The Divine Power of the Bible

The Bible possesses divine power to regenerate men, to make them new creatures, to impart to them a new nature, to make them partakers of the divine nature. This is a fact that has been proven tens of thousands of times. While some have been speculating about the authorship of the various books of the Bible and trying to construct a philosophical theory of inspiration, wiser and more practical men have been studying the actual contents of the book and expounding its truth to a lost world. God has set His seal upon their labours in a wonderful way. While the former class has succeeded only in filling the minds of men with questions and doubts or, at best, have simply convinced them intellectually of the authenticity of the book, the latter have transformed men from lives of sin, selfishness, and despair into lives of holiness, self-renunciation, likeness to God, peace, joy, and hope. In actual use, the Bible proves itself to possess regenerating power. On the board of deacons of the writer’s church, there are at least six men who were once drunkards, outcasts, and thoroughly reprobate, but who are now living most exemplary lives and are centres of power in the community in which they live. The change was wrought in each one of them by the power of the Bible. One of them was a most wicked mocker and ungodly fellow. He has stood outside the church in which he is now a deacon with a pitcher of intoxicating liquor and offered it to people as they came out. It seemed necessary to warn people against his influence in the inquiry meeting which he frequented. But he went home one night and went to bed a godless wretch. In the middle of the night, he woke up with a passage of the Bible burning in his heart. Without getting out of bed, he closed with God’s offer of mercy in Christ and arose in the morning a transformed man. The transformation has stood a quarter of a century of testing as to its reality. The Bible will make any man who will study it, believe it, and obey it, a new creature. It will impart to him new tastes, new affections, new purposes, a new disposition, and a new character through and through. It will make him a true child of God. He will be “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever.” 1 Peter 1:23. This power to transform fallen men into the likeness of God, to make them actual partakers of God’s own nature, is unquestionably divine, and this power the Bible unquestionably possesses.