I now point you to the chief ground for every Christian man of his
belief in the Divine origin of the Bible. It is this. _That it all
centres in Jesus Christ Himself_. It cannot be dissociated from Him.
It is closely, inseparately bound up with His life.
The Old Testament tells of the preparation for Christ. The New
Testament tells that when that preparation was complete "in the fulness
of time God sent forth His Son." Jesus Christ, as it were, stands
between the Old Testament and the New and lays His hand upon them both.
The Old Testament contains the Scriptures which He told men were of God
and which bare witness of Him. The New Testament is the story of His
words and works, and the teaching of apostles and early disciples sent
forth by Him as teachers with the power of the Holy Ghost. It is this
fact that Christ is its centre which accounts for the striking unity of
this collection of separate documents. The parts belong all to each
other. And surely for us Christians our conviction as to the authority
of the Bible is increased a thousandfold by the attitude of Christ
Himself towards the only Bible that He had, the Old Testament.
It was the Bible of His education. It was the Bible of His ministry.
He took for granted its fundamental doctrines about creation, man,
righteousness, God's providence and purpose. He accepted it as the
preparation for Himself and taught His disciples to find Him in it. He
used it to justify His mission and to illuminate the mystery of the
cross. Above all He fed His own soul with its contents and in the
great crisis of His life sustained Himself upon it as the solemn word
of God. And I cannot help feeling that the Bible which was good enough
for Christ on earth should be good enough for me.