told, andtherefore this is what John recorded . We cannot have a fic

tion here, but an accurate record of words spoken by Jesusafter I-Iis re surrection.

\le fin d still another instance in John 20 :4-6: S o theyran both together; and the other disciple did outrun Pete r,and can1e first to the sepulchre. And he, stooping down andJooking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet wen t he not in.Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into thesepu lchr ,e, and seeth the linen clothe s lie. This is all instriking keeping with what we know of the men from othersources. Mary, returning hurriedly from the tomb, burstsin up on the two di sc iples and cries, They have taken awaythe Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know n ot where theyhave laid Him . John and Peter sprang to their fe t andran at the top of their speed to the to1nb. John, th e youngerof the two di sciples ( it is all the more striking that the narrative does not tell us here that he was the younger of the twodisciples), was fleeter of fo ot and outran Peter and reachedthe tomb first, but man of retiring and reverent dispositionthat he was ( we are not told this here hut we know it from

d f hi li l d l h ) h did



The Resurrection of J esu .s Christ

enter the tomb, but simply stooped down and looked in. Impetuous but older Peter comes lumbering on behind as fastas he can, but when once he reaches the tomb, he never waitsa moment outside but plunges headlong in. Is this madeup, or, is it life? He was indeed a literary artist of consummate ability who had the skill to 1nake this up if it didnot occur ju st so. There is incidentally a touch of localcoloring in the report. When one visits today the tomb whichscholars now accept as the real burial place of Jesus, he willfind himself unconsciously obliged to stoop down in order tolook in.

Still another instance is found in John 21 :7: Therefore,that disciple whom Je sus loved saith to Peter, It is the Lord.Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girthis fisher's coat unto hiin, ( for he was naked,) and did cast

him self into the sea. Here again we have the unmistakablemarks of trutl~ and life. The Apostles had gone at Jesus'command into Galilee to meet Hiin there, but Jesus does notat once appear . Simon Peter, with the fisherman's passionstill stirring in his bosom says, I go a-fishing. The othersreplied, ''\Ve al so go wit h thee. They fished all night, and,with characteristic fishermen's luck, caught nothing. In theearly dawn Jesus stands upon the shore, but the disciplesdid not r ecognize Him in the dim light. Jesus caIIs to them,Children, have ye any meat? And they answer, No. He

bids then1 ca st the net on the right sid~ of the ship and theywill find. When the cast wa s 111ade, hey were not able todraw it for the mu ltit ude of fishes. In an instant, John, the

man of quick spiritual perception, says, It is the Lord. Nosooner does Peter, the 1nan of iinpulsive action, hear it thanhe grasps his fisher's coat, cast s it about his naked formand th rows himself overboard and strikes out for shore toreach his Lor d. Is this made up, or, is it life? This is notfiction. If some unknown author of the fourth Gospel made



92 The undamentals

should take down every . other name from our literarypantheon and place him above them all.

We find a still more touching instance in John 20 :15:Jesus saith unto her, Woman, .why weepest thou? whom

seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saithunto Him, Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me wherethou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Here issure ly a touch that surpasses the art of any man of that day

or any other day. Mary had gone into the city and notifiedJohn and Peter that she had found the sepulchre empty. Theystart on a run for the sepulchre. As Mary has already 1nadethe journey twice, they easily far outstrip her, but with heavyheart and slow and weary feet, she makes her way back tothe tomb. Peter and John have long gone when she reachesit, broken-hearted, thinking that not only has her beloved

Lord been slain, but that His t~mb has been desecrated. Shestands without weeping. There are two angels sitting in thetomb, one at the head and the other at the feet where theb0dy of Jesu s had lain. But the grief-stricken woman hasno eye for angels. They say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She replies, ''Because they have taken away myLord, and I know not where they have laid Him. A rustle

in the leaves at her back and she turns around to see who is~01ning. She sees Jesu s s tanding there, but, blinded by tears ·and despair, she does not recognize her Lord. Jesu s alsosays to her, Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?' She,supposing it to be the gardener who is talking to her, says,Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast

laid Him and I will take Him away. Now remember whoit is that make s the offer, and what she offers to do; a weakwoman offers to carry a full grown man away. f course,she could not do it , but how true to a woman's love that always forgets it s weakness and never stops at impossibilities.There is something to be done and she says, I will do it,''Tell me where thou hast laid Him and I will take Hitt1




away." Is this made up? Never This is life; this isreality; this is truth.

We find another instance in Mark 16 :7: "But go yourway, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before youinto Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you."What I would have you notice here are the two words, andPeter. Why and Peterfn Was not Peter one of thedisciples ? Surely he was, the very head of the apostoliccompany. Why then, "and Peter?" No exp lanation is givenin the text, but reflection shows it was the utterance of lovetoward the despondent, despairing disciple who had thrice denied his Lord. If the message had been si1nply to the disciples Peter would have said, "Yes, I was once a disciple, butI can no longer be counted such. I thrice denied my Lordon that awful night with oaths and curses. It does not mean

me." But our tender compassionate Lord through Hisangelic messenger sends the message, "Go tell His disciples,and whoever you tell, be sure you tell poor, weak, faltering,hackslidden, brok en-hearted Peter." Is this made up, or isthis a real picture of our Lord? I pity the man who is sedull that he can imagine this is fiction. Incidentally let it benoted that this is recorded ·only in the Gospel of Mark, which,

as is well known, is Peter's Gospel. As Peter dictated toMark one day what he should record, with tearful eyes andgrateful heart he would turn to him and say, "Mark, besure you put that in, 'Tell His disciples and Peter. '

Take still another in stance in John 20 :27-29: "Thensaith He to Thoma s, Reach hither thy finger, and behold Myhands; ·and reach hither thy hand, and thrust t into My side;and be not faithless but believing. And Thomas answeredand said unto Him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith untohim, Thomas, becau se thou ha st seen Me, thou hast believed :bles sed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."Note her.e two things; the action of Thomas and the rebukeof Jesus Each is too characteristic to be attributed to the



94 The F 1 1 ndamentals

art of some ma ster of fiction. Thomas had not been withthe disciples at the first appearance of our Lord. A weekhad passed by. Another Lord's Day had come. This timeThomas makes sure of being present; if the Lord is to appear, he will be there. If he had been like some of ourmodern doubters, he would have taken pains t o be away, but,doubter though he was, he was an honest doubter and wantedto know. Suddenly Jesu s stands in the n1idst. He says toThomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands, andreach thither thy hand, and thru st it into My side: and benot faithless but believing." At last Thon1a s' eyes areopened. His faith long dammed back bursts every barrierand ~·weeping onward carries Thomas to a higher height thanany other di sciple had as ye t reached-exultingly and adoringlyhe cries, as he looks up into the face of J e$US, "My Lord and

My God " Then Jesus tenderly, but searchingly. r ebukes hiIJl"Tho1nas," He says, "because thou hast seen Mc, th ou ha stbelieved. Blessed are they [ who are so eager to find and soquick to see, and so ready to accept th e truth, that th ey do notwait for actual visible demonstration but are ready to taketruth en sufficient te stimony] that have not seen and yet havebelieved." I this made up, or is this life? Is it a recor l of

fact s as they occurred, or a fictitious production of omema ster artist?

