CHALLENGING THE WORD by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 2, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 14.

CHALLENGING THE WORD.

By S.

The heartfelt declaration of the one who has learned to know God is: “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee;” “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Ps. 119: 11, 105. The only question of such a heart is, “What does the Word say?” God’s Word was designed by Him to be the “man of our counsel.” As He is not here in person to speak for Himself, He has given this ever-living, ever-speaking Word, fully fitted to meet every need, and answer every essential query, of the heart whose desire is to know and serve the Lord.

If we secure a guide to pilot us through a dangerous forest, we do not require that guide at every step to prove that he is truly guiding us to our goal. We can not require him at each step of the way to stop and prove to our satisfaction that he is a guide and not an impostor. With such a policy adopted, no traveler would ever get anywhere. To make him stop and “prove up” at each step would make it impossible for him to do anything at all for us.

If Christ Himself were here in person now, He could do nothing whatever for that soul that continually refused to believe His spoken word; continually demanded that every statement which He made be submitted to a searching investigation; and in the face of continual proof, continued to demand that each new statement of divine truth from the lips of divinity must be tried in the crucible of human knowledge. If Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, then His words are truth, carrying the truth only. We could not discount His Word without discounting Him. If we declare that the Bible is not the truth, we bring a terrible charge against Him by whose inspiration holy men of God penned its sacred teachings.

The whole is equal to the sum of all its parts. If Christ is the truth, then every word He uttered is the truth. If His words are part true and part false, He can not be the truth. The spring of life does not send forth both sweet water and bitter. He who would come to God must “believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” To believe that only in part, or only a part of the time, would make the coming to Him of no effect. We can not truly come to God in any such way. As we could not be continually questioning Christ’s truthfulness and be an accepted member of the household of God, neither can we be continually challenging the truth of His Word, the Bible, and be worthy, accredited, and accepted members of this household. The inhabitants of heaven could no longer question God’s truth and goodness, and could no longer consider even the possibility of Satan’s truth and goodness, when the Son of God expired on the cross. It is time now for men to take their stand with the angels of God on the side of eternal truth, and cease promulgating the possibility that God and His Word are compositions of truth and error. As long as Satan lives, he will continue to challenge God’s truth and righteousness. We are his assistants, espousers of his cause, when we do the same thing.

But it is fashionable now to do it. It is fashionable to be a “higher critic;” it is the fashionable church whose vestrymen employ the expounders of the “higher criticism” to teach from under the roaring pipes of their great organ the dogmas of doubt that are filling the pews with polished forms of religion lacking the power to move a mote by prayer, to say nothing of a mountain. It is bound to be so. When we destroy faith in God’s Word, we destroy faith in Him; and without faith in Him, our religious forms are as dead as the skull of Golgotha.

What does this doctrine of disbelief inculcate in reference to the Bible and its teachings? Let us answer in excerpts from an article in The Outlook of March 15:—

It [the Bible] does not all stand on the same level. It is not, nor does it contain, a code of laws or doctrines to be accepted without question. . . . By taking from the Bible its absolute authority, we not only modify our belief in the historical character of certain occurrences, but we overthrow the foundation for every one of our religious beliefs. [The writer is frank, and there is no doubt whatever that that is how it would work.] . . . Nor does it follow that the Bible is no longer to be used as a source of religious teaching. It simply can no longer speak with unquestioned authority. Other nations and religions have their sacred books, which are not to be regarded as without value in broadening, deepening, confirming, or correcting that which we have learned. . . . Poor old Adam disappears, of course, but the fundamental fact remains that we come into the world with a brute and savage inheritance which must be subdued [But that “fundamental fact” does not remain; for it does not exist, if the Bible is true.] . . . The atonement likewise is seen not to be an isolated, artificial arrangement by which God agrees to a bargain fundamentally immoral, accepting the punishment of the innocent instead of that of the guilty. . . . The Bible is found to be a product of that great process of evolution which has been found to be working throughout the universe.

That is how the “higher criticism,” arm in arm with evolution, looks upon the Bible, as told by a “higher critic.” Here is his admission of what this does for those who believe it:—

In all these ways God is made to seem further off from us, less personal, and less directly interested in us. We lose our familiarity of acquaintance with Him. . . . There is no longer the feeling of frantic haste to save a few souls out of countless millions from going down to endless torment; nor is there any burning desire to let every soul know of the name of Jesus in order to hasten the time of the second coming. It is not to be denied that there has been in consequence a certain cooling of the interest in foreign missions. . . . It is when we come to the question of the future life that the negative results of the higher criticism make themselves most deeply felt. Here we are of necessity beyond the realm of experience, and where once we seemed to have definite and reliable information we find ourselves left very much in the dark. . . . Science may yet tell us more, and we look to it eagerly for what it has to offer; but its results, and even its promises, are of but small extent as yet.

That is the condition in which mortal man is left when he refuses to be guided by the Guide, and begins to work out a plan of his own, through evolution and the dogmas of doubt, for his own salvation in his own way. It turns out to be, however, the scheme of the great deceiver for man’s overthrow. He has led man to think that the human brain devised it; but it is simply his same old policy in a little different setting, and with it he is sifting the world for the last time. Of course it puts God “further off from us,” and destroys our “familiarity of acquaintance with Him.” That is its design. Of course it cools our interest in foreign missions. That is its design. Of course it clouds our knowledge of the future life. That is its design. And it leads man away from Christ and into self-salvation, and consequently to eternal ruin; and that is its design. There is safer and bigger business for humanity than challenging the Word of its Maker. S.