God did not leave men of old, nor has He left men in the 20th century without direction as to how He Himself is to be worshipped and how they are to order their lives. “Therefore it pleased the Lord,” as the Confession of Faith states, “at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare His will unto His Church, and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing.” In the Scriptures of truth, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, we have an infallible revelation of God’s will for man. The Confession goes on to explain that though “all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear to all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” Here we have then a revelation of God’s will for man, not as was true in the Romish Church for centuries, a revelation locked in secret in an unknown tongue, but a revelation made known to men in their own language. For, as the Confession of Faith further points out, “because these original tongues (Hebrew and Greek) are not known to all the people of God, who have a right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that, the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner; and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope.”
In the light of this, how precious the Scriptures ought to be to us, and how thankful we ought to be that the Lord has yet left His Word with us. How marvellous it should be to us that in the midst of all the darkness that prevails on every hand in the 20th century that the light of God’s Word still shines forth, giving light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. The Apostle Peter in his second epistle, after referring to the revelation of the divine glory of the Son of man, of which he was a witness on the Mount of Transfiguration, goes on to state: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”
It is by the Scriptures that all things are to be tried, as the prophet Isaiah declares: “To the law and to the testimony.” It is not according to man’s own wisdom that the rightness or wrongness of things is to be established but by what is written in the Scriptures of truth. In all that relates to the belief, worship or government of the Church, the Word of God is to be the sole judge. What it requires or allows that is to determine what is to be believed or practised. No other authority is to be elevated to the rank of God speaking in the Scriptures. In seeking to establish what the Scriptures teach, what we are to be concerned to know is the mind of the Spirit, who is Himself the Author of Scripture. We are not to give place to any new revelations for, with the revelation given by the Lord to John on the Isle of Patmos, the Canon of Scripture is closed for ever. Hence our appeal must ever be: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
May we be ever brought to submit ourselves to this rule in belief and in practice. It is a suitable guide for the young as well as for the old; for the rich as well as for the poor; for the cast down as well as for those who are raised up. We may come to this revelation whatever our need is and it will have something to say to us, if we do not close our ears from hearing the truth. We are commanded to hide this Word in our hearts and practise its commands in our lives. It will never put us wrong, but ever put us right. It will not misdirect us, putting us out of the way; rather will it re-direct us into the right way when we have gone out of the way. The Psalmist so prized that Word that a long psalm is taken up expressing what it meant to him. May it be the same to us as it was to him, and may we, with him, be enabled to say:
“Thy word is to my feet a lamp,
and to my path a light.”