"The Limitations of Scripture" by Charles H. Welch in The Berean
Expositor, circa 1913


"For I am conscious of nothing in myself, nevertheless am I not
justified ... So then do not judge anything before the time, until the
Lord shall come ... Learn in us the lesson of not letting your thoughts
go beyond the things that are written" (1 Cor. iv. 4-6).

We can imagine that some of our readers will read the title of this
article with some misgivings, and we hasten to explain our meaning so
as to avoid giving unnecessary pain or anxiety to those who love the
Word of God.  To say what we do not mean will help us to make clear
what we do mean by the title. We do not mean to suggest the slightest
distrust in the Word of God.  We rejoice to be able out of a full heart
to say that we believe "All Scripture is God-breathed."  We believe
that not only is Scripture inspired in its general outline, but that
divine inspiration extends to the very language and choice of
individual words and phrases.

What do we mean then by the limitations of Scripture?  We mean that the
Scriptures nowhere claim that they contain the record of all God's
purposes and ways, but that such glimpses of those unfathomable depths
and infinite heights are given us as our finite capabilities will
allow.  If I turn to the writings of men I find that many of them deal
with subjects which go entirely beyond the inspired limits of
Scripture.  Revelation starts with God as Creator, "In (the) beginning
God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. i. 1).  Man's theology is
not content with this, it must probe into that over which God has drawn
a veil.  Man's theology and philosophy come to us and say, "God never
had a beginning."  Within the limits of human experience and reason
*that which never had a beginning does not exist*.  In vain we attempt
to conceive otherwise.  The blessed fact we would point out is that God
Himself has never burdened our minds with such a statement.  He Who on
earth could say, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
bear them now," has also, in the wider scope of the complete
Scriptures, given us just so much as we are capable of understanding
here.

Have we never felt when searching the Scriptures upon some theme the
desire for some further explanation which God has been pleased to
withhold?  Is there no truth in the words of Zophar the Naamathite,
"Canst thou by searching find out God?"  Do we not need the rebuke of
Job. xxxvi. 26, "Behold, God is great, and we know Him not, neither can
the number of His years be searched out." Canst thou find out the
Almighty unto perfection?  In the highest revelation given to us are
there not "unsearchable riches"?  Are we not endeavouring to get to
know the love of Christ which *passeth* knowledge?  Did not the
apostle, when concluding the revelation of God's ways with Israel,
rightly say:-

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! 
How *unsearchable* are His judgments, and His ways *past finding out*. 
For who hath known the mind of the Lord (knowledge)?  or who hath been
His counsellor (wisdom)?  or who hath first given to Him, and it shall
be recompensed unto him again (riches)?"

Is there no suggestion of mystery in the destiny of such an one as
Pharaoh, or of Esau as recorded in Rom. ix.?  Does not inspiration
anticipate our natural desire to find out more than is revealed, and
does it not meet it with the words, "Nay but, O man, who art thou that
repliest against God?  Shall the thing formed say to him that formed
it, Why hast thou made me thus?"  There are many who speak as though
the Bible deals with eternity; *it does no such thing*.  It begins and
ends with time.  It is the inspired revelation of some of God's ways
and purposes relative to and during the AGES.  What took place before
the age times began we know very little, and of what will take place
when these ages have run their allotted course we know comparatively
nothing. Is it not wiser, better, and more befitting us as those who
have been saved by grace, to recognize the wisdom and the kindness
which underlie this withholding of information?

Think of the errors which have clustered around the wrong translation
of aion. Instead of honestly rendering the word "age," the translators
assumed that it must refer to eternity, and so wherever possible they
rendered it by words which indicate eternity, and that which is
everlasting.  Has not the book of Ecclesiastes been written in order
that we may be led to see the utter impossibility of pushing beyond
that which it has pleased God to reveal to us? "He hath set the world
(olam, the age) in their heart, so that no man can find out the work
that God maketh *from the beginning to the end*" (Eccles. iii. 11).  Is
there no word for us here?  Are we quite sure that we, if taught by the
Spirit of God, can hope to find out the work that God maketh *from the
beginning to the end*?  Some of God's children appear to think so. 
With all our heart we sympathize with them.  Problems press hard upon
us all. Believing implicitly in the full inspiration of Scripture, and
believing, moreover, that outside its sacred pages there is found no
light upon these matters, many have come to the conclusion that by
prayerful painstaking study, by careful collocation, the whole range of
God's purposes will at length be discovered.  Indeed this is no longer
a supposition.  Many of our readers will have read already articles
from the pens of earnest Bible students who believe that they have
pieced the whole together, and who do not hesitate to teach us what is
to take place after Satan, and those whose names are not found written
in the Book of Life, are cast into the Lake of Fire.  At this point
exposition ceases, and inference enters.  There is no written
revelation given us as to anything happening to those who are thus
consigned to the second death.  True, passages of tremendous import are
brought to bear upon the subject, but it is only by way of deduction. 
This immediately puts the whole subject beyond the limits of
inspiration, and we distrust our own hearts too much to allow ourselves
to be drawn beyond the divine limits.

