The subject upon which I have to address you is the Inspiration of the Scriptures; that is, the peculiar character which these writings have because they have been breathed by the Holy [Spirit]. I wish to speak of some passages in the twenty-fourth chapter of the gospel of Luke where our Lord Jesus Christ refers to them. I think there is a parallel between the fifty-third and fifty-fourth chapters of Isaiah and the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Luke. In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah you see our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, and you have all the constriction and straitness of the cross, and then the fifty-fourth chapter opens, "Sing, 0 barren, you who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You who have not travailed with child!"... etc. "Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes." The fifty-fourth chapter is full of largeness and expansion. So in the chapters in Luke. In the twenty-third chapter the Lord Jesus is hanging upon the cross, but in the twenty-fourth chapter He comes out of the grave in all the enlargement of resurrection. If I may so say, everything that had been closed before begins to be opened and cleared in the twenty-fourth chapter of Luke. You will remember how very small was the space of ground to which the Lord confined Himself when in this life, and how few the number of people who heard His living voice. The outside world was dying the while, and you do not wonder at His saying, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." That baptism of suffering unto death was accomplished in the twenty-third chapter, and in the twenty-fourth chapter the Son of man is straitened no more. It was just like Noah coming out of the ark, where he had been confined, coming out on to the new earth, and hearing God say, "Be fruitful and multiply."

In the twenty-fourth of Luke the first thing that is opened that had been closed is the grave of the Lord Jesus. Having come out of it, He opens the Scriptures to the two disciples who were going to Emmaus, and He opens their eyes so that they knew Himself. Then, at Jerusalem, He opens the understanding of the disciples that they might understand the Scriptures.

It is a little hard for us to realize the feelings of the disciples when the stone had been rolled to the door of the sepulchre. Every hope they had was lying dead in the person of the Lord Jesus, and they could see nothing but the stone. As those two went to Emmaus their eyes were holden, and their hearts were slow; but as He talked with them their hearts began to burn, and as He gave them the broken bread their eyes that had been holden were opened. That is what we want at these conferences--the opened eye and the kindled heart. We read that "He said to them, 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." And in the thirty- second verse, "They said one to another, Did not our hearts burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?" And again, in the forty- fourth verse, "And He said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me."

He opened their eyes, and He opened the Scriptures, and He opened their understanding. What is to be noted is this, that He did not bring to them, after rising from the dead, any new revelation, and He did not discard the old, but turned their minds back upon the well-ascertained body of writings called the Scriptures, which they had heard read in the Synagogue every Sabbath day. Our Lord Jesus added nothing to these writings, but He caused the light to flash out of them so that the disciples saw them as they had not done before. That is the characteristic of the Scripture. It has been truly said that it was inspired, and it is inspired. It breathes of the Holy [Spirit] who gave it. There is a particular in which it is like the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Once He went up into a mountain, and was transfigured before His disciples. He was not a different Christ, but the same Christ changed with His very [clothing] shining. There are many who could tell you that there has been a time when they have found the Scriptures so shining and breathing and speaking to them as they had never known them speak before.

In the first epistle to the Corinthians, second chapter, the apostle speaks of how he came to Corinth, what he preached and how he preached. He was very anxious that the faith of his hearers should stand in the power of God and not in the wisdom of men. He says, "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world to our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God." Mark, there are two spheres, the sphere in which the spirit of man ranges, and the sphere of the Spirit of God. People talk about the inspiration of Shakespeare, and so on. It is very wonderful to read Shakespeare. He shows you your own heart in a wonderful way, but, after all, it is but the spirit of a man ranging within the sphere of man. If the things of God are to be communicated to us they must come from the other sphere, and they must come by the Spirit of God. No matter how high the spirit of a man may rise it is limited to its sphere. If you are to learn the things of God you must learn them by the teaching of the Holy [Spirit]. Even if you have the word in your hand you require that your understanding should be opened to understand it. Until that is done nothing is done. That is what accounts for so many backsliders. The emotions of people have been stirred; they have been in some happy meeting, and they were happy for the time, but in the morning their happiness had gone, because, after all, they had not had understanding; there had been no connection formed between them and God through the revelation to them of the Son of God. The mark of those who are saved is that they have not only heard the Word but have understood it, and therefore have entered into living intelligent relations with God. Again, "We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given us by God." We know them by the Holy [Spirit]. Again, "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy [Spirit] teaches." After we have known them we can communicate them through the Spirit that taught them to ourselves.

It is not that there is no value in a traditional belief in the Scriptures as the Word of God. It was surely a matter of thankfulness concerning Timothy, that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures which were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. I think we cannot be too thankful, here in Scotland, for the traditional faith in the Scriptures, that from the very beginning we are taught that this was the Word of God, and nothing less, and taught to reverence it as such. The Samaritans, in the fourth of John, believed because of the saying of the woman; but when they came to the Lord Himself, "many more believed because of His own word; and said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of your saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world." And so with the written word; there are those who could testify that they had always believed that it was the Word of God, but that there came a time when light broke out that had never been seen before. There came a time when they believed, not because they had been taught by others to believe, but because the Word had fastened itself upon their hearts and consciences. And only so does a man come into the kingdom of God. It is not because of the witness that is borne to them that we believe the Scriptures, or allow them to command us. There are two witnesses--the Jewish nation and the historical Church--one to the Old Testament and the other to the New. But we do not believe the Old Testament because the Jews handed it down to us. We are very thankful that they have handed it down; but the Jews crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, and if instead of handing down the Scriptures they had denied them, we should not therefore have been exempted from the responsibility of believing them. And we do not believe the New Testament Scriptures because the Church has handed them down to us. In the Scriptures, God speaks directly--with nothing between--to the soul of man, and when He speaks, He speaks with authority. This is the Judge that ends the strife, that tests and is not tested. Our Lord Jesus Christ was once standing at the bar of Pontius Pilate. It was a strange reversal of positions, but have you not continually seen this reversal in these days, when the Word which ought to judge men has been put at the bar, and those who ought to be judged by it have got upon the bench? This Word has authority. The Church- -even if we could find the true one-- adds nothing to the message which it brings.

Further, there is a certain temper and condition of mind in man which this book demands in those that inquire of it. Here is the principle, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant." If a man come flippant and critical to the Word of God, instead of its being for his blessing, it will inevitably be for his judgment. If he is to get any light from this blessed book, he must come with a reverent spirit, as of one who enters into the presence of God. The book is like the Tabernacle that God set up in the wilderness. From the outside view there was nothing lovely about the Tabernacle, but when the man of God passed in what did he see? He saw nothing by the light of the sun, for no natural light shone there; but by’ the light of the golden lamp he beheld the beautiful furniture, the blue, the purple, the scarlet, the fine linen, and the gold that were within. The only spirit in which it is permitted to men to read these holy Scriptures, is the spirit of one who inquires, as in the tabernacle of God.