CHAPTER 10
THE COMPLETENESS OF THE
BIBLE DEMONSTRATES ITS
The antiquity of the Scriptures
argues against their completeness. The compilation of the Bible was completed
more than eighteen centuries ago, while the greater part of the world was yet
uncivilized. Since John added the capstone to the Temple of God’s Truth there
have been many wonderful discoveries and inventions, yet
there have been no additions whatever to the moral and spiritual truths
contained in the Bible. Today, we know no more about the origin of life, the
nature of the soul, the problem of suffering or the future destiny of man than
did those who had the Bible eighteen hundred years ago. Through the centuries
of the Christian era, man has succeeded in learning many of the secrets of
nature and has harnessed her forces to his service, but in the actual
revelation of supernatural truth nothing new has been
discovered. Human writers cannot supplement the Divine records for they are
complete, entire, “wanting nothing.”
The Bible needs no addendum.
There is more than sufficient in God’s Word to meet the temporal and spiritual
needs of all mankind. Though written two thousand years ago, the Bible is still
“up-to-date,” and answers every vital question which
concerns the soul of man in our day. The Book of Job was written three thousand
years before Columbus discovered America, yet it is as fresh to the heart of
man now as though it had only been published ten years ago. The majority of the
Psalms were written two thousand five hundred years before President Wilson was
born, yet in our day and generation they are perfectly new and fresh to the
human soul. Such facts as these can
only be explained on the hypothesis that the Eternal God
is the Author of the Bible.
The adaptation of the
Scriptures is another illustration of their wonderful completeness. To young or
old, feeble or vigorous, ignorant or cultured, joyful or sorrowful, perplexed
or enlightened, Orientalist or Ocidentalist, saint or sinner, the Bible is a
source of blessing, will minister to every need, and is able to supply every variety of want. And the Bible is the only Book
in the world of which this can be predicted. The writings of Plato may be a
source of interest and instruction to the philosophic mind, but they are
unsuitable for placing in the hands of a child. Not so with the Bible: the
youngest may profit from a perusal of the Sacred Page. The writings of Jerome
or Twain may please, for an hour, the man of humor, but they will bring no balm
to the sore heart and will speak no words of comfort and
consolation to those passing through the waters of bereavement. How different
with the Scriptures—never has a heavy heart turned in vain to God’s Word for
peace! The writings of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller may be of profit to
the Western mind, but they convey little of value to the Easterner. Not so with
God’s Word; it may be translated into any language and will speak with equal
clearness, directness and power to all men in their mother
tongue.
To quote Dr. Burrell:
“In every heart, down below all
other wants and aspirations, there is a profound longing to know the way of
spiritual life. The world is crying, “What shall I do to
be saved?” Of all books the Bible is the only one that answers that universal
cry. There are other books which set forth morality with more or less
correctness; but there is none other that suggests a blotting out of the record
of the mislived past or an escape from the penalty of the broken law. There are
other books that have poetry; but there is none that sings the song of
salvation or gives a troubled soul the peace that floweth like a river. There are other books that have eloquence; but there is no other
that enables us to behold God Himself with outstretched hands pleading with men
to turn and live. There are other books that have science; but there is none other
that can give the soul a definite assurance of the future life, so that it can
say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep
that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
Though other books contain
valuable truths, they also have an admixture of error; other books contain part
of the truth, the Bible alone contains all the truth. Nowhere in the writings
of human genius can a single moral or spiritual truth be found, which is not
contained in substance in the Bible. Examine the writings of the ancients;
ransack the libraries of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, India, Greece, and Rome;
search the contents of the Koran, the Zend-Avesta, or the
Bagavad-Gita; gather together the most exalted spiritual thoughts and the
sublimest moral conceptions contained in them and you will find that each and
all are duplicated in the Bible! Dr.
Torrey has said, “If every book but the Bible were destroyed not a
single spiritual truth would be lost.” In the small compass of God’s Word there
is stored more wisdom which will endure the test of eternity than the sum total
of thinking done by man since his creation. Of all the
books in the world, the Bible alone can truly be said to be complete, and this
characteristic of the Scriptures is another of the many lines of demonstration
which witnesses to the Divine inspiration of the Bible.