October, 1934
347
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
THE POWER OF A BOOK [Continued from page 341]
And beware lest we forget that the Old Testament and the New Testament alike tell of Jesus. The name of Jesus, the supreme Personality, the center of a world’s desire, is on every page—in expression, or symbol, or prophecy, or psalm, or proverb. Through the Bible, the name of Jesus runs like a line of glimmering light. The thought of Jesus, literature’s loftiest ideal and philosophy’s highest person ality and criticism’s supremest problem and theology’s fun damental doctrine and spirituality’s cardinal necessity, threads the great Book as a crystal river winds its way through a continent. Yes, this jiving Word of our living God magnifies Jesus. And you cannot hold on to Christ and give up the Bible. You cannot believe in the cross and surrender the infallible authority of the Bible. Faith in the deity of Christ is married to faith in the inspiration of the Bible. All the Bible’s analogies, all the Bible’s types, all the Bible’s pictures, all the Bible’s truths are so related to Christ that Christ alone explains them. And the expla nation is filled with such perfection of harmony in every detail—the relationship between them and our Lord Jesus is so strikingly self-evident—that any discussion of it would be useless. No one ought to have to argue to get folks to see that the diversified and systematic sacrifices of the Jews, the significant shadows of redemptive entity still ahead, the adumbrations of a substance yet to come, were elemental, preparatory, rudimentary, introductory— and pointed to Christ, the Center to which the faith of man kind, before and since, gravitated. The promises of God to fallen man in Eden and the ceremonies of Judaism mean Christ. The music of Israel’s sweetest harps and the light that burns in prophecy mean Christ. Jesus is the vital sub stance that gives meaning to the Bible’s genealogies, mean ing to its histories, meaning to its chronologies. Take Jesus out of the Bible and it would be like taking calcium out of lime, carbon out of diamonds, truth out of history, inven tion out of fiction, matter out,of physics, mind out of meta physics, numbers out of mathematics: For Jesus alone is the secret of its unity, its strength, its beauty. This is what Jesus meant when He said: “Search the Scriptures; for . . . they are they which testify of me” (John 5 :39). It is this Christ who is the very essence of the written Word, who says: “Come ye after me” (Mk. 1 :17). May we say to Him: Getting the Gospel through the Finger Tips A grave-faced Egyptian with sightless eyes had just finished reading The New Commandment by James H. McConkey. “This is just what my people need,” he ex claimed, “something that makes the truths of the Bible live !” In less than two years, he had translated thirty-seven books and pamphlets into Arabic, transcribed them into Braille (the embossed type used by the blind for finger reading) and had 400 copies in circulation among the edu cated blind of his country. The copy of The New Com mandment which this man read had been sent to him by the Braille Circulating Library of Richmond, Va. The library’s purpose is to lend devotional books in Braille to blind read ers everywhere, free of charge. Regarding the books the secretary states: “Within their pages is found the gospel ‘which is the power of God unto salvation.’ And every time we place one of these books in the hands of an unbeliever, are we not obeying the Lord’s last command ?” I am willing to receive what Thou givest; I am willing to lack what Thou withholdest; I am willing to relinquish what Thou takest; I am willing to suffer what Thou inflictest; I am willing to be what Thou requirest.
with grateful tears. The Bible, coming to us steeped in the prayers of myriads of saints, is the Book against which tyranny has issued its edicts, against which infidelity has loosed its blasphemous tongue, against which agnosticism has hurled its anathemas—the Book which many enemies, ancient and modern, have tried to exterminate. The Bible, coming to us fragrant with the faith of little children and expounded by the greatest intellects, is the Book which the dissecting knives of some scientific anatomists whack at— the Book against which some pulpit and some college snipers aim their ill-grounded propositions, summoning it to appear at the bar of human reason. But this marvelous Book is still “the word of God” that “liveth and abideth for ever.” And all its enemies of yes terdays and nowadays have not extinguished one spark of its holy fire nor diluted one drop of its honey, nor torn one hole in its beautiful vesture, nor broken one string on its thousand-string harp, nor weakened its vitality by one pulse beat, nor shortened its march of triumph by one step. Today this Bible walks more bypaths and travels more highways and knocks at more doors and speaks to more people in their mother tongue than any other book this world has ever known or ever will know. The Bible, possessing the wonder of self-authentica tion, is infinite in height, infinite in depth. While men have come, and do come, to attack and destroy, the Spirit of Christ comes to validate and to confirm with a divine conviction and with a divine certainty that is incommuni cable by reason, and impervious to the assaults of doubt. Time is too short for it. Too narrow the universe for it. It is as deep as the foundations of eternal justice, as high as the throne of the Infinite, as wide as the moral govern ment of God, as enduring as the life of the Almighty. In exhaustible ! Volumes have been written on single chapter's —yea, on single verses. Pause a minute! Consider the wonders of the Bible. It is wonderful in its inspiration, in its translation, in its preservation, in its unification, in its salvation, in its sancti fication, in its consummation. Addressing itself to the universal conscience as no other book does, it creates lives and alters destinies. Speaking with binding claims, it in augurates world-wide movements and gives birth to im mortal works. Commanding the obedience of mankind, it comes into communities of unrighteousness with regenera tive force. The plot of heaven-blessed and vitalized soil out of which has blossomed our every social and national blessing, it causes philanthropic and redemptive enterprises together with educational and therapeutic institutions to arise and stand as a tribute to its vitalizing power. And the best we can say, with tongue or pen, is but man’s mean paint on God’s fair lilies, but man’s paste jewels in God’s casket of pure gems. Our best efforts to praise it are but disfigurements. For it is the living Word of the living God—the Book supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, inexpressible in value, immeasurable in influ ence, infinite in scope, divine in authorship, human in pen manship, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, universal in interest, personal in application, inspired in totality. And today, wherever it is read and treasured, it breaks the fetters of the slave, takes the heat out of life’s fierce fevers, robs death of its sting and parting of its pain. Even as in the centuries gone forever into tbe tomb of Time, it unbars to the hastening soul the gates of ever lasting delight beyond the grave. Still, as in ages agone, dying martyrs cool their hot faces in its fountains. And multitudes, as saints in other years have done, pillow their heads upon the one Book which is the softest pillow a dying head can press. .
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