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Title: The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism

Author: S. E. Wishard

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Language: English

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THE

TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE

CONCERNING THE

Assumptions of Destructive Criticism

BY

S.E. WISHARD, D.D.

LOS ANGELES, CAL.

JOHNSON & HANEY

BIBLE INSTITUTE PRESS

1909

Copyright, 1909

By S.E. WISHARD, D.D.


Presentation Copy

       *       *       *       *       *

"In the defence and confirmation of the truth"

--_Phil 1:7_


BIBLE INSTITUTE

Los Angeles, Calif.




FOREWORD.

  _This booklet is sent out
  To all Sabbath-school teachers,
  To the young people of the Christian churches,
  And to all believers in the living Word_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The work of the destructive critics has been widely disseminated in
current literature. Magazines, secular newspapers, and some religious
papers are giving currency to these critical attacks on the Word of God.
The young people of our churches are exposed to the insidious poison of
this skepticism. It comes to them under the guise of a broader and more
liberal scholarship. They have neither the time nor the equipment to
enter the field of criticism, nor is this work demanded of them.

While abler pens are meeting and answering the questions raised by
destructive critics, something may be said that will clear away the fog
produced by them and enable young Christians to come directly to the
truth.

Hence this booklet is an attempt to "give God a chance" to have his say.
The testimony presented is on the divine plan of giving, "Precept upon
precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line," "lest we
forget."

There has been no attempt to cover the whole ground of destructive
criticism in the brief compass of this booklet. It will be enough to
permit God to answer; hence, in the following pages he speaks for
himself. We are content that his voice shall be heard.

S.E. WISHARD.




CONTENTS

                                                     PAGE

   I. OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD DESTRUCTIVE CRITICISM        9

  II. SHOULD REPLY BE MADE?                           17

 III. WAS MOSES A LITERARY FICTION?                   25

  IV. WERE CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES MISTAKEN?          39

   V. THE ATTACK ON THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS             59

  VI. ASSUMPTIONS CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ISAIAH       73

 VII. GOD'S REPLY TO THESE ASSUMPTIONS.               87

VIII. THE HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK OF JONAH           101

  IX. RADICAL EXPOSITION                             111

   X. GOD HIS OWN INTERPRETER                        119




I. OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD DESTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.

_"Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love,
as Christ also hath loved us." Eph. v. 1, 2._

_"Be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any
man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to
all men." 1 Thess. v. 14, 15._

_"He that believeth shall not make haste." Isa. xxviii. 16._

_"The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments
are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, and are done in truth and
uprightness." Psa. cxi. 7, 8._

_"My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Isa, xlvi.
10._


The attitude which God's people should assume toward destructive
criticism has been questioned. It should certainly be a position of calm
patience, that can deliberately weigh valid testimony, and abide by the
decision of intelligent judgment. The history and life of the Church for
nearly two thousand years should go for something. They are not to be
swept away by the bluff, the egoism of what claims to be the only
"Expert Scholarship."

There is no occasion for a panic. Truth that has been, and has builded
noble, goodly life, is truth still, and ever will be. It is not a time
for denunciation. The assumptions of the destructive critics are so
enormous, so radically revolutionary, so directly aimed at vital truth,
that one's heart is stirred. There is danger of yielding to the heat of
a righteous indignation. It is not well to lose one's intellectual and
moral poise, even in a contest involving the honor of God and the
welfare of immortal souls. But "he that believeth shall not make haste."

The lovers of the Book that has safely passed through every storm of
antagonism that the Prince of Darkness could evoke, need not now be
moved to hasty utterance. The eternal foundations of truth, like him who
laid them, are "the same, yesterday, to-day and forever." The Book, with
all its precious doctrines, is here to stay. It can not be destroyed.
Fire has not burned it, water has not quenched it, the edicts of tyrants
and popes have not been able to break its power. The Church of God can
calmly rest on "the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." (1
Peter i. 23.) Hence we may calmly move on undisturbed in our work.

Further, our attitude should be marked by an intelligent understanding
of the question involved. It is not a question of fair, honest
criticism, for the purpose of a deeper knowledge of God and his truth.
All reverent and helpful study of the Word of God is critical, and is
the kind of criticism that the Book challenges. Our Lord invites it, and
urges us to "search the Scriptures," which testify of him.

It is assumed by the rationalistic critics that we have entered a new
era, that the Bible has never been studied until within recent years.
This is an assumption unworthy of scientific scholarship. Critics who
have not sought to destroy the Word of God, but, by thorough
investigation, to determine its claims, have been at work on the
Scriptures in all the past, seeking to know the mind of the Spirit.
There is, and ever has been a legitimate study of the Bible. Hence,
there are absolutely no grounds for the assumption of the rationalists.
The Church of Christ is not opposed to the application of the best
methods and best scholarship in the investigation of revealed truth.
Indeed, the Protestant Church has ever been the mother of the highest
education, and has had an open ear to the call of God--"Come, let us
reason together."

It is well to understand that the poorly-concealed purpose of the school
of higher critics is not to press the just and holy claims of God's Word
on the human conscience, but to eliminate the supernatural from it. The
Christian Church should understand this. If atheistic scientists can
construct a universe without God, by evolutionary processes, and the
critics can construct a Bible without the supernatural, "the wisdom of
this world" will have pretty thoroughly disposed of God.

In the attitude of the Church toward destructive criticism, sometimes
called historical, or constructive, we must not fail to discover its
bearing on the character of Christ. For the final conflict of all
skepticism of every grade and quality is in reference to the person and
work of Christ. The elimination of the supernatural from the Bible would
be an invalidation of Christ's claims and testimony. It would place him
before the world as a false teacher, a fraud, a charlatan. Loyalty to
the Word, and to the Incarnate Word, demands, therefore, that we should
clearly understand the end to which this rationalism is drifting. For
Christ's testimony concerning the Old Testament Scriptures, which will
be presented later in this discussion, is so thoroughly in conflict with
the modern critical assumptions that it must be disposed of by those
claiming expert scholarship. In the attempt to accomplish that feat,
they put our Lord under such limitations as would rob him of his
character as Teacher and Redeemer.

The "experts" are logically driven to one of two conclusions: either
that Christ did not know the facts of the Old Testament Scriptures,
which he believed and was sent to teach, or, knowing the facts, he
deemed it not important to teach them.

The first assumption puts our Savior on the basis of a fallible human
teacher, and nothing more. The second assumption contradicts all the
professions of the critics. For they affirm to-day that the professed
discoveries of the mistaken views of the Bible are of the utmost
importance, and as honest men they are in conscience obliged to make
them known, while claiming that Christ did not make them known.

Shall we assume that these views, which they deem so important to-day,
were of no importance when the Church of Christ first took form? We may
ask, what estimate should we have of Christ, who, knowing his people
were in error as to the authorship and origin of the Scriptures, would
leave them in darkness for more than eighteen hundred years? Is it to be
assumed that he would wait through the long centuries for the coming of
critics to enlighten his people? That is what we are logically asked to
accept at their hands. It is thus made clear that the issue of this
conflict, as in all the past, is narrowed down to the person and
character of our Savior. It is well to face the issue calmly, and with a
clear understanding of what is pending. Did Christ know truth? Was he
honest? Hence, the attitude of the Church should be taken in view of the
trend of modern critical discussion.




II. SHOULD REPLY BE MADE?

_"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Psa. xi.
3._

_"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." 1 Thess. v. 21._

_"Buy the truth and sell it not." Prov. xxiii. 23._

_"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that
you should earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto
the saints." Jude 3._

_"Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have
been taught, whether by word or our epistle." 2 Thess. ii. 15._

_"I am set for the defense of the gospel." Paul, Phil. i. 17._


It is a question among earnest Christian men, who are busily engaged in
the work of the Master, as to whether we should turn aside long enough
to make reply to the destructive critics. It is affirmed that, as the
Word of God has already passed through all the attacks that have been
made upon it, it will defend itself in the future as in the past--that
our duty is to preach the gospel. Certainly the victories of the gospel
are a noble defense of its truth and power to save. There should be no
respite from this work. But there are vast multitudes of people that
permit the critics to do their thinking for them. They are not well
informed concerning the Scriptures, and consequently are not prepared to
repel the attacks of skepticism, nor to reply to the specious arguments
or positive assumptions of the critics. These multitudes are in danger
of casting aside the Word of God, and missing the offer of eternal life.

The fact of the increased activity of the enemies of the truth must be
known to Christian people. Their organized and persistent use of the
press has gained for them a wide hearing. Shall the Christian people
deny themselves this instrumentality of getting a hearing for God and
his truth before the world? Would not silence be construed by the world
as meaning that the cause dear to the heart of God's people is
indefensible?

It should be known to all lovers of the truth that the skepticism widely
sown by the destructive critics has entered the Protestant Church and
many of our institutions of learning.

"Read the utterances of representative men and teachers in her
communion, who deny the Incarnation, repudiate vicarious sacrifice, make
light of the story of the resurrection, and refine the risen Son of God
into nothing more than the spirit and essence of truth; or, at most, the
disembodied ghost of a man who called himself a Messiah, mistaken in his
claims, but authoritative in his morals." (Rev. I.M. Holdeman.)

The author of this statement refers also to the fact that there are
"modern professors of theology who convict the very prophets whom they
hold up as exemplars of righteousness, of absolute literary fraud, and
deliberate piracy." They "demonstrate with cool precision that the
higher critics of to-day are better informed concerning the mistakes of
Moses than was he who claimed that Moses wrote of him, and prove to
their own satisfaction and the belief of many followers that Jesus
Christ, our Lord, was limited in intelligence, and would, if he were
here to-day, deny some of the statements he once so unqualifiedly made."

We may not shut our eyes to the fact that many of our colleges are more
or less infected with this rationalistic criticism. Some of our
theological professors have substituted the theory of evolution for the
Scriptural doctrine of creation by the Word of God. Our young men
preparing for the work of the ministry are under the influence and
instruction of some of these teachers here in our own country.

It is a matter for thanksgiving that we have literary and theological
institutions into which the destructive critics have never
entered--institutions that stand for the Word of God as given by the
Holy Spirit, and believed in by God's servants in the past and to-day.

We do well to recognize the further fact concerning the effort to
eliminate the supernatural from the Bible, that the work of the
rationalists has permeated the literature of the day. In this age of
reading fiction, that form of literature has become a convenient vehicle
for taking everything out of the hands of Providence. It has become easy
to leave God out of his universe and supplant him with the heroic in
man. Hence, the literary appetite, ever craving the human instead of the
divine, turns away from the truth that confronts the conscience of the
reader with God and his claims.

For the defense of truth we have the example of prophets, apostles, and
Christ himself. Much of the work of the prophets of the Old Testament
was devoted to the exposure of the "New Thought" of their times. Moses
dealt thoroughly with the new theology that asserted: "These be thy
gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." The
heresy was ended as suddenly as it was introduced.

