JESUS AND THE BIBLE by George F. Pentecost

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 13, 1880

JESUS AND THE BIBLE.

By George F. Pentecost

"In the volume of the Book it is written of me" (Heb. 10 : 7). Commenting on this passage of Scripture, Martin Luther says:—

"There is but one Book; there is but one Person. That Book is the Bible; that Person is Jesus Christ."

In the highest and best sense of the great reformer's thought all devout persons agree with the truth of this noble sentiment. There are many books in the world, and of the making of more good, bad, and indifferent there seems to be no end; but the Scriptures, the Holy Bible, is still, as it ever has been, pre-eminently the Book. Just as Jesus was pre-eminent among the many who bore the same name while he lived, so he is designated in the Greek of the New Testament by the definite article. He was emphatically the Jesus. So the Bible is among other books the Bible. When Sir Walter Scott lay dying, he called to his son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, and said: "Read to me." "Out of which book, Sir Walter?" said Mr. Lockhart. The dying poet looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then said: "Lockhart, there is but one Book. Read to me out of the Bible." Happy the man who, living or dying, comes to understand that the Bible is the Book in all the world, and that Jesus Christ, of whom the great writers of the Bible wrote, is the only person to whom he can yield his heart and mind in supreme and undivided allegiance.

If Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh, it is also true that the Bible, in a very high and important sense, is a manifestation of Jesus Christ in the word. The written Word is the living stenograph of the Eternal and Incarnate Word, who was made flesh and dwelt among us. It is this fact that makes Christ and the Bible inseparable. Should we take Christ out of the Bible, there would be no book, in any proper sense, left. Should we destroy or deny the authenticity and genuineness of the Bible record, the world is left without Jesus Christ. Thus we come to the practical conclusion that Jesus Christ is the key to the interpretation or understanding of the Bible. In reading its sacred pages, in contemplating its great characters, in unfolding its symbols, in interpreting its types, in reading the history of its chosen people, in making research into its historic pages of creation, as well as in seeking the interpretation of its great prophecies, we need to take Jesus Christ with us as a key to unlock all. He who reads with Jesus as the key will read understandingly and be made wise unto salvation. Otherwise he will only become wise in his own conceits and probably wrest the Scriptures to his own condemnation.

From the time God announced in the Garden of Eden that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head (Gen. 3 : 15) until the time when John cried, in response to the apocalyptic vision, "Even so, come Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22 : 20), he is seen to be the great central figure of the Book. As the sun casts a shadow before a body advancing from it, so Jesus, who was a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and whose goings forth have been from eternal, casts the long line of typical and ceremonial shadows seen in the Old Testament Scriptures before him. These, says the great apostle, were the shadow of good things to come—Jesus the substance of all those good things.—Rev. Geo. F. Pentecost.