THE BIBLE, COMMENTARIES, AND TRADITION.
By Editor
LAST week we gave a few principles of interpretation and promised to add a few more this week. As what we now wish to give is very intimately related with what has already been given, we will first recall those points. We noted first, that the Bible is absolute truth and that anything that disagrees with it in the slightest particular must be false. Second, that the Bible, though composed of many books, is one Book with one Author; that there is perfect harmony in all its parts. Third, that the Bible contains all truth, because that by it a man may be "thoroughly furnished unto all good works;" and that therefore it must be its own interpreter. Fourth, that one part of the Bible cannot be fully understood if taken out of its connection, or without reference to the Bible as a whole. There is no book in the Bible upon which light is not thrown by every other book in the Bible. On this point the following from Dr. P. S. Henson's introduction to the book, "Christ in the Gospels," is excellent:— "In what we call the Bible, God has given us many books penned by many writers, each presenting such views of truth as his mental and spiritual nature made him specially adapted to be the vehicle of. Not that any one of these Scripture writers was left to wander at his 'own sweet will,' so that we must largely discount his deliverances on account of his human imperfections and the possibility of his misapprehending what the Lord would have him teach. That were indeed to undermine utterly the authority of the Scriptures, and 'if the foundations be destroyed what shall the righteous do?' We do most thoroughly and invincibly believe that 'holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,' and that therefore what they spake may be absolutely relied upon. But while we believe that all that each one said was truth, God's truth, we do not believe it was all the truth. You must have all that all of them said, in order to be sure that you have all the truth. 'Which things we speak,' writes the apostle Paul, 'not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.' And only by such collation and comparison can God's truth be comprehended in all the breadth and beauty of its meaning. You cannot obtain any accurate representation23of a building by taking only a single view. As the photographer is accustomed to take two pictures, from a little different point of view, and when both these are looked at at once, as in a stereopticon, you see not two pictures, but one, and that not a flat surface such as each of the pictures shows, but a solid that stands out in its massiveness before your eyes. And yet even then you do not see the hinder part, but only half the building. To see it all in its completed symmetry, we should be obliged to have four views, and to look at them all at once. But this is, of course, impossible, inasmuch as we have not four eyes, but only two. But the principle applies, though its application be impossible. Singularly enough there are just four Gospels. The metropolis of gospel truth, like the heavenly metropolis, lieth four square. Four pictures have we here of the matchless Man of Nazareth,—four pictures, and all so much alike that sometimes captious critics have said that there was only one original Gospel and the other three were copied from that. Four pictures, and yet all so different that other skeptical critics have alleged that there are glaring discrepancies in them that are hopelessly irreconcilable. The pictures, of course, must be alike, for all of them are pictures of Him. The pictures, of course, must be unlike, for each of the portrait painters had his own peculiar point of view. And yet it takes all four to give us the Christ of history in all the completeness of his humanity and divinity." This is just as true of the whole Bible as it is of the four Gospels. Lastly, we showed that a term used in one place in the Bible must have the same meaning in every other place where it occurs, especially if the same subject is under consideration. Under the third proposition, that the Bible must interpret itself, we wish to say a few words on the use of commentaries. Commentaries may be a great help to the Bible student, or they may be a great curse. No matter how good a commentary may be, if a person relies implicitly upon it, taking all its statements as final upon any subject, he might better never see it, for he simply puts it in place of the Bible. Commentaries may be used only as they throw additional light on a point already established, or when the commentator leads to the understanding of a point, by unfolding to us the Bible evidence upon it. Many persons will quote a decision from Barnes, or Scott, or Clark, or Olshausen, or some other person, and rest satisfied with that. Now allowing that their statement of the case is correct, of what use is it to us if they do not show us the steps by which they arrived at such a conclusion; or how can we know that their statement is correct if we do not have those steps? If the commentary does not lead us to the Bible then it is worse than useless. No matter how great a man may be, his opinion on a matter of Bible doctrine is of no account whatever unless it is backed by Bible evidence. And therefore in teaching others we should never quote commentaries for the purpose of biasing the mind or in any way influencing the judgment, before the Scripture has done its work. If a thing is true it may be proved by the Bible; if it cannot be proved by the Bible, it is of no