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STRONGHOLD OF TRUTH
and mother is sufficient; and the attitude of Scripture shows that it is final. Isa. viii. 20: "To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them," or "there is no morni11g for them." Matt. xxiv. 25: "Behold I have told you." 2 Cor. iv. 2: "Adulterating the Word of God." Eph. vi. 17: "The Sword of the Spirit, which is the vVord of God." 1 Thess. ii. 13: "Ye received the Word of God." 2 Tim. iii. 16: "All Scripture God-breathed is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." However you take this last text, it refers to the authority of the Old Testament. 1 Peter i. 23: "The seed . . . the Word of God." Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself in His life on earth bore testimony again and again to His own submission to that authority: "The Scripture cannot be broken." (See l\fatt. v. 18 and John x. 35). So we believe that the substance of Scripture bears testimony to its finality; and the general tenor of the early Church is in the same direc tion. If we read the Fathers of the first three centuries,. we shall find witness after witness to the supremacy and finality of the vVord of God. And at the Council of Chalcedon the Gospels were placed in the center, as the final court of appeal. Then, too, every heresy opposed to orthodoxy was alleged to be based on Scripture; ancient liturgies are simply saturated with the Scriptures, and the most severe attacks of opponents have always been on Scripture. Christ and the Bible Experience tells the same story. It is clear from Church history that the Lord Jesus Christ has never fully revealed Himself apart from the Bible. Where the Bible has been neglected, Christ has been neglected, and the light of Christianity has burned low. The oldest and truest view we have in ecclesiastical history is the supremacy of the. Bible, the finality of the Bible in rela tion to the revelation of God in Christ. V. The Power of this Authority-the power of the
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