Biblical interpretation

“ If we find in the Bible any plain, intelligible teaching of God, will it do to set up our reason against the teaching of Him, who is infinite reason and infinite wisdom?
If any truth is plain in the Bible, is it not that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in human flesh or in fashion as a man by his sufferings on the cross made atonement for the sins of the world? ”

“ Reason is the guide that leads to the temple of revelation. There is an overwhelming mass of evidence, external and internal, to convince any unprejudiced mind that the Bible is the word of God. Prophecies accomplished, types fulfilled, the divine Spirit breathed through the pages, the unearthly perfection of One character there portrayed, with superhuman knowledge of the frailties and requirements of man ”

“ This new conception, thus answering to the historico-psychological reality of the development of the human mind, by distinguishing what in the Bible is religious and moral truth—the special object of its teaching—from what is merely explanation and development of it, avails providentially to save its veracity, its inerrancy, its inspiration. ”

“ And so it comes to pass that all the ideas of the Bible, and the dispensing of the Bible as in itself a means of propagating Christianity, are a fiction and an absurdity. Here are two minds to be brought together, the Mind of God, and the mind of man ”

“ The true solution which should commend itself to the minds of all God's people is that there is but one person, Jesus Christ ; one principle of interpretation for all prophecy, whether fulfilled or un- fulfilled, to believe and take God's Word as it stands, but that there are two advents one in humiliation, the other in glory ; one to suffer and die, the other to take unto Himself His kingdom and reign. ”

“ We notice that the Bible, when speaking of God, never gives an opinion, never speculates. It always, in simple and majestic measure declares, as in the opening sentence of the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” ”

“ The opening of the heart to receive Christ, and the new sense of his pardoning grace and power, give to the converted man the key to the interpretation of Scripture, for "the mystery of the gospel," the central secret of Christianity, is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." He whom the Holy Spirit has first led to the knowledge of sin, and has then led to the acceptance of Christ, is prepared to enter into the meaning of Scripture, and no other man can understand it. ”

“ The central truths of Christianity are always the same; but Biblical criticism, the comparative study of Hebrew or Christian epochs, the domain of doctrinal thought, are growths of the human mind, and every advance has been the fruit of experimental searching. ”

“ The doctrine that Jesus is God's image, God manifest in the flesh, is the one great doctrine of Christianity,—the sum, the substance of the whole Gospel,—the Gospel itself,—the power of God to the salvation of every one that truly believes and contemplates it. It is a world of truth in one,—a whole encyclopædia of divine philosophy; the perfection of all wisdom and of all power; the one great revelation needful to the salvation of the world. ”

“ Now we may learn hence, First, To admire the height and depth of the doctrine of Christ; it is a great mystery of godliness. The things of the gospel are heavenly things, out of the road of the enquiries of human reason, and much more out of the reach of its discoveries. ”

“ The Bible, as a revelation from God, was not designed to give us all the information we might desire, nor to solve all the questions about which the human soul is perplexed, but to impart enough to be a safe guide to the haven of eternal rest. ”

“ Ye have taken from us a Bible which we reverenced to idolatry but in many parts did not understand, and have given to us a Bible which, with undiminished claims to reverence, awakens in our minds a real, rational interest to which hitherto we have been comparative strangers. ”

“ For, without our direct consciousness, there is ever something impressive in Biblical association; there is a magical power in Biblical comparison, a tenderness in the use of Biblical words and terms which we feel without actively noting. ”

“ Since God is Truth, and since Christ is the Logos, Wisdom, or Reason of God, one naturally expects that the contents of revelation would form a system. This expectation is not disappointed. The various doctrines of the Bible dovetail and fit into each other. ”

“ He that cannot watch the God of the Bible, and the salvation of the Bible, gradually and on an immense scale discovering themselves and becoming, will insist on seeing them ready-made, and in such precise and reduced dimensions as may suit his narrow mind. ”

“ If we examine what is termed the sacred history of the Bible, we shall find that in the various ages of the world, until soon after Christianity was introduced, there was a feeling among men to call upon God and to have their prayers answered—a feeling that if they would approach the Most High and call upon his name in faith, he would answer their supplications and give unto them wisdom, intelligence and revelation for the guidance of their feet in the pathway of life ”

“ The Bible reveals not merely what God was, but what He is. Finding from its pages how He loved, we know how He loves; learning how He dealt with or spoke to men, we perceive how He deals with and speaks to us. ”

“ We have not given the reader our opinion, or our interpretation of the Scriptures, but we have given the pure, simple Bible truths as taught by Christ and the apostles. It is not our doctrine, but the doctrine of him that sent us. What we have taught is in perfect accord with the Bible, and who can gainsay it?
To believe, experience, and live the truths of God's Word is to be a light in the world. To disbelieve any part, to come short of any part in practical life, is to be to the same extent in darkness. Christ was a light because he was the Word. ”

“ Another fruitful source of confusion in studying the Scripture teachings regarding sin is the taking of Bible statements concerning man in his natural state and applying them to the new creature in Christ Jesus. ”

“ As the primary function of Christ is redemptive, so the inspiration of the Bible is directed to make men “wise unto salvation.” (8) It is the presence and influence in the souls of men of the same Spirit of God as inspired the Scriptures which makes the Bible effective as a means of grace; and only those who yield themselves to the Spirit of God have the witness in themselves that the Bible conveys to them the truth and the grace of God. ”

“ But this working of the truth of God on the mind of man is not God's revelation of His mind to man which the Bible professes to be. The Bible must of necessity be not merely a repository or receptacle of spiritual influences fitted to act upon the mind; it must be—it is—God making Himself known to men. ”

