"The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." (Psalm 12:6)
This is true not merely of a few words, but of all: "Every word of God is pure; He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him." (Proverbs 30:6)
Moreover, there is enough in the words of God for every necessary purpose. They are sufficient to make a man "perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:17)
Not only is nothing more needed, but whatever is added to God's words is a lie. "Add not unto His words, lest He reprove you, and you be found a liar." (Proverbs 30:7)
There is no trace of error or likeness to untruth in the words of the Lord. He is the truth; therefore His words are truth, for they are His life. "Your word is true from the beginning; and every one of your righteous judgments endures for ever." (Psalm 119:160)
Unto us the Lord says, "Let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these comes of evil." (Matthew 5:37)
Also, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." (1 Peter 4:11)
That is, the Lord wishes men to speak just as He does, but He will not have them equivocate. They must not say one thing, and mean another. This is because there is nothing of that kind in the words of God. He is not double-minded nor double-tongued.
God is infinite: "There is no searching of His understanding." (Isaiah 40:28)
Therefore His word is of infinite depth. Eternity will not be long enough to enable the keenest intellect or the most diligent student to exhaust the meaning of any one of the words of the Lord.
Thus it is that we can always return to the same word, and find something fresh and new. It is a sun shining with never-fading light; a fountain whose waters never fail. Therefore the one who comes into close acquaintance with the Word of God never tires of it any more than he tires of the light of the sun, the fresh beauty of nature, or the sparkling flow of the mountain stream.
By these facts we may understand what some people call the "double meaning" of the Scriptures. There is in reality no such thing. God does not require us to be better than He is; but He will not have our speech Yea and Nay; that is, He, will not have us speak with a double meaning; therefore we may be sure that He will not speak that way.
What sometimes appears to be a double meaning in the words of the Lord, is simply a deeper view into the same meaning that first appeared. We assumed that we had fathomed the full meaning of the Word; in our self-conceit we did not dream that the Lord could think greater thoughts than we could, and so we assumed that our grasp of the passage was all there was to it, at least in that direction.
And then when we chanced to see something more in it, we thought that it must be still another meaning. But it was not so. We were simply by His grace looking a little deeper into the fountain; and He would have us understand that what we had thought was the bottom, was only the limit of our previous eyesight; now the Spirit has opened our eyes to see a little further into "the deep things of God." (1 Corinthians 2:10)
The knowledge and remembrance of these truths concerning the Word will save us from two errors in studying the Bible:
1. We shall never assume that we know all that may be known even of any single portion of it. No matter how well acquainted we may he with any part of the Bible, we shall know that there is always much more in it for us to learn.
2. We shall on the other hand not fall into the error that we cannot absolutely depend on what any text says, unless we know every text that has any bearing on the same subject.
One error is as bad as the other for either one keeps us from coming to the knowledge of the truth.
It is very evident that we can never learn what the Lord would have us learn from His Word, if we assume that we know it all now. But it is just as evident that we shall never believe anything with certainty, if we labor under the fear that we may possibly come across another text which will overthrow or change the meaning of the one that we have before us.
Not long ago we read a portion of a conversation on the Bible, in which one of the speakers, a lady, said, "We cannot take one verse of the Scripture and say this is the way, the truth, and the life, but must compare scripture with scripture."
This is a very common opinion even among those who mean to reverence the Word of God. They do not realize that they are virtually saying that none of God's words are absolutely true in themselves, but that we must collate them all, and strike an average, in order to get at the real truth. That is a terrible charge to bring against the Lord. "Every word of God is pure." (Proverbs 30:5)
We are to live "by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Deuteronomy 8:3)
Every word is truth and life. Any word of the Lord is sufficient to give life to the one who receives it as the Word of the Lord. If a man knew only one verse of the Bible, and believed it, he would be saved by it. This does not disparage any other word, for every other word has the same power, and although any one word is sufficient for salvation, it is much better to have more than one, yea, to have them all.
A tallow candle gives light, which is just as real light, and of the same kind, as that which the sun gives; and while the candle will suffice to light us through a dark passage, we should rejoice much more in the sunshine.
Some time ago a friend of the writer referred to Luther's controversy over the Lord's Supper, as an instance of the error of supposing that any one text expressed absolute truth in itself. It is well known that Luther kept repeating the words, "This is my body," (Matthew 26:26) and would not be moved from them. Yet he was wholly wrong in his position concerning the bread of the Lord's Supper. And why? Was it because he stood so firmly for the exact and literal meaning of the Word of the Lord? No; not by any means; it was because he did not take the words of the Lord absolutely.
If he had taken the words which he so often repeated, just as they were spoken by the Lord, he would have had no trouble, but would have been led into a greater truth than anybody thought of at that time. Jesus said, as He took the bread, "This is my body." (Matthew 26:26)
He did not say that it would become His body after something had been done to it, or some words had been repeated over it, but that it was His body, just as He took it up. Luther did not believe that, nor do many today.
What Luther meant, when he repeated the words of Christ, was that the bread became the body of Christ, after the priest had transformed it. But that, you can see, was not at all what the Lord said. That was not holding to the text, but was widely departing from it.
What the Lord said, and what He would have us understand every day of our lives, is that the bread from which we get our life day by day, conveys to us His own life, by which alone we live. There is no life but His. He is the life. He is the body, the substance, the reality, of everything that is of any value. He is the true and living Bread.
If it were not for His life in the bread that we eat, it would not be food, and we could get no life from it. He would have us take His words as absolute literal truth; and if we do that, we shall find that there is life in them. Jeremiah knew this truth, when he said, "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." (Jeremiah 15:16)
It was by giving the children of Israel bread in the desert, that God sought to impress on them the fact that man lives only by every word that proceeds out of His mouth. (See Deuteronomy 8:3) Let us learn this lesson, and "As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word," (1 Peter 2:2) in order that we may be filled with righteousness.--Present Truth, June 16, 1898--Psalm 12:6.