The Glory Of The Bible

“For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” —Psalm 138:2

Christians who believe in an inerrant and infallible Bible have sometimes been charged with being worshipers of a book, Bible idolators. Someone has said that as a heathen worships an idol, so we worship the Book. Dr. Marion Burton, president of Michigan University, in his book on our intellectual attitude in an age of criticism, makes this charge that “Protestantism has made a fetich of the Bible.”

Now, if God has magnified His Word above all His name, as He has, why should not we honor it and put all possible glory upon this blessed Book, the book of life and of power? I have sometimes been asked to give a conclusive evidence that this Book is the Word of God and supernatural Book, and I always say, “The conclusive evidence for the Bible is the Bible itself.” If we go to its blessed pages deeper and deeper, the deeper we go, the more we find out that we are face to face with the supernatural.

I want to give you in my address on “The Glory of the bible” seven great glories of this Book. Not by any means all the glories of the Bible, for just as human lips are unable to exhaust all the glories of the Lord Jesus, so no man can ever exhaust the glories of the Word of God.

The Revelation Of God And His Glory

The first glory that I want to mention is that the Bible is the revelation of God and of His glory. We have a three-fold revelation of God,—the first, in creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” As we know from the first chapter of Romans, the eternal power of the Godhead is made known by the things which are made, and if sin had not darkened our eyes, we could surely read all the attributes of God and the glory of God in His words. Then there is a revelation of God in the person of His own Son, who has made the invisible God visible. That is why He is called, “the Word of God.” We call Him the living Word, because as the unseen thought is made known by the spoken word, so the invisible God has been made visible in the person of Jesus Christ, and that, of course, is the highest possible revelation of God in speaking to man through His Son.

Then there is the revelation of God in this Book, the written Word of God, and because He reveals Himself and manifests His glory in the written revelation, therefore some attributes of God are directly applied to the Bible, the Word of God. God is eternal and this book having in it the eternal counsels and purposes of God, the out-pouring of what has been in His heart before the foundation of the world, of necessity must be an eternal Word. As Peter says, “The living and abiding and enduring Word of God.” While heaven and Earth pass away, this word shall and can never pass away. It is an unchanging Word, as God is unchanging, forever settled in the heavens. It can never undergo a fluctuation or change, and, like God, this Book is unsearchable and inexhaustible.

Passing through a second-hand bookstore recently, I noticed a book written on the epistle to the Romans, and the author had put upon the title page, “An Exhaustive Treatment of the Epistle to the Romans.” I heard of another man who intends to write a book on Revelation, and he says it is going to be the final word on the Revelation. Men who make statements like this are either fools or as proud as the devil. Who can ever think of exhausting the epistle to the Romans or of giving the final word on any portion of this blessed Book?

Some years ago, I visited the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. I spent a day looking down into this marvel which nature long ago carved out. A few years later I spent a week there through the kindness of a friend, and every day I went down that wonder trail studying the strata of the earth, picking up here and there some little fossil and specimen. When the week was gone it just dawned upon me that this awful chasm seven thousand feet deep was three hundred miles long and had in it recesses which no white man had ever explored. As I looked upon it again, I realized that it would take a lifetime to study this little bit of Earth, this wonderful canyon. Then I thought of this Book. Most of us blaze such a little trail into the unsearchable riches, and after we have studied this book for thirty or forty years we find out how little, after all, of the unsearchable and inexhaustible riches we have touched. I began Bible study and Bible teaching some thirty-five years ago, and when dispensational truth first broke in upon my heart I thought I knew it all; but now, after teaching the Bible for thirty-five years, I find out how very little of the unsearchable riches of wisdom and power I know as contained in this Book.

A Blending Of The Word And Person Of God

Let me give you a passage of Scripture which will make real this first glory of the Bible. In Hebrews 4:12–13, I read this, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

What a blending together of the Word of God and the person of God! God is life, so is this Book! God is power, energy, so is this Book! God is omniscient, and this Book possesses the omniscience of God in that it uncovers every secret and lays bare the secret things of man.

The Truth

A second glory,—this Book is the truth, and has in it the highest possible knowledge which man is capable of receiving, knowledge and truth given by revelation. We hear a great deal in our days about science. I am not speaking disparagingly of science: I have nothing against it unless it is coupled with the word “Christian” and spells “Christian Science.” For that damnable thing, I have nothing but contempt, for it is a falsehood. It is not Christian and it is not science in any sense of the word. But there is a true science. It is perfectly legitimate for man to use his God-given capacity in searching out and finding out things.

