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5. Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. {pure: Heb. purified}
6. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Nothing is learned solidly by abstract speculation. Go to the book. Here all is light and purity. Though “secret things belong to the LORD our God; yet the things that are revealed” are our holy directory. Everything is intended to influence the heart and conduct. (Deuteronomy 29:29.) How unlike the sacred books of the heathen, or the sensual religion of Mahomet! Here is no license, or encouragement to sin, no connivance at it. All lurking sins, cherished in the dark cavern of pollution, are brought to light, and reproved. Every word of God is pure. Of what other book in the world can this be said? Where else is the gold found without alloy? The word is tried. (Heb.) It has stood the trial, and no dross has been found in it. ‘Having God for its Author, it has truth without any mixture of error for its matter.’† “The words of the LORD are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”†
But if every word of God is pure, take care that no word is slighted. How few range over the whole Revelation of God! To take a whole view of the universe, we should embrace not only the fruitful gardens, but its barren deserts, coming equally from the hand of God, and none of them made for nought. To take a similarly comprehensive view of the sacred field, we must study the apparently barren, as well as the more manifestly fruitful, portions. Meat will be gathered from the detailed code of laws, from the historical annals of the kings, and from the “wars and fightings” — the prolific results of “the lusts of men.” (James 4:1.) The whole Scripture is Scripture, and “all Scripture is profitable.” (2 Timothy 3:16.)
Favoritism however is a besetting snare in the sacred study. A part is too often taken instead of the whole, or as if it were the whole. One is absorbed in the doctrinal, a second in the practical, a third in the prophetical, a fourth in the experimental, Scriptures; each seeming to forget, that every word of God is pure. Some clear defect in the integrity of profession proves unsoundness. The doctrinist becomes loose in practice; the practical professor self-righteous in principle. The prophetic disciple, absorbed in his imaginative atmosphere, neglects present obligations. The experimental religionist mistakes a religion of feeling, excitement, or fancy, for the sobriety and substantial fruitfulness of the gospel. All remind us of our Lord's rebuke — “Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures.” (Matthew 22:29.)
The great exercise therefore is — to bring out the whole mass of solid truth in all its bearings and glory. So wisely has God linked together the several parts of his system, that we can receive no portion soundly, except in connection with the whole. The accuracy of any view is more than suspicious, that serves to put a forced construction upon Scripture, to dislocate its connection, or to throw important truths into the shade. Apparently contradictory statements are in fact only balancing truths; each correcting its opposite, and, like the antagonal muscles, contributing to the strength and completeness of the frame. Every heresy probably stands upon some insulated text or some exaggerated truth, pressed beyond “the proportion of faith.” But none can stand upon the combined view and testimony of Scripture. Nor let it be sufficient, that our system includes no positive error, if some great truths be lacking. Let it be carefully grounded upon the acknowledgment — Every word of God is pure. Some of us may err in presumptuous familiarity with Scripture; others in unworthy reserve. But if the heart be right, self-knowledge will develop the error, and self-discipline will correct it.
Christian simplicity will teach us to receive every Divine Truth upon this formal ground — that it is the word of God. Though it is not all of equal importance, it will be regarded with equal reverence. We acknowledge implicitly God as the Author of every particle of Scripture, and that every word of God is pure. To reject therefore one ‘jot or tittle is a sufficient demonstration,’ — as Dr. Owen admirably observes — ‘that no one jot or tittle of it is received as it ought. Upon whatsoever this tittle and inscription is — ‘The Word of Jehovah’ — there must we stoop, and bow down our souls before it, and captivate our understandings unto the obedience of faith.’†
This holy reverence is combined with trust in God. Blessed trust, which brings a shield of special favor over his trembling child!† Sometimes indeed is Satan permitted to envelope him in darkness, and to picture, as it were, frightful transparencies upon his prison wall. What would he do in this time of terror, did he not find a shield and a covert in the bosom of his God? Yes — if the word of God be pure, it must be a sure ground of trust. We may take its dictum with undoubting confidence, that he is a shield, as to Abraham of old (Genesis 15:1), so to Abraham's children, that put their trust in him.† In all circumstances from within and from without — when I quake under the terrors of the law, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment — “Thou art my shield.” (Psalm 119:114.) Nothing honors God, like this turning to him in every time of need. If there be rest, peaceful confidence, safe keeping, here it is. And where is if found beside? Despondency meets the poor deluded sinner, who looks for some other stay. And even the child of God traces his frequent want of protection to his feeble and uncertain use of his Divine shield.
But the word of God is not only pure, and cannot deceive. It is also sufficient; and therefore, like tried gold, it needs no addition for its perfection. Hence to add to his words, stamped as they are with his Divine authority, will expose us to his tremendous reproof, and cover us with shame.† The Jewish Church virtually added their oral law and written traditions. (Mark 7:7-13.) The Church of Rome is not less guilty, and as a church has been found a liar; adding to the inspired canon a mass of unwritten tradition, and apocryphal writings, with all their gross errors, and in despite of the clearest proof of their human origin.† The attempt in our own day to bring tradition to a near, if not to an equal, level with the sacred testimony, is a fearful approach to this sinful presumption. A new rule of faith is thus introduced — an addition to the Divine rule, of co-ordinate authority.†
The needlessness of this addition is obvious. For if “the holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15), what want we more? And if this were spoken of the Old Testament Scriptures, the sufficiency of a part confirms the larger sufficiency of the whole, while it excludes all reference to any other sufficiency; just as the sufficiency of the early light for all practical purposes, while it precludes the necessity of the light of a candle, establishes the fuller advantage of the light of perfect day. If “Scripture be profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness;” if “the man of God be perfected, and throughly furnished by it” (Ib. verses 16, 17), what clearer demonstration can be given of its absolute completeness? To reflect therefore upon the integrity of this Divine rule of faith, and to shake confidence in its sole authority, is to bring in a false principle, the source of every evil and corruption of the faith.
Never indeed was it so important to clear from all question the momentous controversy — what is, what is not, the Word of God. The Lord has most carefully guarded his pure word from all human admixture. May he preserve his ministers from “teaching for doctrine the commandments of men,” saying, “The LORD hath said it, when he hath not spoken”!† What a reverential awe, what godly jealousy, should they exercise, to add not to the pure word by the glosses of false interpretation; not to expound their own minds, instead of the mind of God!
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