CHAPTER IX

THE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE

We have studied the teachings of science concerning man and his environment, let us turn now to the teachings of the Bible. And though eight chapters have been devoted to the teachings of science, and only one to the teachings of the Bible, it is not because I underestimate the importance of the latter. It is more difficult to clearly discover just what are the teachings of Nature in science. The lesson is written in a language foreign to most of us, and one requiring careful study; and yet once deciphered it is clear. Science attains the laws of Nature by the study of animal and human history. But this record is a history of continually closer conformity to environment on the part of all advancing forms. The animal kingdom is the clay which is turned, as Job says, to the seal of environment, and it makes little difference whether we study the seal or the impression; we shall read the same sentence. Environment has stamped its laws on the very structure of man's body and mind. And the old biblical writers read these laws, guided by God's Spirit, in their own hearts, and in those of their neighbors, and in their national history, as the record of God's working, and gave us concrete examples of the results of obedience and disobedience. Hence the teaching of the Bible is always clear and unmistakable.

The Bible treats of three subjects-Nature, Man, and God-and the relations of each of these to the others. I have tried to present to you in the first chapter the biblical conception of Nature and its relation to God. In its relation to man it is his manifestation to us, and, in its widest sense, the sum of the means and modes through which he develops, aids, and educates us. And in this conception I find science to be strictly in accord with scripture.

Now what is the scriptural idea of man? Man interests us especially in three aspects. He is a corporeal being; he is an intellectual being; he is a moral being, with feelings, will, and personality.

Man's body. Plato considered the body as a source of evil and a hindrance to all higher life. And Plato was by no means alone in this. The Bible takes a very different view. Neglect of the body is always rebuked. The only place, so far as I can find, where the body is called vile is where it is compared with the glorious body into which it is to be transformed. "Your bodies," writes Paul to the Corinthians, "are members of Christ," "temples of the Holy Ghost." But the Bible teaches that the body is to be the servant, not the ruler, of the spirit. "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection," continues Paul. Here again science is strictly in accord with scripture.

Man is an intellectual being. I need not quote the praises of knowledge in the Old Testament. They must be fresh in your mind. But the practical Peter writes, "giving all diligence add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge." And Paul prays that the love of the Ephesians may " abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment." But the important

knowledge is the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master. And similarly science emphasizes that the chief end of all knowledge is that we should know the environment to which we are to conform. Knowledge is useful to strengthen and clarify the mind, that it may see and conform to truth and God: and if it fails to become a means to conformity, it has failed of the chief, and practically the only, end for which it was intended. We are to come "in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." But knowledge which only puffs up and distracts the mind from the great aims and ends which it should serve is rebuked with equal emphasis by the Bible and by science.

I would not claim that we have set too high a value upon knowledge, perhaps we cannot; but there is something far higher on which we are inclined to set far too low a value. This is righteousness and love; and true wisdom is knowledge permeated, vivified, and transfigured by devotion to these higher ends. And in this highest realm of the mind feeling and will rule conjointly. Love is a feeling which always will and must find its way to activity through the will, and it is an activity of the will roused by the very deepest feeling, inspired by a worthy object. If you try to divorce them, both die. Hence Paul can say, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing." And John goes, if possible, even farther and says, "Every one that loveth is born of

God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.' And this sort of love bears and believes and hopes and endures, and never fails. And for this reason the Bible lays such tremendous emphasis on the heart, not as the centre of emotion alone, but as the seat of will as well. And science points to the same end, though she sees it afar off.

And what of God? God is a Spirit, Creator, Author, and Finisher of all things, and filling all. But while omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, these are not the characteristics emphasized in the Bible. He is righteous. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" is the grand question of the father of the faithful. And when Moses prays God to show him his glory, God answers, "I will make all my goodness pass before thee." He is the "refuge of Israel," the everlasting arms" underneath them, pitying them as a father pitieth his children." And in the New Testament we are bidden to pray to our Father, who is love, and whose temple is the heart of whosoever will receive him. Truly a very personal being.

Now the Bible rises here indefinitely above anything that mere natural science can describe. But can the ultimate "Power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness" and unselfishness, of whose presence in environment science assures us, be ever better described than by these words concerning the "Father of our spirits?

And an infinitely wise, good, and loving being will have fixed modes of working; for "with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Thus only can man trust and know him. The old Stoic philosopher tells us "everything has two handles, and can be

carried by one of them, but not by the other." So with God's laws. Many seem to look upon them as a hindrance and limitation to him in carrying out his righteous and loving will toward man. But they are really the modes or means of his working, which he uses with such regularity and consistency that we can always rely upon them and him. The pure river of the water of life proceedeth from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

If I am lying ill waiting anxiously for the physician I can think of this great city as a mass of blocks of houses separating him from me. But the houses have been arranged in blocks so as to leave free streets, along which he can travel the more quickly. And God's laws are not blocks, but thoroughfares, planned that the angels of his mercy may fly swiftly to our aid. We are prone to forget that these laws are expressly made for your and my benefit, as well as that of all beings, that we may be righteous and unselfish.. And this is one ground of the apostle's faith that “all things work together for good to them that love God." And in the Apocalypse the earth helps the woman. It must be so.

But what if you or I try to block the thoroughfare? What would happen to us if we tried to stop barehanded the current of a huge dynamo, or to hold back the torrent of Niagara? Nothing but death can result. And what if I stem myself against the "river of the water of life, proceeding from the throne of God," and try to turn it aside or hold it back from men perishing of thirst? And that is just what sin is, even if done carelessly or thoughtlessly; for men have no right to be careless and thoughtless about