The Epistle to the Galatians was Paul's reply to the Judiazing teachers
who would substitute ceremonials for the doctrine of justification by
faith. His Epistle to the Ephesians was a constructive work, in answer
to Jewish prejudice and teaching, in which he set forth the unity of
Jews and Gentiles in one Church, which is the body of Christ. In his
Epistle to the Corinthians he answered their false views of marriage. He
shamed their partisan spirit, in which some claimed to be of Paul, some
of Apollos, some of Christ. He labored most earnestly to convince them
of their false views concerning the resurrection, and dealt faithfully
with the errorists concerning the inquiry that was coming to the Church
through their magnifying and perverting the use of the gift of tongues.
He showed them a more excellent way.

There should be no turning aside from preaching a full and free gospel,
nor should there be any halting in its defense, or against the effort to
eliminate the supernatural from the Word of God. The critical work that
logically leaves us a Savior ignorant of the Scriptures, or, if knowing
them, afraid to meet Jewish prejudice by correcting their mistakes,
should be kindly, candidly, and manfully met by those to whom the truth
has given life.




III. WAS MOSES "A LITERARY FICTION"?

_"God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses,
Moses. And he said, Here am I.... Come now, therefore, and I will send
thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children
of Israel, out of Egypt!' Exod. iii. 4, 10._

_"And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the
Lord God of Israel, Let my people go." Exod. v. 1._

_"Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw
out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the
passover.... And the children of Israel did according to the word of
Moses.... And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth,
about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, besides children"
Exod. xii. 21, 35, 37._

_"And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the
tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel."
Exod. xxxiv. 27._

_"And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words
of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded
the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,
Take this book of the law and put it in the side of the ark of the
covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness
against thee" Deut. xxxi. 24-26._


We turn now to the assumption that Moses was not the author, under God,
of the Pentateuch. The destructive critics do not agree among themselves
as to the origin of the Pentateuch. Dates and authors are variously
adjusted among those claiming to be experts. There is, however,
agreement on one point, that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. It is
affirmed that his name has been attached to it to give it authority,
because many of the events recorded and much of the history took place
during the period of Moses' life and in connection with his influence.
But the critics place the _record_ of those events almost altogether
after the exile, between nine hundred and a thousand years after the
time of Moses.

It was once affirmed that writing was not used in the days of Moses, and
therefore he could not have written the five books that claim him as
their author. But the fact now brought to light, and conceded by the
critics and all well-informed scholars, that writing antedated Moses by
many centuries, has swept out of existence that objection. But the
question is still raised as to the Mosiac authorship of the Pentateuch.
It is said in reply:

_First_--The Holy Spirit declares by the mouth of Stephen that "Moses
was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words
and deeds." Acts vii. 22.

Writing was long known to and practiced by the Egyptians, hence the man
trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians _was competent_ to write the
Pentateuch.

_Second_--The Pentateuch very definitely claims Moses as its author, not
once or twice, but many times, all through these writings.

"The Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and
rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the
remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." Exod. xvii. 14. This was not
the law, parts of which even some of the critics concede that Moses
wrote. It was God's judgment against Amalek. But it was written in a
book. What book? The inspired Scriptures say it was written here in
Exodus xvii. 14. And again it was repeated in Deut. xxv. 19, and that
Moses wrote it.

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus Moses has given an account of
God's call to him, to Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders, to
come up to Horeb. Moses was called into the immediate presence of God,
while the others remained at a distance. After his interview with
Jehovah it is written: "Moses came and told the people all the words of
the Lord.... And _Moses wrote all the words of the Lord_." Exod. xxiv,
3, 4.

In the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus God is represented as giving
definite instructions to Moses concerning worship, at the conclusion of
which "the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words, for after the
tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel."
Exod. xxxiv. 27.

We turn to the positive statement in Deuteronomy xxxi. 9. The chapter
opens with the declaration that "Moses spake these words unto all
Israel," giving an extended account of what the words were. In the ninth
verse it is stated: ... "_And Moses wrote this law_ and delivered it
unto the priests and unto all the elders of Israel." What became of that
writing of Moses? Was it lost? Or is the statement false? And did some
later writer forge the statement, attributing the writing to Moses, to
give weight and authority to the forgery? To ask the question is to
answer it. "Moses wrote all the words of the Lord."

In the twenty-fourth verse in this same chapter in Deuteronomy it is
stated that "Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a
book." Yet the critics teach that this book, Deuteronomy, was not
written until after the exile, almost a thousand years after the events
narrated. Does not critical credulity make larger demands than are laid
on faith?

The summing up of the book of Numbers, of what had been said and written
in the book, is stated in the last chapter and last verse, namely, that
"these are the commandments and the judgments which the Lord commanded
_by the hand of Moses_ unto the children of Israel." Again and again it
is affirmed in the Pentateuch that God commanded Moses to write, and
that he did write, but the critics affirm that the hand of Moses had
nothing to do with producing the books of the Pentateuch--that they were
written after the exile!

Not only does the Pentateuch distinctly teach the Mosaic authorship of
the five books of Moses, appropriately so called, but all the Old
Testament saints entertained the opinion which the Jewish people and the
Christian Church hold to-day, that God spake to Moses, and that _Moses
committed to writing_ the messages that God gave him and commanded him
to write, embracing the story of God's miracles, his instruction and
dealing with them in the wilderness.

We find the critics contradicted in the Scriptures from Joshua to
Malachi. To Joshua God said: "As I was with Moses, so will I be with
thee." (Joshua i. 5.) Eight times in the first chapter of the book of
Joshua God accredits Moses with having received and having given the law
to Joshua and the people.

The Pentateuch is the book which God, speaking to Joshua, calls "the law
which my servant Moses commanded thee" (Joshua i. 7), and it was so
accepted by Joshua. Was he mistaken? or the critics? He had long enjoyed
most intimate relations with Moses, and knew what Moses had written by
the command of God.

David affirms that God had "made known his ways unto Moses, and his acts
unto the children of Israel" (Psa. ciii. 7). We have seen that the man
Moses was competent to write, and did write, what God had made known to
him (Deut xxxi. 24). The Psalms are illuminated and set aflame with the
faith of Israel, that Moses said and wrote what is ascribed to him in
the Pentateuch.

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the prophets down to Malachi reiterated the same
belief, sung and taught it to their children. Were they mistaken?

The finding of the Pentateuch during Josiah's reign, which had been lost
in the rubbish of the temple during the wicked reign of Manasseh and
Ammon, is evidently referred to in 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14, 15; "Hilkiah the
priest found the book of the law of Jehovah by the hand of Moses.
(Margin, R.V.) And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan, I have found
The Book of the law of the house of the Lord." Four times within seven
verses it is called "_The Book_." It was read before the King, who
humbled himself, and prepared himself and the people to observe the
Passover as it had been prescribed in "the law of Moses." Josiah
commanded them to "kill the Passover, and sanctify yourselves and
prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of the
Lord _by the hand of Moses_" (2 Chron. xxxv. 6). This took place long
before the exile, which the critics insist was the beginning of Israel's
literature, and after which they say the Pentateuch was written.

Ezra testifies to the existence of the Mosaic law before his time. His
testimony establishes the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Ezra vii.
6: "This Ezra ... was a ready scribe _in the law of Moses_."

After the return from captivity Ezra describes the building of the altar
in these definite terms: "Then stood up Joshua, the son of Jozadak, and
his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his
brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt
offerings thereon, _as it is written in the law of Moses_, the man of
God" (Ezra iii. 2). Was Ezra deceiving the people?

There are several things to be noted here:

1. _There was a written law of Moses_, the man of God, then in
existence. It was not a written law of Ezra which the priests palmed off
as the written law of Moses.

2. _There was a priestly order_, according to the written law of Moses
the man of God, not according to the invention of the exiles returning
from captivity, under the pretense that Moses wrote it.

3. The altar was built according to the written law of Moses the man of
God. These records by Ezra effectually bar the door against the critical
conjecture that the Pentateuch, in which the written law of Moses the
man of God is found, was fabricated after the exile.

The definite law for the place of building the altar, by which the
priests proceeded in the days of Ezra, is recorded by "Moses the man of
God," in Deut. xii. 5-7: "Unto the place which the Lord your God shall
choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his
habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou come; and thither shall
ye bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices and your tithes and
heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill
offerings, and the firstlings of your herds, and your flocks; and there
ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that
ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee."

It is Ezra, not the critics, who informs us that this was "written in
the law of Moses the man of God." We will be pardoned for accepting the
testimony of Ezra. He does not mean to forsake his faith in the Mosaic
authorship of the Pentateuch, for he writes in chapter vi. 18: "They set
the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for
the service of God, which is at Jerusalem; _as it is written in the book
of Moses_."

In the eighth chapter of the book of Nehemiah, that great servant of God
affirms his faith in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, which was
also the faith of all the people of his time. In the first verse in this
chapter he informs us that "all the people gathered themselves together,
as one man, into the street that is before the water gate, and they
spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring _the book of the law of Moses_,
which the Lord had commanded to Israel." Ezra was not to make a book and
call it the book of Moses, as some of the critics teach, but to "bring
the book of the law of Moses," a book in their possession already made,
and with which they were already familiar--"_The Book of the Law of
Moses_."

"The Book of the Law of Moses" was the Jewish title given to the
Pentateuch at that time, and is so recognized again and again. Nehemiah
viii. 14 affirms again: "They found written in the law, which the Lord
had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in
booths in the feast of the seventh month." Nehemiah quotes this "command
of the Lord by Moses" from Lev. xxiii. 39-42, which was a fraud on the
part of Nehemiah, if Moses was not the author of the book. Again he says
in the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah and first verse: "On that day they
read in the book of Moses, in the audience of the people"; but it was
not the book of Moses if he had not written it, but the book of another
one of the "unknown" so frequently found (?) in Scripture by our
critics.

The book of Moses in which this last reference from Nehemiah is written
is the command that the "Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into
the congregation of God for ever," and is recorded in Deut. xxiii. 3, 4.

But our critical friends inform us that Deuteronomy was not written
until after the captivity. Hence, the logic of their position is, that
Nehemiah attributes to Moses what he did not write, and proves himself
to be either ignorant of the truth or practicing a fraud upon the
people. We prefer the testimony of Nehemiah to that of the latter-day
critics.

It should be repeated that the prophets and inspired writers down to
Malachi reiterated their confidence in the Mosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch. And he, the last messenger of the Old Testament to Israel,
gave them this message from God: "Remember ye _the law of Moses_ my
servant, which I commanded unto him" (Mal. iv. 4). Indeed, the entire
testimony of the Old Testament is in harmony with the positive
statements made in the Pentateuch, that Moses was commanded to write,
and that he actually and positively "wrote all the words of the Lord"
(Exod. xxiv. 4). There is not a word, syllable, hint, or shadow of a
hint assigning these five books of Moses to a later date or author.

The presumption, or guess, of the critics carries no weight in the face
of the testimony of the entire Old Testament that God commanded Moses to
write, and that he did write, the five books attributed to him.




