IN discussing the question of inspiration with "Liberals," they generally argue that we make greater claims for the inspiration of the New Testament than the writers do themselves. They readily grant that the Apostles believed that the Old Testament is inspired. Such replies do not mean that they accept Paul's views regarding Old Testament inspiration. In this article, I shall try to present some of the reasons for our accepting the New Testament as divinely inspired and for our believing that it contains a unique body of teaching for the Church during its earthly ministry.

A Legitimate Expectation,

The Old Testament bears marked evidence of incompleteness; every great doctrine demands a finishing touch. The Apostle Paul, or whoever wrote Hebrews, exhorted them to hold fast their confidence — the Jewish scriptures — firm 'unto the end. The writer considered the Old Testament as a tree with ripening fruit needing Christ and His teaching to complete the fruit's growth. 'The law made nothing perfect." In this age, we do not enjoy perfect experiences, but we do possess a perfect revelation. Our revelation is the answer to every legitimate longing of patriarch, priest, and prophet. Yea, more, it is the fulfillment of prophecy regarding illumination.

Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism and began to teach with authority. He fulfilled the prophecy made by Moses, "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you." Acts 3:22; Deut. 18:15, 18, 19. "Like unto me," said Moses. There were many prophets in the old economy, but none was "like unto" Moses. The appeal of every prophet was "back to Moses." The prophets were to be judged by the standard teachings given through Moses. You may search in vain for any "new truth" in the prophets. They were in morals expounders and exhorters, not authors. They all said, "To the law and to the testimony: If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20. In this connection, it is worth noting that no new obligatory type or feast was given by God after the law; Jonah was unconsciously, not obediently, typifying the burial and resurrection of Christ, and the feast of Purim was not given by God. Further, even when the prophets foretold the "sufferings and the glory that should follow," they were but, under God, elaborators expanding the types and the prophecies of the Pentateuch. Surely, Moses was a singular personality, and is properly described as the bestower of the law. ' John said: "The law was given by Moses." But Moses and all the prophets foretold of one whose words were to be with authority. The Old Testament compels us to expect "one" to come with a unique and authoritative message, the complement and fulfillment of that given by Moses.

Expectation Realized.

In the presence of Moses, the bestower, and Elijah, the restorer, God said: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." Matt. 17:5. At Christ's baptism, the Father had testified that He was well pleased with His Son, and gave Him the Holy Spirit for service and testimony. Now near the conclusion of Christ's ministry, He sanctions all of His acts and utterances, and commands us to make Christ's word our law.

Jesus placed Himself above Moses. Frequently, in the sermon on the Mount, He said, "But I say unto you/' He proclaimed Himself "Lord of the Sabbath"— He was not under its authority because He was its author and goal. He also said, "The word that I have spoken, the same, shall judge him in the last day." John 12:48. Jesus thus in act and in word sets up a new standard-— His word. Henceforth men must say, "Back to Jesus," even as of old, men said, "Back to Moses." A prophet has God raised up. from among the Jewish brethren whom men must obey.

The Holy Spirit, speaking through Peter, also applies the prophecy of Moses to Jesus the Christ: "For Moses truly said unto the fathers, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people."/ The Father and the blessed third Person agree in honoring the Son as "the prophet."

The Prophet's Message.

The New Testament is peculiarly Christ's heavenly gift. He waited until He had finished His sacrificial work before editing the record of His earthly words and work. Before His death, He promised the Holy Spirit to bring things to their remembrance. John 14:26. He definitely stated that He had "yet many things to say,'^' and that the Holy Spirit should "not speak from Himself; but whatsoever things he shall hear, these shall he speak; and he shall declare unto you things that are to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall take of mine and declare it unto you." John 16:13, 14- "Back to Jesus" is therefore not merely to His words in the gospels, but to those also recorded by similar inspiration in the other books of the New Testament. On earth as the obedient servant, Jesus spoke under divine power. He truly said: "I have not spoken from, myself, but the Father who sent me gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speak. I speak therefore, even as the Father said to me, even so I speak." John 12:49, 50- The model Servant became the exalted Prophet King. It is He who commands us to hear Him as He speaks through the present "model Servant"— the Holy Spirit. "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches."