Take still another instance: In John 21 :15-17 we read:"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to imon P ter, i1no11,son of J onas, lovest thou me more than these? e saith t111"'

to Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee . :Hesaith unto him, Feed My Iamb s. He saith unt o hirn againthe second tin1e, Simon, son of Jona s, love st thou Me? Besaith unto Him, Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee,He saith unto him, Feed My sheep. e sait h unto him thtthird time Simon, son of Jonas, love st thou Me? eter was

grieved becai tse He said 1tnto him the third time Love t tboUMe? And he said unto Him ord Thou knowe st all things;



The Resitrrection of csits Christ 95

Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him, FeedMy sheep." Note especially here the words, "Peter wasgrieved because He said unto him the third time Lovestthou Me?" Why did Jesus ask Peter three times, "Lovestthou Me?" And why was Peter grieved because Jesus didask him three times? We are not told in the text, but, ifwe read it in the light of Peter's thrice repeated denial of

his Lord, we will understand it. As Peter had denied hisLord thrice, Jesus three times gave Peter an opportunity toreassert his love. But this, tender as it was, brings back toPeter that awful night when in the courtyard of Annas andCaiaphas, he thrice denied his Lord: and "Peter was grievedbecause He said unto him the third tin1e, Lovest thou Me."Is this made up? Did the writer 1nake it up with this factJnview? If he did, he surely ' would have mentioned it. It

cannot have been made up. It is not fiction. It is simplyreporting what actually occurred. The accurate truthful-ness of the record comes out even more strikingly in theGreek than in the English version. Two different words areused for "lo ve ." Je sus, in asking Peter, "Lovest thou Me?"uses a strong word denoting the higher form of love. Peter,replying, "Lord, Thou knowe st that l ove Thee," uses a

weaker word, but one denoting a n1ore tender forn1 of love .Je sus, the second time uses the stronge r word, and the secondtime in hi s reply Peter uses the weaker word. In His thirdquestion, Je sus comes down to Peter's level and u ses theweaker word that Peter had used from the beginning. ThenPeter replie s, "Lord, Thou knowe st all things, Thou knowestthat I love Thee," u sing the same weaker word. This can-not be fiction. It is accurately reported fact.

Take still another in stance: In John 20: 16 we read,. "Jesus saith unto her, lvfary. She turned her se lf a~d sa ithunto Hi1n, Rabboni; which is to say, Master." What a deli-cate touch of nature we have here Mary i standing outsidethe tomb overcome with grief She has not recognized her



96 The l undan1 entals

Lord, though He has spoken to her. She has n1istaken Hin1for the gardener. She has said, "Sir, if thou hast borne .

Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I willtake Him away.'' Then Jesus utters just one word. Hesays, "Mary.'' As that name came trembling on the morningair, uttered with the old familiar tone, spoken as no one elsehad ever spoken it but He, in an instant her eyes were opened.She fall s at His feet and tries to clasp them, and looks upinto His face, and crie s, "Rabboni, my Master." Is this

made up? Impo ss ible This is life. This is Jesus, andthi s is the woman who loved Him. No unknown author ofthe second, third, or fourth century, could have producedsuch a ma sterpiece as this. We stand here unquestionablyface to face with reality, with life, with Jesus and Mary asthey actually were.

One more important illustration: In John 20 :7 we read,

"And the napkin, that was about His head, not lying withthe linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself."How strange that such a little detail as this should be added tothe story with absolutely no attempt at explaining. But howdeeply significant thi s little unexplained detail is. Recallthe circum stance s. Je sus is dead. For three days and threenights his body is lying cold and silent in the sepulchre, astruly dead as any body was ever dead, but at last the appointed hour has come, the breath of God sweeps throughthe sleeping and silent clay, and in that . supreme moment ofHis own earthly life, that supreme moment of human history, when Je sus rises triumphant over death and grave andSatan, there is no e xcitement upon His part, but with thatsame majestic self-composure and serenity that marked Hiswhole career, that same Divine calm that He displayed uponstorm-to ssed Galilee, when His affrighted disciples shookHim from His slumbers and said, "Lord, carest thou notthat we perish '?" and He arose serenely on the deck of thetos sing vesse l and said to the wild, tempe stuous waves and



The Resierrection of Jesus Christ 9

winds, "Be still," and there was a great calm: so now againin ' this sublin1e, this awful moment, He does not excitedly

tear the napkin fron1 His face and fling it aside, but absolutely without human haste or flurry, or disorder, I-Ie untiesit calmly from . His head, rolls it up and lays it away in anoi-derly mann er in a place by itself. Was that ·made up?Never We do not behold here an exquisite 1nasterpieceof · the ro ma ncer's art; we read here th e sin1ple narrativeof a matchless detail in a unique life that was actually livedhere upon earth, a life so beautiful that one cannot read itwith an honest and open mind without feeling the tears c01ning into hi.s eyes.

But some one will say, all these are little things. True,and it is from that very fact that they gain much of their significance. It is ju st in such little things that fiction woulddisclose it self . Fiction displays itself different from fact inthe minute; in the great outstanding outlines you can makefiction look like truth, but when you come to examine itminutely and microscopically, you will soon detect that it is notreality but fabrication. But the · more miscroscopically weexamine the Gospel narratives, th e more we become impressedwith their truthfulness. There is an art lessness and natural

ness and self-evident truthfulness in the narratives, down tothe minutest detail, that surpasses all the possibilities of art.

The third line of proof that the statements contained inthe four Gospels regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christare exact statements of historic fact, is

III. THE CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE FOR THE

RESURRECTION OF CHRISTThere are certain proven and ad1nitted facts that demand

the resurrection of Christ to account for them.1. Beyond a question, the foundation truth preached in

the early years of the Church's history was the re surrection.This was the one doctrine upon which the Apostles were eve r



98 The undamentals

ringing the changes. Whether Jesus did actually rise rotnthe dead or not, it is certain that the one thing that the Apostlesconstantly proclaimed was that I-Ie had risen. Why shouldthe Apostles use this as the · very corner-stone of their creed,i not well attested and firmly believed?

But this is not all: They laid down their lives for thisdoctrine. Men never lay down their lives for a doctrinewhich they do not firmly believe. They stated that they hadseen ] esus after His resurrection, and rather than give uptheir statement, they laid down their lives for it. Of course,men may die for error and often have, but it was for errorthat they firmly believed. In this case they would haveknown whether they had seen Jesus or not, and they wouldnot mer ly have been dying for error but dying for a state·ment which they knew to be false. This is not only incredible

but impossible. Furthermore, if the Apostles really firmlybelieved, as is admitted, that Jesus rose from the dead, theyhad some facts upon which they founded their belief. Thesew.ould have been the facts that they would have related in recounting the sto ry. They certainly would not have made upa story out of imaginary incidents when they had real factsupon which they founded their belief. But i the facts were

as recounted in the Gospels, there is no possible escapingthe conclusion that Je sus actually arose. Still further, ifJe sus had not arisen, there would have been evidence thatHe had not. His enemies would have sought and found thisevidence, but the Apostles went ·up and down the very citywhere He had been crucified and proclaimed right to theface s of His slayers that He had been raised and no onecould produce evidence to the contrary. The very best theycould do was to say the guards went to sleep and the disciples stole the body while the guards slept. Men who bearevidence of what happens while they are asleep are not u sually regarded as credible witnesses. Further still, i the.Apostles had stolen the body, they would have known it them-



The Resurrection of Jesus hrist

selves and would not have been ready to die for what theyknew to be a fraud.