IV. WERE CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES MISTAKEN?

_Christ said to his apostles:_

_"Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea,
and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." Acts i. 8._

_"I speak the truth in Christ and lie not." Paul in 1 Tim. ii. 7._

_"Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of
the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth." The Apostle John in
Rev. i. 5._

_"We know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest, except God be with him," Nicodemus, in John
iii. 2._

_"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?" Christ, in John viii.
46._

_"I am the way, the truth and the life." Christ, in John xiv. 6._


The opinions and testimony of the apostles are certainly worth
something. They had three years of instruction under our Lord, and the
promise from him that the Holy Spirit should guide them into all truth.
(John xvi. 13.)

A study of the writers of the New Testament proves that they are in
absolute harmony with the writers of the Old Testament as to the Mosaic
authorship of the five books of the Pentateuch. Luke ii. 22 informs us
that the mother of Jesus, "when the days of her purification were
accomplished according to the _law of Moses_," brought the child "to
present him to the Lord." This was done, according to Leviticus xii.
2-6, and accredits that book to Moses, and not to some imaginary author.

The Apostle John informs us that "the law was given by Moses, but grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John i, 17). If he has misled us in
reference to Moses and the law, can we trust him in reference to grace
and truth by Jesus Christ?

When Peter made his address to the people who were surprised at the
healing of the cripple, he said: "_Moses truly said_ unto the fathers, A
prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren,"
(See Acts iii. 22.)

This saying of Moses is recorded in Deut xviii. 15, the contents of
which book are introduced to us in these words; "These be the words
which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness,
in the plain over against the Red Sea" (Deut. i. 1), referring to the
whole books spoken by Moses, the learned man, mighty in words and deeds,
but not recorded, the critics say, until after the exile, about a
thousand years! This you are asked to believe on the basis of the
professed or assumed acumen of the critics!

Further, in his great speech before the Sanhedrim at his martyrdom,
Stephen quotes Moses as having received full and complete directions
from God concerning the tabernacle. (Acts vii. 44.) In the twenty-fifth
chapter of Exodus, the book in which Moses was commanded to write and
did write, these directions are recorded. We accept Stephen's testimony,
added to that of Exod. xxv., rather than the testimony of the critics.

When Paul was writing to the Corinthians of the blindness of the Jews (2
Cor. iii. 15) he said: "Even unto _this day, when Moses is read_, the
veil is upon their hearts."

Moses must have written something if he was read. What has become of his
writings? Is it not the Pentateuch which the Scriptures everywhere call
the writings of Moses? Undoubtedly, yes.

In Paul's missionary sermon at Antioch in Pisidia, he declared to his
audience that through Christ "all that believe are justified from all
things, from which ye could not be justified _by the law of Moses_"
(Acts xiii. 39).

Why does Paul refer to the ceremonial of the Jewish ritual as the law of
Moses? It must be answered that Paul was a Jew. He was familiar with the
Jewish scriptures. He had read the following passages and believed them,
and was grounded in the truth which they declare, that "by the hand of
Moses" they were given to the people.

To satisfy the reader that they were "given by the hand of Moses" the
following Scriptures are furnished:

1. "Aaron and his sons did all things which were commanded _by the hand
of Moses_." (Lev. viii. 36.)

2. "That ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the
Lord hath spoken unto them _by the hand of Moses_." (Lev. x. 11.)

3. "These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Lord made
between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, _by the hand of
Moses_." (Lev. xxvi. 46.)

4. "These were they that were numbered of the families of the
Kohathites, all that might do service in the tabernacle of the
congregation, which Moses and Aaron did number, according to the
commandment of the Lord _by the hand of Moses_." (Num. iv. 37.)

5. "These ... whom Moses and Aaron numbered, according to the word of
the Lord _by the hand of Moses_." (Num. iv. 45.)

6. "According to the commandment of the Lord they were numbered _by the
hand of Moses_." (Num. iv. 49.)

7. "They kept the charge of the Lord, at the commandment of the Lord,
_by the hand of Moses._" (Num. ix. 23.)

8. "And they first took their journey according to the commandment of
the Lord _by the hand of Moses_." (Num. x. 13.)

9. "Even all that the Lord hath commanded you _by the hand of Moses_,
from the day that the Lord commanded Moses." (Num. xv. 23.)

10. "That no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to
offer incense before the Lord, that he be not as Kora and his company,
as the Lord said to him _by the hand of Moses_." (Num. xvi. 40.)

11. "And he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge, as the Lord
commanded _by the hand of Moses_." (Num. xxvii. 23.)

12. "These are the commandments and the judgments which the Lord
commanded _by the hand of Moses_." (Num. xxxvi. 13.)

13. "By lot was their inheritance, as the Lord commanded _by the hand of
Moses_." (Joshua xiv. 2.)

14. "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you
cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you _by the hand of Moses_."
(Joshua xx. 2.)

15. "The Lord commanded _by the hand of Moses_ to give us cities to
dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle." (Joshua xxi. 2.)

16. "And the children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these
cities with their suburbs, as the Lord commanded _by the hand of
Moses_." (Joshua xxi. 8.)

17. "And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and the half
tribe of Manasseh returned, ... according to the word of the Lord _by
the hand of Moses_." (Joshua xxii. 9.)

18. "And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would
hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their
fathers _by the hand of Moses_." (Judges iii. 4.)

19. "Thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to
be thine inheritance, as thou spakest _by the hand of Moses, thy
servant_." (1 Kings viii. 53.)

20. "There hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he
promised _by the hand of Moses his servant_." (1 Kings viii. 56.)

21. "So that they will take heed to do all that I have commanded them,
according to the whole law and the statutes and the ordinances _by the
hand of Moses_." (2 Chron. xxxiii. 8.)

22. "To kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your
brethren, that they may do according to the word of the Lord, _by the
hand of Moses_." (2 Chron. xxxv. 6.)

23. "Thou ... madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst
unto them precepts, statutes and laws, _by the hand of Moses thy
servant_." (Neh. ix. 14.)

24. "Thou leddest thy people like a flock _by the hand of Moses and
Aaron_." (Psa. lxxvii. 20.)

Paul was familiar with these statements of the Jewish Scriptures. He
believed them. (2 Cor. iv. 13.) He believed that God gave "the whole law
and the statutes and the ordinances _by the hand of Moses_" (2 Chron.
xxxiii. 8), who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was
mighty in words and deeds. (Acts vii. 22.) Hence he called the
Scriptures "The Law of Moses."

Some of the critics will concede that many things were done by Moses,
but not recorded until after the exile. Think of it! The laws, statutes,
and ordinances which were vital to the life of the Jewish nation, which
had been given at Sinai, and were announced with the sanctions of life
or death, were not recorded by God's appointed leader, whom he had
trained in all the learning of the times, but were left for almost a
thousand years to uncertain tradition!

Paul had not forgotten the above statements concerning Moses' personal
connection with the giving of the law. Before Felix he was arraigned,
and testified "what the prophets and Moses did say." (Acts xxvi. 22.)

To the Jews at Rome "he expounded and testified the kingdom of God,
persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the laws of Moses and out
of the prophets." (Acts xxviii. 23.)

In his Epistle to the Roman Christians he says (quoting from Lev. xviii.
5): "For Moses writeth that the man that doeth the righteousness which
is of the law shall live thereby." (Rom. x. 5, R.V.)

To the Corinthian Christians he says: "It is written in the _law of
Moses_. Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox when he treadeth out
the corn." (1 Cor. ix. 9.) Here again he quotes from Deut. xxv. 4, and
repeats the quotation in 1 Tim. v. 18. But the critics deny that it was
written until after the exile, at least nine hundred or one thousand
years later.

The Apostle James adds his testimony to that of Paul, while addressing
the assembly of the apostles at Jerusalem, saying: "For Moses of old
time hath in every city them that preach him, _being read_ in the
synagogues every Sabbath." (Acts xv. 21.)

We have learned in these quotations from Matthew, Luke, John, Stephen,
Peter, and Paul, their repeated testimony, their unvarying faith that
_Moses both spoke and wrote_ the scriptures contained in the Pentateuch.
We have seen that their faith was founded on twenty-four inspired
declarations that these five books were given "_by the hand of Moses_."
These statements are found in the books themselves, from Leviticus to
the Psalms. If inspired testimony is worth anything, the case is closed,
and the critics' case goes out of court, more than disproved.


WAS CHRIST MISTAKEN?


The reader will be interested to know what Christ has to say of the
critics' denial of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. For he who
"spake as never man spake," he of whom the Father said, "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, _hear ye him_," this same Jesus
had some very positive opinions on the subject before us. He has spoken
clearly and definitely. We may not turn away from his testimony.

1. After healing the leper, our Lord said to him: "Go thy way, show
thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that _Moses commanded_ for a
testimony unto them." (See Matt. viii. 4, Mark i. 44, Luke v. 14.)

Our Savior here quotes from Lev. xiv. 2-8. Moses had been commanded to
write the words that God had given him. (Exod. xxxiv. 27.) "And Moses
wrote all the words of the Lord" (Exod. xxiv. 4), hence our Lord quotes
the passage in Leviticus _from Moses_.

2. The Pharisees, always captious and controversial, sought to entangle
the Savior in a discussion on the subject of divorce. Replying, "He
saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered
you to put away your wives." (Matt. xix. 8.) Our Lord here quotes from
the Mosaic law (Deut. xxiv. I-4), recognizing Moses as the author of the
same.

3. He rebuked the scribes and Pharisees also for turning from the word
of God to the traditions of men. "For Moses said, Honor thy father and
thy mother." (Mark vii. 10.) This quotation is from Exod. xx. 12, and
Deut. v. 16. They had made the command of Moses of no effect, had
violated the law which Christ taught had been given by Moses.

4. The Sadducees came to him with their controversy concerning the
resurrection. They presented to him an unanswerable argument, as they
supposed, against the doctrine, questioning as to whose wife she should
be in the resurrection, who has had seven husbands in this life. Christ
replied (Mark xii. 26, 27): "As touching the dead, that they rise; have
ye not read in the _book of Moses_ how in the bush God spake unto him,
saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living."

This quotation by our Lord is from Exod. iii. 6, and he calls the book
from which it is made "the book of Moses." Did Christ know whether it
was the book of Moses or of some unknown author who had so artfully
palmed it off under false colors as to deceive the entire Jewish nation?

Or, as certain of the critics teach, did Christ know that the pretense
that it was the book of Moses was a fraud, but, in view of public
opinion, was unwilling to expose the deception? To ask these questions
is to uncover the animus of the critical assumptions which logically
attack the character of Christ himself.

Christ knew who was the author of the book, and knowing, he affirmed
that it was "_The Book of Moses_."

5. In our Lord's parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Dives is
represented as pleading that some one be sent from the dead to warn his
brothers, lest they also come into this place of torment. The reply to
his request was: "They have Moses and the prophets.... If they hear not
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose
from the dead." (Luke xvi. 29, 30.) "Moses and the prophets" was the
name for the Jewish Bible. If Moses did not write the Pentateuch, the
name of their Bible was false, and the Savior indorsed a falsehood. We
believe "the faithful and true Witness," and reject the critics who
dishonor his character.

