ve us truth that is infinite and
eternal. The indispensable condition of success in the interpretation of
Scripture is therefore a hearty belief that the Bible is Christ's
revelation of God, and not merely a series of gropings after truth on
the part of men. Deduction will give us truth from above, whereas
induction will give us only scattered facts on the horizontal plane.

I am convinced that the so-called "historical method" of Scripture
interpretation, as it is usually employed, fails to secure correct
results, because it proceeds wholly by induction, leaving out of its
account the knowledge of Christ which comes to the Christian in his
personal experience. I do not regard such a "historical method" as
really historical; I deny that it discovers the original meaning of the
documents; I claim that, when made the sole avenue of approach to truth,
it leads to false views of doctrine. It assumes at the outset that what
rules in the realm of physics rules also in the moral and religious
realm. But the Christian has learned that Christ is the supreme source
of truth. By a process of either conscious or unconscious deduction he
recognizes in Scripture the utterance of Christ. He must begin his
investigations with one of two assumptions: Is the Bible only man's
word? or, Is it also Christ's word? Is it a mere product of human
intelligence? or, Is it also the product of a divine intelligence, who
indeed uses human and imperfect means of communication, but who
nevertheless at sundry times and in divers manners has brought to the
world the knowledge of salvation?

I claim that we should begin by assuming that the Bible is a revelation
of Christ. This assertion is justified, as I have already intimated, by
our Christian experience. That experience has given us a knowledge of
the heart, more valuable in religious things than any mere knowledge of
the intellect. Doctor Tholuck, in an address to his students at his
fiftieth anniversary, said that God's greatest gift to him had been the
knowledge of sin. Without that conviction of sin which the Spirit of
Christ can work in the human heart, there can be no proper understanding
of Scripture, for Scripture is a revelation to sinners. The opening of
the heart to receive Christ, and the new sense of his pardoning grace
and power, give to the converted man the key to the interpretation of
Scripture, for "the mystery of the gospel," the central secret of
Christianity, is "Christ in you,