The conclusion is that when we seek the Bible with the motive of holy practice we never meet with disappointment. The religious purpose saves the Book for us and saves us by the Book. This purpose will likewise bring us face to face with the Hero of the Divine Word. Other sacred literatures may offer us high moral precepts, and they may occasionally give us glimpses of spiritual ideals. But one Book alone gives us Christ. One Book alone reveals the Redeemer. The climax of practice to which the Scriptures call us is the following of Christ. In all our studies in these chapters we have found that the supreme lessons centered in his teaching and in his example. The Man, the Home, the School, the Workshop, the Market Place, the Playground, and the Hospital all wait uponhim for their guidance and their warning. But Jesus is more than the way and the truth; he is the Life. He is more than the Exemplar of Practice; he is the Helper in Practice. He walks the pages of the Bible even as he walked the ancient paths, and his disciples may still say, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Other sacred books may offer revelations of morality; the Bible offers the revelation of a Saviour. The Bible is not its own goal. Jesus is the end of its revelation. The devout in all ages have been ready to use the heart of the verse of a familiar hymn:
Beyond the sacred page,I seek thee, Lord;My spirit pants for thee,Thou living Word.
If men seek the Exemplar who will give them a goal for their practice, they find such an Exemplar in the Christ of the Bible. If they seek the Inspirer who will give them a longing for the perfect practice, they will find that Inspirer in the Christ of the Bible. If men seek the Saviour who will help them on to the perfect practice, they will find that Helper in the Christ of the Bible.
Indeed, it may be said to be characteristic of the Bible that it not only offers the perfectprogram, but that it offers the perfect help. This was true even of the Old Testament. Jehovah was the strength of life. His power was as immediate as his presence. He was a present help in time of trouble. He was a present Guide in time of perplexity. The Christian revelation seems to bring that consciousness of divine help nearer to men, and to make it more real. Hence the Christian faith goes over all the world seeking to win men to God and his righteousness. Everywhere it proclaims a redeeming God. An ideal without a Saviour may become a despair—a tormenting impossibility, the lure of the final falsehood. The Bible gives the ideal and then it adds, “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” The Bible warns against temptation, and then it tells of One who was himself tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, of One who is able to succor them that are tempted. The religion of the dead code becomes the religion of the living Person. The Ideal becomes Example, and both Ideal and Example are found in a Saviour.
With all this in our purpose, as well as in our creed, we come to the Bible in full harmony with its primary intent. We find now that for every moral and spiritual emergency the Book has its message. If it were necessarywe could list these emergencies and show the word that the Bible has for each of them. Here is an illustration that serves as well as a thousand for making the main point. The Gideons have been placing the Bibles in the hotels of America. Travelers seldom go to their rooms without seeing upon the table a copy of the Book. The organization that has done this good work often receives accounts, anonymous or otherwise, of the help given by the Bibles that its work has supplied. Here is a letter received from a young woman:
Perhaps a word will help you to realize that the little “Good Book” on the table in a lonely hotel room helps some. Last night, after fighting the fight that any young woman with any appearance fights, I found myself in Chicago at this hotel. I had papers, magazines, books, and other reading matter, but for a joke—yes, joke—I picked up the Bible. It fell open at the seventieth psalm. Can you imagine the impression it made on me? I read it again and again. Needless to say, it helped and I feel better, happier, and not so much alone.
Picture the full circumstances, and we may feel that the help went deeper and wrought more than this letter indicates. If this young woman was at the beginning of that dreadful path of death that invites careless travelers, how much must these ancient words, so graciously modern, have meant to her? “Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste tohelp me, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul: let them be turned backward, and put to confusion, that desire my hurt. Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, Aha. Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let God be magnified. But I am poor and needy; make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying.” Any study of the authorship or date of this seventieth psalm, or any theorizing as to the identity of “The chief musician,” or even any discussion of the particular circumstances under which the words were originally written would not have solved the life problem of a young woman coaxed on toward carelessness. The psalm was penned to make God real, and his help real. Doubtless it performed that office long ago; and surely it performs that office now whenever a needy heart supplicates the good God by means of the ancient prayer. “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee”—this was the psalmist’s statement as to the reason for carrying portions of the ancient revelation with him on all his journeys. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word”—this was the use ofGod’s Word prescribed for all time. The writer of the one hundred and nineteenth psalm did not have our Bible, but when he wrote these two verses he had within him the purpose of our Bible. He brought the ancient law within its primary intent, and he gave the principle by which all later Scripture should be employed. The Bible is to be placed in the heart as a defense against sin. The Bible is intended to cleanse the ways of life. The Bible is given to lead us to Him who is himself the Perfect Life and who offers the Divine Grace.
All this means that the best apologetic for the Bible is the earnest and honest use of the Bible. We may well use the apostle’s fine phrase and say that those persons who follow the ideals of the Bible under the inspiration of the Saviour of the Bible are “living epistles known and read of all men.” They are the modern evidences for the ancient Book, the human and divine proofs of the human and divine Book. The Bible does not fail the soul that searches its pages for the paths of truth and righteousness. The prayer of the ritual is that we may “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, that by patience and comfort of thy Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.” In everything that bears on making men worthysubjects of everlasting life the Bible is the sure guide. All sincere souls that come to its chapters with this primary and spiritual intent will find their due reward. They may stand before the open Book confident that the voice of God will speak through the written Word and determined that they themselves shall ever be in the attitude of eager listeners, saying, “Speak, Lord; for thy servants hear.”