6. After Christ's resurrection he walked and communed with the two
disciples on the way to Emmaus. He instructed them concerning the
Messiah's death, and, "beginning at Moses" (Luke xxiv. 27), informed
them that it was God's plan, foretold in the Old Testament. He appeared
to his apostles and declared to them that "all things must be fulfilled
which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets." (Luke xxiv.
44.) The critics deny Moses' authorship, but Christ affirms it, using
the language that means the Pentateuch. _We believe him_.

7. In our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus he recognizes Moses in
connection with the book of Numbers. He refers to the historical
incident, if our critical friends will leave us any Biblical history, in
Numbers xxi. 8, 9. He says: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up," (John iii. 14.)

Recurring to the passage in Numbers, we learn that, in the dire distress
of the people for their sins, God commanded Moses to make a brazen
serpent, and lift it up before the people, that they might look and
live.

Certain of the critical school consent that Moses, was connected with
the event, but did not record it. Indeed! And what proof that he failed
to make the record? It was personal to himself. It was symbolically
prophetic of the crucifixion of Christ, as our Savior used it, an event
toward which all prophecy moved. And we have already learned that nine
times it has been stated in the book of Numbers that the acts, precepts,
and statutes of this book were done and given by "_the hand of Moses_."

8. To the Jews, seeking to murder their Messiah, he said; "Do not think
that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuseth you,
even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses ye would have
believed me, _for he wrote of me_." (See John v. 45, 46.)

When and where did he write of Christ? He wrote of him in the five books
which are ascribed to Moses by all the Old Testament Scriptures, and by
Christ and his apostles. He wrote of him in Gen. iii. 15, when God
promised that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head."
He wrote of Christ in Gen. xii. 3, when God promised Abraham: "In thee
shall all families of the earth be blessed." He wrote of the Messiah
when he recorded Jacob's prophecy in Gen. xlix. 10: "The scepter shall
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh
come." Moses wrote of Christ, when under divine direction he instituted
the passover, as recorded in the twelfth chapter of Exodus.

He wrote of Christ in the Levitical ritual, when under God's instruction
he set up the system of types, for the tabernacle and the temple
service, which taught the fundamentals of the New Testament
gospel--_redemption by the blood_.

The whole tabernacle and its furniture was necessary to complete the
symbolism that should represent the Messiah. The altar, the laver, the
shew bread, the golden candlestick, the mercy seat, and the officiating
high priest. For "Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make
the tabernacle," and received positive direction as to how he should
construct it, that redemption should echo from every part of the
service. Beautiful and glorious was the service that proclaimed "Christ
and him crucified." Christ's testimony here is twofold: That "Moses
wrote," and that he "wrote of me," of Christ, the witness of these
things.

9. It was at the feast of tabernacles, in the year 29 A.D., that the
Jews attacked the Savior in a fierce controversy, because he healed on
the Sabbath day. He was teaching in the temple when they charged him
with violating the Sabbath.

To that charge he replied: "_Did not Moses give you the law_? Yet none
of you keepeth the law." (See John vii. 19.) He affirms in most positive
terms, that can not be twisted into the shadow of a negation, that Moses
gave them the law. The interrogative form of his statement is
rhetorically the strongest possible affirmation.

10. Once more, in the twenty-third verse of the same chapter, Christ
refers to the fact that their children received circumcision on the
Sabbath day, that "the law of Moses be not broken."

The sum of Christ's testimony to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch
is before us. Ten times our Lord asserts in the passages quoted that the
law given in the Pentateuch was the "law of Moses." He affirms that in
that law "he wrote of me." From Genesis to Revelation there is continued
affirmation by prophets, apostles, and by Christ, who can not lie, that
the five books of the Pentateuch are the books of Moses, under the
guiding hand of the Spirit of God.

A recent writer, who has gone over the testimony of the Bible itself
against the critics, says: "We find in them (the writers of the Old
Testament) more than eight hundred quotations from, or references to,
the first five books of the Bible, and not a hint is given that Moses is
not their author," but he is everywhere recognized as the author, under
God.

Witnesses multiply with every restudy of the book, proving the Mosaic
authorship of the first five books of _The Book_. "What shall we say,
then, to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?"




V. THE ATTACK ON THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS.

_"The Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle
of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say
unto them, If any man of you bring an offering, ye shall bring your
offering of the cattle, even of the herd and of the flock." Lev. i. I,
2._

_"And when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering
shall be of fine flour, and he shall pour oil upon it, and put
frankincense thereon." Lev. ii. 2._

_"And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, ... he shall lay
his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation, and Aaron's sons the priests shall
sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about," Lev. iii. 1, 2._

_"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of
Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the
commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done,
... let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock
without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering." Lev. iv. 1, 2, 3._

_"His truth endureth to all generations." Psa. c. 5._


Having considered the critical assault on the Pentateuch as a whole,
attention should be called to the special criticisms on the book of
Leviticus. A prominent representative of the school of critics affirmed
in his recent lectures at Long Beach, California, that the Hebrews had
no literature until their connection with the Babylonians while in
captivity, that their literature was developed during their agricultural
life while in Babylon. He affirmed that the sacrificial ritual of the
book of Leviticus had its roots in the heathen sacrifices growing out of
their false conception that their deities must be appeased by the
shedding of blood. The Levitical ritual was, therefore, never written
nor given by Moses. If this gentleman and the critics that hold with him
are correct, we must conclude with them that Moses never saw or heard of
our book of Leviticus.

In reply let it be said:

1. The denial of the existence of Hebrew literature prior to the exile
is thoroughly answered and set aside by the records discovered on the
Egyptian monuments and writings before and during Israel's bondage. Many
of the critics have found this criticism untenable, and have abandoned
it. They have been obliged to concede that Egyptian and Babylonian
literature existed long before the time of Moses. The best scholarship
of to-day affirms that "the discovery and first use of writing is
certainly as old as the time of Abraham." (See Schaff-Hergoz, Enc. Art.
Writing.)

2. If the Bible itself is not a fraud, writing was constantly in use in
the time of Moses. See:

(1) Exod. vii. 14: "The Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial
in a book."

(2) Exod. xxiv. 4: "And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord."

(3) Exod. xxxiv. 27: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these
words."

(4) Exod. xxxiv. 28: "And he (God) wrote upon the tables the words of
the covenant."

(5) Num. v. 23: "And the priest shall write these curses in a book."

(6) Num. xi. 26: "They were of them that were written."

(7) Num. xvii. 2: "Write thou every man's name upon his rod."

(8) Num. xvii. 3: "Write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi."

(9) Num. xxxiii. 2: "And Moses wrote their goings out according to their
journeyings by the commandment of the Lord."

(10) Deut. vi. 9: "Thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and
upon thy gates."

(11) Deut xi. 20. Repeats the last reference cited.

(12) Deut. xvii, 18: "When he (the king) sitteth upon the throne of his
kingdom, he shall write him a copy of this law in a book."

These are a few out of the many passages in the Pentateuch in which God
has commanded his servant to write, and in which it is positively stated
that his servant did write. One of two things is certain, either the
whole Pentateuch is a fraud, having stated repeatedly that writing was
commanded and practiced, or the book is true, and the fraud must be
charged to the belated critics.

The reader will see very clearly that the purpose of such criticism is
to eliminate the supernatural from the Bible, as has been said, and
destroy its certitude.

It is too late in the day for the Professor's criticism, that Hebrew
literature had its first development during the exile. "Stephen full of
the Holy Spirit, looking steadfastly into heaven," read the record of
history concerning Moses differently. Stephen could not have heard the
Chautauqua lecturer's statement, for he affirmed that "Moses was learned
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds."

3. Consider now the assumptions of the critics in the face of the claims
of the book of Leviticus. In the first verses of the book it is written:
"And the Lord called upon Moses, and spake unto him out of the
tabernacle of the congregation, saying." Then follow God's specific
directions concerning

(1) The burnt offering;

(2) The meat offering, and

(3) The sin offering, occupying the whole of the first three chapters.
The fourth chapter is introduced in the same explicit language.

(4) The sin offering.

This definite direction of God to Moses extends to the sixth chapter of
the book. Here again the same formula of speech is employed, God
speaking to Moses gave directions concerning

(5) The trespass offering.

In the eighth chapter we have God's direct communication to Moses, and
Moses' response in such phrases as the following, and all in a single
chapter: "And the Lord spake to Moses, ... and Moses did as the Lord
commanded him, ... and Moses said unto the congregation, ... and Moses
brought Aaron and his sons, ... as the Lord commanded Moses, ... and
Moses brought Aaron's sons, as the Lord commanded Moses." Ten times in
this single chapter it is recorded that God spake to Moses, and Moses
obeyed God.

And yet our critic would have us believe one of two things; God either
took the heathen sacrificial ritual, veneered it with some sort of
divine approval, and handed it over to his people for their use, or by
some sort of evolution the book of Leviticus came up out of the heathen
method of appeasing their malevolent deities!

Let the facts be summarized. In every one of the twenty-seven chapters
of the book of Leviticus God is represented as commanding Moses, and
Moses is represented as doing the thing which God required of him, and
several times in many of the chapters. In the eighteenth chapter
nineteen definite things are done by Moses, the seventeenth verse
asserting that all this was done "as the Lord commanded Moses."

The following references are absolutely unanswerable by the critics,
viz.:

Lev. i. 1: "The Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him."

Lev. iv. 1: "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying," etc.

Lev. vi. 1; "And the Lord spake unto Moses."

Lev. viii. 1: "And the Lord spake unto Moses."

Lev. viii. 36: "Aaron and his sons did all things which the Lord
commanded by the hand of Moses."

Lev. ix. 6: "And Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord commanded
that ye should do."

Lev. xi. 1: "And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron."

Lev. xii. 1: "And the Lord spake unto Moses."

Lev. xiii. 1: "And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron."

Lev. xiv. 1: "And the Lord spake unto Moses."

Lev. xiv. 33: "And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron."

Without further repetition of this phraseology, the reader will find the
same in the following references, viz.: xv. 1, xvi. 1, xvii. 1, xviii.
1, xix. 1, xx. 1, xxi. 1, xxii. 1-17, xxiii. 1, xxiv. 1, xxv. 1, xxvii.
1-34.

Here are twenty-five positive statements that God spake to Moses, or
commanded Moses. Does language mean anything? Is there any escape from
the truth, except by a denial of the entire Word of God?

God and Moses are the active agents in every chapter in the book of
Leviticus. And this fact is definitely stated in the last verse of
Leviticus: "These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses."

You might as well attempt to blot the sun from the heavens at high noon
as to eliminate from the book of Leviticus the one great and
divinely-appointed personality, Moses, the lawgiver, the leader the
actor, and under God the author of the book.

A further word concerning the date of Leviticus. When was it written? As
already stated, the critics place the time of the writing after the
exile, between nine hundred and one thousand years after the decease of
Moses. Something additional should be added to what has already been
said on the subject.

The reader of the English Bible will see that Leviticus immediately
follows Exodus by the connective "and." The same Hebrew connective
unites Exodus with Genesis, and Numbers with Leviticus. The natural,
grammatical, and logical inference is, that the author of Genesis is the
author of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

In addition to this fact we have the testimony of some of the prophets
who lived before the exile, that they were familiar with what the
critics call "the priestly code," which is elaborated in Leviticus.