"Acts"— Whose acts? Apostles? Better the acts of our exalted "Prophet King." The things seen and heard are none other than His. He said on earth when speaking of the Holy Spirit to be given from glory: "Let him come unto me and drink." Peter says: "He hath shed forth this which ye see and hear." Acts 2:33. The rulers took knowledge that Peter and John, when they spoke, had "been with Jesus"— they recognized His voice. Stephen saw Jesus standing as mighty deliverer and witness at God's right hand. Paul persecuted and resisted Him when he oppressed His people and despised their words. Later Paul saw Jesus in transcendent glory. In hours of great need Jesus again visited Paul with words of encouragement and assurance. Jesus is the Lord of this and all ages in deed and word. How beautifully does the Holy Spirit humble Himself in this dispensation of Grace. Reverently, we can say. that His motto is "Jesus Only." God grant us grace to lovingly imitate Him in this self-abnegating and Christ-glorifying occupation.

God-Breathed Words.

The New Testament writers claim that their words were given from above. Dr. George S. Bishop remarks upon such claims: "One thing, it (the Bible) says so, 'God in old times spake by the prophets; God now speaks by His Son.' The question of Inspiration is, in its first statement, the question of Revelation itself. If the Book be Divine, then what it says of itself is Divine. . . . . 'Inspiration is as much an assertion,' says Haldane, 'as is justification by faith. Both stand and equally, in the authority of Scripture, which is as much an ultimate authority upon this point, as any other.' When God speaks, and when He says, T speak,' there is the whole of it. He is bound to be heard and obeyed." Dr. James M. Gray quotes an apt utterance from A. J. Gordon:^To deny that the Holy Spirit speaks in scripture is an intelligible proposition, but to admit that He speaks, it is impossible to know what He says except as we have His Words." I gratefully quote the whole of an illuminating foot-note to Luke 1:3 from that keen, spiritual exegete, Dr. C. 'l. Scofield: "From the very first": Gr. Anothen, from above. So translated in John 3:31, 19-11; Jas. 1:17, 3:15, 17. In no other place is anothen translated "from the very first." The use by Luke of anothen is an affirmation that his knowledge of these things derived from those who had been eye-witnesses from the beginning (Luke 1:2), was confirmed by revelation. In like manner Paul had doubtless heard from the eleven, the story of the institution of the Lord's Supper, but he also heard by revelation of the Lord (cf. I Cor. 11:23), and his writing, like Luke's "anothen" knowledge, thus became first-hand, not traditional merely."

I am satisfied that the context of I Thess. 2:13 demands that we apply Paul's reference to "the word of God" to his own words, and not those of the Old Testament prophets. There was something in Paul's message, so offensive to Jews, and even some Jewish converts not willing to leave "the. word of the beginning of the Christ," i. e., the Old Testament, that they rejected his teaching. Paul has in mind this rejection when he commends the Gentiles who received his words: "Because when ye received it, this word of God which ye received of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God."

As previously noted, Paul, by revelation of God, was directed to record the facts concerning the institution of the Lord's Supper. I think it is proper for us to believe that in I Cor. 11:23, Paul refers to revelation, and his own inspiration in recording the order of events connected with our Lord's return. "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord." I Thess. 4:15.

We can certainly believe that the Holy Spirit had in mind Paul's great dispensational and doctrinal epistles, such as Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and I and 2 Thess., written before his epistles to Timothy, when He said through Paul, "Every scripture is inspired of God." 2 Tim. 3:16. Doctor L. W. Munhall in an article on Inspiration said: "Say with the immortal Athanasius, who knew how to read Greek better than the 'drift of scholarly opinion' in our time:' Oh, my child, not only the ancient, but the new Scriptures are God-breathed, as Paul saith, "Every Scripture is God-breathed.' "

The Apostle Peter, 2 Peter 3:16, had no doubts about the canonicity of Paul's epistles: "As also in all his epistles speaking in them of thees things. . .  they wrest as they do also the other scriptures," Peter thus acknowledges equal inspiration and authority for Paul's words with those "spoken before by the holy prophets." 2 Peter 3:2. Peter also refers to his own inspiration when he says, verse 2, "and the commandments of the Lord and Savior through your apostles/'

"Paul teaches the same co-ordination of the Old and New Testaments. Having referred to the Old as a unit, in his phrase, 'Holy Scriptures,' which the revisers translated 'Sacred Writings,' he proceeds to particularize. He tells Timothy that every scripture, whether of the Old or New Testament production, "is inspired of God," Let it be in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Prophets, the Historical Books, let it be a chapter or a verse, let it be the Gospels, the Acts, his own or Peters Epistles, or even John's writings, yet still each part of the Sacred Collection is God-given and because of that possesses divine authority as part of the Book of God." — Dr. Nathaniel West. In quoting the foregoing, Dr. Gray remarks: "We read this from Dr. West twenty years ago, and rejected it as his dictum. We read it today, with deeper and fuller knowledge of the subject, and we believe it to be true."