When the reader opens the sacred volume he soon becomes aware that much
must have taken place which is unrecorded.  He can discover by what is
written in Isa. xlv. 18 that the earth was not created "without form
and void," but that it *became* so.  He can further discover that "the
world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" ( 2 Pet.
iii. 5, 6), but he will not find recorded the many details which his
natural mind would lead him to enquire into.  In the third chapter of
Genesis the Serpent, who is afterwards discovered to be Satan, is
introduced without any explanation as to how he came to be in the
condition of enmity against God that we find to be the case. The
Scriptures reveal glimpses into the exalted rank, awful ambition, and
fearful fall of Satan but *why* he was thus allowed to sin and all the
many problems of the philosopher regarding the origin of evil remain
unsolved.

Is it for us, when Scripture is silent, to attempt to force an answer
by turning to the oracles of philosophy and human reason?  If God has
hidden, shall we not rather bow the knee in submission?  Must we know
all?  Is there no room for faith?  Are not the words of Job xlii. 1-6 a
more fitting attitude of mind?  Job was troubled by the problem of
evil.  His friends sought to administer comfort, but in vain.  He never
received an answer to the problem. All that we can learn is recorded by
James, "that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

There are many expressions in Ecclesiastes which teach us that a calm
rest in the Lord, whether we fully understand all His ways or not, is
His will for us here.  "God shall judge the righteous and the wicked,
for there is a time THERE for every purpose and for every work"
(Eccles. iii. 17).  "Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad" (Eccles.
vii. 7).  Those who fail to see that God's purpose is over all must,
when they contemplate the oppression on every hand, feel driven almost
to desperation, but the consciousness that though HERE evil prospers,
there is a time THERE for every purpose and for every work, this will
keep us in the right attitude before God.  The reason of the
dissatisfaction of the writer of Ecclesiastes is recorded in vii.
25-29. It is written as an example and a warning.  He did not abide by
what was written; no, he would find out "the *reason* of things."  What
did he find? He found, by a bitter experience that wrecked his whole
career, that which he could have known by what had been written for his
guidance in the Proverbs. In those proverbs written for the guidance of
the young Solomon we read again and again warnings about the flattering
woman.  Solomon had given to him, in Proverbs xxxi. 10-31, a
description of the woman God would have him choose for his wife. 
Instead of this he wanted to know by experience the "wickedness of
folly," and he says:-

"I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and
nets, and her hands, as bands" (Eccles. vii. 26).

"Behold this I have found, saith the preacher, counting one by one to
find out the account, which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one
man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I
not found" (Eccles. vii. 27, 28).

Poor Solomon!  We see him with his "three score queens and four score
concubines, and virgins without number" (Song of Sol. vi. 8) still
unsatisfied (I Kings xi. 3 reveals the fact that Solomon had 700 wives
and 300 concubines, making a thousand in all).  What a pitiable object
lesson!  In the last chapter the preacher gives the "conclusion of the
whole matter."

"Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole (duty) of
man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret
thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil" (Eccles. ii. 13, 14).

All the searching, reasoning and speculating led him no further into
truth, but rather entangled him in confusion.  Believers today, under
an entirely different dispensation, and with the added advantage of a
complete Bible, are equally frail and human, and the moment we leave
what is written for deductions based upon our own limited and
prejudiced observations, we too must inevitably make shipwreck. 
Solomon failed, even though he retained the wisdom which was given him
by God.  Are we wiser than Solomon when we venture beyond the written
Word?  We are so conscious of our limited knowledge in view of these
tremendous themes, that we dare not assume finality in any one
particular doctrine.  Our only hope is to keep absolutely loyal to what
*God has said*, and to remember that the moment we go beyond and
supplement God's revelation by our deductions and theories, the moment
we criticize His right to hide as well as to reveal, that moment we
embark on a voyage chartless and rudderless, saved from shipwreck only
by a miracle of grace.

