THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF
THE BIBLE IS A PROOF THAT
ITS AUTHOR IS DIVINE
The survival of the Bible
through the ages is very difficult to explain if it is not
in truth the Word of God. Books are like men—dying creatures. A very small
percentage of books survive more than twenty years, a yet smaller percentage
last a hundred years and only a very insignificant fraction represent those
which have lived a thousand years. Amid the wreck and ruin of ancient
literature the Holy Scriptures stand out like the last survivor of an otherwise
extinct race, and the very fact of the Bible’s continued existence
is an indication that like its Author it is indestructible.
When we bear in mind the fact
that the Bible has been the special object of never ending persecution the wonder
of the Bible’s survival is changed into a miracle. Not only has the
Bible been the most intensely loved Book in all the world,
but it has also been the most bitterly hated. Not only has the Bible received
more veneration and adoration than any other book, but it has also been the
object of more persecution and opposition. For two thousand years man’s hatred of
the Bible has been persistent, determined, relentless and murderous. Every
possible effort has been made to undermine faith in the inspiration and
authority of the Bible and innumerable enterprises have been undertaken with the determination to consign it to oblivion. Imperial edicts
have been issued to the effect that every known copy of the Bible should be
destroyed, and when this measure failed to exterminate and annihilate God’s
Word then commands were given that every person found with a copy of the
Scriptures in his possession should be put to death. The very fact that the
Bible has been so singled out for such relentless persecution causes us to
wonder at such a unique phenomenon.
Although the Bible is the best
Book in the world yet is has produced more enmity and opposition than has the
combined contents of all our libraries. Why should this be? Clearly because the
Scriptures convict men of their guilt and condemn them for their sins!
Political and ecclesiastical powers have united in the attempt to put the Bible out of existence, yet their concentrated efforts
have utterly failed. After all the persecution which has assailed the Bible, it
is, humanly speaking, a wonder that there is any Bible left at all. Every
engine of destruction which human philosophy, science, force, and hatred could
bring against a book has been brought against the Bible, yet it stands unshaken
and unharmed today. When we remember that no army has defended the Bible and no
king has ever ordered its enemies to be extirpated, our
wonderment increases. At times nearly all the wise and great of the earth have
been pitted together against the Bible, while only a few despised ones have
honored and revered it. The cities of the ancients were lighted with bonfires
made of Bibles, and for centuries only those in hiding dare read it. How then,
can we account for the survival of the Bible in the face of such bitter
persecution? The only solution is to be found in the promise
of God. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not
pass away.”
The story of the Bible’s
persecution is an arresting one. During the first three centuries of the
Christian era the Roman Emperors sought to destroy God’s Word. One of them,
named Diocletian, believed that he had succeeded. He had
slain so many Christians and destroyed so many Bibles, that when the lovers of
the Bible remained quiet for a season and kept in hiding, he imagined that he
had made an end of the Scriptures. So elated was he at this achievement, he
ordered a medal to be struck inscribed with the words, “The Christian religion
is destroyed and the worship of the gods restored.” One wonders what that
emperor would think if he returned to this earth today and found that more had been written about the Bible than about any other thousand
books put together, and that the Bible which enshrines the Christian faith is
now translated into more than four hundred languages and is being sent out to
every part of the earth!
Centuries after the persecution
by the Roman Emperors, when the Roman Catholic Church obtained command of the
city of Rome, the Pope and his priests took up the old
quarrel against the Bible. The Holy Scriptures were taken away from the people,
copies of the Bible were forbidden to be purchased and all who were found with
a copy of God’s Word in their possession were tortured and killed. For
centuries the Roman Catholic Church bitterly persecuted the Bible and it was
not until the time of the Reformation at the close of the sixteenth century
that the Word of God was again given to the masses in
their own tongue.
Even in our day the persecution
of the Bible still continues, though the method of attack is changed. Much of
our modern scholarship is engaged in the work of seeking to destroy faith in
the Divine inspiration and authority of the Bible. In many of our seminaries
the rising generation of the clergy are taught that Genesis is
a book of myths, that much of the teaching of the Pentateuch is immoral, that
the historical records of the Old Testament are unreliable and that the whole
Bible is man’s creation rather than God’s revelation. And so the attack on the
Bible is being perpetuated.
Now suppose there was a man who
had lived upon this earth for eighteen hundred years, that
this man had oftentimes been thrown into the sea and yet could not be drowned;
that he had frequently been cast before wild beasts who were unable to devour
him; that he had many times been made to drink deadly poisons which never did
him any harm; that he had often been bound in iron chains and locked in prison
dungeons, yet he had always been able to throw off the chains and escape from
his captivity; that he had repeatedly been hanged, till
his enemies thought him dead, yet when his body was cut down he sprang to his
feet and walked away as though nothing had happened; that hundreds of times he
had been burned at the stake, till there seemed to be nothing left of him, yet
as soon as the fires were out he leaped up from the ashes as well and as
vigorous as ever—but we need not expand this idea any further; such a man would
be super-human, a miracle of miracles. Yet this is exactly
how we should regard the Bible! This is practically the way in which the Bible
has been treated. It has been burned, drowned, chained, put in prison, and torn
to pieces, yet never destroyed!
No other book has provoked such
fierce opposition as the Bible, and its preservation is perhaps the most
startling miracle connected with it. But two thousand five
hundred years ago God declared, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but
the Word of our God shall abide for ever.” Just as the three Hebrews passed
safely through the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar unharmed and unscorched, so
the Bible has emerged from the furnace of satanic hatred and assault without
even the smell of fire upon it! Just as an earthly parent treasures and lays by
the letters received from his child, so our Heavenly Father has
protected and preserved the Epistles of love written to His children.