If the only-begotten Son of God, divinely perfect and blessed, came into the world for the eternal blessing of men, it is only fitting that a record of His coming and His words and ways, also divinely perfect and blessed, should be given, that those for whom He came might have a divine and perfect assurance of it. Admit the former and the latter follows in logical sequence. To suppose that God would send His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him, and having done that, allow an imperfect, contradictory human record to be the only record of His life and death here, would be to suppose Him to be guilty of colossal folly. The record must be as perfect in its own sphere as the One whose life and mission it records was perfect in His, or else we have no sure knowledge, no certainty, of the things upon which our soul's eternal welfare depend.
If the Holy Scriptures are what the critics say they are — mere ancient, human documents, in which are recorded events which the writers did but poorly remember, or which they greatly exaggerated or embellished, if they may be cut and criticized, accepted or rejected, in parts or wholly, then where are we in this matter? The angel's triumphant declaration that he brought "good tidings of great joy when he announced the birth of Jesus may be a mockery; we cannot be sure that our great Redeemer ever did say, "Come to Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Such wonderful words may have been put into His mouth by one of these imperfect but very imaginative human writers, as Shakespeare put words into the mouths of his characters. Did our Lord really warn men of "the damnation of hell," and speak those words about the many mansions in His Father's house? We cannot say unless the record of them is divinely perfect and divinely sure. WE BELIEVE GOD, AND THE WORD OF HIS GRACE, and we are confident that if "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life," He would see to it that we should be in no uncertainty about it, else "His unspeakable gift" would have been in vain and none could have said, Thanks be to God for it! The Scriptures are God-breathed; the men who wrote them were moved by the Holy Ghost, they had not the things they wrote from hearsay, or from their own imperfect observation but from the source of all true knowledge — from God Himself. Hence the Lord's own veritable words are given in the divine records, and in those records they are divinely placed, and there they shine like apples of gold in pictures of silver for our blessing and joy. God be praised who has opened our eyes to see them!