Professor Stanley Leathes adduces forty-five allusions to the books of
Moses in the book of Amos. (See _Bible Student and Teacher_, October,
1906.) Amos' prophetic work was "in the northern kingdom, between 807
and 765 B.C., during the reign of Jeroboam II, when the kingdom of
Israel was at the height of its splendor." (See Schaff-Herzog, Enc. Art.
Amos.) This was more than two hundred years before the restoration from
the exile, long before the captivity, which the critics designate as the
beginning of the literary period.

Professor Leathes affirms that "there is apparent acquaintance with and
reference to each book of the Pentateuch in this prophecy." He shows
that Leviticus is referred to in nine passages in Amos. The reference in
Amos iv. 5 to "a sacrifice in thanksgiving with leaven" is an allusion
to the law of thanksgiving in Lev. vii. 13.

In giving God's message to Israel in a time of great backsliding, Amos
said to them: "Though ye offer unto me burnt offerings and meat
offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace
offerings of your fat beasts." (Amos v. 23.)

This is an allusion to the law of burnt offerings and meat offerings set
forth in the first chapter of Leviticus. But the critics inform us that
there was no law concerning these offerings until several hundred years
after Amos ceased to prophesy!

Again, enumerating the sins of the people, Amos charges them with giving
the Nazarites wine to drink. "Ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and
commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not." (Amos ii. 12.) This was a
violation of the law of God as found in Num. vi. 2, 3, showing at least
that the Pentateuch, of which Leviticus is an important part, was known
to Amos, long before the period to which Leviticus has been assigned by
the destructive critics.

Hosea adds his testimony to that of Amos and Ezekiel. Again and again he
refers to the law of sacrifices as taught in Leviticus. "They shall be
ashamed because of their sacrifices." "They sacrifice on the tops of the
mountains and burn incense upon the hills." (Hosea iv. 13, 19.)

Concerning Ephraim, God says by the prophet Hosea: "I wrote for him ten
thousand things of my law." (Hosea viii. 12, R.V.) He refers to the law
as given to Moses in all its length and breadth.

The critics demand large credulity from us. They ask us to accept their
position that the Bible itself was mistaken as to its authorship, that
Christ and his apostles were mistaken; or at least did not tell the
truth when they assigned the Pentateuch (Leviticus included) to Moses.
They then ask us to believe that the Bible is not only unimpaired by the
mistakes which the experts claim to have discovered, but is really much
improved by the discovery!

It passes rational comprehension that we are permitted to expunge from
the Word of God, on the ground of literary criticism, the positive and
repeated statements of inspired men, and of the Son of God, and yet
assume that we have an unimpaired revelation!

We rather turn to the glorious array of witnesses to the integrity of
the Bible that God has furnished--the book itself, Moses and the
prophets, all the New Testament writers and the "Teacher sent from God."
From these witnesses we rest in the unshaken belief that "God spake all
these words" (Ex. xx. 1) and that "Moses wrote all the words of the
Lord" (Ex. xxiv. 4), including Leviticus.




VI. ASSUMPTIONS CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ISAIAH.

_"Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too
hard for me?" Jer. xxxii. 27._

_"God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth
unto God." Psa. lxii. 11._

_"Great is our Lord, and of great power; his understanding is infinite."
Psa. cxlvii. 5._

_"He revealeth the deep and secret things; he knoweth what is in the
darkness, and that the light dwelleth with him." Dan. ii. 2._

_"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world" Acts
xv. 18._

_"The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men." Psa.
xxxiii. 13._

_"Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what
thou shalt say." Ex. iv. 12._

_"And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand
not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not." Isaiah vi. 9._


The critics claim to have discovered, on literary and other evidence,
that the Church of Christ, in all its branches, has been mistaken in all
the past concerning the author of the book known as the Prophecies of
Isaiah. They assume that all the foremost scholars of the world, and the
faith of God's people, have been misled. Our critical advisers profess
to have discovered that there were at least two, and probably many more
prophets, whose writings compose the book. They refuse to recognize
Isaiah alone as the author; and for several reasons:

_First_--Because of the change of style of composition from the
thirty-ninth chapter to the close of the book.

_Second_--On the ground that the theme is more exalted than in the first
thirty-nine chapters. Hence, it is assumed that these last chapters
could not have been written by Isaiah.

_Third_--On the ground that Cyrus is mentioned by name, in the
forty-fourth and forty-fifth chapters of the book, as the restorer of
Jerusalem. Hence, our critics conclude that this part of the book must
have been written after the event, as the prophet (it is assumed) could
not name Cyrus before his birth.

_Fourth_--The critics assume that the prophet must prophesy out of his
immediate surroundings, whatever that may mean. They furnish their
troubled disciples the comforting assurance that these discoveries do
not diminish the value of the book, but render it more accurate and
interesting as a literary work. The professor already quoted, a fair
representative of the critical school, in his recent lectures, referred
to on a preceding page, distinguished the authors of the book as "Isaiah
and the Great Unknown Prophet." Other critics multiply, somewhat
indefinitely, the number of "The Unknowns." Our critic regards the
change in _style and theme_ from the thirty-ninth chapter to the end of
the book as valid proof of at least the dual authorship of the book.

This assumption instantly raises the question as to who is the author of
prophetic themes. Is it the prophet himself or the Holy Spirit? Does the
prophet himself bring forth the prophecy of his own foreknowledge? Or,
is the Holy Spirit the inspirer of themes new and old? Happily God has
settled the question for us. He declares by his Apostle Peter "that no
prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation"; that is, of the
prophet's own disclosure. "For prophecy came not of old time by the will
of man; but _holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Spirit_." (2 Peter i. 20, 21.) It is, therefore, bold assumption to
affirm that God could not give to the same prophet new and more exalted
themes in his progressive revelation of truth. It is a limitation of God
himself to the critic's notion of what should, or should not be. This
would eliminate the divine element of the book by a sweep of the
critic's pen. It is an assumption too groundless to need a reply.

Further, as to the change of style. Nothing is more natural or
reasonable than the fact that a change of theme should produce a change
of style. A more exalted theme must quicken the imagination, set the
emotions aflame, stimulate all the mental and moral powers of the
author. A historical statement, a commonplace theme, can be dealt with
in a commonplace style, while new and uplifting truth awakens new powers
in the writer. Milton's Paradise Lost was entirely different from his
ordinary prose composition. Dr. John Watson's sermons were on a higher
level than his books of fiction. Writers who do much of their literary
work on the level plain on which the people move, frequently rise to
mountain peaks of sublime composition when the occasion and theme demand
it.

The style in the later chapters of the book of Isaiah is just what we
would expect from the prophet when the Holy Spirit opened to his
enraptured mind the theme of redemption through a suffering Messiah, in
the fifty-third and following chapters of the book.

The objection to conceding the authorship of the entire book to Isaiah,
because the prophet mentions Cyrus by name before his birth, is made in
the face of the fundamental fact already stated that God inspired the
writer, and is therefore the author of prophecy, "declaring the end from
the beginning." (Isa. xlvi. 10.) He knows all the future and whom he
will choose to accomplish his glorious purposes. To deny this fact is to
deny all prophecy. If God can not foretell future events and the
instruments for their accomplishment, there can be no prophecy, and
God's omniscience is impeached. Isaiah prophesied in the seventh chapter
and fourteenth verse: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel." Matthew affirms that this prophecy
was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. (Matt. i. 22, 23.) He also declares
in the same connection that the announcing angel foretold that the name
"Jesus" was to be given to the Messiah at his birth. These
preannouncements must be cast aside if the critic's dictum is accepted.
Shall we discredit Isaiah, the announcing angel, and Matthew on the
ground of the critic's literary acumen?

Further, the student of the Word will remember that when Jeroboam was
bringing disaster upon Israel, God sent his prophet to declare: "Behold
a son shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon
thee (the altar at Bethel) shall he offer the priests of the high places
that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee."
More than three hundred years after this prophecy was given, according
to Usher's Chronology, Josiah was born and did the precise things that
were predicted concerning him. (See 1 Kings xiii. 2 and 2 Kings xxiii,
15, 16.) The omniscience of the Holy Spirit can predict the name of the
instrument as readily as the event which is to be accomplished.

Again, undoubtedly the prophet must speak out of his own environment. He
can speak only where he is. But who is to decide how many and what
allusions he must make to custom or incident in order to satisfy the
critic, as to his time and place in history?

The tailor who decides that he must have twenty yards of cloth to make a
suit of clothes, when ten yards are sufficient, will shortly be wanting
customers. The critic who has decided how many and what kind of
synchronous events must be furnished by the prophet, in order to secure
his credence as to authorship, will be left without a prophet or a
Bible.

The erection of an arbitrary law, by which to interpret history or
prophecy in the Bible, is contrary to all the treatment which secular
literature receives from these same critics.

From these strained, forced and unphilosophical methods of dealing with
prophecy, we turn to the testimony of the inspired book itself. The book
of Isaiah is distinguished by a phraseology peculiar to this prophet. He
speaks of God as "The Holy One of Israel." This title, as applied to
God, is used only seven times in the entire Old Testament; once in 2
Kings, three times in the Psalms, twice in the prophecies of Jeremiah,
and once in Ezekiel, but never in the minor prophets. But Isaiah uses
this title as applied to God, twenty-two times, running through the
entire book from the first to the sixtieth chapter.

The reader will be interested to note how the repeated use of the
phrase--"The Holy One of Israel"--attests the unity of the authorship of
the entire book. Hence the passages ("line upon line, line upon line")
are here presented to give their unequivocal testimony to our Sabbath
School teachers.

1: Isaiah I:4--"They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked _the
Holy One of Israel to anger_."

2: Isaiah v:18, 19--"Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of
vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope: that say ... let the
counsel of _the Holy One of Israel_ draw nigh and come, that we may know
it."

3: Isaiah v:24--"Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of
hosts, and despised the word of _the Holy One of Israel_."

4: Isaiah xii:6--"Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion; for great
is _the Holy One of Israel_ in the midst of thee."

5: Isaiah xvii:7--"At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his
eyes shall have respect to _the Holy One of Israel_."

6: Isaiah xxix:19--"The poor among man shall rejoice in _the Holy One of
Israel_."

7: Isaiah xxx:11--"Cause _the Holy One of Israel_ to cease from before
us." (The language of a rebellious people.)

8: Isaiah xxx:12--"Wherefore, thus saith _the Holy One of Israel_,
because ye despise this word ... therefore this iniquity shall be to you
as a breach ready to fall."

9: Isaiah xxx:15--"Thus saith the Lord God, _the Holy One of Israel_; In
returning and rest shall ye be saved."

10: Isaiah xxxi:1--"They look not unto _the Holy One of Israel_, neither
seek the Lord."

11: Isaiah xli:14--"Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I
will help thee, I will help thee saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, _the
Holy One of Israel_."

12: Isaiah xli:16--"Thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in
_the Holy One of Israel_."

13: Isaiah xli:20--"That they may see, and know, and consider, and
understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and _the
Holy One of Israel_ hath created it."

14: Isaiah xliii:13--"I am the Lord thy God, _the Holy One of Israel,
thy_ Savior."

