Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 11:1 (Winter 1968)
Article: The Christian Man And The Bible
Author: Stephen W. Paine

BETS 11:1 (Winter 1968) p. 13

The Christian Man And The Bible

Stephen W. Paine, Ph.D.*

[* Houghton College, Houghton, New York. Presidential Address at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.]

The Christian man is one who has faith in God through Christ. This faith is almost always based in part upon God’s revelation of himself in the Bible. It is only natural, then, that the Christian man inclines from the start to receive the words of Scripture as from God and final. This is an act of faith, but it is not against reason. There are certain facts which support such an attitude.

And what are these facts which seem to call for the Christian man’s faith in and loyalty to Scripture? First and most important, the fact that our blessed Lord received the Scripture of his day, the same books which comprise our Old Testament canon today, as being the very word of God written. That Christ’s attitude toward Scripture is taken from Scripture involves a certain circularity of thinking which I shall mention again later.

Even a cursory reading of the gospels will impress one with the frequency and simple finality with which Jesus appealed to Scripture as to God himself. When speaking to the Sadducees about immortality, he asked them, “Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?” (Mt. 22:31). When referring to the Messianic reference in Psalm 2, Jesus declared that David had spoken this by the Holy Spirit (Mk. 12:36).

When hard pressed by the cunning temptations of Satan, Jesus three times quoted from the Books of Moses, letting his obedience to Scripture stand as obedience to, God. Concerning this Adolph Monod has thoughtfully asked, “What! Jesus Christ, the Lord of Heaven and earth, calling to his aid in that solemn moment Moses his servant? He who speaks from heaven fortifying himself against the temptations of hell by the word of him who speaks from earth? How can we explain that spiritual mystery, that wonderful reversing of the order of things, if for Jesus the words of Moses were not the words of God rather than those of men?” (The Fundamentals, Vol. II, p.31, quoted by Frank E. Gaebelein, Inspiration, p.12).

It was in dealing with a somewhat incidental point in Psalm 82 that Jesus declared in the words now used on the seal of ETS, οὐ δύναται λυη̑ναι ἡ γραφή, “Scripture cannot be broken.” Present day scholars who do not share this view and who yet regard Jesus as the Son

BETS 11:1 (Winter 1968) p. 14...