THE following letter was written to the Editor of the Glasgow Herald during a controversy to which reference was made in our April issue. It was the closing letter of the correspondence (4th April), and we humbly hope its reproduction here may not be unprofitable:—
SIR,—As “Fair Controversy” in your issue to-day puts a straight question and asks me for my authority for my “repeated assertions that our Lord sanctioned the doctrine of verbal inspiration,” I shall answer him first, and then take up my other opponent, Mr. William Martin, whose letter appeared on the 25th.
My authority for the assertions referred to is ample. It consists in the frequent statements of our Lord Himself. Apart from the replies which He gave to the devil in the wilderness (Matt. chap. iv.), and which I alluded to already as proving His belief in verbal inspiration, I call attention to what He says in His great Sermon on the Mount—”Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the’ prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.” (Matt. v. 17, 18.) Could anything more definitely assert than this the inspiration of every word of the Old Testament Scriptures? The jot and the tittle are the very smallest letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Again, we find our Lord on another occasion saying to the Jews—”Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God” (John x. 34-36). Here he states most explicitly the general principle that “the Scripture cannot be broken”—not the word of God in the Scripture, after the manner of modern critics. According to Christ, the whole Scripture is the Word of God, and this sacred writing “cannot be broken” or destroyed in any of its words. Such is Christ’s teaching, and if this does not expressly assert verbal inspiration I do not know what does or can. Other special passages might be quoted, such as Mark xiv. 49, and Luke xxiv. 44, etc., but the above should suffice to convince any impartial mind that “our Lord sanctioned the doctrine of verbal inspiration.” I trust they may convince “Fair Controversy.” It is lamentable, however, to observe that many of the critics—while they readily admit that our Lord taught verbal inspiration—explain the fact in a way that impugns His infallibility.
Mr. Martin, in the opening words of his letter, appears to take it for granted that verbal inspiration is an exploded doctrine “of the past,” but he may yet discover he is mistaken. I for one believe that this doctrine will one day be accepted over the whole earth. “The word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter i. 25), and the knowledge and belief of that Word shall yet pervade all nations. The extreme opinions of “the higher critics” seem to be already falling into discredit. Discoveries in the East are overturning their theories and confirming the historic accuracy of the Scriptures. Professor Sayce himself (whom Mr. Martin quotes) has already assisted in this direction, and he may yet come to see that “the chronology of the Book of Kings” is correct. The historic reliability of Bible statements, however, does not live or die by the researches of Assyriologists or of any fallible men, however distinguished. The Bible carries the evidences of its reliability within its own bosom. Like the sun in the heavens, it possesses a self-evidencing light that flashes forth and proclaims it the workmanship of God. A few spots of unimportant difficulty here and there upon the surface do not in any wise disprove its divine authorship throughout. The “higher critics,” in my judgment, have made ten times more serious difficulties than ever they have removed.
Mr. Martin quotes Dr. Horton, of London, as describing verbal inspiration as the “rabbinical view.” I am quite content to accept the designation, when I know that the Rabbi of rabbis, the Divine Prophet of the Church, has endorsed the doctrine. Our Lord never for a moment condemned the Jewish teachers for their view of the Old Testament as literally inspired of God. In fact, as I have already shown, He constantly made use of it as an all-powerful argument against the unbelief and ungodliness of rulers and people. They believed one thing and practised another. It casts, therefore, no real discredit on the doctrine of verbal inspiration to call it a “rabbinical view.”
I am sorry to see that Mr. Martin is not sufficiently acquainted with the history of Luther and the Epistle of James. Let it be observed, to begin with, that Luther did not reject this Epistle at first because he was a disbeliever in verbal inspiration, but because he thought that the Epistle contradicted the doctrine of the Scriptures in general on justification by faith. Luther showed every sign that the books which he regarded as Holy Scripture, he believed to be verbally inspired. I have pleasure in informing Mr. Martin on excellent authority that the illustrious Luther retracted his first opinion about the Epistle of James, and made this clear in all editions of his Bible after the year 1526. It is time that this story of Luther was given rest by the deniers of verbal inspiration. It would be good if they followed the Reformer’s example of retraction.
In my letter of the 21st I asserted that Christ made it unmistakably plain in the days of His flesh that “It is written” was the supreme and infallible court of appeal, but Mr. Martin replies that this court is “the mind of Christ,” as if the two were not in harmony. He gives as evidence Matthew v., verse 21, to the end, and suggests that Christ is there setting aside the authority of the Old Testament and setting up His own against it—”It hath been said by them of old time.” “But I say unto you.” Mr. Martin is again labouring under a grave misapprehension. The whole context clearly shows (compare verses 17, 18 of this chapter already quoted) that Christ is not condemning inspired statements at all, but perversions of the meaning of these that were handed down from “them of old time” who were guilty of such perversions. The Scribes and Pharisees, against whom He was warning His hearers at the moment, were making void the Word of God by these traditions. “The mind of Christ” and the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments are one.—I am, etc.,
JAMES S. SINCLAIR.