Sometimes I have asked people who come with the word “science” to please give me a definition of the word “science.” Someone asked this question recently, looked into my face and said, “Well, science, what is it? It is science.” That was all he knew. Science is knowledge gained by experience, but there is a certain kind of knowledge which man cannot obtain by experience, and the truth and the knowledge which man needs the most, he can never discover by research.

Let me bring it down to the two questions, “Where does man come from?” “Where does man go to?” The origin of all things, the destiny of all things,—man can never discover that. If man is to know something about it, it must be given to him by revelation by the Creator himself, but man tries to find out by searching these very things.

I came across a sentence in the writings of the liberal German poet and philosopher, Lessing, and when I read it, I said, “O how this suits the destructive criticism today! It is the very thing which you hear in the so-called theological world today.” Lessing wrote, “If God were to offer me in one hand the immutable truth and in the other, the search of truth, I should say in all humility, ‘Lord, keep the absolute truth. It is not suited to me. Leave to me only the power and the desire to seek for it though I never find it wholly or definitely.’”

That’s exactly where the critics are today, saying, “No revelation, no absolute truth.” We must find it out for ourselves; but here in this Book. God has given the needed truth, the truth man must know in every respect by revelation. And what happens if man turns his back upon the truth as given in the Bible? Let the apostle Paul give the inspired answer: “Turning their ears away from the truth, they are going to be turned unto fables.” That is exactly what we see today.

You listen to the men who decry the opening chapters of Genesis, who tell us they are nothing but myths and legends, who tell us the bland falsehood that the first chapter of Genesis is unscientific, and who would have us believe that there is no revelation in these opening chapters. Having rejected this truth, what do they give us instead? Nothing but the fables of heathendom and the highest hope of them the exploded theory of evolution. God has made known in this Book the destiny of man, that man has endless being; but there are men who have never believed the truth of the Bible. They come and tell us today that they are finding out by research that man is immortal, they tell us that they can give a scientific demonstration of immorality. Immorality does not need a scientific demonstration because it is the subject of revelation and never can it be scientifically demonstrated that man is immortal by man.

Sir Conan Doyle and Sir Oliver Lodge, who have come as unbelievers in the revelation of this Book with their “scientific demonstration” of the existence after death of human beings,—what do they teach us? What do they bring? Error, and with it the demonism which is as old as the race, and which three or four thousand years ago dragged down the ancient nations into ruin—spiritism.

Ah, friends, when I received the copy of Sir Conan Doyle’s new revelation about future existence for every human being after death, and I opened it for the first time, I noticed this sentence, “The church has made altogether too much of the death of Christ and of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Then I knew who was behind that “new revelation,”—not the Spirit of God, but another spirit.

So put it down as the glory of the Bible that it has in it the highest possible knowledge and truth which man is capable of receiving.

Its Production

Then there is the glory of its production. How did this book come into existence? I think we can draw a very beautiful analogy between the Lord Jesus in His incarnation and the production of the Bible, the Word of God. The Spirit of Life and of Power came upon that Virgin, and then that Spirit of Life and Power produced in her the body which the Son of God was to take on. Then He Himself, the Highest, overshadowed that Virgin, and it came to that union of God with a human body. Then there walked on Earth that unique being, the God-man. And so in the production of the Book, the Spirit of Life and Power came upon human beings, holy men of God; then the Spirit of Life and Power bringing the very words and message of God to these human beings, through them there came into existence the Book which is perfectly divine,—mark you, a divine book, a perfectly human, a God-man book. As there was no flaw in the life of that blessed man who walked upon this earth, the God-man, there is no flaw, mark you, in the revelation of God. It is a perfect Word of God.

In Preservation

Then think of its glory in its preservation. The Bible is the most beloved book and the most hated book. O how they loved it hundreds and hundreds of years ago, pressing this precious volume to their hearts going into the fires, into the chambers of horrors in the inquisition period, dying for the Bible. Thousands upon thousands gave their lives for this Book because they loved it so. Satan has hated this Book and attacked it and tried to crush it out, to put it out of existence; but it has been miraculously preserved throughout the ages because its author is the Almighty God Himself, and this Book can never perish. How much there might be said of the preservation of the Bible as forming one of the glories of this Book. Let me give you just one from the Book.