Yet one more consideration. In Dan. x. 21 and xi. 2 there is a
statement which is worthy of careful study.

"And I will shew thee that which is noted in the Scripture of truth."

"And now will I shew thee the truth."

The angel proceeds to give a most marvellously detailed account, first
of the events which were about to take place within a comparatively
short time of this announcement, and then of the yet future events of
the time of the end, or as he says in Dan. x. 14, "Now I am come to
make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days." 
The point to which we would direct the reader's attention is that what
the angel came to tell Daniel was already "noted (writing, v. 24, 25;
sign, vi. 8, 9) in the Scripture of truth."  What Scripture?  The
events foretold in Dan. xi. are not found written in any of the
Scriptures which had been given up to the time of Daniel.  If this be
so, the expression suggests the idea that there may be Scriptures of
truth to which the angels have access, and that the Scriptures which we
possess contain selections, given by God at different intervals, from
that heavenly scroll which contains possibly ever so much more than we
can as yet grasp.  The angels do not know everything.  Principalities
and powers are learning now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of
God.

We certainly do not possess a complete account of all God's purposes. 
Dan. xi. shews us that He knew fully, and had recorded in the
Scriptures to which the angel had access the doings of the kings of
Persia and of Greece.  We are sure that His knowledge was not limited
in the least, and that He knew the complete course of the history of
Greece and Persia, although the Scriptures we have received do not
treat of their histories beyond the scope of the particular purpose for
which they have been written.  Our Bible centres around Israel and
Jerusalem.  Whenever a nation came into touch with Israel, they came
within the scope of revelation.  Is it not certain that the One who
wrote the history of Israel from start to finish could write the
history of England or France equally as well?  Certainly, and for aught
we know the Scriptures of truth from which the angel took the small
portion given in Dan. xi. recorded the rise and fall of the Roman
Empire, and the complete histories of all the nations of the earth.

At once we see how limited the Scriptures really are, and that by
divine appointment.  There are lines of truth which enter the sacred
record in Genesis which commenced a long way back before the record of
Genesis begins. When we read that Satan abode not in the truth, we have
a statement which we believe, but we are all only too conscious that
the revelation is also exceedingly limited.  We do not know anything of
Satan's sin or circumstances; if it had been necessary and right for us
to have known, the Lord could have given us a most graphic and detailed
account.  Ezek. xxviii. 17 suggests that by pride he fell.  The lesson
is clear, but details which would minister to our curiosity are
withheld.  When the risen Lord spoke His wondrous words to the
disciples, as recorded in Luke xxiv., we read that He began at Moses
and the Prophets (verse 27).  He could have begun much earlier.  He
could have told of the time when Satan fell, and even have given
definite instructions regarding the many problems upon which the minds
of men have speculated for all time.  He could have settled in a few
words the problem of the introduction, permission and purpose of evil. 
We are not told that He did any such thing, but "beginning at Moses and
all the Prophets, He expounded (or interpreted) unto them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

>From our reading of the Word we have come to see that *eternity* is
nowhere its theme.  The Bible is entirely taken up with the purpose of
the ages.  Even then we have to see that the Bible largely passes over
much that we would like to know within the limits even of the ages, and
focuses our attention first upon the chosen people of Israel, and for a
short space upon the church of the present dispensation.  Its object is
not so much to explain all to us, but to guide us during this our
pilgrimage with the happy knowledge that in resurrection glory we shall
have time and opportunity to become acquainted with the wider
revelation of God's purposes and ways.

Let us not attempt to force back the roll beyond the appointed limits. 
Let us be content to say of some things that we do not know, because
God has not told us.  We shall be more pleasing to Him by so doing,
than if we take the responsibility upon ourselves of completing the
revelation which He has purposely left unfinished.  Once more we would
remark that in all that we have said we desire it to be understood that
we are not questioning or doubting God's Holy Word, but rather bow
before His sovereignty, acknowledging with grateful love the absolute
inspiration of all that He *has* revealed, and acknowledging equally
the sovereign wisdom that lies behind the withholding of much that we
might have expected to be written.

Let us keep close to what is written.  Let us be content with what God
*has* said, and if some lines of truth *appear* to conflict, let us not
attempt to reconcile them, for the very attempt savours of unbelief,
but let us be assured that when we see the complete purpose unfolded,
all will be perfect and harmonious, and transcend the highest flight of
our present imaginations.