The Authority of God and His Word

God is the ultimate authority. Men who summon the Bible to appear at the bar of human reason and substitute a "Thus saith the mind of man" for a "Thus saith the Lord" forget that fact. The Word of God is the voice of the Almighty!!!

Now I would have us, as Dr. A. T. Pierson has set forth so beautifully and potently, consider the Bible, the Word of God, in relation to God.

Since God is eternal, His Book will not be the product of any single generation or century or age of history.

Since God is infinite, His Book will be independent of those finite limitations which characterize man's work.

Since God is immutable, His Book, will reveal changeless elements, and be throughout essentially consistent.

Since God is one, however varied the human writers of His Book and the times in which they were recorded, it will be one Book and will reveal a definite and homogenous plan. That is why I so often call it the miracle Book of diversity in unity - the Book so harmonious in infinite complexity.

Since God is omniscient, we can expect His Book to deal with facts of past history or future destiny with equal certainty as the present.

Since God is wise - never errs and is never chargeable with folly - His Book will be marked by convictions, conclusions and counsels according to highest truth and wisdom.

Since God is almighty, His Book will display and record achievements far beyond the unaided powers of posssibilities of human strength.

Since God is the Creator of all things, we may expect to find in His Book the marks of a creative hand and mind.

Since God is righteous, His Book will exhibit a high standard of moral teaching and practice and be consistent with the unchangeable principles of right and wrong.

Since God is holy, His Book will be a revelation of His holiness - of infinite beauty and excellence, of highest sympathy with what is faultlessly perfect for its own sake.

Since God is benevolent, His Book will both teach and exemplify unselfish goodness and love, will inculcate forgiveness, mercy, and self-sacrifice.

Since God is mysterious and incomprehensible, His Book will contain mystery, paradox and apparent contridiction. It will be with infinite magnitudes as well as moral certitudes.

Since God is superhuman and supernatural, His Book will speak as the language of one who knows man and the secrets of his whole being - and of the universe - and to whom what man deems marvelous and impossible is possible and simple.

Since God is unimpeachable, we can expect His Book to be instinct with vitality - a living Book, indestructible by man, divinely preserved by the Author.

Since God is a God of absolute faithfulness, His Book will be an uncompromising rebuke of human falsehood, vice, inconsistency - catering never to human sin, pandering never to vice, compromising never with evil.

Since God is a God of purpose, His Book is independent of the limitations of the locality.

Since God is a God of divine providence, His Book represents God as controlling both the present and future - having oversight of all persons and events.

Since God is Judge, His Book reveals Him as judicially dealing with men - rewarding virtue and punishing vice partially in this life, and fully and finally in the life to come.

Since God is sovereign, His Book represents Him as supreme, even over foes. He makes even the wrath of man to praise Him, and restrains the remainder. He performs all His pleasure, despite His enemies and their plots.

Since God is Spirit, His Book shows Him as independent of physical organs and limitations.

Though all this be true, there is still manifest toward the Bible devilish antagonisms. The Bible has had and still has many enemies. Considering the persecution the Bible has encountered, its survival is the miracle of history and the history of miracle:

1. There was pagan persecution under Diocletian.
2. There was the papal persecution of the Bible in a different form - locking it up from the common people and putting the key in the hands of the priests only. Rome became the jailer of the Word of God.
3. There was the enemy of rationalism, the deification of human reason, resulting in the denial of the miracles and other teachings of the Bible and continuous textual criticism adding and deleting from the Word of God.
4. There is the element of pantheism, making the divine element to pervade all things, degrading God's Word and lifting everything else to a divine level.
5. There is the enemy of modernism, which minimizes sin, humanizes God, and deifies man.

Yes, the Bible has had many enemies in years gone by, and has a multitude of enemies in today's world. Yet, God's Word still lives and changes many lives today. It has power like no other book in the world; it lingers in the minds of anyone who picks up and reads its pages.

Heb. 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.