The One Living, Ever Present-Day Book
By George W. Rine
THE Bible — a most significant phrase; for it means THE Book. No ordinary book is The Book — it is distinct, unique, solitary. Aye, it is “the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” This is its distinctive glory, that it is “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God.” Not Moses, not David, not Paul — but GOD is its Author! The Bible has been hated and reviled as no other book has ever been, and yet it remains intact. It has been burned and pronounced dead, yet it lives — incomparably the greatest force on earth. Mighty kings and scheming priests have shrunk from no toil and no guilt in order to exterminate it; scholarly men have spared no eloquence of tongue or pen in order to refute it; science and infidelity have abolished it times without number; yet to-day it is spreading with unprecedented rapidity in multiplied millions of copies and in almost a half thousand languages. What is the secret of the inviolability of this Book? Why invulnerable to the poisoned shafts of men and devils? — Ah, it is of God; and, like God, it is imperishable, immortal, eternal! The Bible is a building that has for its foundation the Rock of Ages. Hence its impregnable strength. Thus sang the Spirit-quickened poet: “Forever, O Jehovah, Thy Word is SETTLED in heaven.” It was the Word Incarnate who declared, “The Scripture can not be broken.” As easily might the enemies of God shake down the illimitable structure of His universe as remove one stone from the structure of His Word. What multitudes of armed enemies have battered against the adamantine ramparts of God’s Word! But they have battered in vain. The Bible is not in danger, and never can be. Let its enemies rage, and dash themselves in pieces against it. Its timeless majesty, its silent rocky strength, bids them defiance. It were as easy to abolish God as to abolish His Book, “for Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name.” Ps. 138:2. Yes, the Bible is a timeless book; it is of no age and of no place. Forever and everywhere it is in season — up to date. It is God’s revelation of Himself to man — to EVERY man. He has adapted it to the needs not only of every nation and kindred and tongue, but of every individual soul. Hence it is present to every age and potent in every clime. To me its message is just as fresh, beautiful, vital, and powerful as it was to Jeremiah or to Timothy. It must, in the very nature of things, be coeval with its Author, and He “inhabits eternity.” Most naturally, then, does Spirit-filled Peter declare, “The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.” Like the sun, the Bible shines for rich and poor, white and black, literate and illiterate. It knows no caste, no occult order, no hieroglyphics or dark symbols. It is so simple and obvious that a child can grasp it, enjoy it, live it; so deep that the wisest sage can never fathom it. It is universally potent, perennially dynamic. God is life, “the fountain of life;” and when He speaks, He speaks not only the words of life, but words that live — words that are themselves the essential life of God. Jesus, who was the living, personal revelation of God, testified, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Of the same import is the testimony of His apostle: “The Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, . . . and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.” A.R.V. That the Bible is instinct with the life of God is evident not only because Jesus and His prophets so declared, but also because millions of sinful men bowed under the galling weight of guilt have been “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” Innumerable men and women in all times have borne witness to the quickening, transforming power of the life of God in their own souls, brought to them through His blessed Word. Their own transfigured lives were to them the overwhelming proof that in the Scriptures we have “the words of ETERNAL LIFE.” That the Bible is the living Word of God needs no rhetorical or formal proof. It evidences its divine life and potency by what it does, by its fruits. Think of its power to lift men out of the darkness and bondage of sin into the light and liberty of God — of its power to gladden, ennoble, and rehabilitate human lives! A stream can not rise higher than its source; and a Book that reclaims prodigal wanderers and brings them back to their divine Father’s house, must have come from the same supernal source. In countless instances this Book has demonstrated its power to lay hold on men and women in the lowest depth of iniquity and degradation, and lift them up, up, up into the light and life and love of God. Times without number this Word, instinct with spirit and life, has found its way into the heart of the proud, flippant, cynical, scoffing devotee of “fashion,” and transfigured her into a gentle, confiding, self-sacrificing, ministering daughter of the heavenly King. The reader may recall the following historic illustration: Upon the urgent request of a friend, a splendor-loving lady in Geneva, Claudine Levet, about 1532, consented to hear the despised Froment preach. She put on amulets, rubbed virgin wax on her face, placed verbena leaves on her temples, as a safeguard against the sorcerer, and with an air of contempt sat immediately in front of the plain-looking preacher, crossing herself. But while he spoke, her whole expression and attitude changed. When he closed, she asked, “How do you know that what you said is true?” “Here it is written,” was his simple answer. “Give me the book.” Quietly she went home, and for three days read the Sacred Volume in seclusion. She came forth from her room a transformed woman. “She is lost to us,” her aristocratic friends lamented. “She no longer cares for festivities, rich apparel, and social gaieties, but spends her time visiting the sick, ministering to the needy, and reading the Bible.” It was through the message of the Old Book that the divine Spirit wrought this miracle of transformation. Every observer knows that the nearer one gets to God, the nearer one gets to the Bible; the more one loves God, the more one loves the Bible; the deeper one’s knowledge of God, the deeper one’s knowledge of the Bible. There never has been and there never can be an exception to this rule. Why? Because the Holy Spirit, who alone can lead a soul to God, always leads that soul over the everlasting highway of the living Word of the living God.