The Truth About God And The Bible
By Robert Roberts
Chapter 9: No Hero-Worship
Another feature of the Bible is the perfect modesty of all the
men who took a part in the development of Bible things; modesty,
that is, as regards any credit for the part they performed. The
tendency in human nature, acting by itself, is to take the credit
of any gift possessed and to glory in it, and make it the means
of honour and personal consequence. No one with the history of
mankind before him can deny this: But here are men who refuse
the credit, as in the case recorded in Acts 14: "Sirs, why do
ye teach these things? We also are men of like passions with you,
and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities UNTO
THE LIVING GOD." Or Acts 3:12: "Why look ye so earnestly upon
us (Peter and John), as though by our own power or holiness we
had made this man to walk?" Again, in Acts 10:25 we read: "And
as Peter was coming in Cornelius met him " (Cornelius having sent
for him by divine direction), "and fell down at his feet and worshipped
him; but Peter took him up, saying, Stand up I myself also am
a man." In 1 Cor. 15:9, we find Paul saying: "For I am the least
of the Apostles that am not meet to be called an apostle, because
I persecuted the Church of God." In Exodus 16:8, Moses, speaking
of the murmurings of the people, says: "What are we? Your murmurings
are not against us, but against the Lord." In Numbers 11:29, Moses,
when told deprecatingly by Joshua that somebody else had received
the Spirit, replied: "Enviest thou for my sake? Would GOD all
the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His
Spirit upon them."
In Daniel 2:30, Daniel, when cited before Nebuchadnezzar to explain
a dream which had baffled the magicians, prefaced his explanation
by these words: "As for me, this secret is not revealed to me
for any wisdom I have more than any living, but for their sakes
that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that
thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart." If Daniel had been
an impostor, like all other impostors, he would have placed his
own credit in the front rank; instead of that, he says the explanation
he is about to give is not due to his superior wisdom, but to
communication from God. That is the utterance of a true man, who
knew that the information was not out of his own head but that
he had received it from external sources. Then there is
the case of Joseph in Gen. 41:15-16. Joseph was standing before
Pharaoh under similar circumstances, and was called upon to explain
an enigmatical dream. Pharaoh said to him: "I have heard say of
thee that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. And Joseph
answered Pharaoh saying, It is not in me; GOD SHALL GIVE PHARAOH
AN ANSWER OF PEACE."
Coming down to CHRIST himself we see the same peculiarity. What
does he say concerning the miracles he wrought and the wisdom
he spake? "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself;
but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John
14:10). "I am come in my Father's name" (John 5:43). And again,
"Of my own self, I can do nothing" (John 5:30).
Now, although this argument may not tell in an excited public
meeting, it will in the calm hours of anxious thought be felt
in its full weight by those who are capable of appreciating an
argument. It goes more than anything to show that the men who
had to do with the transactions involved in the scriptures, and
the writing of them, were true men, and not such men as unbelief
would represent.
