The Meaning of Salvation

How to make the great truths of the Christian religion both simple and attractive is a task which has burdened the mind and well-nigh broken the heart of generations of Christian teachers. Many Christians have formed an ironclad, dogmatic idea that the gospel and all Christian teaching is so simple that all earnest attempts to give it fresh and deeper interpretation in the light of our own time is nothing but a display of worldly wisdom and a vain effort to confuse that which is already crystal clear. This is a fallacy. The difference between the casual reading of the Bible and the serious study of its doctrinal truths might be illustrated by the difference between the earth and geology. Apparently the earth is a very simple thing. The trees and the wheat fields hold no mysteries for the birds, and the earth of nature may be known very thoroughly with but very little understanding of its meaning. The Indians knew the physical earth perhaps more completely and in greater detail than any scientific geologist has ever known it, yet the Indian did not understand the earth; and as a consequence he walked over vast treasures of oil, coal, diamonds, and gold without ever surmising their hidden existence. Now, without knowing the surface of the earth as minutely as the Indian did, the geologist is able to find much of its hidden treasure because he has studied the earth scientifically, or theoretically, if you will, and he has progressed in understanding it so that he knows how to find its treasures. The same thing is true of the Bible. Millions of simple-hearted Christians have read the Bible for ages and to none of them has it done any harm -- in fact, as the earth yielded life -- giving food to the Indians, so the Bible read earnestly by the humblest minds yields subsistence for the soul. Nevertheless, I earnestly believe that a systematic, prolonged, and discerning study of the Bible will yield a constantly deepening understanding of its great truths so that its immense treasures will be gathered bountifully by the earnest seeker after truth.