2. Another known fact i s the change in the day of rest.The early church came from among the Jews. From timeimmemorial the Jews had celebrated the seventh day of theweek as their day of re st and worship, but we find the earlyChristians in the Acts of the Apostles, and also in early Chris-tian writings, assembling on the first day of the week. Noth-

ing is more difficult of accomplishment than the change in aholy day that has been celebrated for centuries and is oneof the 111ost cherished customs of the people. What is espe-cially significant about the change is that it was changed byno express decree but by general consent. Som .ething tre-mendou s must have occurred that led to this change. TheApostles asserted that what had occurred on that day was the

resurrection of Christ from the dead, and that is the mostrational explanation. In fact it is the only reasonable ex-planation of the change.

3. But the most significant fact of all is the change inthe disciples themselves, the moral transformation. At thetime of the crucifixion of Christ, we find the whole apostoliccompany filled with blank and utter despair. We see Peter,the lea der of the apostolic company, denying his Lord threetimes with oaths and cursings, but a few days later we seethis same man, filled with a courage that nothing couldshake. We see him standing before the council that hadcondemned Jesus to death and saying to them, Be it knownunto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the nameof Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whon1 Godraised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand be-fore you who le (Acts 4:10). A little further on when com-manded by the council not to speak at all nor teach in thename of Jesus, we hear Peter and John answering, Whetherit be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you morethan unto God jud ge ye For we cannot but speak the



100 The undamentals

things which we have seen and heard (Acts . 4 :19, 20) .little la ter still after arr est and impri sonment, in peril of

death, when ste rnly arraigned by the council, we hear Peterand the Apostles an swe ring their demand that th ey s houldbe silent regarding Je sus, with the words, We ou ght toobey God rather than man. The God of o ur fath er s raisedup Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a t ree . Him hathGod e xa lted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour,for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. Andwe are His witnesses of these things ( Acts 5 :29-32). Somethin g tremendous must have occurred to account for suc ha radical and a·stounding moral tran sfo rmation a s this. Nothing short of the fact of the re sur rection and of thei r havingseen the risen Lord will explain it.

These unquestionable facts are so impressive and so conclusive that ev en infidel and Jewi sh scho lars now admit thatthe Apostles believ ed that J esus rose from the dead. EvenFerdinand Baur, father of the Tiibigen School, admitted this.Even David Strauss, who wrote the most masterly Life ofJesus from the rationalistic standpoint that was ever written, said, Only this 1nuch need be ac.;knowledged that theApostles firmly believed that Jesus had arisen. Straussevidently did not wish to admit any more than he had to buthe felt compelled to admit this 1nuch. Schenkel went evenfu rther and said, It is an indi sputable fact that in the earlym ornin g of the first day of the week following the crucifixion,the grave of Jesus was found empty. It is a second facttha t th e disciples and other members of the apostolic · communion were convinced that Je sus was .seen after the cruci

fixion. The se admis sions are fatal to the rationalist s whomake them. The question at once arises, Whence these ~onvic tions and belief?'' Renan attempted an answer by saying that the passion of a hallucinated woman (Mary) givesto the world a re surrected God.'' (Renan's Life of Jesus,''page 357.) By this, Renan means that Mary wa s in Jove



The Resurrection of Jesus hrist 101

with Jesus ; that after His crucifixion, brooding over it, inthe passion of her love, she dreamed herself into a conditionwhere she had a hallucination that she had seen Jesus risenfrom the dead. She reported her dream as a fact, and thusthe passion of a hallucinated woman gave to the world aresurrected God. But the reply to all this is self-evident,namely, the passion of a hallucinated woman was not competent to this task. Remember the make-up of the apostolic company; in the apostolic company were a Matthewand a Thomas to be convinced, · outside was a Saul of Tarsus to be converted. The passion of a hallucinated womanwill not convince a stubborn unbeliever like Thomas, nor aJewish tax-gatherer like Matthew. Whoever heard of a taxgatherer, and most of all of a Jewish tax-gatherer, whocould be imposed upon by the passion of a hallucinated woman? Neither will the passion of a hallucinated woman convince a fierce and conscientious enemy like Saul of Tarsus.We must look for some saner explanation than this.Strauss tried to accou ·nt for it by inquiring whether the appearance might not have been visionary. Strauss has had,and still has, many followers in this theory. · But to thiswe reply, first . of all, there was no subjective starting point

for such visions. The Apostles, so far from expecting to seethe Lord, would scarcely believe their own eyes when theydid see Him. Furthermore, whoever heard of eleven menhaving the same vision at the same time, to say nothing offive hundred men ( 1 Cor. 15 :6) having the same vision atthe same time. Strauss ~ ~nands of us that we give up ~onereasonable miracle and s~e five hundred impossible•miracles in its place. Nothing can surpa ss the credulity ofttnbelief.

The third atten1pt at an explanation is that Jesus was notreally dead when they took :Him from the cross, that Hisfriends worked over Him and brought Him back to life, andwhat was supposed to be the appearance of the raised Lord



The Resurrection of_] esu s hrist 103

of the sort. In that case, He would be an arch-impostor,and the whole Christian system rests on a fraud as its ulti

mate foundation. Is it possible to believe that such a system of religion as that of ] esus Christ, embodying such exalted principles and precepts of truth, purity and love, originated in a deliberately planned fraud ? No one whose ownheart is not cankered by fraud and trickery can believe Jesusto have been an impostor, and His religion to have beenfounded upon fraud. leader of th e rationalistic forces inEngland has recently tried to prove the theory that Jesus wasonly apparently dead by appealing to the fact that when theside of Jesu s was pierced blood came forth and asks., Cana dead man bleed? To this the sufficient reply is that whena man dies of what is called in popular language, a brokenheart, the blood escapes into the pericardium, and after standing there for a short time it separates into serum ( the water)and clot ( the red corpuscles, blood), and thus if a man weredead, . if his side were pierced by a spear, and the po~nt ofthe .spear entered the pericardium, blood and water wouldflow out just as the record states it did, and what is broughtforth as a proof that Jesus was not really dead, is in realitya proof that He was, and an illustration of the minute ac

curacy of the story. It could not have been made up in thisway, if it were not actual fact.We have eliminated all other possible suppositions. We

have but one left, namely, Jesus really was raised from thedead the third day as recorded in the four Go spels . Thedesperate straits to which those who attempt to deny it aredriven are themselves proof of the £act.

We have then severa l independent lines of argumentpointing deci sively and conclusive ly to the .resurrection ofChrist from the dead. Some of them taken separately provethe fact, but taken together they constitute an argumentthat makes doubt of the resurrection of Christ impossibleto the candid mind. Of course, i£ one is determined not to



104 The undamentals

believe, no amount of proof will convince him. Such a manmust be left to his own deliberate choice of error and false

hood; but any man who really desires to know the truth andis willing to obey it at any cost must accept the resurrectionof Christ as an historically proven fact.

