Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 576

552

GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION

§ 85.

[Div. Ill

of the Scripture can never lead to regeneration, nor to a Tradition, supported " being planted together " with Christ.

and

verified

by the Scripture,

is

surely the ground of a

purely historic faith in Christ, but this faith at large fails, as

soon as another interpretation of the Scripture gains the day. The outcome shows, that where, on the other hand, the revelation of power from heaven {dvcaOev) really has taken place,

and transformed the mode

of the soul's life

and conscious-

ness, even in times of spiritual barrenness, the worship of Christ has again and again revived; and amid general negation, the most learned individuals have bowed again to

way in which The words once spoken by Jesus in the

the authority of the Scripture, in the same

Jesus recognized

it.

temple at Jerusalem (John vii. 17), " If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God," is truly the canon here. In Christ we only see and handle the Divine, when transformed in our inner being and life, and without this preceding change of heart and our acceptance with Christ, even though an angel were to come down from heaven in visible form, no one would ever sub-

word

ject himself to the

ever

lie

in

our inner

ego,

of

God.

The

and without

starting-point

must

this starting-point in

sympathy with the revelation of the Scripture, everything in us tends to disown the authority of the Scripture, and to resist

it

with

all

That our human and appropriate to the fact that

our powers. ego, nevertheless, itself

of all

can be brought to accept

the special revelation,

is

a result of

the ways and means of inspiration, the

God has never employed any but those which were present in man by virtue of creation. The whole question of inspiration virtually amounts to this: whether God

self-revealing

shall be denied or granted the sovereign right of employing, if

needed and desired, the factors which

so

He Himself

created in man, by which to communicate to man what He purposed to reveal respecting the maintenance of His own majesty, the execution of His world-plan, and the salvation of

His

elect.

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