I see King Jehoiakim listening to the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah, and when he has listened to the first leaf, I think I see him putting his hand into his pocket and feeling after his penknife. When the second page is read, he has found his penknife. When the third page is read, he asks for the scroll, and then he begins to cut up the scroll, and to make sure, he casts it into the burning fire. Did that end the word of God? No, for the Lord put the same words again into the pen of Jeremiah, and God, knowing before hand what Jehoiakim would do, said he should be buried with the burial of [an ass (Jeremiah 22:19).] What is Jehoiakim’s work in comparison with the work of the Bible-mutilator, Prof. Charles Foster Kent of Yale University, who with his associates produced the “Shorter New Testament” out of which there has been cut almost every passage which relates definitely to the cross of Christ, redemption by blood and salvation by grace and leaves nothing but the husk of the social and ethical teaching of the New Testament Scriptures? He is going down in shame and ruin if he does not repent, and in greater shame than the Jewish king who cut the scroll of Jeremiah.

But never mind, let them cut it as much as they please, we still have it in our Bibles, and God is going to see to it that His Word is going to be preserved forever and ever.

The Message

Then, the glory of the Bible when you look at the message of the Bible. It is the only book in the world which has a message for men. I have in my library all the sacred writings of the East: the Qur’an, the Vedas, the Zend-Avesta, the Shastra, and many other similar volumes.

I take one of these books down and begin to read some of its vile suggestions and silly ramblings. Then I close that volume and take this Book into my hand, and it seems to me I had been wandering in a dismal swamp, nothing but night, and had stepped suddenly into a bright and glorious June morning, as I open this Book.

O silly creatures, those little bit of preachers who have a little knowledge, which is a dangerous thing, who constantly prattle about the sacred writings of other nations,—they are the sacred writings of the devil. But this Book has the message, the one message which man needs.

You can find the starting point of every message in this Book in one chapter. That chapter is the third chapter in the book of Genesis. Ah, they tell us that the book of Genesis, the third chapter especially, is a kindergarten story, that it is not historically true. Why, if the third chapter of Genesis is not true, then the third chapter of the Gospel of John is not true, and if the third chapter of Genesis is not history, the Bible has no message, because the message of the Bible starts in that chapter, and it is three-fold.

Here is the black line message, the message of sin and of death, telling man where sin has dragged him. Sometimes infidels have rejected the Bible on the plea that it is an immoral Book. Who is the infidel that he should speak against immorality when almost every infidel (and, I think, in the end, every infidel) will be found to have been an immoral man? But that is just one of the evidences that this is the Book of God, because it lays bare the conditions, that man is upon the dunghill of sin and misery and of shame, and that there is One who has sounded the desperately wicked depths of the human soul. As you follow that black line message, it becomes the blackest in the beginning of the epistle to the Romans where the whole world is seen guilty and lost before God. Continue to follow that black line message and it leads into the outer darkness, into an eternal separation from God.

In the third chapter of Genesis, there also starts the red line message, redemption is mentioned there for the first time. The seed of the woman is mentioned,—the cross may be seen for the first time in that chapter. As you follow this blood line message, it leads you past the Jewish altars, the sacrifices, the offerings, and as you pass on in Jewish history, you hear the voice of prophecy proclaiming the coming of the Redeemer, and finally it leads you to Calvary, where the Lamb of God pays the price for man’s redemption. After Calvary, the floodgates of divine life and grace have opened, and grace as boundless as the sea pours forth in the red line message for lost humanity, and that red line message leads you up to the New Jerusalem, which the blood of Jesus has opened for sinners for whom the blood has closed the gates of hell forever.

In the third chapter of Genesis, there starts the golden line message. Satan’s head is to be cut off. God is going to be the Victor in the end, and as you follow the golden line message, it leads you through prophecy to the time when the King is going to rule in righteousness, and after that, the new heaven and the new Earth where God will be all in all.

Now remember that is the message of the Bible, the black line, the red line, and the golden line. There is no other book in the world which has such a message for man, and that is the glory of the Book.

Its Operation

The sixth glory of the Book is the glory of the Bible in operation. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” because this Word is life and power. The Hoy Spirit is in this Word, and the author of this Word, and the Word alone, mark you, can touch the dead condition of the human soul. The Word of God has power to do something for man and manifests its power when it is heard and when it is believed.