A brilliant lawyer in New York City some time ago spoketo a prominent minister of that city asking him if he reallybelieved that Christ rose from the dead. The minister replied that he did, and asked the privilege of presenting theproof to the lawyer. The lawyer took the material offeredin proof away and studied it. He returned to the minister,and sa id, ' 'I am convinced that Jesus really did rise from thedead. But, he then added, I am no nearer being a Christian than I was before. I thought that the difficulty waswith my head. I find that it is really with my heart.

There is really but one weighty objection to the doctrinethat Jesus arose from the dead, and that is, There is noconclusive evidence that any other ever arose. To this asufficient ans-wer would be, even if it were certain that noother ever arose, it would not at all prove that Jesus did notarise, for the life of Jesus was unique, His nature wasunique, His character was unique, His mission was unique,

His history was unique, and it is not to be wondered at, butrather to be expected, that the issue of such a life shouldalso be unique. However, all this objection is simply DavidHume's exploded argument against the possibility of themiraculous revamped. According to this argument, noamount of evidence can prove a miracle, because miracles arecontrary to all experience. But are miracles contrary to all

experience? To start out y saying that they are is to begthe very question at issue. They may be outside of yourexperience and mine, they 111ay e outside the experience ofthis entire generation, but your experience and mine and theexperience of this entire generation is not all experience,''Every student of geology and astronomy knows that things



The Resurrection of esus Ch1 ist 105

have occurre d in the past which are entirely outside of theex pe rience of the present generation. Things have occurred

· within the last t en years that are entirely outside of the ex-perience o f the fifty years preceding it. True science doesnot start with an a ·Priori hypothesis that certain things areimpossible but simply examines the evidence to find out whatha s· actually occurred. It does not twist its observed factsto 111ake hem accord with a pr iori theories but seeks to makeits theories accord with the facts as observed. To say that

miracles are impo ssible and that no amount of evidence canprove a miracle is to be supre1nely unscientific. Within thepast few years in the domain of chemistry for example dis-coveries have been made regarding radium which seemed torun counter to all previous observations regarding chemicalelements and to well established chemical theories. But thescientist has not therefore said that these discoveries aboutradium cannot be true; he has rather gone to work to findout where the trouble was in his previous theories. Theobserved and recorded facts in the case before us prove toa demonstration that Jesus ro se from the dead and truescience must accept this conclusion and conform its theoriesto this observed fact. The fact of the actual and literal resur-rection of Jesus Christ from the dead cannot be denied byany man who will study the evidence in the ca se with a candiddesire to find what the fact is and not merely to support ana pr iori theory.



CHAPTER IV

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONVERSION ANDAPOSTLESHIP OF ST. PAUL

BY LORD LYTTELTON

ANALYZED AND CONDENSED BY REV. J. L. CAMPBELL., D. D.,

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

The object of this paper is to present in an abbreviatedform the famous argument of Lord Lyttelton in defense of

Christianity based on the conversion of the Apostle .Paul. Afew words about the man himself and about the interesting ·circumstances in which this treatise was written will properlyintroduce the subject.

George Lyttelton was born at Hagley, Worcestershire,England, January 17, 1709, and died on Tuesday morning,August 22, 1773, aged sixt y-f our years. I-Ie belonged to adistingui shed family of long descent and gentle blood, dwelling for centuries on the same spot. Educated at Eton andOxford, he soon afterwards entered Parliament, and formany years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in everyaccount of every debate in the House of Commons. rom

this, he advanced successively to the position of lord commissioner of the treasury, and of chancellor of the exchequer,after which he was raised to the peerage. He was al so manof letters and his closing years were devoted almost whoUyto literary pursuits. He was a writer of ver se as well asprose and Dr. Samuel Johnson has furnished us with hisbiography in his Lives of the Poets. Outside of his books,which comprise nine octavo volumes, his Memoirs and Corr-espondence make two additional volumes that were compiledand edited by Robert Phillimore in 1845.

106



/

The Conversion and Apostleship of St Paul 107

The eighteenth century was the dark<;st period religiouslyin the history of England since the time of the Reformation.

It was the age of the great deists, agnostics, rationalists andunbelievers, when all men of rank are . [were] thought to beinfidels. Like so many of the literary men of his time, GeorgeLyttelton and his friend Gilbert We st were led at first to reject the Christian religion. On the Sabbath forenoon beforehe died, in an interview with Dr. Johnson, Lyttelton said,When I first set out in the world I had friends who en

deavored to shake my belief in the Chri stian religion. I sawdifficulties which staggered me,' . etc. In his biography of LordLyttelton, Dr. Johnson adds, He had, in the pride of juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, enter ..tained doubts of the truth of Christianity. His intimacywith Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, Pope and others of the samekind had no doubt influenced him in this -direction. Rev. T.

T. Biddolph tells us that both Lyttelton and West, men ofacknowledged talents, had imbibed the principles of infidelity.

Fully persuaded that the Bible was an imposture, theywere determin ed to expose the cheat. Lord Lyttelton chose theCon ·version of Paul and Mr. West the Resurrection of Christfor the subject of ho stile criticism. Both sat down to theirrespective ta sks full of prejudice; but the result of their separate attempts was, that they were both converted by theirefforts to overthrow the truth of Christianity. They cametogether, not as they expected, to exult over an imp ostureexposed to ridicule , but to lament over their own folly andto felicitate each other on their joint conviction that the Biblewas the word of God. Their able inquirie s have furnished

two of the most valuable · treati ses in favor of reve lation, oneentitled 'Observations on the Conversion of St. Pa ul' and theother 'Ob serva tions on the Resurrection of Christ.' West'sbook was the fir st published. Lyttelton's work appeared atfirst anonymously in 1747 when he was thirty -eight years ofage. Tlte edition which lie s before me contains seventy-eight



108 The Fundamentals

compact pages. It is addressed in the f~rm of a letter toGilbert West. In the opening paragraph he says, The con- ,

version and apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered,was of it self a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianityto be a divine revelation. Dr. Johnson remarked that it isa treatise to which infidelity had never been able to fabricatea specious answer. Dr. Philip Doddridge, who became Lyttelton's most intin1ate religious friend, speaks of it as ''masterly,and, as perfect in its kind as any our age has produced.

Testimonials of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely.Let us now turn to an examination of the book itself.

Lyttelton naturally begins by bringi .ng before us all the factsthat we have in the New T ·estament regarding the conversionof St. Paul; the three accounts given in the Acts; what wehave in Galatians, Philippians, Timothy, Corinthians, Colossians and in other places. (Acts 9:22 -26; Gal. 1 :11 -16;

Phil. 3 :4-8; Tim. :12 13; Cor. 15 :8; 2 Cor. : Col.J :1, etc.) Then he lays down _our propositions which he

considers exhaust all the possibilities in the case.1 Either Paul was an impostor who said what he knew

to be fal se, with an intent to deceive; or2. He was an enthusiast who imposed on him self by the

force of an overheated imagination; or3 . Ile was ''deceived by the fraud of others; or finally,4. What he declared to be the cau se of his conver sion did

all really happen; and, therefore the Chri stian religion is adivine revelation.