The Unique Revelation,

"For I make known to you the gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelations of Jesus Christ." Gal. 1:11, 12.

"Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John 1:12.

"For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungoldiness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteousnely and godly in this present age; looking for that blessed hope and appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Titus 2:11-13.

"Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?" Roms. 6:15.

"I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of God unto another gospel." Gal. 1:6.

"I commend you to God and to the word of His grace." Acts 20:32.

"Grace wherein ye stand." Roms. 5:2, 'True grace of God wherein ye stand." I Peter 5:12. "Faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." Jude 3.

It is evident after a careful reading of the foregoing passages that the Apostles Paul, Peter, and Jude had in mind a body of teaching peculiar to the new order which was anticipated in the prophets, more clearly intimated in the actions of John the Baptist and the occasional hints of Jesus, and fully revealed to the Apostle Paul, and at last understood through the illuminating logic of events, by the other apostles and saints. It does not imperil the inspiration of Peter's epistles, or the others, when we say God used events to illuminate. The Holy Spirit opened the eyes of the Apostles upon the recital of facts at the great council mentioned in Acts, the fifteenth chapter. Let us picture the holy prophets contemplating in holy awe and wonderment their records in which they had "testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ." With what conviction that a new order had come in, in which the Jew must wait upon God's purposes toward an elect company, chiefly from among the Gentiles, did Peter say: "This is the true grace of God wherein ye stand V'

It is not my intention in this paper to fully discuss "the mystery," but I may ask: Why did Paul spend so much time and use such vehement asservation (Gal. 1:6-9, II, 12), if he were not the chosen communicator of unique truths? How can we apart from such an admission, account for the bitter attacks from his fellow Jewish Christians? Paul from the standpoint of revelation, is to the Church Age what Moses was to the Jewish. He said: "It came through revelation of Jesus Christ"— He was the mouthpiece of "The Prophet King." Read Paul's striking comparison and contrasts m 2 Cor. 3:2-11. He compares their ministries and attendant glory; but how great is the gulf that separates the results and motives!

Where is the "Grace of God instructing us" revealed, if God has not in the epistles given us a divine portrait, a standard for holy living, and a purifying prophetic hope? The "Grace of God" wherein we stand is synonymous with "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." We cannot go to the law, for we are "not under law, but under grace." "Grace" has a body of teaching, which we are under as a rule of life. But glorious paradox; it is under us, when we yield to it, impelling us to love God,— "denying ungodliness," our neighbors— "live righteously," ourselves— "soberly," and God's gracious purposes — "looking for that blessed hope."

How could the church at Ephesus know when men were speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them, if Paul did not refer to truth peculiar to the church, when he said: "And now, brethren, I commend you to God and the word of his grace which is able to build you up?" Paul had already written I and 2 Thess., Galatians, Romans, and I and 2 Corinthians. He had also orally delivered to the Ephesians the truths revealed to him by God concerning this age and its dispensation of grace. "He had doubtless given the Ephesians believers the substance of the teaching later committed to writing in the sublime Epistle to the Ephesians. Then the Epistle to the Ephesians, which sounds the lowest depths of Christian doctrines, and scales the loftiest heights of Christian experience, is a testimony to the proficiency which Paul's converts had attained under his preaching at Ephesus." — Stalker.

The church of which I am pastor has placed, at the close of its covenant, the following statement, which makes the epistles the standard in discipline: "Moreover, we will endeavor to make our lives conform to all of God's revealed will for holy living as contained in His epistles to the churches." li all teachers divided to the "Church of God" its portion in the blessed book of God, we should see the end of many of the divisions into which "perverse teaching" has split the people of God.

It is not enough to say that we believe that the whole Bible is God's word. One of my daughters might receive from the postman three letters written by me, but intended for three different persons. The first is addressed to her, the second, to the caretaker of my house, and the third to my wife. But she ignores the directions, and says, "I know my father's handwriting and they are all from him, and he is my father, therefore they are all for me." She is as foolish as the person who fails to divide the messages of the Bible in which God speaks to "Jews, Gentiles, and the Church of God." I Cor. 10:32.

Imagine my daughter's confusion when in the letter to her, I forbid her tending the furnace, and in the letter to the caretaker, I upbraid him for not tending the furnace; and then when she reads my endearing words to my wife and tries to appropriate all three as hers, she is convinced from the contradiction and inappropriate expressions, that I have gone crazy. Not at all! I have written clearly and directed the letters specifically; the fault is in my foolish girl. Let us appropriate only those letters which are addressed to the "Church of God." We are instructed to read all of God's word. Thank God for the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the Book of Acts; they all are inspired and profitable. But they do not contain the full knowledge of the glorious portion and position of the believer in Christ, which establishes a new relationship, and gives new motives, and new joys in service. "Therefore," says Paul in view of our being quickened and exalted together with the ascended Christ, "let no man judge you" by the law or the example of Jesus as one "born under the law," "in meat or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day." Cols. 2:16, 17. ^.

