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TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
August, 1940
renewal of spirit, and all things were changed, made new. God sent him back to the place of toil, a changed man. Is not that what we need? There is the hurricane, and it has been sweeping along. There is the earthquake, and we have witnessed the convulsions. There is tire fire, and we have seen something of its burning. God is not in those things. But when that Voice speaks with its gentleness, we have need to listen if we would catch all that- it has to say; then comes life, and we have deliverance from our dis may, and uplift from our depression. There are new hope, new joy, and new power that come to us. neous views in their writings? They were restrained by the controlling and inspiring Spirit of God. There is both a divine and a human element in Scrip ture. The Holy Spirit not only prompted them to write what was necessary and guided them in so doing, but He also restrained and prevented them from writing what was unnecessary. This view of inspiration does not hold that there are no errors or blemishes in our present version of the Bible. Through translation or transcription, an immense number of errors have crept into the text. «Thirty thousand textual variations have been discovered in the various manuscripts of the New Testa ment. These have been enumerated and to a great extent corrected, since they are the result of man’s work alone. Not withstanding this yast number, not a single important doctrine or teaching has been modified or touched by them. What an evidence of and monument to the preserving power of an overruling Providence! Unintended Evidence The writers of Scripture themselves did not always understand the meaning and bearing of their own writings. This fact is true not only o f the prophecies relating to the future but also of many passages in sacred poetry which seem to be based on scientific truth. T?ime would fail us to specify all these, such as the supposed allusion to the circula tion of the blood, in Ecclesiastes 12, tiie undulatory theory of l i g h t , in Psalm 65:8, and the figure so strik ingly suggestive of the revolution of the earth upon its axis, in Job 38:13, 14. We have nothing to fear, but rather much to be thankful for, as we learn of the discoveries of science that are known to be based on changeless evi dence. Every successful chemical ex periment, every unearthed Babylonian brick, every new mechanical invention casts new light upon the Bible, and it may be a help and stimulus to piety, becoming the means of glorifying God.
as though the fire said, “ All the idol atry of Baal worship—■burn it up; start afresh.” But Elijah knew that flame from heaven was not the same as the heavenly fire. God was not in the fire. Then came stillness, and out of that silence, from the temple of eternity, God spoke. That voice brought Elijah into the sunlight. It brought him out of ineffectiveness into conscious power. It brought him out of' depression into a glad certainty of God’s presence and God’s peace. It turned everything round for Elijah. When God spoke, Elijah knew that he was not lonely, and that he need no longer despair. There was a remedy; he found poise of soul and trines of Scripture are inseparably as sociated with historical matters of fact, it necessarily follows that, if the his tory is untrustworthy, the doctrine must be' equally so. We have heard it publicly stated that the entire story of Jonah is fabulous and mythical, and that a man can be a good Christian and hold this opinion. It is difficult to understand this rea soning, for our Lord Himself indorsed the narrative and incorporated it into His teachings. If it was a fable, He ought to have known it to be such. If He knew it to oe a fable and used it as He did, the stainless integrity of His character is'marred. In either case, He could not have been divine, and either on the ground of ignorance or iniquity, we would have lost both our Saviour and our salvation. So slight a thing as this will sap the very foundations of our faith and will leave us nothing on which to stand. But we steadfastly and confidently be lieve that the Scriptures are inerrant and infallible, not only in all matters' of faith and morals, but that they are also free from error of all kinds when dealing with matters historical, chrono logical, and scientific. Problems Involved The question might be raised in view of these statements: .Were the writers of Scripture then so far ahead of their times as to be possessed of all scientific truth? By no means. They were in no respect in advance of their contemporaries. Even if they were, by what standard should we test their opinions and statements? By that of the eighteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth centuries? For aught that we can tell, the people in the late twen tieth century will criticize our boasted intelligence and enlightenmfent as we now do that of the people who have preceded us upon the earth. Again, if tiie writers of Scripture were not above their contemporaries in scientific knowledge, how could they keep from reflecting current and erro-
around him? That was Elijah’s condi tion. When men are in that mood, grasshoppers are deterrents. Elijah was a weakling in his .own eyes. Sadness Wrought by a Wrong View Elijah suffered, too, from a great misconception. He believed that he had acted nobly and rightly, "but he thought' he had failed, despite all the glitter of the victory which he had achieved on Carmel. He had come to the conclusion that his life and his mission had been a failure. But who was he to know that? The influence of a man like Elijah travels on the breeze; and the words of Elijah reached thousands of ears by a'spiritual phonography that is almost incomprehensible. Elijah said, “I have failed” ; and many a man who has thought that, has really achieved a suc cess that has stamped itself upon the world’s life. Elijah was burdened with this de pressing sense of defeat. “I have had enough of. it,” he said. What did God do? God called him aside, in quietness. He showed him the ineffectiveness of the boisterous forces of nature, and where the transforming realities were to be found. There came a great hurri cane; the wind swept along in its limit less energy, rushing through the defiles of the mountain range and over the hills in its tremendous strength. That wind in its restlessness and in its ter rific movement called to Elijah; it spoke to him of freedom and liberty. It said to him, “Come away with me. Leave the task that is a burden; lay down the toil that dismays and hurts. Come away with me and be free. Leave the dis eased-world to heal itself. Lay down your task.” That is the temptation that often comes to God’s children. Elijah stood in the mouth of the cave, ánd in the mighty wind the trump ets of liberty called to him to go out and be free to go where there was no task to bend his shoulders and to break his heart. Why did he not go? Ah—he was learning that God was not in the wind! How did he know? How can any man know when God touches him? Elijah was convinced, in that mystic way that leaves no room for doubt, that God was not in that wind that called him to lay down his task and to be free. “And after the wind an earthquake” (1 Ki. 19:11)—that thing of upheaval, producing its cataclysm, casting down and destroying, shaking things that could be shaken. The earthquake be spoke the fact of kingdoms tottering. What an opportunity for one to become a dictator, to seize power, to build up, to find one’s place through one’s push; to be the man of the hour! But Elijah could not stoop to be a demigod. God was not in the earthquake. “And after tht earthquake a fire” (1 Ki. 19:12), consuming energy—it was
SCIENCE AND THE SCRIPTURES [Continued from Page 285]
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