What the church needs is not more organization,—it has too much already; nor does it need more education, nor does it need larger sums of money. What the church needs today above everything else is a revival of confidence in this Word of God, and the message of the Book. I wish I could shout it into the council chambers of the Inter-church World Movement and every other movement—“Give the Bible a chance! Preach the Word!” That is the one thing which can still save: the Bible in operation showing what it can do.

Am I right when I say, as I often say: This book is my mother? I will tell you why I call this book my mother and the Holy Spirit the father, because Peter says, “We are born again by the living and abiding Word of God. Not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God,”—the Word and the Spirit. So in the new birth, this Book has a part. It produces, with the Spirit of God, the new nature. That is why Peter at once says, “As newborn babes be desirous of the sincere milk of the Word of God, that ye may grow thereby.” Spiritual growth apart from the Word of God is an impossible thing.

The great pianist, Paderewski, said some years ago, if he stopped practicing for just one day on the piano, he would notice it the next day; if he stopped two days, the musical critics would notice it; if he stopped a week, the audience would notice it.

If you stop reading the Word of God for one day and keep on neglecting the study of the Word of God, your spiritual life must remain undeveloped. We are dependent upon this Word for Spiritual growth, and if we read the Word, and eat the Word, and drink it in, and make it our own and take it into our hearts, why then we develop spiritually, and our service will not be barren.

I need not tell you how we need the sword of the Spirit in conflict, how the Lord Jesus Himself used the sword of the Spirit when He said to Satan, “It is written, it is written,” and conquered his suggestions by the Word of God, and how this Word is needed for our sanctification. “We are sanctified by Thy truth,” as the Lord Jesus tells us. And what else can I say? How it teaches, how it leads, how it guides; how it reproves, how it gives strength and power and wipes our tears away!

There is a passage in Proverbs which the wise king wrote which, I believe, has reference to the Word of God when he says, “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion: so shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck. Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken” (Proverbs 3:21–26). As he says elsewhere, “When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee” (Proverbs 6:22).

Oh, dear Christian friends, what we all need is a still greater confidence in the power and life which is in this Book, in that we walk by it, and live by it, and obey it, and do it.

Its Vindication

Now there is the seventh glory of the bible which I want to mention briefly, and that is the glory of its vindication. It is a most interesting study. I am not going into it, but history shows how often God allowed the enemies of this Book to go to the very end of their rope,—how He did not interfere or answer their sneers or ridiculing of what is written here until His time came, and then over and over again He used the very enemies of the Book as instruments, in His wisdom, to vindicate the Book. I wish somebody would write a book on the vindication of the Bible as it has been in the past and as present day conditions vindicate this Book. But there is a future vindication of the Bible coming, and I confine myself to this,—a future vindication of the Bible as the revelation and as the Word of God. This Book, like the Living Word, is in humiliation first, and then comes the exaltation. The Bible today is in the place of humiliation as far as the world is concerned,—not with God’s people. Oh, how they reject it, how they belittle it, how they cut at it, and one can easily see today the drift of things,—“Away with the Bible! AWAY WITH THE BIBLE!”

According to the Word of God, there is yet coming a time which might be termed the Gethsemane and the Calvary for this Book, for the Book itself speaks of a time of apostasy when the faith will not be found any more upon this earth. Mark the beginning of the condemnation of apostasy is the rejection of this Book. They are at it and by and by when the true church is no longer here, when Christendom, apostate Babylon the Great remains here, Satan will put this Book into the place of death and shame, and figuratively speaking, into a grave. But there is a third day of resurrection coming, mark you, and that Book is going to be raised from shame and rejection. Then when the Living Word, the Lord Jesus, comes again, every promise in this Book, every prophecy concerning the church, concerning the Jew, concerning the nations, concerning creation will be literally fulfilled, and His coming will mean the complete vindication of the Bible as the Word of God, and that will be its greatest glory.

Oh, friends, let us stand by it in these days. Have you ever noticed what the devil says first in the Old Testament and then what he says in the New Testament? The first time he speaks in the Old Testament he says, “Yea, hath God said?” He was the first higher critic. In the New Testament he says, “If thou be the Son of God.” These two devilish lies we are facing today in the rejection of the Bible as the Word of God, and the rejection of our blessed , adorable Saviour as the very Son of God.

So let us stand on the Lord’s side, stand by the blessed Book and share its glory in the coming day when the King comes back and we shall be with Him.

—A.C. Gabelein was the editor of “Our Hope.” Address given at the Second World Conference on Christian Fundamentals, Chicago, Illinois, May 14, 1920.