• Title Page
• Introduction
• The Nature of God
• The Nature of Moral Being
• The Nature of Sin
• The Nature of Moral Government
• The Nature of Justice
• The Nature of Mercy
• The Nature of Substitution
• The Nature of Grace
• The Nature of Salvation

Introduction

We live today in the midst of increasing denial that there is any final authority in the Bible. The influence of much that passes for science and philosophy, out of which comes the rationalistic criticism of the Bible and the supposed findings of those who sit in judgment on what God has said to man, has brought about a widespread feeling of emancipation to the modern mind, until the refusal to accept the witness of Scripture is to be found in college and university, and even in many a theological seminary, pulpit and pew.

The mind that assumes the right to independent thinking, as soon as it comes under the spell of this modern spirit, quickly becomes a law unto itself. And then the Bible comes to be regarded as of no authority over the life, its doctrines out of harmony with reason, and its claims to be the sole revelation of moral truth to be incapable of proof.

The doctrine of Christ’s atonement for sin by His death in substitution on the cross, together with the related doctrines of His virgin birth, His absolute Deity, His true humanity, His sinless life, His bodily resurrection—indeed, all the doctrines that have to do with the Person and work of Christ—are all objects of special attack.

One thing, however, seems to have been missed or evaded by these modern thinkers. No one is asked to accept the doctrines of the Christian faith simply on the ground that they are in the Bible, but rather because they are true. If these doctrines are not self-evidencing in and of themselves, insofar at least as they come within the purview of reason and logic, and if they are impossible of validation to experience, putting them into a book called the Bible, and claiming for them divine authority, will not give them that authority. The authority is in