I PAUL NOT AN IMPOSTOR

More than half his argument ( about forty pages) is devoted to the first of these propositions, which is really the keyto the whole situc;i.tion. Is this story of Paul' s conversion sooften repeat ed in Act s and Epi stle s a fabrication, put forth bya de signing man with the deliberate purpose and intention ofdeceiving? ·



The Conversion and Apostleship of St Paul 1 )<)

Lyttelton at once raises the question of motive. ~rhatcould have induced hiin while on his way to Da1nascus, filled

with implacable hatred against this who le sect, to turn aroundand become a disciple of Christ?

1 Was it wealth?· No, all the wealth was in the keeping of th ose who1n

he had forsaken; the poverty was on the side of thosewith whom he now identified hi1nse lf. So poor had theybeen, that those among them possessed of any little property sold whate ve r belonged to them in order to prov ide forthe dire nece ssities of the rest. Indeed, one of the burdensafterwards laid upon Paul was to collect means fo r those whowere threatened with starvation . Such was the humble condition of these early Christians, that he often refu sed to takeanythi ng from them even for the bare necessities o f life, butlabored hi1n self to provide for his scanty needs. To theCorinthians, he writes, Even unto this present hour we bothhunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and haveno certain dwelling place; and we toil working with ourhands.'' (1 Cor. 4:11, 12. See also 2 Cor. 12:14; 1 Thess.2 :4-9; 2 Thess. 3 :8, et c.) In his farewell to the elders ofE phesus, he appeals to then1 as knowing it to be true that, I

coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel. Ye yourselvesknow that these hands ministered unto my necessitie s, andto them that were with me ( Acts 20 :33, 34). He forsook thegreat Jewish hierarchy with its gorgeous temple and its overflowing treasuries, where ·his zeal in putting down the hatedsect of the Nazarene would have been almost certainly rewarded with a fortune . He ca st in his lot among the pov

erty-s tricken disciples of Je sus Christ, among whom it washis ambition to be poor. Near the end of his life he presentsto us the picture of an old man shivering jn a Roman dunge on and pathetically asking for a cloak to be sent him tocover his naked and suffering limb s during the severity of anItalian winter.




2 Was it reputation?No; those with whom he united were held in universal

contempt; their Leader had been put to death as a criminalamong thieves; the chiefs of the cause that he had espousedwere illiterate men. On the other hand, the wisest and thegreatest men in all the land indignantly rejected the teachingsof this new sect. The preaching of Christ ,crucified was tothe Jew a stumbling block and to the Gree~s foolishness.There was no reputation for the great disciple of Gamaliel inparting with his splendid honors and identifying himself witha lot of ignorant fishermen. He would only be execrated asa deserter and betrayer of the Jewish cause, and he might restassured that the same bloody knife that slew the Shepherd ofthe scattered flock would soon be unsheathed against himself. All the reputation that he had so zealou sly built up wasgone the hour that he went over to the new religion, and fromthat day on contempt was his portion. · He was accounted asthe filth of the world and the off scouring of all thing s. ( 1Cor. 4:13.)

3 Was it power he was aft er?We know what men have done to get into positions of

prominence and dominion over their fellows. Mahomet, thepope s, and many others, put forth spiritual claims so as topromote t here by their own temporal ends. How was it withPaul? His who le career was marked by a complete absenceof all self-seeking. I-Ie had no eye to worldly ambitions. Beinterfered with nothing, ''in government or civil affairs; hemeddled not with legislation ; he formed no commonwealths;he rai sed no sed itions; he affected no temporal power. He

assumed no pre-eminence over other Christians. I-Ie regard edhimself as not worthy to be called an apostle, as less than thelea st of all sa ints, as the chief of sinners. Those engaged inlike w·ork he called fello w-labore r$'' and fellow-servants.''Even if the truth was spread by those hostile to him, through~nvy and str ife, so long as Christ was pr oclaimed, therein



The Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul 111

I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice'' (Phil. 1 :18). He did not lor.dit over the churches, even over those that he himself had

founded. To the Pauline party in Corinth he exclain1s, WasPaul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized in the name ofPaul? (1 Cor. 1 :13)'. We preach -not ourselves, but ChristJesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake(2 Cor. 4 :5). Those who, from selfish motives seek for influ-ence over peo ple pander to then1 and flatter them [ as, e. g.did Absa101n]. There was nothing of this . with Paul. He rebuked the churches unsparingly for their sins, and did nothesitate; if need be, to incur their displeasure. DisclaimingaU pre-eminence and position and power, he preached Christand Him crucified as the head, and hid and buried self behindthe cros s. Earth to him was nothing. His eye was fixed onthe recompense <?f reward (Heb. 11 :26).

4. Was his motive the gratification of any other passion?Im .posters have pretended to receive divine revelations as

a pretext in order that they might indulge in loose conduct.Was it so here? No; for all Paul's teachings were in the mostab solute antagonism to any such purpose. His writingsbreathe nothing but the strictest morality, obedience to magistrates, order, and government, with the uttnost abhorrence ofall licentiou sness, idleness, or loose behavior under the cloakof religion. Writing to the Thessalonians, he utters the challeng e, Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and righteously and un b1ameably we behaved ourselves toward you thatbelieve (1 Thess . 2:10). We wronged no man, we corruptedno man, we took advaµtage of no man (2 Cor. 7 :2). Thewhole teach ing of the Apostle is in the sternest and most un

comprom ising hostility to everything but the highest and holiest ideal s.5. Was it a pious fraudThat is to say, did Paul pretend to receive a divine revela

tion in order to give him prestige in advancing the teachingsof Chri stjanity? But Christianity was the one thing he had



112 The undamentals

set out to destroy. To become a Christian was to . incur thehatred, the contempt, . the torments and the violent deaths suf- .

fered by Christians in that day. Why then this sudden changein Paul's own views regarding the unpopular teachings of the.Nazarene? Would he have endured the loss of all things''and exulted over it, for what he knew was a fraud? Wouldhe have spent a life of the most arduous toil to induce othersto make every earthly sacrifice while he knew that behind itall he was practising a delusion? It would be an imposture

as unprofitable as it was perilous, both to himself the deceiverand to the others whom he deceived. The theory co nfut es itself. Only the sternest conviction that he had received adivine revelation could have induc ed Paul to pass throughwhat he him self had suffered, or to have asked others to dothe same. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are

