Machen on the Bible, part 1

The Bible is a massively multi-faceted book that simply defies description. It's the greatest of books -- and the "bookiest of books" -- but it's so much more than that. It's staggering to think that before the universe began the Bible was in the mind of God. Words were God's idea and the primary means he uses to communicate his truth to us. Makes the teaching of reading and writing something of a holy vocation doesn't it? The Bible is also an integral part of our civilization's historical memory, one we're in danger of irretrievably losing. How are future generations going to make sense of Shakespeare or Milton without a rudimentary knowledge of what's contained in Holy Scripture? But that's a subject for another day...

J. Gresham Machen devoted an entire chapter of his book Christianity and Liberalism to defending the Bible against those within his denomination who were trying to marginalize and undermine it. Often these folks would admit that the Bible was a divine book, but that it was full of errors. Or, that they were more concerned with "the authority of Christ" than "the authority of the Bible", ignoring the fact that Jesus had a higher view of the authority of scripture than any man that ever lived. There are still many today, both inside and outside the church, playing the same games and doing their best to debunk the Bible.

I think it's also true that the contemporary church hasn't done a good job of communicating to the world at large what the message of the Bible really is. Talk to the average man on the street, or listen to how the Bible is portrayed in popular culture, and this quickly becomes evident. When it comes to the Bible, we American evangelicals have a bad habit of "majoring in the minors", by (for example) seeing it as primarily a list of practical principals and rules for successful living -- God as the ultimate self-help guru. And instead of seeing Jesus on every page, we see ourselves. The Bible does have a lot to say about how we should live -- and it's a mirror to be held up to our lives (James 1:22-25) -- but if this is all it is then we're missing the main point.

In this excerpt Machen explains the uniqueness of the Bible:

According to the Christian view, the Bible contains an account of a revelation from God to man, which is found nowhere else. It is true, the Bible also contains a confirmation and wonderful enrichment of the revelations which are given also by the things God has made and by the conscience of man. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork"--these words are a confirmation of the revelation of God in nature; "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"--these words are a confirmation of what is attested by the conscience. But in addition to such reaffirmations of what might conceivably be learned elsewhere--as a matter of fact, because of men's blindness, even so much is learned elsewhere only in comparatively obscure fashion--the Bible also contains an account of a revelation which is absolutely new. That new revelation concerns the way by which sinful man can come into communion with the living God.

The way was opened, according to the Bible, by an act of God, when, almost nineteen hundred years ago, outside the walls of Jerusalem, the eternal Son was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of men. To that one great event the whole Old Testament looks forward, and in that one event the whole of the New Testament finds its centre and core. Salvation then, according to the Bible, is not something that was discovered, but something that happened. Hence appears the uniqueness of the Bible. All the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event. Without that event, the world, in the Christian view, is altogether dark, and humanity is lost under the guilt of sin. There can be no salvation by the discovery of eternal truth, for eternal truth brings naught but despair, because of sin. But a new face has been put upon life by the blessed thing that God did when He offered up His only begotten Son.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 69-70

More tomorrow...