LESSON X.—BIBLE SECTION.
The Doctrines of the Bible.
By Rev. J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., and R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
Doceo means I teach. Doctum, a teaching. Doctrina, the result of teaching—learning. The doctrines of the Bible are simply its teachings. They are the teachings of God to the race, contained in the record of his dealings with the race. These dealings of God produced a supernatural history, in the course of which man originated and fell, the nature and character of the Creator appeared, the presence, power and effects of sin were made known, and the original and ultimate purposes of God with the race were declared. The outline of these teachings or doctrines is not designed to be exhaustive, nor is it formed on the model of any treatise on systematic theology. It aims to prompt to further study in the classics of theology, and to plainly state a few essential truths. These doctrines of the Bible are:
1. The Doctrine Concerning Beginnings. (a) God was without beginning—Genesis 1:1. First fact—“The Eternal God.” (b) The Holy Spirit was without beginning—Gen. 1:2. Second fact—“The Eternal Spirit.” (c) The Word was without beginning—John 1:1. Third fact—“The Eternal Son.” Essential doctrine: the Triune God; unbegun, coequal, eternal. (d) All else, the whole vast universe, began by the power of God—Gen. 1:1—through the Son—John 1:3. Fourth fact—“Man God’s offspring.” Essential doctrine: The Fatherhood of God; his sovereignty and right to demand obedience of his creatures.
2. The Doctrine Concerning Relations. (a) God is Creator: hence powerful; a spirit—John 4:24—hence unseen; without beginning or ending, hence infinite and eternal—Ps. 90:1. Formula: “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” (b) Man is the creature. Essentially a thing created; he dies daily, to be recreated daily. What of himself man destroys, the Creator by daily sustenance replaces. He is therefore the bread-giver, Hlaf-ford—Lord. The gifts of the Creator are beneficent; so he is the Good-One, God. The Creator is also guardian, protector—that is, Father.
Relation restated. The Creator, Lord, God, Father. The creature—a dependent child. The law of paternity—like produces like. Essential doctrine—man was originally like God, in harmony with him and at peace with him—Gen. 1:27.
3. The Doctrine Concerning Positions. (a) Man supreme in creation. God calls himself Father of no other created thing. Man a thinker, hence supreme. (b) Man free in the midst of creation. No other power to dispute his right. In fellowship with God, his Father. In a place of his Father’s choice, under rules of his Father’s making; with a work of his Father’s planning—Gen. 2:15-16—with power to follow his own will—(Gen. 2:17, last clause)—answerable to no one but his Father. Essential Doctrines—The sovereignty of God—the freedom of man. (c) Man confronted by a foe—Gen. 3:1—A sinful power in the universe: sin before man—2 Peter 2:4, 1 John 3:8. Picture—The Almighty Father—the boundless earth—the wide permission; the single restraint; the only child; the tempter; the fall; sin’s victory—Romans 5:12. Essential doctrine: By man sin entered the world, and death by sin, imparting to man a sinful nature, and separating man from God.
4. The Doctrine Concerning Results. (a) Separation from God; Eden lost; toil, pain and death—Gen. 3:17-19:23. (b) The kingdom of death—Romans 5:14; its prince, Satan; its subjects unclean—Job 15:14-16; its history a record of “sin, schism, and the clash of personalities.” (c) Eternal punishment probable from analogy, reasonable, just. Let the student carefully examine the testimony.
5. The Doctrine Concerning Rescue. (a) Promised early in history—Gen. 3:15. (b) Divine—John 3:16. (c) Yet human—Gen. 3:15; Romans 5:18; Luke 3:23 and ff. Central fact of history, the God-man. (d) Restoration to God’s likeness—1 John 3:2. (e) A life-giving rescue—Romans 6:23. (f) A cleansing rescue; find the symbolic use of water in Bible. (g) Obtained through suffering and propitiatory death—Isaiah 53. (h) Established by resurrection—Ps. 16:10, 49:15; Hosea 13:14. Essential doctrine: Salvation from God as a free gift of his grace for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
6. The Doctrine Concerning Instruction. (a) God himself the teacher of the race. Adam—Abel—the Altar and Sacrifice. Note: service and sacrifice, man’s first lesson; the ark and Noah; rescue from sin’s penalty through obedience, man’s second lesson; Abraham—reckoned as righteous, because believing, man’s third lesson. (b) Moses the teacher of the race; the tabernacle in the wilderness; the same lessons repeated; God using his servant by direct instruction and communion. (c) The prophets the teachers of the race—Samuel—Malachi—the same lesson repeated; God teaching by inspiration; the home; the church; holy men speaking as moved by the Holy Ghost. (d) God by his Son the teacher of the race; Jesus Christ, Galilee, Samaria, Judea, the manger, the desert, the cross, the Easter morn, lessons, service, obedience, sacrifice, victory. (e) God by his teacher of the race.