He was, and of what the apostles thought Him to be, stands as the
verification of what we know Him to be. The Bible and experience are
mutually illuminating and corroborative. It is possible that the Church
receiving the deposit of truth orally from the apostles, might have
passed that truth down orally, and by her ordinances, illustratively as
she did, until the Gospels were written; as she must do now in lands
where the people can not read, having no written language. To avoid,
however, the defects of human memory and to accumulate a standard by
which teaching and experience should be verified, "God who at sundry
times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers, hath
in these last days spoken unto us by His Son;" through His Son to the
apostles; and by the apostles and their successors to us; those
successors being not those made so by the touch of a human hand; but by
God's transforming grace, giving to every believer power and privilege
"to speak the things we do know." "We having the same spirit of faith;
according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken, we
also believe, and therefore speak; knowing that He which raised up the
Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with
you. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might,
through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God."