Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Jul 1962

In these days not only of infidelity, hut of complete neglect of any recognition of God and His Holy Word, we do well to read frequently, and adhere closely, to the Holy Scriptures. No believer can grow, and become useful and fruitful, as God intends him to be, apart from finding his delight in the word of God and partaking of the good things with which God has spread this table. I have seen in my time some of the disasters which have followed the neglect of the reading of and meditation in the Word. If we neglect the reading of the Scriptures then leanness of soul will be the result, and in such a state the flesh grows strong, lusts from within assert themselves, and the world becomes the pattern of the believer's life. Then, perhaps, last of all the devil as a roaring lion falls upon his prey, and the believer who once seemed to be heading for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus is lost, so far as the service of God is concerned. Many a sad story and wasted life follow this pattern.

The commendation of Paul to the elders of Ephesus before he parted from them at Miletus is worthy of reading and memorizing.

"I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you the inheritance among all them that are sanctified" (Acts 20.82).

It is not God without His word, nor is it the word without God. Indeed God cannot be separated from His word. His Word is what proceeded out of His mouth, but it proceedeth from Him; not only millenniums ago, but it is still proceeding. It is like a river which flows on and on without ceasing, like the river which proceeds from under the threshold of the house of God in Ezekiel 47, and like the river of the water of life which proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in Revelation 22.1, 2. To this river with its crystal water, the Spirit and the bride say to all thirsty ones, "Come." This invitation will ring out sweet and clear through the eternal ages (Revelation 22.17).

Can we in this present night see that here is the Word flowing out from God, providing not only food and water, but also a light which sends its rays into the darkness of this world? Do we realize that there is no other light available to us in this scene? It is as Peter described it, a lamp shining in a dark (Or squalid, dirty, obscure) place." How the devil raises the dust that men may not see distinctly! It is the lamp of the believer in the present obscurity until the dawn of day, when the day or morning Star, our blessed Lord, shall arise in the hearts of His own, never to set. What a thought for sore hearts and tried and tempted saints! The day is at hand! Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Wherefore, says Paul, after he had written some of the clearest and sweetest words about the Lord's coming, "comfort one another with these words." Many long centuries have rolled by since then and the Lord has not come yet. But the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness." He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry." He has had many things to do and many people to save since the days of Paul. He has been patient till He, the Husbandman, receives the precious fruit of the earth. And when all are saved, that He has foreknown before the foundation of the world, then the great event will take place, "the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout," and the mustered hosts of the dead and living in Christ shall rise to meet Him in the air.

Stephen said to the council of elders and scribes on the day of his martyrdom, "This is that Moses ... who received living oracles to give unto us" (Acts 7.37, 88). The Greek word for "oracles" is Logia, the Greek word which means "words." God's words are living words, unlike men's words which are dying, like themselves. There must be no addition of men's words to the living words of God (Deuteronomy 4.2; 12. 82; Proverbs 30.5, 6; Revelation 22.18, 19). The Jews sadly erred in this, and the Lord accused them of making void the word of God by their tradition, the tradition of the elders (Matthew 15.2-9). How horribly the Church of Rome has erred in this matter of papal decretals, making the dogmas of popes vital to salvation from hell, as though it was given to any mere man to add to God's word, and making it mortal sin if such dogmas are not accepted, and making new dogmas, not vital to salvation at an earlier time, vital to salvation from the time the pope adds such to the words of God. How sad to delude the souls of men thus !

We have been asked to expand a little on our statement in "Jottings," September, 1961, Needed Truth, page 180, paragraph 2, where we said that we believed "in the full and verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures." Our careful reader asks that we shall amplify the words "full" and "verbal," particularly the latter word.

Amidst the gloom we have not the great Teacher, the Lord, present on earth with us as the apostles had, who asked them if they also would go from Him, for many of His disciples had gone back because of His words. The Lord did not withdraw one word of what He had said, nor was He confounded by the fact that many went back, but rather He reinforced what He said with the statement, "The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." To the Lord's question as to whether the apostles would also go away, Peter answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 6.60-69). The question at once arises, Have we preserved to us in the Holy Scriptures words which have not lost any of their living power and vital force from the time they were spoken? In a word, Have we the very words of God which proceeded out of His mouth by the reception of which through faith we may initially obtain life, and by which the life initially thus given may be sustained and become abundant life? (Matthew 4.8, 4; John 10. 9, 10).

(1) The Atheist when faced with the Scriptures repudiates that they are a revelation of a Divine Being, for he does not believe there is a God at all.

(2) The Infidel is one who does not believe in the revelation given in the Scriptures, or any system of principles or doctrines.

(3) The Agnostic is one who denies that we know or can know the absolute, or infinite, or God, and because he cannot know, therefore no one else can. He, too, like the atheist and infidel has no room in his thoughts for God's words.

(4) Then we have the Higher Critics, as they have been called, who because of religious training and classical education can with their abundance of learning decide what is inspired in the Bible and what is simply legend, and romance, and what is divine truth, so they think.

(5) Then there is another class who hold that God inspired men with thoughts, but allowed men to choose the words by which they would express these thoughts,

much as some poet or writer would commit his thoughts to paper.

We may pass numbers (1) to (4), as among these we do not expect to find any true Christians, and deal briefly within the scope of the space available to us with (5).

Does inspiration mean that the Scriptures are inspired, that is, the writing which is composed of words? or were the men who wrote the Scriptures inspired with divine thoughts and left to choose their own words in which to convey these thoughts? In a word, is it the words that were written that are inspired or the men who wrote the divine thoughts who were inspired?

Nowhere do we read in the Scriptures of either Old or New Testaments that men were inspired, but we have the words of 2 Timothy 3.16;

All Scripture is given be inspiration of God" (A.V.). "Every Scripture is inspired of God" (R.V. marg.).

Clearly it is what is written, as the word scripture definitely asserts, that is inspired of God, or, literally, God-breathed. It is what the Lord quoted, in His hungry and weak humanity, in the temptation in refusing the devil's bait, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4.4). Note that He prefaced the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 8.8, by the words, "It is written," the plain meaning being that the very words that God spoke were the very words that Moses wrote, under the control of the Holy Spirit.

The inspired Scripture is what Paul called " the Holy Scriptures" (A.V.), or Sacred Writings" (2 Timothy 3.15). Here the word for scriptures is the Greek word Grammata which some scholars translate as "letters." The word was used not only of letters from which words are built, but it was also used of writing. The word scripture in verse 10 is Graphe which means "writing." The words "scripture" and "scriptures," as used frequently in the New Testament, always refer to the Holy Scriptures, never to the common writings of men. The words are used some 51 times in the New Testament.

What we mean when we speak of" verbal" inspiration is that we believe that every word as originally written by the writers of the books of Holy Scripture came from the mouth of God. These are "the oracles (words) of God" (Romans 3.1). Any other view of the Holy Scriptures is entirely untenable.-J.M.

J. Miller | Jul 1962
Jottings