. of all men most pitiable ( 1 Cor. 15 :19).But had he practiced a deception, he could not have suc

cessfull y carried it out. Men sometimes act capriciously. Suppose that Paul just did it'' without any motive that can beimagined; then he must have ignominiously failed in his at ..tempt to perpetuate such a fraud. How could he, e. g., havebeco1ne such an adept in the mysteries and secrets of the newreligion as to be an authority and an apostle of it, i he had todepend for his special knowledge on information received rom

men who knew well by ·bitter experience that he was theircapital enemy? It 1nust have come in another way, and bisown account makes it plain. For neither did I receive it[the Gospel] from man, nor wa s I taught it, but it came to methrough revelation of Jesus Christ ( Gal. 1 :12). Had hefabricated the story of his conversion he would certainly havelocated it in a place so remote or hidden that there could beno witnesses to refute. [Joe Smith, e. g., and the goldenplates of the Book of Mormon.] Instead of that the n1iradeof Paul's conversion, with its great light from heaven exceeding the brightness of the sun, is placed in the public highway




near Damascus; at noonday, when their senses could not be deceived, and when all the accompanying soldiers ·and commis

sioners were with him on the spot. Had there been a shadowof disproof, how promptly the Jews in Damascus would havenipped the falsehood : in the bud by the testimony of the witnesses who were present with Paul at the time Or, when the~postle stood on the castle stairs in Jerusalem and told thewhoJe story, why did not the Jewish authorities silence him atonce and forever by showing that nothing of the kind had ever

taken place, and proved it by the abundant evidence of thecompetent witnesses who were with him-if it were not true?It was an event that took place before the eyes of the world,and would be made at once a matter of the strictest scrutiny.And the truth of the fact was so incontestably established thatit had become a matter of common knowledge. The Jews saidthe utmost they could against Paul before the Roman court,and yet Paul appealed directly to King Agrippa in presence ofFestus as to his own personal knowledge of the truth 0£ thestory. For the king knoweth of these things, unto whom alsoI speak freely; for I am persuaded that none of these thingsis hidden from him; for this hath not been done in a corner(Acts 26 :26)- a very remarkable proof both of the notorietyof the fact, and the integrity of the man, who, with so fearlessa confidence, could call upon a king to give testimony for him,even while he was sitting in judgment upon him /' Moreover,how came it that Ananias went to meet such an enemy in

· Damascus, i the story of his conversion was made up? IfPaul was an impostor, then all his miracles were simply trick sor sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he, a despised and hated Jew,

set himseJf to the appalling task of converting the Gentileworld-teaching doctrines that shocked every prejudice andat which they were wont to mock in derision. Arrayed againsthim were the magistrates with their policy and power, thepriests with their interests and craft, the people with theirprejudice and passions, the philo sophers with their pride and



114 ' The Fundamentals

wisdom. Couk: he by feats of jugglery in presence of ashrewd, hostile people strike Elymas the sorcerer, blind; heal

a cripple at Lystra; restore the pythoness at Philippi; shakeopen with a prayer the doors of a prison; raise the dead to life,etc., so that thousands were converted and great pure churchesrenouncing all sin and dishonesty~ established throughout theRoman world? Our author shows that this would be impossible without divine help and therefore he concludes that hehas proven ( 1) that Paul was not a cheat telling a trumped-up

story about .bis conversion, and (2) i he were, he could nothave succeede d.

II. PAUL NOT AN ENTHUSIAST WHO IMPOSED ON HIMSELF

This second · argument covers twenty pages. Was Paula deluded enthusiast whose overhea ted im agination imposedon him so that he imagined to be true that which had never

really taken place? Lo:-d Lyttelton makes an analysis of th eelement s that enter into the make-up oi a man of this type.He finds these to be five.

(I) Great heat of temperWhile Paul had inten se fervor, like all great men, yet it

was everywhere governed by discretion and reason. His zealwas his servant, not the master of his judgment. He possessed consummate tact which proves self-control. In indifferent matter s he became all things to all men; to the Jewshe became a Jew, to them that are without law as without law,to the ,veak he became weak-all, that he might gain some.( 1 Cor. 9 :19-23.) His zeal was eager and warm, but tempered with prudence, and even with the civilities and decorums of life, as appears by his behavior to Agrippa, Festus andFelix; not the blind, inconsiderate, indecent zeal of an enthusiast.

2) MelancholyHe regards this as a prominent mark of misguided zeal.

He finds n•thing 0£ it in Paul. There is great sorrow over hi s



The Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul 115

former ignorant persecution of the church, but there are nogloomy self-imposed penances such as melancholy fanatics in .

flict upon themselves. He had a desire to depart and be withChrist, but there was nothing morbid about it. It was allbased on the revelation that he already had of the rewardsthat awaited him. in the life to come. He tactfully met theAthenians adroitly claiming to be the interpreter of The unknown god whose altar they themselves had erected. Henever hesitated to avert injustice by claiming his privileges as

a Roman citizen. He was the very antithesis of gloominess.In whatever state he was, he had learned to be content. ·Neither his actions, nor his writings, nor his interested greeting and salutations, show the slightest tincture of melancholia.

3) Ignorance.This charge could not be laid up against the Apostle.

Brought up at the feet of the great Gamaliel, he appeared to be

master not only of Jewish, but also of Greek ( and Roman)learning. ·

4) Credulity.As a resident of ] erusalem, Paul could not be a stranger

to the f an1e of the miracles wrought by Jesus. He had thefacts of the resurrection of our Lord, of Pentecost and all themiracles wrought by the Apostles up till the death of Stephen.Far from being credulous, he had barred h is n1ind againstevery proof and ref used to believe. Nothing less than theirresistible evidence of his own senses, clear from all possibility of doubt, could have overcome his unbelief.

5) Vanity or self-conceit.Vanity and fanaticism usually go together. Men 6£ this

type flatter themselves that on account of their superior worththey are the recipients of extraordinary favors nd gi.fts fromGod, and of these they make their boast. There is not oneword in his Epistles, n~r one act recorded in his life, in whichthe slightest mark of this appears. When compelled to vindicate his apostolic claim. fr m wanton attack he does it effec-



116 The undamentals

tively, but in the briefest way and with many apologies forbeing compelled to speak thus of himself. (2 Cor. 11 :1-30.)

When he had a vision of heaven, he modestly withheld hisown name and covered it up in the third person. For fourteen years he ·observed c;lbsolute silence in regard to this special mark of the divine favor. (2 Cor. 12 :1-12.) Would thisbe the way a vain man would act? Neither is Paul that planteth, noi- Apollos that watereth, anything, but God who givesthe increase. ( 1 Cor. 3 :4-7.) Instead of self-conceit, hewrites of himself in terms of the most complete abnegation.Everywhere it is not I, but the grace of God that was withme.'' (1 Cor. 15 :10.) His modesty appears on every page.

6 But now suppose that in some way wholly Wlaccountable, Paul had actua11y been swept away by enthusiasm at thetime, and imposed on himself, by imagining the events that

took place. Lyttelton's reply is that such a thing was impossible.He here uses the argument that has since been employed soeffectively to dispose of Renan's vision theory of the resurrection of our Lord. In such circumstances men always seewhat they expect to see. An imagined vision will be in accordwith the opinions already imprinted on one's mind. Paul'spurpose was clearly fixed. At his own request he had beenclothed with authority to persecute the Christians; and hewas now on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus on this veryerrand. He looked upon Christ as an impostor and a blasphemer who hacl ju stly been put to death. All his passionswere inflamed to the highest degree again st His follow .ers. Hestarted on his northward journey breathing out threateningsand slaughter against the disciples of the Lord ( Acts 9: 1).'' And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted themeven unto fore1gn cities ( Acts 26: 11) . There was the prideof supporting a part he had voluntarily engaged in, and thecredit he found it procured him among the chief priests andrulers, whose commission he bore. In these circumstances



