What Is the Bible?

By Norman H. Crowhurst

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     About a month ago, as I write, I received a brief letter from a Seventh-Day Adventist Doctor, who has been writing to me off and on for more than a year. As I opened it, a large printed message drew my attention. It began, "God has given in His word sufficient evidence of its divine character. The great truths which concern our redemption are clearly presented...."

     At about that point I reacted--I'll explain how in a minute--and turned to his letter. He said they had advertised in a newspaper and had sent this message, with other material, to people who called the telephone number appearing in the advertisement. Then he referred to the first sentence on the printed sheet and asked, "What are the evidences of the divine character of His word (i.e., the Bible)?" The very sentence to which I reacted was the reason for his writing! So I turned to the message again.

     The remainder of it was good. It quoted Romans 11:33, as showing that we cannot, by our own intellectual ef-

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fort, find out about God, but that we must come in His way and He will reveal to us as much of His purposes as it is good for us to know. The message said little with which I could really disagree, unless I wanted to be very fussy about words.

     I sat down to answer him. The amazing fact was, that only a week before, in my devotions, I had come to a certain conclusion about the Bible. The Lord was evidently preparing me for this question. So I told my friend exactly what happened when his letter and its enclosure arrived.

     Really, I felt that he had two questions, which I would word a little differently from the one he actually asked:

     1. What good would such a message do? How would people react to it, and would it induce them to turn to the Bible or to think on the things of God? 2. What really is the Bible? To answer the first, I pointed out how any fundamentalist who received this message, whatever the details of his doctrinal belief, would agree with that first sentence. He would assert that he looked to the Bible as having absolute authority. But there his agreement would end, the people who issued that message did not have the truth!

     Really, all such fundamentalists are asserting, not the authority of God's inspired word, but the authority of their own interpretations. And the number of such authorities is legion. Another group, who also regard themselves as Christians, believe the Bible is no more inspired than Shakespeare. Obviously, as these people read those first words, they would discard the message with some comment like "Phooey!"

     Neither of these groups has any time for the other. And neither of them would have time for such a message. Realization of all this prompted my reaction when I read those opening sentences. Yet Jesus has time for us all, and told us not to judge one another. So we must judge neither of them. And my second question brings an answer that should reach both because it is a living one.

     It is natural for us, as humans, to identify "the word" as either the spoken or written form. But does scripture define "word" that way? Some will immediately argue that by asking such a question I am denying the inspiration of the Bible. But please do not jump on me before I say anything!

     First, let me ask another question or two. Is the Bible what Jesus referred to when he said, "Thy word is truth?" If so, must we accept what everyone who claims to believe it tells us it means? You may answer, as I have many times, "If we only take what the Bible really says, that is truth, but all man-made interpretations are not."

     Even this view has departed quite a way from the simplicity of the Word. This was one thing that I only recently realized. That view accepts a definition men coined and have long honored, that the Bible is "God's Word?" But where does the Bible identfy "scripture" with "the Word?" That is an identification men have made, a private interpretation, although I must admit, I long believed it.

     Read John, chapter one. Was the Bible in the beginning with God? Did the Bible make everything that was made? Was the Bible made flesh? Your answer to this may be that we must show discretion in knowing what the word "word" means, in any particular Biblical context. So we have to use man-made interpretation right there, do we not? Perhaps another time we will pursue this interesting subject together. Right now, we have a more important question.

     Jesus spoke of oneness in such passages as John 17, a theme reiterated by Paul and the other apostles throughout the letters. Jesus shows that "the word" is an important basis for this oneness. For a long time I have asked myself and others how we may achieve that oneness.

     The answer is that we cannot. He can. We can help ourselves individually by understanding the place the Bible was to hold in God's purpose. Not that we should preach this as a doctrine. The one thing Paul did not tell Timothy that

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doctrine is profitable for, is setting someone else straight. But if we have this perspective ourselves, we can live and love accordingly. He will do the rest!

     When I say, as I do, that those who profess to believe in the Bible as absolute truth place too much emphasis on the Bible, I am not saying the Bible is not true, or not inspired. It is both. But the Bible is not the source of truth. God is. And the Bible is not God. Jesus said He was the way, the truth, and the life.

     He also promised that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. Was that promise ever revoked or subject to a time limit? It is still true. Its fulfillment is our witness, just as the record of the so-called New Testament was their witness--the witness of the faithful men who wrote it. And the real new testament, or new covenant, is in the blood of Jesus.

     The Bible record is nothing less, nothing more, than the faithful testimony of the men who wrote it. In saying that, am I "downgrading" the Bible? Not at all. Their witness is true, so when we receive our witness it will exactly confirm what they wrote, for Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. But each of us, in all times, must hold to the Head, the one mediator, not to the witness of any other, either then or now.

     The witness of John, James, Peter, Paul, and the rest, speaks from their hearts in the Spirit, and is inspired. But they testified what they had seen and heard. We believe them. But we must realize that their word is not our testimony. We too must be witnesses. When I first read the Bible I had faith to believe. But when, obedient to heavenly command, I was baptized, born again, and His Spirit began to have His way with me, I knew truth for myself.

     Paul told the Corinthians that if Christ was not risen we are of all men most miserable. And if today the only evidence we have that Christ is risen is that some people who lived nineteen centuries ago said so, then those of us who call ourselves Christians today are of all men most miserable.

     I re-read the message my friend sent me. It said one thing that I could not agree with: God veils His majesty. Paul wrote, "If the good news be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." It is hidden through our egotism, our making ourselves as gods, and our failure to recognize how His ways are far above our ways. When we recognize His eternalness, and all that means, or even some of it. His majesty begins to be revealed to and in us.

     So that is the substance of what I wrote to my Seventh Day Adventist friend. His earlier letters had been legalistically trying to convince me that salvation depends upon sabbath keeping, on the seventh day of the week. My replies had tried to show him Jesus' teaching about motes and beams and judging our brother. But legalism dies hard. This letter, with its open question, showed that he was ready to listen, not to me, but to that wonderfully gentle Spirit of truth.

     Hardly a week went by, before I had another letter from him, rejoicing. My letter had helped put into focus things he had already realized were stirring in his own mind. He now realized that "the word" in scripture is the living Word, and truth is that into which, as Jesus promised when He was on earth, the Holy Spirit guides us.

     That His word is a living word I have far too much testimony ever to deny. But that is another story. The important thing is that He lives! He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Praise Him for that! And may we really obey his wonderful commandment to love one another, all of them that He knows are His.

     Let us not argue about words to no profit but let us prove ourselves whether we be in the faith. Does our testimony agree with theirs? Not because we say "Yes" to what we read that they said, but because He is the same living risen Christ to us as He was to them. Let us never deny the testimony of another. If a man testify falsely, God is his judge. Do we ourselves have proof, living proof

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in the Spirit, not dry empty words, that we are His?

     If we are born again and have received His wonderful gift, the proof is in His dealing with us, but we have no right to ask anyone else for his proof. Paul said, "Prove yourselves," not someone else. He has sealed each one of us so we may never forget.

     (Editor's Note. Norman H. Crowhurst resides at Gold Beach, Oregon 97444. He can be addressed there at Post Office Box 651).