The Divine Origin of the Bible

The third proof of the divine origin and authority of the Bible is the unity of the Book. It has often been said that the Bible is not merely a book, but a library consisting of a marvellously rich collection of literary works. There are sixty-six books composed by about forty authors in three different languages, demonstrating many styles of literary composition: epic poetry, lyric poetry, erotic poetry, elegy, dirge (lament), didactic poetry (moral instruction), rhapsody, and prose, history, prophecy, visions, allegory, parables, and proverbs.

These books were composed over at least fifteen hundred years in lands far remote from one another. The writers lived under widely differing forms of civil government and were from every class of society, from the king upon his throne down to the shepherd, the fisherman, the herdsman, the common politician, and the prisoner in his cell. In such a conglomerate literature, what would we naturally expect? The widest diversity, disagreement, and contradiction. But what do we in fact find? The most singular harmony and unity from the first verse of the first book to the last verse of the last book. This fact clamours to be accounted for. How is it to be accounted for rationally and fairly, except on the ground that behind the human authors was the all-governing and superintending mind of God?

The more one studies, the more evident it becomes that this superintendence of God extended down to phrases, words, and the minutest shadings of a word. The character of this unity is significant. First of all, it is not a superficial, but a profound unity. On the surface, there often seems to be wide divergence and even flat contradiction; but the deeper we go below the surface, the more the unity appears. It is also an organic unity. It is not a mechanical unity, but the unity of life and growth. In the early books, we have the seed, the germinal truth; farther on, the young plant, then the bud, the blossom, and the perfect fruit. Can anyone question that God is in this?

Suppose it were proposed to build in our capital city a temple that should represent all the States of the Union. Stones for this building were to be brought from the granite quarries at Quincy, Mass., the marble quarries at Rutland, Vt., the brownstone quarries at Middletown, Conn., the grey sandstone quarries at Berea, Ohio, the malachite quarries of Northern Michigan, the brownstone quarries at Kasota, Minnesota., the porphyry quarries below Knoxville, Tennessee, and so on through all our States. These stones were to be of all conceivable sizes and shapes: cubical, spherical, cylindrical, conical, trapezoidal, rectangular parallelepipeds. Each stone was to be cut into its final shape in the quarry from which it was taken.

Now, when the stones are brought together and built into the temple, every stone fits into its place. There is not a stone too many or a stone too few; not a stone left over, and not an unfilled niche anywhere. And there arises before your vision a temple of splendid proportions, with its side walls, its buttresses, its nave, its choir, its transept, its arches, pillars, domes, and spires, perfect in every outline and in every detail, every stone just fitted to its place, and yet every stone finished in the quarry from which it was taken. How would you account for this? There is one very simple way of accounting for it, and there is only one rational way of accounting for it at all. That is this: behind the individual stonecutters in the quarries was the master architect who planned the whole from the beginning and gave to each individual workman his specifications for the work. It is exactly so with this eternal temple of truth which we call the Bible. As we have seen, the stones for it were quarried at places and at times most remote from one another, and yet every stone fits into its place, and there is not one stone too many or one too few, and it has stood throughout the centuries a glorious temple, perfect in every outline and in every detail, and yet every stone hewn into its final shape in the quarry from which it was taken. How shall we account for it? In one way, very simply, and in only one way at all: behind the human hands that wrought was the Master mind of God that thought and gave to each individual writer His specifications for His work.