The Conversion and Apostleship of St Pa ·~tl 117

a wild enthusiast might indeed imagine he saw a vision, butit

would be one urging him onward to do the thing which hehad started . out to accomplish. With nothing having hap-pened to change his opinions or alter the bent of his mind, itwould be as impo ssible for him, in a 1noment, to have imaginedthe complete revolution that is recorded in the New Testa-ment as it would be for a rapid river to carry a boat againstthe current of its own stream. We might add, as well ex-

pect the mighty rushing riv er its elf, without any cause tostop in its course and rush violently backward up a steepmo'untain side, as to expect the whole current of Paul's thoughtand feeling and imagination and purpose to be instantly re-versed without any cause. It could not take place. And itwould have been ju st as impossible for all tho se who werewith him to have experienced the same delusion, for they also ....

saw the light above the brightness of the noonday sun andthey heard the voice from heaven, although they understoodnot the words. But suppose it were ·a meteor that burst uponthem? How then account for the words that Paul heardspeaking in the Hebrew tongue and the dialogue which fol-lowed? How account for his going to a certain spot inD amas cus, in accordance with 'in structions here received? Howaccount for the knowledge that Ananias had, and that ledto their interview? How account for the miracle after threedays whereby Paul's blindness was healed? And how accountfor the mighty works and wonders afterward wrought byPaul, all consequent on this first rev~lation? [Following thesuggestion of perhaps, Krenkel, a New England professor is

credited with teaching that at his conversion Paul had simplyan epileptic attack. But, had all the company that were withhim a like attack at the same instant, for they all saw some-thing? And, moreover, no disorder of this or any othe r kindcan a ,ccouilt for the facts in the case. Paul's marvelous life-work revolutionized the history oi his age, and hi .s influencei f ll f l f l h d ll



8 The Fundamentals

over the world. One is almost tempted to say that if such

is the result of an attack of epilepsy, what a pity that such aprofessor as this had not a sin1ilar attack. Then possibly he.too, might yet be heard from in the world.]

III. PA UL WAS NOT DECEIVED BY OTHERS

This third possible so lution Lyttelton dismisses with asing le page. The fraud of others could not have deceivedhim; for, ( 1) It was morally impossible that the disciples ofChrist could have thought of such a fraud at the instant ofPaul s greatest fury against them.

(2) It was physically impossible ior the~ to do it.Could they produce a light brighter than the midday sun;cause him to hear a voice speaking out of that light; makehim blind for three days and then return his sight at a word,etc.? There were no Christians around when the miracle ofhis conversion took place.

( 3) No fraud could have produced those subsequent mir-acles which he himself actively wrought and to which hl; soconfidently appealed in proof of his divine mission.

IV. CHRISTIANITY DIVINE REVELATION

Our author considers that he has furnished sufficient evi-dence to show ( 1) that Paul was not an impostor deliberatelyproclaiming what he knew to be false with intent to deceive;(2) that he was not in1posed upon by an overheated imagina-tion, and ( 3) that he was not deceived by the fraud of others.Unless, therefore, we are prepared to lay aside the use of ourunderstanding and all the rules of evidence by which factsare determined, we must accept the who le story of Paul s con-ve r sion as literally and historically true. We have thereforethe supernatural, and the Christian religion is proved to be arevelation from God.

Endeavoring as closely as possible to follow the original,and yet considerably in 111ywn language I have sought to give




the essence of Lord Lyttelton s matchless argument which hasbeen blessed to thousands of doubting souls. May this out-line . lead to candid examination, as such an examination shouldinevitably lead to Him whom Paul saw in the midst of theglory near the gate of Da1nascus.



CHAPTER V

A PERSONAL TESTIMONY

EV. H. W. WEBB-PEPLOE, M. A. VICAR OF ST. PAULS,

ONSLOW SQUARE, LONDON, AND PREBENDAR Y OF

ST. PAUL ' S CATHEDRAL

Every man, I believe,if

asked to record his own spiritualexperience s, would be ready to acknowledge that in h is caseat least-while he owes very much to the holy zeal o f somebeloved relation or friend-the work of the I-Ioly Spirit wasso wonderf ullv carried on that none but Divine wisdom couldpossibly have met and overcome the needs which arose fromday to day, from the moment that he was first convinced

or convicted of sin and made to realize his true positionbefore God. At all events , in seeking to record my own persona .I experiences ( as I have been earnestly requested to do,or I would never have thought of so writing) I can onlymarvel and rejoice at the wonderful way in which God sograciously provided for my spiritual wants as they arose.The one real wonder in such a case is that the love of God

could continue to exhibit itself towards one who so ungratefully sought to resist it, till at length He has enabledeven me to say frotn the heart:

Higher than the highest heaven,Deeper than the deepest sea,

Lord, Thy love at last hath conquered;None of self, and all of Thee.

To my honored parents I owe practically more than Ican tell. From my earliest youth I bad every spiritual advantage and help. I cannot doubt that, in after days, theinstruction received from both their words and · example didtend to make me obedient to the voice of God in my soul.

12



Personal Testimony 121

Indeed, I could never give way to temptation without sore

prickings of conscience; and especially after my confirmation{ for which I was prepared by Dr . Boyd, afterwards Deanof Exeter) I went through pains and sorrows for a timewhenever . I had sinned against the light.

But neither warnings nor pleadings had any lasting effects, till at length in the autumn of 1856, while I was residing with Mr Jenkins, Vicar of Hazlewood, Derbyshire,as a private pupil before going to Cambridge, I was invitedto stay for a night at Osmaston Manor, the splendid homeof the late Mr. Frank Wright. In the evening his son (tobe later the Rev. IIenry Wright, Hon. Secretary of theChurch Missionary Society)-at that time just entering man ...hood like myself-asked me to go with him on the roof tosee the moonlight effects . ·

His invitation was with a purpose-for he was even then''a master in soul winning; and though I cannot now remember any particular arguments that he used, I know thathe sent me to my room . deeply moved with the sense of myown folly and sin in giving my life to the world instead ofto God. Next morning he gave me a Bible (for I had not,

I believe, taken one to my tutor's), after writing in it thewords of St. Paul to Titus, Holding fast the faithful word.That Bible I have and treasure still after forty-seven years oftime .

From Osmaston Manor I drove to the town of Derby, andby the time I arrived there I had begun to think myself afool .for listening so readily to one who had indeed con'licted , me of sin, but had not succeeded in persuading me · toaccept Christ Jesus as my Lord . Consequently I began ( asso many others have done in like circumstances) to wish that Icou ld get rid of the painful impressions produced ; and having observed on the town walls that the races were going onat Derby that day and having a few hours to spare before




visit to the , race course could shake off my sense of heavi

ness . and distress.As I reached the course the gates were closed to allowa race being run without danger of interruption,. and as Icame to those gates the horses dashed by, and I saw the onlyhorse-race have ever witnessed in my life.

At that moment a young .man-almost as young as my-self-touched his hat and, holding out a small piece of paper

to me, said, "I beg pardon, sir; would you kindly readthis?"I thought that he wanted me to read it for him so I took

it and looked at it as if to help him. What was my astonishment to find only these (printed) words on the paper:"Reader, if you died tonight, would your soul be IN HELL?''

I simply turned and fled like a terrified coward ( as I was),

no longer thinking of the races, but only how to escapefrom the judgment of God and from the awful grasp of thedevil, both of which seemed to be equally terrible.

