The Word of God Unbound

The Resurrection of Christ was Paul’s sheet-anchor. Enlarge upon verse 8, wherein he mentions it as the essence of the gospel.

He himself is suffering and bound, but he is not without comfort.

His great joy is that the Word of God is not bound.

I. IN WHAT SENSES THIS IS TRUE.

The Word of God is not bound—

1. So that it cannot be made known.

   • The ministers who preach it may be imprisoned, but not the Word.
   • The Book which contains it may be burned, but the truth abides.
   • The doctrine may become almost extinct as to open testimony, and yet it will revive.

2. So that it cannot reach the heart.

   • It will not be hindered of its divine purpose.
   • Through the obduracy of the sinner, for grace is omnipotent.
   • Through absence of the means. The Holy Spirit can reach the conscience without the hearing or reading of the Word.
   • Through actual derision of it. Even the scoffer and skeptic can yet be convinced and converted.

3. So that it cannot comfort the soul.

   • Conviction of sin will not hinder consolation when faith is given.
   • Constitutional despondency will give way before the light of the Word.
   • Confirmed despair shall be overcome, even as Samson snapped the cords with which he had been bound.

4. So that it cannot be fulfilled.

   • Providence will carry out the promise to the individual.
   • Providence will perform the threat to the rebellious.
   • Providence will achieve the prophecies of the millennial future.

5. So that it cannot prevail over error.

   • Infidelity, Ritualism, Popery, fanaticism, &c., shall not bind the gospel so as to retain their mischievous power over men. The gospel must and will accomplish the purposes of God.

II. FOR WHAT REASONS THIS IS TRUE.

The Word of God cannot be bound, since—

1. It is the voice of the Almighty.

2. It is attended by the energetic working of the Holy Spirit.

3. It is so needful to men. As men will have bread, and you cannot keep it from them, so must they have the truth. The gospel is in such demand that there must be free trade in it.

4. It is in itself a free and unbound thing, the very essence of liberty.

5. It creates such enthusiasm in the hearts wherein it dwells, that men must declare it abroad: it must be free.

III. WHAT OTHER FACTS ARE PARALLEL WITH THIS?

As the binding of Paul was not the binding of the Word of God, so—

The death of ministers is not the death of the gospel.

The feebleness of workers is not its feebleness.

The bondage of the preacher’s mind is not its bondage.

The coldness of men is not its coldness.

The falsehood of hypocrites does not falsify it.

The spiritual ruin of sinners is not the defeat of the gospel.

The rejection of it by unbelievers is not its overthrow.

Rejoice, that the Word of the Lord has free course.

Arouse yourselves to work with it and by it.

Accept its free power and be yourself free at once.

Illustrations

“But the Word of God is not bound.” It runs and is glorified (2 Thessalonians 3:1), being free and not fettered. “I preach, though a prisoner,” says Paul; so did Bradford and other martyrs. “Within a few days of Queen Mary’s reign, almost all the prisons in England were become right Christian schools and churches,” says Mr. Fox, “so that there was no greater comfort for Christian hearts than to come to the prisons to behold their virtuous conversation, and to hear their prayers, preachings, etc.” The Earl of Derby’s accusation in the Parliament House against Mr. Bradford was, that he did more hurt (so he called good evil) by letters and conferences in prison, than ever he did when he was abroad by preaching.—John Trapp.

In a portrait of Tyndale, still preserved in this country, beside the heroic man is a device: a burning book is tied to a stake, while a number of similar books are seen flying out of the fire. The meaning is an historic fact. Tonstal, the Bishop of London, had bought up some scores of Tyndale’s Testaments, and burned them. The money paid for them enabled Tyndale to bring out a new and more correct edition.

Towards the close of the last century, before the days of the great Bible Societies, there was, for a season, a woeful want of Bibles in America, caused partly by the prevalence of French infidelity, and partly by the general religious apathy which followed the Revolutionary War. In that period a man went into a book-store in Philadelphia and asked to buy a Bible. “I have none,” said the bookseller. “There is not a copy for sale in the city: and I can tell you further,” said he (for he was of the French way of thinking), “in fifty years there will not be a Bible in the world.” The rough answer of the customer was, “There will be plenty of Bibles in the world a thousand years after you are dead and gone to hell.”—The Christian Age.

When the daughter of the Mayor of Baune had lost her canary bird, her wise parent gave strict orders that all the gates of the town should be shut, that the creature might not escape. The bird was soon over the hills and far away, despite the locking of the gates. When a truth is once known no human power can prevent its spreading; attempts to hinder its progress will be as ineffectual as the mayor’s proclamation. As a bird of the air, truth flies abroad on swift wings; as a ray of light it enters palaces and cottages; as the unfettered wind it laughs at laws and prohibitions. Walls cannot confine it, nor iron bars imprison it; it is free, and makes free. Let every freeman be upon its side, and being so, let him never allow a doubt of its ultimate success to darken his soul.

C. H. S.

The monument in Westminster Abbey to the memory of the two Wesleys bears the sentence, “God buries his workmen, but carries on his work.”

Truth is more incompressible than water. If compressed in one way, it will exude through the compressing mass, the more visible through the attempts to compress it.—Dr. Pusey.