15: Isaiah xlv:11--"Thus saith the Lord, _the Holy One of Israel_, and
his Maker, Ask me of things to come, concerning my sons, and concerning
the work of my hands command ye me."

16: Isaiah xlvii:4--"As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name,
_the Holy One of Israel_."

17: Isaiah xlviii:17--"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, _the Holy One
of Israel_, I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which
leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go."

18: Isaiah xlix:7--"Thus saith the Lord ... Kings shall see and arise,
princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is faithful, and
_the Holy One of Israel_, and he shall choose thee."

19: Isaiah liv:5--"For thy Maker is thine husband; The Lord of hosts is
his name, and thy Redeemer is _the Holy One of Israel_; The God of the
whole earth shall he be called."

20: Isaiah lv:5--"Nations that knew not thee, shall run unto thee
because of the Lord thy God, and for _the Holy One of Israel_."

21: Isaiah lx:9--"The Isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish
first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with
them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to _the Holy One of
Israel_, because he hath glorified thee."

22: Isaiah lx:14--"And they shall call thee the city of the Lord, the
Zion of _the Holy One of Israel_."

The reader will notice that this phrase, as applied to God is a
characteristic of Isaiah. We have not found it in any of the minor
prophets, and but twice in the prophecies of Jeremiah, and once in
Ezekiel. But Isaiah uses it more than twenty times, running from the
first to the sixtieth chapter. He uses it ten times before reaching the
fortieth chapter, and twelve times in the chapters following, which the
critics have assigned to some unknown author or authors. Shall we be
asked to conclude that the unknown authors adopted Isaiah's style, his
phraseology, from the fortieth chapter to the end of the book? For what
motive? To conceal themselves? The assumption is too large. If the first
thirty-nine chapters of this book are accepted, as the prophecies of
Isaiah, by every law of fair criticism the whole book must claim this
prophet as its author.




VII. GOD'S REPLY TO THESE ASSUMPTIONS.

_"Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" Rom. ix. 20._

_"At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses,
shall the matter be established." Deut. xix. 15._

_"Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our
learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might
have hope." Rom. xv. 4._

_"Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1
Cor. x. 11._

_"My people shall know my name, therefore they shall know in that day
that I am he that doth speak, Behold, it is I." Isaiah lii. 6._


In the New Testament we have in the Gospels and the Epistles God's
teachings concerning the Old Testament. The writers of the New Testament
had the promise of our Lord that "The Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
(John xiv. 26.)

In the fulfillment of this promise they have given us the testimony of
God, the Holy Spirit, on all the subjects of which they have written.
What, therefore, is their testimony concerning the author of the book of
Isaiah? Did that prophet write the book, or is it a patched book from
various authors?

Matthew, the inspired author of the book that bears his name, quotes
from Isaiah xl. 3: "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway
for our God." (See Matt. iii. 3.)

The critics inform us that this prophecy was not given by Isaiah, but by
some unknown prophet, and was bound up with Isaiah's prophecies, and
labeled as his. Matthew informs us that it was a prophecy concerning
John the Baptist, and was given by Isaiah himself, and not by another.
He says (iii. 3), referring to John the Baptist: "For this is he that
was spoken of through _Isaiah the prophet_, saying:

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the
Lord, Make his paths straight." (R.V.)

Again, in Matt. viii. 17, the author of this gospel quotes a passage
from the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. The critics have handed this
fifty-third chapter over to the Unknown prophet or prophets. They affirm
again that the theme and literary style of this chapter are such that
Isaiah could not have written it. They base their affirmation on their
own literary discoveries, their ability to detect the footprints of some
other prophet, though they do not inform us who that prophet is. They
are sure that it was not Isaiah, for they have already placed him under
such limitations that, according to their critical decision, he could
not write the chapter. Of course, their conclusion is reached by
practically denying the Holy Spirit's agency--logically denying that
"holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter
i. 21.)

The inspired author of the gospel of Matthew had a different conception
of the Holy Spirit's agency in giving prophecy to the world. He had not
discovered the limitations of the prophet, which the critics profess to
have found. Hence, in giving the history of God's gracious and
miraculous work of casting out demons and healing the sick, he declares
(Matt. viii. 17), without a shadow of a mistake, that Christ wrought
these miracles, "that it might be fulfilled _which was spoken through
Isaiah the prophet_, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our
diseases." (See also Isaiah liii. 4.)

As Matthew is on the witness stand, the reader will be interested to
hear his testimony further. In his gospel (xii. 17-21) he testifies that
Isaiah wrote the forty-second chapter of the prophecy that bears his
name. Matthew quotes the first four verses of the chapter, in
explanation of the fact that Christ found it necessary during his
ministry to retire from the public excitement which his teaching and
miracles had produced. He says that Christ pursued that course "that it
might be fulfilled which _was spoken through Isaiah the prophet_,
saying, Behold my servant whom I have chosen; my beloved in whom my soul
is well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him and he shall show
judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any
man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break,
and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto
victory, and in his name shall the Gentiles trust."

This quotation is from Isaiah, forty-second chapter, and first part of
the chapter. The reader will remember that the critics deny this
testimony of Matthew. This forty-second chapter which he (Matthew)
assigns to Isaiah is a part of the book which they affirm has come to us
from some unknown source.

It is worthy of repetition that three times Matthew, the inspired author
of the first gospel, has affirmed without equivocation that the passages
which he quotes were "_spoken by Isaiah the prophet_." The critics say
"No." Which will the reader believe?

The author of the third gospel, describing our Lord's visit to Nazareth,
says: "As his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day,
and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of
the prophet Isaiah, and when he had opened the book, he found the place
where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach the gospel; he hath sent me to heal the broken
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to
the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the
acceptable year of the Lord." Luke iv. 16-19.

_Luke informs us that it was "the book of the prophet Isaiah_" from
which our Savior made this quotation. We turn to the prophecy and
discover that the passage is found in the sixty-first chapter and first
and second verses of the book. But the critics who are correcting our
Bible for us (?) inform us that their same literary discovery holds good
here--that this part of the book _was not_ written by Isaiah. They
assume to hand over this part of the book, knowingly, to the "Great
Unknown" and unknowable prophets. The testimony of Luke contradicts the
critics. He gives Isaiah full credit as the author of the statement. The
reader will doubtless accept the fact that the inspired writer, the
author of Luke's gospel, obtained his information at first hand, from
God himself, who inspired the record.

Again Luke contradicts the critics when he puts on record Philip's
interview with the eunuch, as we find it in Acts viii. 30-33. When
Philip joined himself to the eunuch, by direction of the Spirit, he
"heard him reading _Isaiah the prophet_ (Isaiah liii. 7), and said,
Understandest thou what thou readest?" ... Now, the passage of the
Scriptures which he was reading was this: "He was led as a sheep to the
slaughter and as a lamb before his shearer, dumb, so he opened not his
mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: his generation
who shall declare? For his life is taken from the earth," (R.V., Acts
viii. 30-33.)

Our critics have robbed Isaiah of this passage. It was written, so their
literary skill claims to have discovered, by some prophet who has
successfully concealed himself, and finally disappeared from sight,
leaving no hope that his name will ever be discovered.

Luke informs us that he knew who the prophet was that penned that
touching description of the coming Messiah, and that his name was
Isaiah. This question he has settled.

Turning to the gospel of John, we are furnished the testimony of one of
whom our Lord said, "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of
woman, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." This
witness comes before us, therefore, indorsed by Jesus Christ himself,
"The faithful Witness." We ask him, therefore, to speak for himself as
to who is the author of that part of prophecy which the critics are
attempting to wrest from Isaiah.

When the priests and Levites came to ask him, "Who art thou? That we may
give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?" he
replied, "I am the Voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight
the way of the Lord, _as said Isaiah the prophet_." (See John i. 22, 23,
R.V.)

This was his testimony, first concerning himself. We believe him. And
this was his testimony, secondly, concerning the author of the prophecy
which he quoted: "_Isaiah the prophet_."

Again we believe him, and as confidently, concerning the second
statement as the first. And the Apostle John was so confident of its
truth that he put it on record.

The passage quoted (Isaiah xl. 3) belongs to that part of the book which
our critic and his fellow critics have decided was predicted by some
stray prophet, unknown to the world, to the Jewish people or the church.
We prefer the statement of John the Baptist, and its indorsement by John
the Apostle.

The reader will now recall that we have already heard Matthew's
corroboration of the testimony of John the Baptist concerning Isaiah's
claim to this prophecy. (See Matt iii. 3.)

In the gospel of the Apostle John he puts on record his personal
testimony concerning the author of the book bearing Isaiah's name.
Explaining the amazing unbelief of the Jews, he says (xii. 37, 38): "But
though he (Jesus) did so many signs before them, yet they believed not
on him: _that the word of Isaiah the prophet_ might be fulfilled, which
he spake:

"Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the
Lord been revealed?" (R.V.)

The reader will see that this inspired writer of the fourth gospel is
quoting from Isaiah liii. 1, thus testifying to Isaiah's authorship.

Our literary critics have decided that this chapter was forbidden ground
to Isaiah, that, if we are to believe them, he had no connection with
this prophecy.

We are asked to believe that the author of this fifty-third chapter, the
most minute and tender prophecy concerning the Messiah's sufferings for
his people, and rejection by them, has dropped out of sight! We are
asked to believe that the name of the prophet who gave this dramatic
picture of what was to take place on Calvary seven hundred years later,
has been lost in the fog of the passing centuries! We are asked to
believe that the name of the author of the first thirty-nine chapters,
the less important part of the book, has been preserved, but oblivion
has overtaken the author of the book from the fortieth chapter to the
end.

The assumption is an affront to the intelligence of the ordinary reader
of the Bible. It is an impeachment of the honesty of the authors of the
gospels, which the unshaken faith of God's people can never concede.

The reader can now sum up the testimony of Matthew, Mark (see i. 3,
R.V.), Luke, John, and John the Baptist, all of whom with one voice
contradicts the critics. We also prefer, with these witnesses, to
discredit the men who are picking out clauses, verses and chapters here
and there, and guessing them off to authors of their own invention, who
have never been known or heard of.

It is not sufficient for the critics to say that these New Testament
authors knew better, but deferred to popular sentiment, based on
tradition. That can not satisfy our estimate of them as God's divinely
appointed teachers, chosen to make record of the momentous truth on
which the salvation of a lost world hangs. Men, ready to lay down their
lives for the truth, were not the men to play fast and loose with the
Word of God, in deference to a supposed popular sentiment.

Further, our critical friends have assumed to decide for the prophets
that they must prophesy out of their immediate surroundings in such a
marked way, with such continued reference to the events of the period,
that the prophecy must be located in that period. If the critic cannot
find these particular local earmarks, he must push the prophecy to a
point of time with which he can make it synchronize, and which will
satisfy his literary judgment. By this law of determining dates, the
critics claim that the book of Isaiah is a composite work, produced by
different authors and at different times.

