THE KING’S BUSINESS
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at least the probability of revelation. III. Revelation is necessary. —There are two things essential for life— Knowledge and Power: what Mat* thew Arnold once called “light and leading.” And surely no one can say these things are unnecessary, for we are faced with that which the Bible calls sin. Sin ' has brought uncer tainty, and this demands knowledge. Sin has brought weakness, and this necessitates power. I heed not spend any more time in proving that reve lation is necessary. In Dr. Orr’s little book, Revelation and Inspiration, it is said that there is probably no proposition on which the higher religious philosophy of the past century is more agreed than this, that all religion originates in revela tion. The only questions are, What is this revelation ? and how does it come? IV. Revelation is available. —Let us. notice how far we have traveled— Revelation is possible, and necessary. And now we must see that it is avail able. Heb. 1 :l-2 : “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.” We believe that revelation is available in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. A person communicates him self either by acts or by words, or by both. For the first disciples, for the earliest Christian Church before our Lord’s resurrection—that is to say, for the community of His immediate followers—His Presence was a reve lation, His Person was sufficient; but we today have His words, since we have not His Presence in the sense in which they had. So we find in St. John 20:30-31 this: “Many other signs truly did Jesus . . . which are not written in this book, but these are written, that ye might believe . . . and that ■, believing ye might have
life.” For us today, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ take the place of His personal presence, and are the media of His revelation. St. Paul has the same idea in 2 Tim. 3:16-17. And so our position is just this—God has revealed Himself in nature; He has revealed Himself in providence and history; but pre-eminently He has revealed Himself in Christ for spiritual realities. A BAD MIRROR. Natural religion has never been found sufficient for human life, be cause of sin. Man’s nature has never been an adequate mirror of Divine revelation. If we would know the highest and best, as well as the deep est and worst, of which human na ture is capable, we should read Rom ans, Chap. 1, where we shall find, as Sir William Ramsay says, “St. Paul’s philosophy of history.” When we look there, and see what men had; and yet did not retain .God in their knowledge, we see the futility and the fatality of a merely natural re ligion. Of this revelation in Christ, we be lieve that the New Testament is the purest, fullest, and clearest expres sion. We are hot concerned for the moment whether the revelation came in this way or in that way. All that is essential is that this—whatever it is and however it has come—is a rev elation of God in Christ. It is at least significant to note that all the great religions have their sacred books. It would seem as though the litera scripta (written words) were a foundation, a necessary condition of all Divine revelation. We take it that the New Testament is the, clear est, fullest, and most reliable embodi ment of the Divine revelation in Christ. V. Revelation is assured. —This brings us to the heart of our present subject: Why do we believe the
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