“ For the old-time friends of the Bible, the night of darkness and doubt is rapidly passing; the morning of a fuller knowledge and a fuller confidence is at hand. Gone are those agonies of doubt regarding the truthfulness of the Bible's history and the adequacy of its ethics for the needs of our modern world. ”

“ For if he understand the mystical experience truly, he will through his pursuit of it come to see all the vaster significance in the great New Testament truths of sin, and faith, and incarnation, and Christ, and Cross. ”

“ We believe that the study of the New Testament in this way is the true road by which men can arrive at the truth concerning God's justice, holiness and mercy, and concerning human sin and salvation from sin. It is also the road by which we can arrive at such knowledge of the mode of the Divine existence and God's one revelation of Himself to the human understanding as our finite minds are able to grasp. We may well press home the question. What are Jesus Christ's claims ? ”

“ The question as to how we shall interpret the Bible is solved by taking the book as a whole and thinking of the true and evident nature of God as infinitely and eternally loving, incapable of the weaknesses of hating humanity, and avenging Himself upon them. ”

“ The gospel, I conceive, in its most extensive sense, comprehends the whole revealed will of God, recorded in the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament [Tim. iii. 16.] .
This sacred book, which we call the Bible, describes the original state of man, as a state of perfect purity and innocence. He was made in the image of God. He was made upright [Gen. i. 26, 27.; Eccles. vii. 29.] . His understanding, will, his affections and conscience, his body and soul, were free from defilement, guilt, or guile, and while he continued so, he was not liable to pain, misery, or death. ”

“ The purpose of the Bible, the form of it, the gradual formation of it, the steadily-growing Revelation contained in it, these harmonise with the moral law revealed originally in the conscience. And the effect which the Revelation has produced on human history is real and great. The power which God's Revelation has exerted on the world is an undeniable fact among phenomena. ”

“ It is only necessary here to say, that the miracles to which Christianity appeals as proofs of its divine authority, are not only those which were wrought by Christ and his Apostles, but also those which took place among the patriarchs, under the law of Moses, and by the ministry of the Prophets ”

“ I can appeal to the experience of thousands, as well as to my own, that the doctrine of the Saviour is true, that the history given in the New Testament is a true history, as far as it goes, of the feelings and the experience common to every variety of human life, and chimes with the experience of every true believer in Jesus Christ in all ages of the world, though the expression, "true believer," needs qualifying, for many believe who do not obey—I will qualify it by saying, a believer in Jesus Christ, who manifests his faith to God, angels, and his brethren, by his obedience. ”

“ This is the very pith and marrow of the Old Testament and of the New; which gradually unfolds itself, from the very first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation,—that man is made in the likeness of God ”

“ The New Testament abounds in symbols, parables, and proverbs, taken from ancient tradition, but beautifully woven into a purer faith, which taught that the healthy joys of life, and all knowledge of divine truth, should be given not to a few kings or priests, a few favored with initiation into divine mysteries, as of old, but to the whole world ”

“ The following Scriptures show that the Bible should be our guide: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good work” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17) . 82 “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8, 9) . ”

“ I, although young in years and lacking experience, had thought a great many times that I would like to hear some man who could tell me something, when he opened the Bible, about the Son of God, the will of God, what the ancients did and received, saw and heard and knew pertaining to God and heaven. ”

“ The Old Testament, which is the record of the earlier stages of the Christian revelation, distinctly preparatory and prophetic, forms a continual instruction in duty and righteousness. It grounds the moral life essentially in the religious, but religion must walk in holiness. ”

“ Seventhly, I cannot but think that what I find in myself of natural religion, does evidently bear testimony to the christian religion; for all that truth which is discovered to me by the light of nature, is confirmed, and more clearly discovered, by the gospel; the very same thing which the light of nature gives me a confused sight of, (like the sight of men as trees walking,) the New Testament gives me a clear and distinct sight of. ”

“ In one word, you have found a new Bible, and I hope and believe you have read it with new delight. I fear not that you can ever be satisfied with the views of our opponents; their manner of explaining Scripture is too carnal to satisfy the devoted child of God.
“‘Then let me advise to a continual searching for truth, both for faith and practice; and wherever we have wandered from the word of God, let us come back to the primitive simplicity of the gospel once delivered to the saints. ”

“ It is, on the other hand, of the essence of the New Testament revelation that, as given in Christ and proclaimed by His apostles, it is, as far as this world is concerned, in its substance, final and adequate for all ages. ”

“ An unquestioning belief, which in its naïveté is almost touching, leads him to hold that all utterances of the Old as well as of the New Testament are direct revelations of God. The further consequence of this constancy of faith is the desire to believe and to follow everything that is contained in the Bible, to the widest extent and with the closest adherence to the wording of the book. ”

“ The many-sidedness of the Bible, its appeal to man's whole nature, is one of the most marked proofs of its superhuman origin. While it addresses itself continually to man's moral nature, to his sense of right and wrong, while it appeals to his intellect and heart, it also speaks to his fears and hopes. ”

“ The Old Testament is a record of the growth of human intelligence in relation to the Deity—of the revelation made by Spirit to spirit. When therefore God is described as speaking to man, he does so in the only way in which He who is a Spirit can speak to one encompassed with flesh and blood; not to the outward organs of sensation, but to that intelligence which is kindred to Himself the great Fountain of knowledge.—Davidson: Introduction to the Old Testament, i. ”