A Finality.

"The faith once for all delivered unto the saints." Jude 3.

For yourselves know perfectly." I Thess. 5:2. I will cast upon you no other burden (revealed truth). Nevertheless that which ye have, hold fast till I come." Rev. 2:24, 25.

"If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto them the plagues which are written in this book." Rev. 22:18.

Unlike the Old Testament the New speaks as a finality. Instead of bidding us to look for further revelations, it is full of warnings against false teachers who should come; such were even already at work before the completion of the New Testament.

'T am come in my Father's name and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive/' John 5 '.4.

"Many false Christs shall arise and deceive many." Matt. 24:11, 24-26; Rev. 13:13; I Thess. 1:8-11.

"Even now are there many anti-Christs." I John 2:3, 18.

"Many false prophets are gone out into the world."

1 John 4:1.

Jesus warned the disciples regarding "the leaven" of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians who would deny fundamental truths common to all dispensations, and many of the warnings through the apostles refer to similar deceivers, who would misinterpret the "Grace of God," and say that it sanctioned careless living. Regarding those "ungodly men turning the Grace of our God into laciviousness," God warned the early church. Jude 4. It is foolish for the Roman Catholic church to lay claim to the right to make additions to the New Testament standards. God says all scripture is not only inspired, but sufficient "that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished with all good works." We rightly refuse to accept as inspired any teaching outside the canon of the New Testament.

When Paul wrote "preach the word," 2 Tim. 4:2, he had in mind the God-breathed words given through prophets and apostles. When he said some shall fall away from "the faith" which Timothy followed, I Tim. 4:6, Timothy knew of whom "he had learned them."

2 Tim. 3:14. He was commanded to "guard the commandment, without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ," I Tim. 6:14 — No hint about additional revelation in this passage. Paul told Titus to hold to the "faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in the sound teaching, and to convince the gainsavers." Titus 1 19.

Again, in 2 Thess. 2:15, we have a clear utterance regarding finality: "So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by epistle of ours." There is no reference here to traditions as teaching distinct from the inspired record; the epistles agree with Paul's spoken words and are the "traditions" which we are to "hold" — the two spoken and written are one. How contrary to Paul is the utterance of Bruno in "Catholic Belief," page 33. "Like two sacred rivers flowing from Paradise, the Bible and divine Tradition contain the Word of God, the precious gems of revealed truth. Though these two divine streams are in themselves, on account of their divine origin, of equal sacredness, and are both full of revealed truths, still of the two, Tradition is to us more clear and safe." '

Dr. George P. Fisher clearly presents the scriptural view: "As Protestants, we must demur to the doctrine that an infallible safeguard exists against the introduction of elements at variance with Christian truth, which may prove the germ of a false development. But even the writers to whom we refer, hold that the whole deposit of revealed truth was with Christ and the apostles, and is contained in their teaching. So far as the development is normal, it springs out of the primitive seed. What we behold results from a clearer understanding, a more vivid appreciation, of the truth set forth in the New Testament. To the sum and substance of this truth, nothing has been added." (The Beginnings of Christianity. Page 31).

I leave it to the reader to test all systems of religion by the resurrection utterances of Christ. They harmonize in all vital truths with His earthly teaching — though He, after the flesh, was born a Hebrew He never asked one to do anything for salvation contrary to the teachings of the epistles — but every system that professes to possess additional revelations all teach the way of salvation contrary to the teachings of both Gospels and Epistles. The Book of the Revelation in no way contradicts former revelation. It says: "Blessed are they that have washed their robes that they may have the right to come to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city." Rev. 22:14 R. V.

President Webb Peploe of St. Paul's Cathedral puts the present situation plainly, the condition that makes, to the writer, this article timely: "You will observe the solemnity of the case which we have to meet, when from an extreme we leap to the other. At the one end we have those bordering on Rome, and wish to exert and exhibit the authority of the priesthood; and and to say that themselves are equal, if not superior, to the Bible; and at the other extreme, we have men who set aside entirely the idea of revelation as being infallible in any sense and claim that the human intellect is the authority to which we alone can bow. Our duty is between the two to weigh and consider the Book which we entitle the Bible and ask ourselves, what price do we put upon it? What value do we attach to it? And what we say it really is?"