1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of us… "Word of God" is one of the most common, ancient, and accurate titles of the Bible. It is a name to be specially valued because it carries with it the doctrine that the Bible is one whole, has one Author, subject and object, and as the text states, works with like power in all who receive it. I. IN ANYTHING THAT HAS ORGANIC UNITY, ALL THE DIFFERENT PARTS, HOWEVER MANY AND ALIKE, ARE YET SO RELATED AS ORGANS THAT EVERY ONE OF THEM IS ESSENTIAL TO THE INTEGRITY AND COMPLETENESS OF THE WHOLE. 1. This needs illustration. (1) In the human body there is a wonderful variety of parts as to substance, form, colour, size, etc.; but you cannot take away a bone or vein, etc., without effecting the unity of the body. The Mind that created it made every smallest part with reference to every other part. (2) In a heap of sand there is no such unity of parts or purpose, One particle has no necessary relation to others. Take away one or twenty of these separate grains, you make the heap smaller, that is all. (3) The same difference can be traced in the different states of a tree. The organic law of vegetable life makes every portion of a tree — bark, wood, sap, leaf — from the root to the topmost twig, one whole, in spite of the diversity of the parts. But cut the tree down, saw and split it, and then lay the pieces together, no matter how regularly — the unity is lost. But, again, take the same pieces of timber, shape them in a particular way so as to fit them for each other with other materials according to the design of our mind so as to make a building. Here we have unity again, though not of life. You look at the house or temple and say it is one thing. 2. These examples make it plain what organic unity is in any production of the mind whether of God or man. Remember, however, two qualifications — (1) While every portion is essential to the completeness it is not said that it is essential to the life of the thing. A tree will live with some of the branches or roots cut off. A body will live after amputation. (2) All the parts are not of equal importance. II. THE BIBLE HAS THIS UNITY. It came from one Spirit, as one whole, with one design. Every part has vital connection with every other and with that design. You cannot tear any portion out without vitally hurting the integrity and authority of it as one Book. Hence it is what it is declared to be, the indestructible" Word of God." If it has not this unity, then human reason may take it to pieces, like the useless links of a broken chain, and sit in judgment on each one, and throw any one away, This experiment has long ago been tried, but the Church has held the Bible fast, and kept it one. III. IN WHAT DOES THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE CONSIST. 1. Not in the absence of variety or diversity in the parts. No book ever written approaches it in the diversity of its contents. It is not like the unity of a Doric column, a blade of grass or a single portrait; but rather like the unity of nature in the variety of her manifestations and operations. 2. Look at this diversity as bringing out the unity by contrast in a striking and impressive light. (1) The division into two Testaments stamped with the characteristics of two unlike dispensations having centuries lying between. (2) There are more than threescore books with almost as many writers. (3) These volumes were produced in states of society utterly dissimilar and appeared at unequal intervals stretching over 1,500 years. (4) The history covers between three and four thousand years, is in three distinct languages, all dead. (5) Notice the diversities of style, chronicles, biographies, poems, statistics, songs, treatises, predictions, etc. Each author has a stamp of his own, clearly defined from the rest. 2. Yet after all it is one Word. This unity is — (1) a unity of doctrine. As to the being, personality and providence of God the Father; as to the history, character and offices of God the Son; as to the nature, gifts and works of God the Holy Ghost; as to man's origin, sin, recovery and destiny; as to his regeneration, redemption and retribution; as to the constitution and glory of the Church; as to holiness of life and the communion of saints, this book teaches by all its voices, substantially the same thing everywhere. (2) Of history, proceeding straight from the first man, by the chosen nation, expanding afterwards into the broader family all visited with "the Light" and all regathered before the throne, it is one perfect historic whole. (3) Of prophecy and its fulfilment. The predictions run on from that early one on the threshold of Eden, through different parts of the volume, including much special and minute foretelling, till the mysteries of another life are foreseen in Patmos. (4) Of types and their answering realities. One portion will tell us about men, places, acts or ceremonies of which we do not see half the significance till we read on to a distant part of the record. (5) Of one living Person who harmonizes these arguments in Himself. Central to all this wondrous universe of Scripture signs and symbols stands the Saviour's Cross, with unbroken tables of the broken law leaning against its feet. Jesus is its inward life — making it the Book of Life to us — as much as the blood in the veins is the life of the body. In conclusion notice two difficulties. 1. You say that you cannot see the connection of some parts of the Bible with its principal object. There are passages and even books so apparently detached from the main drift that you cannot trace the links which join them with the rest. This is just what might have been expected in a message sent by God to a short-lived and ignorant child, but meant also to be for all time, lands and conditions. If certain pieces of mortar and timber from a building were brought to you, you would confess that you could not see what relation they bore to the structure. A young child sees no use in half the things that the grownup world deems quite necessary to keep society safe and strong. Could you see as the inspiring Spirit sees you would confess that either to the narrative, or moral impression, or spiritual power, directly or indirectly, to some past, present or future, this very part was an essential contribution. 2. You say that some parts are unedifying. To you, perhaps, but not to differently constituted persons, nor even to yourself if you sought more prayerfully. (Bp. Huntington.) Parallel Verses KJV: For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. |
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