The Bible is more than just a book. It is a library of books. The Bible books are united in a wonderful way that forces us to conclude that it is more than a random collection of literary works. There is behind the Bible a hand that guides and controls it, from its revelation to its preservation. The Greek term biblia originally meant books. The prophet Daniel was reading Jeremiah's prophetic writings, and the Scripture says that Jeremiah was included in "the books" (Daniel 9:2). Over the years, the plural came to be a singular, and "the books" simply became the book. That is the Bible, a book of wonderful unity.
To appreciate the Bible's wonderful unity, one should first look at its diversity. The Hebrews writer told us, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son ... " (Hebrews 1:1-2a). The tense of "hath spoken" means that all that God revealed to man has been revealed. It is complete. Down through centuries of revelation, these diverse ways were blended together by a common thread. The Bible is a record of God's revelations to man in various times, or ages, by different men and methods. The following statement also affirms the truth that God spoke through Christ. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace; wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him." (Ephesians 1:7-10)
The blending of variety one discovers in the Bible distinguishes it from all other books, both secular and sacred. The so-called sacred writings of the Moslem religion, Hinduism, and other such religions have no unity. They are collections of sayings, legends, and cultic phenomena. The Bible, on the other hand, is a book wherein variety blends into unity. Writers from various backgrounds wrote with a single purpose and with only one theme. Writers with different personalities, from different time periods and various countries, wrote a single book without consulting one another. Of no other literary production could such be said. This alone demonstrates the Bible's uniqueness and Divinity.
The Bible is a book that has unity of purpose. The purpose is to reveal God's great scheme for the redemption of fallen humanity. Genesis begins the story by furnishing the basis of the need for redemption. In Genesis, because of mankind's sin, God withdrew the Garden of Eden; in Revelation, He offered it again. A great drama unfolds in the books between the Bible's first and last books. James Orr wrote, "The opening chapters of Genesis have their counterpart in the 'new heaven and new earth' and paradise restored of the closing chapters of Revelation" (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 468).
The plan developed in the Bible does not vary from book to book; rather, it culminates in a perfect plan. The Old-Testament Law, with its sacrifices and rituals, anticipates a future time that will be much better. A New-Testament writer penned, "For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh." (Hebrews 10:1) The offering of Christ's body on the cross provided a full and sufficient atonement to redeem sinful man.
The Old Testament's prophetic books unite the Old and New Testaments. They not only provide a bridge between the Testaments, they also furnish factual evidence that Jesus Christ is truly God's Son, the Messiah. The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all the prophecies of His virgin birth, His life on earth, His death, and His suffering. Jesus Himself said, "These are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me." (Luke 24:44)
All of the prophecies concerning Christ and His work on earth are fulfilled. Another quotation from James Orr is fitting here. He wrote, "How truly all that was imperfect, transitional, temporary, in the Old Testament was brought to realization and completion in the redemption and spiritual kingdom of Christ need not be dwelt upon. Christ is the prophet, priest and king of the New Covenant. His perfect sacrifice, 'once for all,' supersedes and abolishes the typical sacrifices of the old economy" (Ibid.).
The different writers and Bible books all have one basic theme. That is, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) The theme of God's love for mankind runs like a golden thread throughout the Bible. His love made possible sinful man's reconciliation to God, through Christ. As an expression of His love, God not only gave His son, He also revealed the plan of salvation. With the gift of Jesus Christ as God's part of that plan, there came also the procedural requirements for men to obey in order to take advantage of the plan and be saved.
Here again, we find perfect unity. Jesus began to speak the terms of the great salvation and confirmed it to His apostles (Hebrews 2:3-4). When He told His disciples to go teach all nations by preaching the gospel, He told them also that those who believe the gospel and are baptized would be saved from sin. In each conversion case in Acts of the Apostles, the uniform procedure was followed. The preaching of Christ was followed by believers who repented of their sins, confessed Christ as their Lord, and were baptized. There is no variation. In an open and honest mind, there naturally arises a question--how could such unity be possible. How could such unity exist among so many different writers, from so many walks of life? There is only one satisfactory answer. A master weaver guided the golden thread of His own will throughout the entire fabric of the Bible.
One also observes the marvelous unity of the Bible in its progressive revelation that culminates in a terminal of perfection. During Christ's earthly ministry, He told His disciples, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." (John 16:12) In the next verse He promised to send them an infallible guide, the Holy Spirit, who would guide them to "all truth" (John 16:13).
Once the Holy Spirit revealed "all truth," revelation was complete; it then ceased. It is a marvelous thing to behold--the final word of revelation, blended together perfectly, to furnish us with all truth. A divine guiding hand, the Holy Spirit, searched God's mind and taught the Bible writers how to reveal it to all men, for all time (1 Corinthians 2:8-13). A thing that is complete and perfect, as the Bible is, admits neither addition nor subtraction. If one alters a perfect thing in any way, he destroys its perfection. Those who do so incur God's wrath, and they will pay the penalty (Revelation 22:18-20; Galatians 1:8-9).
The following illustration from W.H. Griffith Thomas summarizes the Bible's unity and shows how God is behind it all.
"All this inevitably compels the question as to how a unity of this kind is possible, and there is only one answer. Some years ago while a tunnel was being constructed in London, five shafts were sunk, and ten sets of men worked toward each other from opposite directions. Ultimately the sets met in the middle of the tunnel at the depth of one hundred feet. They were working practically in the dark, but they fitted so well together when the tunnels met each other that everyone could see there was a mastermind who had planned the whole thing. And so the various writers of the Old and New Testaments were working separately, as it were, in a tunnel in the dark, and the apostle Peter tells us they did not know exactly the meaning of their own words (1 Peter 1:11). But by and by they met, and now that we have the Bible complete, the writers are seen to have worked together and to have dovetailed into one another, thus showing the presence and power of a mastermind, which is none other than that of the Holy Spirit of God." (How We Got our Bible, Moody Press, p. 72)