p. 259 | Nature and the Bible by Christian Union

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 1, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 17.

Nature and the Bible.

By Christian Union

We are so used to think of the Bible in the light of the New Testament that we forget some of its most precious and some of its most remarkable parts. There is no other such literature as that of the Old Testament. Look through the whole range of classic writing, and through the whole range of modern writing; although there are allusions to the supremacy of God in nature, there are no such detailed descriptions of, and no such loving, lingering glances upon, natural scenery and phenomena, as are to be found in the Old Testament. We are accustomed to look at the seasons from a purely commercial, utilitarian point of view. At the most we only leaven this with some sentiment, with some poetic feeling. In the main, most men learn to regard things in the light of selfishness. When we look out of the window in the morning, it is not to see what new phase of power God has manifested; it is not to see what is the peculiar drapery of the day (for it is not always the same); it is to see whether our purpose, of business or pleasure, is likely to be checked or favored by the weather. Everlasting egotism is that which actuates us. All through the day we estimate the weather according to its effect upon our convenience and comfort, whether we are on a journey, on an excursion of pleasure, or on an enterprise of profit. We think of the seasons and of the phenomena around about us almost always simply with reference to what they can do for us, or what they can do to hinder us. The natural philosopher, perhaps, to all this adds a still further development, because he looks at things in the light of science. The vapors have a meaning to him. Heat, cold, and the products of heat and cold, mean something to him. He notices them, but to him they are so many ideas, so many facts, so many links in the chain of a theory or system. All is mundane, all is earthly, to his thought.

The poet looks in still a third way at nature. To him light is intrinsically beautiful, it has such adaptation to the eye. The seasons have some poetry to him. But never was there such a grouping together of these in adequate measure as in the time of the Hebrew poets. The psalmist contemplated nature with great gratitude. The harvests, the flocks, the kine—all tokens of prosperity—are brought up in many psalms, and distinctly pointed out as topics for grateful thought. Summer and winter, the time for sowing and the time for reaping, are set forth in an economic point of view. And the language is poetic. The Old Testament does not contain any minute dissecting, as of an artist mind; or any scene-painting, seeming to have been done for effect; or art pictures, as they are called; or descriptive writing; but it contains that which produces the poetic sentiment, only upon the higher plane. The contemplation of natural things is not in the line of our lower tastes. The tone of mind of the Hebrews was nobler and higher than that of most occidentals. They saw natural objects in their relation to God. When they looked at the clouds, their first thought was not that they had rain for us, nor that they furnished facts for the natural philosopher, but that they were God's chariot, and that he rode on them and controlled them. The mountains and the hills were of God; summer and winter had something of God; the trees clapped their hands in praise of God. And though they did not register these things as modern science has registered them, they saw them better than it, and recognized in them argument for praise and gratitude to God.

In that spirit we should endeavor to regard the seasons. We are not merely to consider them as meant for our economic convenience. They are our servants as well as our masters. We are not to exclude the lower forms of sympathy and poetic inspiration in nature; these are right; but we are especially to see to it that we come into sympathy with nature on the higher side, as being veritably a revelation from God. For nature is as truly, though differently, a revelation from God as the Bible. The experiences of human life, the account of creation, and declarative purposes of God, are recorded in this book; but the book itself requires interpretation. The knowledge of the things to which it refers comes later in the history of mankind. This book is the torch by which we see our way back to read the book of nature. And the more we come to think of the natural world as being a part of God's record of his thoughts and purposes, the more we shall find ourselves impressed thereby, and the more company it will be to us. Not only so, it will be a sanctuary to us, and will convey to us, evermore, a sense of the presence of God.