II. THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN THE BIBLE
There
are two answers. First, that in the Bible the divine and human are blended (see
art. ‘Inspiration’). We must not regard the Bile as an absolutely perfect book
in which God is Himself the author using human hands and brains only as a man
might use a typewriter. God used men, not machines—men with like weakness and prejudice
and passion as ourselves, though purified and ennobled by the influence of His
Holy Spirit; men each with his own peculiarities of manner or want of education—each
with his own way of looking at things—each influence differently from another by
the different experiences and discipline of his life. Their inspiration did not
involve a suspension of their natural faculties; it did not destroy their
personality, nor abolish the differences of training and character; it did not
even make them perfectly free from earthly passion; it did not make them into
machines—it left them men.
Therefore
we find their knowledge sometimes no higher than that of their contemporaries,
and their indignation against oppression and wrong-doing sometimes breaking out
into desire of revenge. This would not surprise us in the least in other good
men who were, we knew, striving after God and righteousness. It surprises us in
the Bible, because of our false preconceptions; because it is in the Bible we
do not expect the actors to be real and natural; because of our false theory of
Verbal Inspiration we are puzzled when the divine is mingled with the human. We
must learn that the divine is mingled with the human.
We
cannot draw a line between the divine and the human. We cannot say of any part,
‘This is divine,’ or ‘That is human.’ In some parts, as the Gospels, there is
more of the divine; in others, as the Chronicles, more of the human. It is as a
mine of precious ore where the gold is mingled with the rock and clay—the ore is
richer in one part than another, but all parts in some degree are glittering
with gold. It is as sunlight through a painted window—the light must come to us
coloured by the medium—we cannot get it any other way. In some parts the medium
is denser and more imperfect, in others the golden glory comes dazzlingly
through. It is foolish to ignore the existence of the human medium through
which the light has come; it is still more foolish to ignore the divine light,
and think that the tinted dome is luminous itself, that the light of heaven has
only come from earth. Both must be kept in mind—the divine and the human—if the
Bible is to be rightly understood. (A Commentary on the Holy Bible, ed.
J. R. Dummelow [New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1908], cxxxiv-cxxxv)
