Part 2/2
Bibliolatry
By Adolph Saphir, D.D.
continued. . .
The Reformation-churches soon departed from the true and living view of Scripture. Luther saw Scripture in its relation to Christ and to the Spirit; indeed, many of his savings err on the side of subjecting the Scripture too much to the testimony of the Spirit' to our spirit. They are unguarded, but in reality only strong and one-sided expressions of what he felt so deeply,--that we do not place the Bible as Christ's substitute or the substitute of the Holy Ghost; that the great value of the Bible is that it testifies of Christ; and that the Holy Ghost is the true enlightener and teacher. While Luther did not sufficiently guard his assertions (forgetting, too, that the testimony of Scripture concerning Christ was much more ample and full than his idea as to what that testimony ought to be), his followers too soon forgot the true position of the Scripture. The Holy Ghost is above Scripture. Not that there is anything in the Scripture which is not in accordance with the Spirit's teaching, for all Scripture is inspired of God, but the Church is in danger of ignoring the existence of the Holy Ghost and her constant dependence on Him, and of substituting for the Spirit the Book. And now commences the reign of interpreters and commentaries, of compendiums and catechisms; for if we have the Spirit's teaching in the Book instead of the Spirit's teaching by the Book, men wish to have it extracted, simplified, reduced to a system, methodised. And then, practically speaking, the creed is above the Bible.
Thus there has been, to a great extent, "textâ€Â-preaching instead of "Word of God" preaching. The Word was "outside" of us, instead of "dwelling" in us. And our testimony is different in tone and power from that of the apostles and primitive Christians; for their testimony was in the Spirit and of Christ according to Scripture, while ours has become testimony concerning the Bible in reference to Christ and the Holy Ghost. The apostles spoke of Christ, and confirmed and illustrated their testimony by the prophecies of Scripture. They looked to the Man in the first place, and secondarily to the portrait given of Him in the Book. Whereas the pseudo-apostolic preaching fixes its own eye and that of the hearer in the first place on the Book, and deduces from it the existence and influence of the Person. The impression in the one case is: that the preacher announces a message from Christ, who is a reality to him; and this his experience of Christ, he asserts, is according to Scripture. The impression in the other case is: that Isaiah, Paul, John teach, according to the preacher's exposition, such and such doctrine. The one is preaching Christ; the other, about Christ. The one is life and spirit; the other is possible without the spirit and vitality. The one is testimony; the other is an exposition of another man's inspired testimony. The one is preaching the Word (with or without text); the other is text-preaching without the Word. Paul preached Christ; our tendency is to preach that Paul preached Christ.
Why is it that God, in speaking to his own people. says so often, "I am the Lord"? Why does He speak so frequently and so earnestly against idolatry? Why does He teach us continually that the Spirit quickeneth; that the letter, even the good and inspired letter, killeth? Because the root-tendency of man is to substitute shadow for substance, the form and outline for the fullness, rules for life, and dead things for the living God. Because we like to stand on terra firma, and resemble children, who cannot understand on what pillars earth, sun, and moon do rest. Because we think of catching a sunbeam in a trap, instead of depending on the sun in the heavens, therefore we are always apt to deify "brazen serpents," "Bible doctrine," past experiences.
The man who first made a crucifix, doubtless simply meant it as an aid to his memory and devotion. The thought of the Saviour's love and death filled his heart with contrition, ardent affection, peace, and joy. "Oh, if I could always thus see a crucified Redeemer!" And why not? Is not the same mercy and love. which manifests Christ unto the soul now, continually with us? Will there be no manna to-morrow? Ah, but he wants to fix and secure the impression. He makes the crucifix; and now, instead of Christ, we have an expedient-an aid to devotion, which will soon become an obstacle, and then a substitute for the living Christ. For the process of deterioration is rapid; soon is Christ forgotten, and the crucifix becomes not a symbol, but an idol, and men think not merely of the crucifix, but attach importance to a special crucifix, with wood from such a place, and which has been used by such a saint, etc. But idolatry, in the large and spiritual sense, is not confined to "crucifixes." The Bible may be the Protestant crucifix.