I had some six · or seven miles to go to ~y tutor's, butbelieve I accomplished this distance (uphill) in an hour soeager was I to flee from the wrath that I had invoked. Butstill, as it will be observed, I was only convicted of my own

folly, and was not resting my soul on Christ. "By the laWis the knowledge of sin ," and "The law is our schoolmasterto bring us to Christ." "Knowing the terrors of the law''God had, through His messenger, "persuaded me" so far thatI was utterly ashamed of the past; but though the impression was deep, I dare not say what would have happened ifthe good Lord had not raised up in a remarkable way other

helpers £or my soul.My tutor's kind words no,v began to impress me, and rnY

good friend Henry Wright wrote me beautiful letters; but( for the few weeks that remained before I was to meet thetemptations of Cambridge) perhaps my chief and most valuable h~lper was a young farmer ' named Stephens, who



,A Personal Testimon y 123

lived in the parish. Him I had hitherto avoided carefully,

because I had heard that he had "been converted in a mostremarkable manner after living a life of grievous folly andsin, 11 and t11at "he was always now trying to speak to peopleabout their souls."

Some two or three days after my experience in Derby, Ica1ne to one of the so-cal1ed "stiles" in Derbyshire, which aresimply like a narrow "V." As I put my foot througli it, my

friend Stephens met me in the stile and suddenly said, "Atlast we are face to face. Now, why did you avoid me? Iwish y-0u would come and read the Bible with me. I want toknow more of it, and I am sure you must, too." Herew.as at l eas t a third person who, in the course of one week,had been · led of God to offer a special call to my soul Howcoul d I re sist the voice of grace, mercy and peace?

Thank God, I did not I went regularly and often, forthe ,short firne that remained, to read the Word of God andto pray with my young friend; and though I have never seenhim or the stra nger of Derby again, I feel it only a duty and aprivilege to acknowledge ( when asked to narrate my c0nversi0n) ho w much under God I owe to His two humble messengers.

And was the life consistent and spiritual ever afterwards?I am asked. A la s, no There were many ups and downs, andmany declensions from gra ce. So weak did th e Lord seeHis servan t to be, that in mercy and love He had to save mefrom t emptation by allowing a terrible fall of some fifteen orsix teen feet to take place, wh en I was showing off as champion gymnast soon after I went up to Cambridge. Fromthat ti me I had to spe.nd thr ee year s almost entirely on mycouch, passing all my examinations ( even that of my ordination) in a recumbent position. From this I twice rose, asif determined to have my own way. One year I gained theUniver sity cup for high and broad jumping, and the nextI secured the cup for diving and swimming; but on each



The undamentals

occasion I had to go back to my couch to learn of God £or .

another whole year. .Much more could be told of the Lord's merciful dealings

with a sinner; but what has been said -will, I hope, suffice toprove the truth of the words with which I opened this account, and also to show how ·entirely the work is the Lord's,though He deigns to make use of His human vessels to carrygrace to the soul. TQ Him let me offer my tribute of thanks,and give all pos sible glory and praise that He has deignedto take such a poor sinner and number him among His sons,enablin~ me to say with all my heart, Whereas I was blind,now I see. Jesus Christ is indeed to me all in all, and

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.



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some person ·who, if his attention were called to it, wouldgladly aid in the circulation of THE FUNDAMENTA LS in his ownor other communities. Ten books, each read by ten persons,would produce abiding results in any church; likewise onehundred book s in any community. To what better u se in theLord's service could one dollar, or ten dollars, be placed?

8. The readers of t11e present volume will rejoice to know

that several thousand per sons have responded heartily to theCircle of Prayer suggestion made in preceding volumes.

The names of all these have been recorded, and a specia l com~

munication sent to each 0ne. We hope to hear £-rom thousands of other s- those who are willing to unite in earnestprayer that God's special ble ss ing 1nay re st upon this entireMovement, to the end that it may re sult in a world- ·wide revivalin the study of the Word ancl in the deepening Cif the spirituallife of believer s.

In conclu sio n, we would emphasize once more the greatimportanc e of writing plainly and briefly, and always givingfull . address-street (or rural route) number , po stoffice, s tate,and ( if outside of the United States) country .

•

1. uch time and delay will be saved by carefully readingand complying with the for egoing dir ection s.

TESTIMON •Y PUBLISHING COMPANY ,808 LaSalle A venue,

Chicago, Ill., U. S. ·A.



WORDS OF PPRECI TIONRefer ence has been made from time to time to the many

thousands of letters received from grateful recipients of TH

FUNDAMENTALS, who have written from ;ill parts of the world.These communications have been carefully preserved. Manyof them have been read by the Two Christian L=:i.yn1en,

·whose heart s have been greatly encouraged thereby to the fur·ther prosecution of an enterprise which many believe will takerank as one of the greatest and most useful of the age.

The following appreciative letter, from a missionary inBritish Columbia, is one of a vast number more or less s imilall':

''Dear Sirs : I write to thank you for volume s I, II, III, and IV ofTH

FUNDAMENTALS so kindly mailed by you t::>my address and dulyreceived by me, and re ad and re-read with m t.:ch thanksgiving. iVIostunfortunately vo lum es I and II were lo st in th e burning of my ho useon the 7th of September, and I wo uld deem it a great favor if yo uwould r ep lac e them. Of all the five hundred do11ar s worth of bookswhich constituted my little library and were burned, I miss the twolittle FUNDAMENTALS most. . . .

And now let me say h ow much I appreciate 1 ;1is Testimony move

lment which you have started. I am withit

heart and soul. I daily bless1

tho se two Christian laymen who have devo ted ·:he ir means to this holyand glorious enterprise. It is a well dL ect ed blow at the enemy.Hitherto the critic ~ have had everything th eir own way. Fenced aroundwith great learning and scholarsh ip, ordinary ·men have shrunk fromattempting any attack upon their position. We hav e been look inglong to Christian scholarship to g ive us a le ad , but its utterance wasnot only uncertain but tinged with compromise. I have no doubt therew ere thousands of men, like myself , grieved to the h ea rt before theLord because of the present-day tend ency to do away with th e inspiredWord of God and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

' I have be en shut up here among these Indians for the past twentyeight years with not a white neighbor within seventy miles of me, andhave given much thought to these things. It seems to · me we haveshown too much deference to human scholarship and mere worldly



wisdom or learning. In all the churches it 'has been set above thewisdom which cometh fr om above. Worldly scholarship has been putin place of the Holy Spirit, and now our chief seats of learning havebecome hotbeds of infidelity and materialism ·

' ' I pray God to bless and prosper your grand enterprise. You are 'prayed for and shall be prayed for as long as I am in the flesh, so putmy name on your circle of prayer. I sincerely hope you will see yourway before long to establish some sort of union or league for theenrollment of all those who are on the Lord's side for the maintenanceof the faith once deJi ve red to the saints. ( See Mal. 3 : 16.) Let allof us who are on the Lord' s side come out and show ourselves."

Additional extracts from correspondence will be publishedin future issues. In the meantime let those who receive thesevolumes pass on their ·messages to others, praying at the sametime that the seed sown may bear rich fruit in the edifying ofChristians, and in the conversion of unbelievers .

..

RICMARD LINDAM OOD

2700 GLENWA Y AV E .C I N CINN A T .1 4 , O H IO

The Fundamentals: Volume 5

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Transcript of The Fundamentals: Volume 5