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For this Life and the Life to Come, April 18
The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the
simple.
Psalm 119:130
.
For the mind and the soul, as well as for the body, it is God’s law that strength is
acquired by effort. It is exercise that develops. In harmony with this law, God has
provided in His Word the means for mental and spiritual development.
The Bible contains all the principles that men need to understand in order to
be fitted either for this life or for the life to come. And these principles may be
understood by all....
And even greater is the power of the Bible in the development of the spiritual
nature. Man, created for fellowship with God, can only in such fellowship find his
real life and development. Created to find in God his highest joy, he can find in
nothing else that which can quiet the cravings of the heart, can satisfy the hunger
and thirst of the soul. He who with sincere and teachable spirit studies God’s Word,
seeking to comprehend its truths, will be brought in touch with its Author; and,
except by his own choice, there is no limit to the possibilities of his development.
In its wide range of style and subjects the Bible has something to interest every
mind and appeal to every heart. In its pages are found history the most ancient;
biography the truest to life; principles of government for the control of the state, for
the regulation of the household—principles that human wisdom has never equaled.
It contains philosophy the most profound, poetry the sweetest and the most sublime,
the most impassioned and the most pathetic. Immeasurably superior in value to the
productions of any human author are the Bible writings, even when thus considered;
but of infinitely wider scope, of infinitely greater value, are they when viewed in
their relation to the grand central thought. Viewed in the light of this thought, every
topic has a new significance. In the most simply stated truths are involved principles
that are as high as heaven and that compass eternity.
The central theme of the Bible, the theme about which every other in the whole
book clusters, is the redemption plan, the restoration in the human soul of the image
of God. From the first intimation of hope in the sentence pronounced in Eden to
that last glorious promise of the Revelation, “They shall see his face; and his name
shall be in their foreheads” (
Revelation 22:4
), the burden of every book and every
passage of the Bible is the unfolding of this wondrous theme—man’s uplifting—
the power of God, “which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (
1
Corinthians 15:57
).
He who grasps this thought has before him an infinite field for study. He has
the key that will unlock to him the whole treasure house of God’s Word (
Education,
123-126
).
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