On this assumption the latter part of the book of Revelation was not a
revelation to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. The first part of
the book may be adjudged as his. But presently the matter of the book
passes into a realm beyond the time and circumstances that belong to
that period, hence may not claim him as its author. An assumption that
sets aside the claims of Scripture, as to authorship, in order to
harmonize the book with one's literary and critical judgment, may be
dismissed on its own lack of merit.

The proposed law above referred to, as a method of locating prophecy as
to time, or determining the author, is arbitrary, and an absurd attempt
to destroy all the testimony of inspired writers, who have settled the
question of authorship and the date of prophecy.




VIII. THE HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK OF JONAH.

_"According to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the
hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, which was of
Gath-hepher." 2 Kings xiv. 25._

_"The word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying,
Arise go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it: for their
wickedness is come up before me." Jonah i. 1, 2._

_"So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the
Lord." Jonah iii.. 3._

_"And he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown." Jonah iii. 4._

_"So the people of Nineveh believed God." Jonah iii. 5._

_"And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God
repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them, and he did
it not." Jonah iii. 10._

_"The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and
shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas."
Matt. xii. 41._


The book of Jonah has been attacked by the destructive critics. Its
historicity has been denied. The critics, though certain of almost all
of their objections to the Bible, have not all decided whether it is
"based on history, or is a nature myth." Keunen has discovered (?) that
it is "a product of the opposition to the strict and exclusive policy of
Ezra toward heathen nations." Objection is made to the historical
statements of the book on various grounds. The objector interposes this
difficulty: "Can we conceive of a heathen city being converted by an
obscure foreign prophet?"

This objection is of kin to that which can not conceive that by a
creative act of God the universe was brought into being, or the inspired
statement that "the worlds were framed by the word of God." It is the
presence of the supernatural everywhere that is beyond the conception of
the critics.

Again, they interpose the difficulty: "How could the Ninevites give
credence to a man who was not a servant of Ashur?"

Without presenting the multiplied difficulties that rationalism has
supposedly discovered, they may be summed up in their statement
substantially, that the book of Jonah is not historical. Whatever else
it may be, whether legend, myth or allegory, it is not history.

We turn again from the fancies of "Expert Scholarship" to the testimony
of the Bible concerning itself. We discover that the prophet Jonah is
referred to several hundred years before the critics have permitted him
to live. It is written in 2 Kings xiv. 25 that Jeroboam the Second
secured the restoration of certain territory, "according to the word of
the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah,
the son of Amittai the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher."

The name of Jonah, of his family, and the place of residence of his
family, are definitely stated. The work is accomplished "by the hand of
his servant Jonah," and the date of its accomplishment, is so precisely
recorded that these statements could have been disproved had they been
false. Hence, there was a person named Jonah.

Our Lord has settled the questions of the personality and work of Jonah,
if anything can be settled for unbelief. He has affirmed the historical
certainty of the two important events which critical assumption declares
impossible. The critical Jews were demanding a sign from our Lord. He
had wrought many miracles, but they wanted something beyond what he had
given, a miracle for their special benefit. He declined to gratify them.
Of that generation he said: "There shall no sign be given it, but the
sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights
in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth." (Matt. xii. 39-41.) As Jonah was
miraculously preserved for three days and nights and was brought forth,
as by a resurrection, so was the Son of man to be brought forth from the
tomb. His resurrection was to be the crowning miracle, the sign forever
confronting his nation, Jonah's deliverance from apparent death was such
a miracle as convinced the Ninevites that he had a message from God for
them, so Christ's resurrection was to become the keystone of the arch on
which the whole structure of the redemptive system should rest. "He was
raised for our justification." (Rom. iv. 25.)

The reader will mark that our Lord referred to the miraculous
preservation of Jonah, and his deliverance, as a historical event,
recorded in the first and second chapters of the book of Jonah, not as a
myth or allegory, but as a historical fact. "_As_ Jonah was three days
and three nights in the whale's belly, _so_ shall the Son of man be
three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." _As_ the one,
_so_ the other. As certainly and literally the one, so certainly and
literally the other. If Jonah's preservation and coming forth from the
fish that God had prepared was only a legend, then was Christ's death,
burial, and resurrection a legend. And in consistency with their
critical theory some of the rationalists have reduced them both to
legend. For _as_ one was, _so_ was the other to be. The statement is
plain, definite narrative, from which there is no escape.

Others of the critical school hold to the historical verity of Christ's
burial and resurrection, but assert that he made use of the assumed
legend concerning Jonah, as we might illustrate any fact in history by a
familiar statement from fiction. To such an assumption we reply that our
Lord was dealing with tremendous realities, such as could not be
belittled by turning for support or illustration to a fictitious story.
He quoted from Old Testament history to illustrate and enforce New
Testament truth. On another occasion he said: "_As_ Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even _so_ must the Son of man be lifted up
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal
life." Shall we hand over to legendary literature the great historical
fact of the twenty-first chapter of Numbers--God's deliverance of the
people from the fiery serpents--by one look at the uplifted brazen
serpent by the hand of Moses? We may as well reduce one passage to
fiction as the other. "_As_ Jonah ... three days and nights, _so_ the
Son of man. _As_ the serpent was lifted up, _so_ the Son of man shall be
lifted up." This comparison has a definite meaning. The apostle uses it
in his Epistle to the Romans, fifth chapter and twelfth verse. "_As_ by
one man sin entered into the world, ... _so_ death passed upon all men
for that all have sinned." As certainly as sin entered into the world by
one man, so certainly it resulted that death passed upon all men. _As_
Christ's remaining in the grave three days was not a fiction, _so_
Jonah's three days and nights in the great fish that God had prepared
was not a fiction.

Our Lord further certifies to the historicity of the book of Jonah by
his reference to the great prophet's preaching. The critic's objection
is thus stated: "Can we conceive of a heathen city being converted by an
obscure foreign prophet?"

Of course, the objection to the record of that mighty moral movement
comes from those who have counted God out of Jonah's preaching. If they
can eliminate the divine power from that event, they can easily hand the
whole record over to what they are pleased to call the "folk lore of the
Bible." Here, as ever, the critic must rid the Scriptures of the
supernatural.

But our Savior knew that "power belongeth unto God" (Psa. lxii. 11), and
he put on record the repentance of the Ninevites, saying, "The men of
Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it,
_because they repented at the preaching of Jonah_." (Matt. xii. 41.) But
if the book is not history, our Lord's statement is false, for he says
the Ninevites did repent.

There is no rational possibility of denying our Lord's positive
statement without impeaching his veracity.

His words authorize the following conclusions:

I. There was a prophet whose name was Jonah, as is stated in 2 Kings
xiv. 25. He was not a myth or figment, but a prophet whose personality
is authenticated by Christ himself.

2. There was a city of Nineveh. The skepticism of other days denied the
existence of Nineveh. So completely was the prophecy concerning the
destruction of Nineveh fulfilled that the enemies of God's Word refused
to believe that the city had ever existed, until the excavations of the
last century revealed the hidden ruins. But the word of God was true,
and in God's time Nineveh was revealed.

3. God sent this same prophet Jonah to Nineveh to preach. Christ tells
us what took place under "the preaching of Jonah." It terminated in a
great awakening and reformation for:

4. "The men of Nineveh ... repented at the preaching of Jonah."

Did the Savior know what he was talking about? Did he know the truth of
the statement he made? Or, knowing (as is assumed) that there were no
such events, did he resort to _fiction_ in order to assert the
_certainty_ of his own resurrection? If the latter, then we must correct
his statement concerning Jonah, and read: "As Jonah has been
fictitiously represented to have been three days and three nights in the
whale's belly, so, fictitiously, shall the Son of man be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth."

Our Sunday-school teachers, with the words of Christ before them, will
be able to give the critics important information. They can report the
certainty of the historical facts.




IX. RADICAL EXPOSITION.

_"Among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring
in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them,
bringing upon themselves swift destruction." (R.V.) 2 Peter ii. 1._

_"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane
and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which
some professing have erred concerning the faith." 1 Tim. vi. 20, 21._

_"Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them." 1
Tim. iv. 16._

_"We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that
ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day
dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." 2 Peter i. 19._


The destructive critics have pushed their work far into the field of
both prophecy and exposition. They have relegated to the domain of
mythology the clear and unequivocal historical statements of Scripture.
Where the intrusion of their mythological theory was too large a demand
to make on our credulity, they have attempted a radical exegesis in
proof of their assumptions.

They claim to have discovered that the Church in all the past has
misconceived the first prophetic promise given to man. That promise was
given to our first parents immediately after the fall. God said to the
serpent (Gen. iii. 15): "I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou
shalt bruise his heel."

Our critics have two objections to the interpretation that has always
been given and maintained by Christian scholars and by the Church as a
whole. First, that "the seed of the woman" does not refer to the
Messiah, but to the human race, which is to bruise the serpent's head.
Second, that the serpent engaged in seducing Eve, and here placed under
the curse, does not refer to Satan.

In replying to the objection that the Messiah is not referred to in the
passage, let it be said that the pronoun is a pronoun referring to a
person. It is so translated in the Revised Version. "_He_ shall bruise
thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." It is not the human race, but
he, an individual person. This person was not to be the seed of the man,
but of the woman.

The announcing angel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon
thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also
that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God." (Luke i. 35.) The child to be born was to be literally and truly
"_the seed of the woman_," and that was the Messiah, the only person of
the entire human race of whom that could be said.

We are not left, however, to an exegetical statement alone, although
that is absolutely unequivocal. The promise was repeated to Abraham, to
Isaac, to Jacob, and to David. The seed of the woman was to be the
Messiah, the Christ, triumphing over the power of Satan. The race has
not triumphed over Satan, but has been a failure.

The Holy Spirit has settled the question in Paul's Epistle to the
Galatians, iii. 16: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
_He saith not, and to seeds, as of many_ (or, the human race), _but as
of one, and to thy seed which is Christ_." On the human side, our Savior
was of the line of Abraham, and David, but was singularly and literally
"_the seed of the woman_," being the Son of God.

He called himself the Son of man only in the sense that he was born of
her who was of the race of man. He ever claimed God as his Father, and
in a different sense from that in which men can claim God as Father. His
claim to be the Son of God was the claim to be equal with God, which no
created being dare make.

The Holy Spirit further declares, in Hebrews ii. 14; "For as much then
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself
likewise took part of the same, that through death (his death on the
cross) he might destroy him (Satan) that had the power of
death"--"bruise the serpent's head." It was Satan that inflicted death.
He was the first higher critic who changed and denied the word of God,
saying to the woman, "Ye shall not die." Through his denial of the word
of God, he deceived the woman and brought spiritual death on the race.
This was the work of Satan, according to the New Testament teaching. He
is the same that God calls the serpent in the third chapter of Genesis.
For the Holy Spirit informs us, in 2 Cor. xi. 3, that "the serpent
beguiled Eve," and states definitely who the serpent is--"that old
serpent called the devil and Satan, who deceiveth the whole world."
(Rev. xii. 9.)

Having God's testimony that the serpent and the devil are one and the
same, we are prepared for the mark which our Lord puts on him, "A
murderer from the beginning ... and no truth in him." He had always
sought to pervert and discredit the word of God. He suggested to Eve
that she did not understand God's command; she had taken it too
literally, which is a popular form of attacking the Bible today. "Yea,
hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Are you not
mistaken? And when he had injected the doubt into the mind of Eve, had
gained an advantage, he seized it and boldly denied the word of God, "Ye
shall not die." He is an artful critic and successfully did his deadly
work.