And then it is that, as with the Jews, so now-a-days, people will say: "If you take away the Sabbath and the Bible, what remains?" And that is just what I ask: What does remain?" To a number of "religious people" so-called, what is left? Oh, when the Spirit of thy Lord came unto thee, and made thee see Jesus Christ, the Friend of sinners, and hear his blessed voice declaring peace in his blood, was thy consciousness that of a book or of a person, of a creed or of life, of written guarantees for God, or of that love which passeth knowledge and of that joy which is unspeakable? To us to live is Christ, and nothing else, and our safety is Christ and nothing else. And for this reason, the testimony, which nowhere but in Scripture we have perfect, full, and without error, is to us most precious.
The opinion of the world concerning us is, that we are guided by the Bible: and to defend ourselves and influence the world, we begin to show that we are right logically and historically, and ethically, in believing the Bible. But what we ought to have impressed upon the world is, that we are guided by the Holy Ghost, and that Christ is our center and our life.
The Bible is our storehouse, where we obtain nourishing food (even this illustration is dangerous, for apart from the Spirit there is no nourishing food, even in the Gospel of John and the very words of Christ). The Bible is our armoury, where there are swords and weapons for our conflict. But what we have to testify is, not that we have food, but that we have life, and that there is a Christ: not that we are equipped for war, but that we have strength, even the Holy Ghost.
And as for defending either the Bible or Christ, who ever asked us to do it? Certainly not Christ, for He told us to be his witnesses and not his advocates, and He has promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. The defense is in his own hand, while He has left the testimony in ours. The whole testimony of the Church is Jesus Christ, and that testimony is by the Spirit of God; and those who are convinced and added to our number are so by the preaching, which is in demonstration of Spirit and power. But when the Church argues about and for Christ, and especially- about "the Bible," as if "the Bible" was God's guarantee instead of God's witness, she has insensibly got into a wrong Position. The apostles were witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus but how? Why did Jesus Himself not appear after his resurrection to the unbelieving Jews? The apostles preachedâ€â€not evidence proving the miraculous fact of the resurrectionâ€â€but a risen Saviour: resurrection power was theirs, and the Spirit convinced their hearers of that life in a risen Saviour. Our faith is not to stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. When the Word of the Lord comes to the soul, it brings its authority, power, and attraction with it, and the response of the heart is, not “What is this Book?†but, “Who art Thou, Lord?â€Â
Thus even the Bible may become dangerous. When we realize God, when we constantly remember that Christ Himself is All in All, and when we believe that according to the promise the Holy Ghost is the indwelling guide of the Church, then indeed the Bible is most precious to us, Word of the Most High, which we desire to receive with reverence, gratitude, and joy.
This, I believe, is what Edward Irving meant, when he said, “With shame I declare it, they talk more after the style of a Mohammedan talking about the Koran, or a Jew about the Talmud, than a spiritual Christian united to Christ speaking of the Word of Christ. For if I have Christ, I have more than His Word, I have Himself: He dwelleth in me, and I in Him.
"Hence cometh that please pray for me notion of faith, which I cannot away with, that it is merely the link which joineth the mind of man with the record of the Book. They go aboutâ€â€and men they are, many of them, most dear unto my soulâ€â€to speculate concerning Christianity, as they call it: how intellectual, how moral, how political it is, beyond all systems; how it is accommodated to tile faculties of the understanding, to the feelings of the heart, to the well-being of the community; it will heal the distemperature of the moral atmosphere of society, and do a thousand fine things; for the sake of which they would pray men to be so gracious as to give ear unto their God. And thus they seek by smooth and flattering words, and well-turned sentences, and well-built arguments, to produce that natural faith, which is no faith, but sight, intellectual, or moral or prudential discernment.
But I say unto you, ye cozeners of human nature, that faith is by pre-eminence the gift of God; and, wherever given, will fight against nature in all its courses; it will beat down the works of the natural man, and your beautiful nature it will conflagrate; your knowledge it will blow away into thin air, and sublime towards the limbo of vanity beyond the moon; your sentimentalists, your men of feeling, your songsters sweet, your novelists your moral scaffolders (for tone in its true place they never build a wall or lay a s' did nor will do), the whole tribe of your naturalists, rationalists, and neologians, with which the sunbeam swarms, and the very glittering element itself in which they flutter, this gospel, whose suitableness to improve them all you fondly prate and preach about, will first utterly destroy, as so many gewgaws, which Lucifer, the sun of the morning, hath made to mislead and destroy benighted men groping their way darkly on to death and destruction.
--Adolph Saphir, D.D.
