p. 7 | Christ and the Bible

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 26, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 38.

Christ and the Bible.

What Christ was among men, the Bible is among books. He was made flesh and dwelt among men, and the word of God comes in the same form as other words, and dwells among other books. But as in the person of Jesus dwelt the incarnate God, so in the Bible is the living word of God. As when men saw Jesus there was no beauty that they should desire him (Isa. 53:2), so the natural, unbelieving man sees no beauty in God's word that he should desire it. But as Peter, and all other believers, could say of and to Jesus, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16), so every believing soul finds the Bible to be the word of life of the living God. As Jesus the Christ “came unto his own received him not” (John 1:11), so God's word is often rejected by his own people. The cases are parallel at every point. Christ is in person and character just what the word is in character. The Bible, in its morality and power, is God's word expressed in letter; Jesus Christ is the working out of that word in the grandest character that ever lived,—the Perfect Man. If by faith in him we will receive the word, it will work out in us what it did in him. His living word will become incarnated in us.