consequence whatever, no matter who may hold it. If a man relates to us an item of news, we almost invariably ask, "How do you know?" This does not necessarily indicate that we doubt his statement, but that we want to have the same ground for belief that he has. We should not be less anxious for trustworthy information on Bible subjects than we are on the news of the day. If a commentator makes a statement, he is in duty bound to tell us why he makes it, and we should demand this before we accept it. Otherwise we cannot be "thoroughly furnished unto all good works." If the statement involves some duty, and we perform that duty, not knowing the full reason therefor, we shall be following some man, and not the Bible. The Bible then is the test of whether or not a man is a good commentator. If he proves every statement by comparing scripture with scripture, so that we can see for ourselves the reasonableness of his propositions, then his work becomes a blessing. If he does not, then, even though his statements be true, his work is of no account. He is like a man who climbs to the top of a building, and pulls up after him the ladder by which he ascended, but still expects others to follow him. There is a growing and almost irresistible tendency to depreciate the value of plain Scripture statements. This is seen in the fact that when a direct Bible argument is given on some point that is new to the hearer, the first questions will almost invariably be, "Who believes this? What men have advocated this view?" Those who ask such questions are really exalting the human above the divine. They virtually say that the Bible needs human indorsement. We should have such confidence in the Bible that we will accept what it says no matter who, nor how many persons, may teach to the contrary. Another point that should be firmly fixed, is that tradition should be wholly disregarded in interpreting the Bible. No matter how old a tradition may be, it should not be allowed to bias the judgment in the least. We cannot know whether tradition is true or not until we compare it with the Bible; and since we have to first examine the Bible to ascertain the truth of tradition, it is evident that tradition can be of no help to us in interpreting the Bible. We must first understand the Bible, before we can know what credit to give to tradition. Many people suppose that those who lived nearest to the time when the Bible was written, must have known a great deal more about the Bible than we can. The popular idea of this is expressed by Rev. James Chrystal in his "History of the Modes of Christian Baptism," chap. 3, where, speaking of the testimony of holy Scripture, he says:— "This is the source of doctrine, but it should ever be interpreted by the historical witness of the earliest ages of the church. In other words, in case a doubt should arise regarding the proper interpretation of a passage relating to a certain doctrine or rite, we should not despise the voice of the early successors of the apostles. It is a principle of common sense as well as of sound criticism that the historical witness of the Christians who lived the nearest the apostolic age, is of the greatest importance in determining the meaning of obscure or disputed passages of the New Testament." But it should be remembered that the apostles had no "successors." There have been a great many men who have lived since they did, but they have not been apostles. If nearness to the apostolic age gives extra light on the Bible, then those who lived at the same time that the apostles did ought to be still better guides than those who lived after they did; but we find that some of the gravest errors were taught by men who were contemporaries of the apostles. For a single example, see 2 Tim. 2:17, 18. In closing this brief statement of principles, we would adopt the words of Dr. Killen, who speaks of the early church Fathers as follows:— "It would seem as if the great Head of the church permitted these early writers to commit the grossest mistakes, and to propound the most foolish theories, for the express purpose of teaching us that we are not implicitly to follow their guidance. It might have been thought that authors, who flourished on the borders of apostolic times, knew more of the mind of the Spirit than others who appeared in succeeding ages; but the truths of Scripture, like the phenomena of the visible creation, are equally intelligible to all generations. If we possess spiritual discernment, the trees and the flowers will display the wisdom and the goodness of God as distinctly to us as they did to our first parents; and, if we have the "unction from the Holy One," we may enter into the meaning of the Scriptures as fully as did Justin Martyr or Irenaeus. To assist us in the interpretation of the New Testament, we have at command a critical apparatus of which they were unable to avail themselves. Jehovah is jealous of the honor of his word, and he has inscribed in letters of light over the labors of the most ancient interpreters, 'Cease ye from man.' The 'opening of the Scriptures' so as to exhibit their beauty, their consistency, their purity, their wisdom, and their power, is the clearest proof that the commentator is possessed of 'the key of knowledge.' When tried by this test, Thomas Scott or Matthew Henry is better entitled to confidence than either Origen or Gregory Thaumaturgus. The Bible is its own safest expositor. 'The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.'—The Ancient Church, section 2, chapter 1, last paragraph."