The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism | Page 2

antagonism that the Prince of Darkness could evoke, need not now be
moved to hasty utterance. The eternal foundations of truth, like him
who laid them, are "the same, yesterday, to-day and forever." The Book,
with all its precious doctrines, is here to stay. It can not be destroyed.
Fire has not burned it, water has not quenched it, the edicts of tyrants
and popes have not been able to break its power. The Church of God
can calmly rest on "the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."
(1 Peter i. 23.) Hence we may calmly move on undisturbed in our work.
Further, our attitude should be marked by an intelligent understanding
of the question involved. It is not a question of fair, honest criticism,
for the purpose of a deeper knowledge of God and his truth. All
reverent and helpful study of the Word of God is critical, and is the
kind of criticism that the Book challenges. Our Lord invites it, and
urges us to "search the Scriptures," which testify of him.
It is assumed by the rationalistic critics that we have entered a new era,
that the Bible has never been studied until within recent years. This is
an assumption unworthy of scientific scholarship. Critics who have not
sought to destroy the Word of God, but, by thorough investigation, to
determine its claims, have been at work on the Scriptures in all the past,
seeking to know the mind of the Spirit. There is, and ever has been a
legitimate study of the Bible. Hence, there are absolutely no grounds
for the assumption of the rationalists. The Church of Christ is not
opposed to the application of the best methods and best scholarship in
the investigation of revealed truth. Indeed, the Protestant Church has
ever been the mother of the highest education, and has had an open ear
to the call of God--"Come, let us reason together."
It is well to understand that the poorly-concealed purpose of the school

of higher critics is not to press the just and holy claims of God's Word
on the human conscience, but to eliminate the supernatural from it. The
Christian Church should understand this. If atheistic scientists can
construct a universe without God, by evolutionary processes, and the
critics can construct a Bible without the supernatural, "the wisdom of
this world" will have pretty thoroughly disposed of God.
In the attitude of the Church toward destructive criticism, sometimes
called historical, or constructive, we must not fail to discover its
bearing on the character of Christ. For the final conflict of all
skepticism of every grade and quality is in reference to the person and
work of Christ. The elimination of the supernatural from the Bible
would be an invalidation of Christ's claims and testimony. It would
place him before the world as a false teacher, a fraud, a charlatan.
Loyalty to the Word, and to the Incarnate Word, demands, therefore,
that we should clearly understand the end to which this rationalism is
drifting. For Christ's testimony concerning the Old Testament
Scriptures, which will be presented later in this discussion, is so
thoroughly in conflict with the modern critical assumptions that it must
be disposed of by those claiming expert scholarship. In the attempt to
accomplish that feat, they put our Lord under such limitations as would
rob him of his character as Teacher and Redeemer.
The "experts" are logically driven to one of two conclusions: either that
Christ did not know the facts of the Old Testament Scriptures, which he
believed and was sent to teach, or, knowing the facts, he deemed it not
important to teach them.
The first assumption puts our Savior on the basis of a fallible human
teacher, and nothing more. The second assumption contradicts all the
professions of the critics. For they affirm to-day that the professed
discoveries of the mistaken views of the Bible are of the utmost
importance, and as honest men they are in conscience obliged to make
them known, while claiming that Christ did not make them known.
Shall we assume that these views, which they deem so important to-day,
were of no importance when the Church of Christ first took form? We
may ask, what estimate should we have of Christ, who, knowing his
people were in error as to the authorship and origin of the Scriptures,
would leave them in darkness for more than eighteen hundred years? Is
it to be assumed that he would wait through the long centuries for the

coming of critics to enlighten his people? That is what we are logically
asked to accept at their hands. It is thus made clear that the issue of this
conflict, as in all the past, is narrowed down to the person and character
of our Savior. It