Shall We Have the Bible?

FOR more than twenty years it has been evident to me that this is to be the great question of our day. At a time when increasing light is beaming forth from the Scriptures of truth, according to the prediction of prophecy, Dan. 12:4, 10, infidelity, under new and insidious forms, rears its mighty and unblushing face, and with "progress" for its motto, it intends to do nothing short of sinking the Bible to oblivion and banishing its faith from among mankind. And it is not only the outside, non-professing world that is being, and will be, affected by this movement, but the professed friends of the Bible are giving up the faith, and many of them are doing their best to help forward the increasing infidelity of the times, some in an open, and others in a covert, way. These profess great reverence for God, while, from what they are pleased to call the light of science, they teach principles clearly atheistic. Modern spiritualism, which commenced its public work in 1848, struck the key-note of "progression," and the latent and covered infidelity of men of all grades and in all stations has been, and is being, rapidly developed.

What causes have prepared the way and led to this unparalleled raid against the Bible and the Christian faith? How does it happen that such gross infidelity is so suddenly developed, even among professed believers in the revelation of the Bible.

The deep depravity of the human heart, the "carnal mind" which is enmity against God, is not subject to his law, cannot, and will not be, naturally chooses to disbelieve and disobey God. Men are infidels because they choose to be. Pride, the evil root from whence sprung the first sin, 1 Tim. 3:6; Isa. 14:12-14; Eze. 28:12-17, holds the heart from yielding to God. And the improvements of our day in arts and sciences, the inventions and achievements of men, tend to foster pride, and make man deify himself, and wish to dethrone the Almighty.

But it is "withal, a very polished age;" and infidelity, not willing to bravely fight under its own proper banner, and wear its own proper uniform— not willing openly to proclaim its own atheism—makes profession of "devout belief in God" and "steals the livery of the court of Heaven to serve the devil in." It will even profess faith in the Bible, provided it be allowed to interpret it to its liking. And this is the grand point. Here is the point where professed Christians have set an example for unbelievers of every grade to nullify the claims of the Scriptures. The Bible has been interpreted to suit every creed, and uphold every departure from its plainest teachings and requirements. The learned Origen early set the example of interpreting the plain statements of the Scriptures allegorically; and infidels now will refer to him, when they wish to set aside what the Scriptures declare. The plea is that they do not mean what they say; but something else: anything which the interpreter judges most desirable, that which will establish his own faith and practice.

Take a few examples in which Christians have laid a foundation for infidels to build upon. To avoid the rocks of materialism, they have described God as a being "without body, parts, or passions," not dwelling in any place in particular, but being as truly in any one place as in any other; setting aside those scriptures which speak of his dwelling place, his holy habitation, in the heavens, whence he looks down to earth upon the children of men. Infidelity chimes in: God is everywhere and in everything; as much in a rock or tree as anywhere else. He pervades all nature; is the God of nature; and the artful leave us to infer, while the less cautious bring out their own conclusion, as one did in my presence recently, that there is no God but nature. What will our Christian friends say to this? They have laid the foundation, others build thereon.

Again, take the plain and very explicit duty of keeping the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Christians will read this precept which clearly enjoins the keeping of a specified day, the seventh of the seven, because that was the day on which God rested, and which he blessed and sanctified, that is, separated it from the other days of the week and appointed it to be a sacred memorial of himself and his creative work, and after reading the commandment as it is, will begin to tell you that it does not mean what it says, in words something like the following: "It is very clear that the design of this commandment is to require that one-seventh portion of our time, namely, one day in seven, should be kept holy to the Lord, as a Sabbath day or day of rest." The text does not say this at all; but this is what they think it must mean. It would be no more absurd to interpret the first commandment—"Thou shalt have no other gods before me"—to mean that we must make choice of a god whom we will worship, and have no other.

This commandment is not so explicit as the fourth. The "me" of the first commandment is dependent for its identity on the facts which are stated in connection with the fourth. Take these explanatory facts from the Sabbath commandment, and you may not only choose your own day for a Sabbath, but you may choose the god you will worship. This shows what interpretation can do. Those who would have no Sabbath and no God drink with avidity such interpretations. Many of them have sense and reason enough to know that if the Sabbath precept does not specify a particular day which all are required to keep, then there is no sacred day, and we may choose one day in seven or ten, or no day at all. The tendency and logical sequence of such interpretation is no-Sabbathism; and those who would have their lager beer and amusements on Sunday are able to see it. For to teach that the commandment, as originally given, requires no particular day, but only one day in seven, and on the top of this, that the day of the Sabbath has been changed (from one indefinite and unspecified day to another), and now requires us to honor a particular Sunday, is much more than preposterously absurd; how much more, language is incapable of expressing!

We might add other instances of Christian interpretation that foster infidelity (and perhaps will at another time), but these are enough to show that the professed friends of the Bible, with their interpretations, have opened the way for the enemies of God and revelation to force upon us the great question of the day, namely, Shall we have the Bible? Nothing answers the purpose of infidelity better than the large license of interpretation which the friends of the Bible have put into their hands.

Now the only hope for those who would retain the Bible is in returning to what it says, instead of telling what it must mean. It would be well for interpreters to take the advice of Wm. Tyndale, who was the first to translate the New Testament from the original Greek into the English, in 1526, under the heading, "To the Reader," he says, "Marke the playne and manyfest places of the Scriptures, and in doubtfill places, se thou adde no interpretacion contrary to them: but (as Paul sayth) let all be conformable and agreynge to the faith."

These interpretations have worked, and are working, mischief. Better lay them aside, and let the Bible speak for itself. A poet has sung, "God is his own interpreter." So let it be.