Hence, the first great promise which God gave to the fallen pair, and
through them to the race, set the seed of the woman, the Messiah, in
conflict with "that old serpent called the devil and Satan." That
promise is now in process of fulfillment, and must reach its final
consummation when John's apocalyptic vision is fulfilled, "And the devil
that deceived them (the nations) shall be cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be
tormented day and night, forever and ever."




X. GOD HIS OWN INTERPRETER.

_"To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not accordingly to this
word, it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah viii. 20._

_"Thy law is the truth." Psa. cxix. 142._

_"Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very
faithful." Psa. cxix. 138._

_"Lead me in thy truth and teach me." Psa. xxv. 5._

_"The word of our God shall stand forever." Isaiah xl. 8._

_"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away."
Mark xiii. 31._


The destructive critics have assaulted the most precious prophetic
scriptures. It has been already stated that the final aim of skepticism
is against the person of Christ. If the unbelieving world can be rid of
both the prophecies concerning Christ, and the history of his life, his
sacrificial death and resurrection, they will be rid of that stumbling
stone which they have been pleased to call the "much-abused
supernaturalism." Hence, the strenuous effort is made to destroy
predictive prophecy concerning the person of the Son of God. The fact
that there are more than thirty-five prophecies, containing one hundred
and thirty distinct counts, concerning the birth, the life, the
teaching, the death, and the resurrection of our Lord, greatly disturbs
the critics.

The prophecy of Isaiah ix. 6 has been troublesome. The prophet foretold,
in distinct and unimpeachable language, the coming of the Messiah: "For
unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government
shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of
Peace."

A critic who claims to be loyal to the word of God says concerning this
passage: "The prophet always paints upon the canvas the events of the
_near_ future. I can not believe that Isaiah ix. 6 refers to a far-off
event, because it would not give comfort to his people at that time." As
this prophecy was given more than seven hundred years before the coming
of the Messiah, our critic concludes that it could be of no practical
benefit to Israel, hence, must have referred to some person who must
soon appear.

To affirm that this promise of the Messiah long before his coming "would
not give comfort to his people" is mere assumption. The time of his
coming was not announced, and the people were to live in expectation of
the event, which expectation was to be their stay and comfort. This
assumption would vitiate the promise of his coming made to our first
parents. Gen. iii. 15, the promises made to Moses; Deut xviii. 15, the
predictions made in Psa. xxii. 1, 8, 16, 18, in which his cry on the
cross, the taunt of his enemies, the piercing of his hands and feet, and
the parting of his raiment among the soldiers, were all predicted.

The prediction that "Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto
me, he that is to be the Ruler of Israel; whose goings forth have been
of old, from everlasting" (Micah v. 2) was made seven hundred years
before the coming of Christ, and, according to critical assumption,
could not refer to our Savior, "because it would not give comfort to his
people."

Indeed, no prophecy preceding the time of Isaiah ix. 6 could be allowed
to refer to Christ, on the assumption of the critic. More than this, the
prediction of Christ's second advent is vitiated by this assumption. It
was more than eighteen hundred years ago that the angels said to the
disciples who were steadfastly watching his ascension: "This same Jesus
who is taken from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye
have seen him go into heaven." Was there no comfort to the disciples in
the promise of his return, though they did not live to witness it? Paul,
enlarging on the promises of Christ's return, said to the Thessalonians:
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Let us now consider the prophecy in its context. The prophecy of the
seventh and eighth chapters is projected on through the ninth. The first
verse of this chapter predicts some relief of the former sufferings of
the people for their sins.

"The people that walked in darkness (verse 2) have seen great light."
The prophet informs us who it was, to whom this light should come. The
inhabitants of "the land of Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim," which
embraced the region of Galilee, in which the larger portion of Christ's
ministry was exercised. Matthew quotes this scripture as fulfilled by
the coming of our Savior. (See Matt. iv. 12-16.) "Now when Jesus had
heard that John was cast into prison he departed into Galilee, and
leaving Nazareth he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea
coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim; _that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet_, saying, The land of
Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim, by way of the sea, beyond Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw a great
light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is
sprung up."

Undoubtedly the prophet looked into the future, when the coming of the
Messiah should bring the light of the gospel into that region so
particularly described by him. And the inspired writer of the gospel of
Matthew positively applies the context of Isaiah ix. 6 to our Lord.
Then, proceeding with the explanation as to how the light should break
forth in "Galilee of the Gentiles," the prophet announces (verse 6)
that, "for unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the
government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace."

The reader may well investigate the language of this prediction, "for
unto us a Child is born." The "for" is given as an explanation, a reason
for the coming light to "Galilee of the Gentiles," a region and a people
that had been for generations "in the shadow of death." The light was to
break forth because a child was to be born and a son given.

The announcement was made as if the event had taken place, though so far
in the future. This is in accordance with the form of predictive
prophecy, as in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, where the atoning
work of Christ is spoken of as already accomplished, though it remained
to be achieved in the future. The prophet said of that work: "He hath
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.... He was wounded for our
transgressions.... He was bruised for our iniquities.... The Lord hath
laid on him the iniquities of us all." So it is stated in this prophecy:
"For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," for the promise
of God is the same to him as the fulfillment. His word is equivalent to
his deed. It cost him as much to purpose and pledge as to fulfill his
pledge. Hence, the prophecy speaks of the thing as done, since God has
promised to do it. Seven centuries before he came, the prophet said,
"unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given."

Our critical friends can not inform us who was the "Son given." They can
only say it must refer to some "_near future event_." Let our Book speak
for itself. It gives no uncertain testimony.

1. "_The government shall be upon his shoulder_."

As already stated in the context, and affirmed by Matthew, it is he that
should bring light to the Gentiles. There is only one who is himself "a
light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel." (Luke
ii. 32.) He said of himself: "I am the light of the world." (John ix.
5.)

The government is his. He is the "Only Potentate, the King of kings and
Lord of lords." (1 Tim. vi. 15.)

There is only One Potentate, One Ruler, One who could say, "All power is
given unto me in heaven and in earth." (Matt. xxviii. 18.) There is only
One who could say, "All things are delivered unto me of my father."
(Matt. xi. 27.) There is only One of whom it could be said, "Of the
increase of his government and peace there shall be no end," and that is
said of the "Child born unto us and the Son given," and is a part of the
prophecy concerning him. (Isaiah ix. 7.)

All earthly thrones have crumbled, all earthly kings and potentates have
slept in the dust of death with the poorest of their subjects. But of
this Son given, Daniel says: "There was given him dominion, and glory,
and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and
his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." (Daniel vii. 14.)

2. "_His name shall be called Wonderful_."

His name means his character, his person. He, himself, shall be called
Wonderful, in a sense in which no other person can be entitled to that
designation. Nicodemus accredited him as a wonderful instructor. "We
know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." (John iii. 2). His
enemies that were sent to arrest him quailed before him, and returned to
the chief priests and Pharisees, saying, "Never man spake like this
man."

A devout scholar has well said: "The manner of his birth was wonderful;
his humility, self-denial, and sorrows were wonderful; his mighty works
were wonderful; his dying agonies were wonderful; his resurrection and
ascension were all fitted to excite admiration and wonder."

3. "_His name shall be called ... Counsellor_."

This term plainly indicated his exalted wisdom and dignity. The wisdom
of men comes to naught; their counsel shall perish with them. But there
is One, who understands, who declares the end from the beginning. Of him
it is said: "The counsel of the Lord standeth forever; the thoughts of
his heart to all generations." (Psa. xxxiii. 11.) He says of himself,
"Counsel is mine and sound wisdom" (Prov. viii. 14), and it was by his
"determinate counsel and foreknowledge" that the glorious scheme of
redemption and complete salvation from sin was planned and executed.
Hence, he takes to himself the title, "The Great and Mighty God, ...
great in counsel, and mighty in work." (Jer. xxxii. 19.) Therefore, the
Child that was to be born, the Son that was to be given, was to have a
name, and "his name shall be called ... Counsellor."

4. "_His name shall be called ... The Mighty God_."

And now we are face to face with the Lord Jehovah, and the positive
statement that this was the promised Son. By what guessing or critical
legerdemain one who claims loyalty to the word of God and ordinary
intelligence can attempt to sweep away these definite and determinate
statements, and crowd some insignificant worm of the dust into the place
given to him who was in the beginning, who was with God and _who was
God_, we can not comprehend.

And still the prophet rises to the climax, to make sure that "wayfaring
men, though fools, shall not err," and adds the prediction concerning
the coming Son that,

5. "_His name shall be called ... The Everlasting Father_."

The Revised Version gives the same rendering as the accepted version,
and adds the marginal reading, "Father of Eternity." The sense of the
passage is the same. The name "Everlasting Father" was the name of the
coming Son. He would be Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, not for a
short time, but eternally, forever and ever--"the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever." His care of his people would never cease.

The distinctions between the persons of the trinity were not made in the
Old Testament, as in the New. Jehovah was God, the Lord was God, and was
known as Jehovah God, the Everlasting Father. The incarnation of the
second person in the trinity gave emphasis to his sonship, in order to
put him in brotherly relation to us. "Wherefore he is not ashamed to
call them brethren."

This prophecy of Isaiah, however, condescends to accommodate our
weakness, and necessity, and gives to the promised child the name by
which he is recognized in the New Testament, for

6. "_His name shall be called ... The Prince of Peace_."

At the birth of the Child the angel choir sang "Glory to God in the
highest, and _on earth peace_, good will toward men." (Luke ii. 14.)
"Him hath God exalted with his right hand _to be a Prince_ and a Savior,
to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." (Acts v. 31.)

Isaiah spoke as he was moved by the Holy Spirit. He gave to Israel this
assuring promise for their comfort, that the Seed of the woman, the
Messiah, was coming not as a fallible, impotent ruler, but as a Prince
and Savior. Israel failed to comprehend the glorious things predicted,
and even yet they are not fully unfolded. But the Messiah did not fail
to come, and, as predicted, he came at Bethlehem. Every phase of his
life, and the mighty work of redemption, all that was predicted of his
earthly career, has been accomplished. And now, at the right hand of the
Father, he is moving to the final consummation of his purposes of
redeeming grace.

He will not be moved from his purposes by the uncritical attempts of
rationalism to destroy the confidence of God's people in his revealed
truth. We can move forward confidently in our work, knowing that nothing
shall pass from his Word until all is fulfilled.

In this very brief study, in which God has spoken through the testimony
of his word, we have only touched a few points in which the truth of
Scripture has been assailed. But the testimony of the Book settles all
questions. We can well rest on the assurance, "Forever O Lord, thy word
is settled in heaven," and can not be unsettled on the earth. Our
Sunday-school teachers and Christian young people can not fail to
comprehend, and will rejoice in the fullness and power of God's
testimony through prophet, apostle, and Christ the incarnate Word. To
him be honor, glory, and dominion forever. Amen.





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