"Inspired Of God"

by HYLAND, D. T. | Category: General | May 1980

Scripture is God's Self-revelation to men. Man cannot by searching find out God and apart from an infallible revelation he is in pitch darkness. But God delights to make Himself known; He is pleased to reveal His truth to men. Truth is like light. It is the nature of light to shine, similarly it is the nature of truth to be revealed.

The divine origin of Scripture is usually described as "inspiration". This is a specialized use of the word, and is very different from describing the work of a talented artist or musician as inspired. The five words "given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16 AV) or the three words "inspired of God" (RV) translate a single Greek adjective theopneustos (theos, God, pneo, to breathe). The word theopneustos literally means "God-breathed". This implies that God "breathed out" the words which were written down by prophets and apostles to become Scripture. "God-breathed" means that the words of the human authors were in reality the words of God. They were spoken so directly by the Spirit of God, to and through men, that they may be accurately described as issuing from His mouth. "The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it" (Isa. 1:20). The Scriptures originate from the Holy Spirit of God.

The message did not originate with the writer, nor did the writers put their own construction or interpretation on what they wrote. "No prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Pet. 1:21 RSV). The Greek word phero, translated "moved", means literally "being carried". The same Greek word is used to describe the movement of a ship being driven in a storm. "When the ship was caught, and could not face the wind, we gave way to it, and were driven" (Acts 27:15). The direction of the ship was not determined by human initiative but by the wind. In the inspiration of the Scriptures, God was guiding and leading the human writers through His Spirit. They were under the constraint of the Spirit of God who bore them along. This is a clear rejection of the idea that the Scriptures are of merely human origination.

The passages referred to above are probably as far as Scripture goes in defining the nature of inspiration. Scripture offers no detailed analysis of the mode of inspiration. We are not told how the Spirit of God worked in the inspiration of the human writers, just as we are not told how the Spirit of God brings about the new birth.

Some negative statements can be made to show what inspiration did not involve. It did not lead to the obliteration or overriding of the personality of the human writer, consequently there is no uniformity of literary style. As a general principle the process was not mechanical, the faculties of the writers were fully employed.

In some cases we are told that God was preparing these men from birth for the work of communicating His word to men (see Jer. 1:5; Gal. 1:15,16). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, "God spoke" (1:1 RSV); Peter says, "Men spoke from God" (2 Pet. 1:21 RSV). These statements are complementary. One of the clearest attempts to define inspiration the writer has come across is, "It is that process which has resulted in a perfectly accurate and authoritative compilation of literature which everywhere bears the mark of divine origin".

The view of inspiration put forward in this article is sometimes described as "a theory of biblical inspiration which regards the written words of the Bible as divinely dictated". Another writer says that the view of inspiration for which we are contending implies that "the Holy Spirit used the writers as a dictaphone". This is a caricature of the truth'. The Spirit of the living God was speaking so directly through the human writers that their words were in a real sense His words. But the process was not mechanical; the men were not robots, they were living agents. The minds and personalities of the human writers were fully employed and their natural talents were sanctified. By the leading of the Spirit of God they were preserved from error and their writings are authoritative.

The Gospels reveal that the Lord treated the Old Testament as having divine authority. This is not because of the authority of the human authors, but because God is the ultimate Author. For Christ, what Scripture says, God says. It has been well said that the veracity of the Old Testament Scriptures and the deity of Christ stand or fall together. We have the Lord's authority for totally rejecting the view of some liberal scholars that "special religious interests affected the minds of many of the writers in dealing with early material, and they felt justified in modifying the narrative for their own purposes . . . myths and legends are related as though they were actual occurrences". This is a systematic attempt to undermine the authority of the Scriptures and the Lord's validation of them. But the Old Testament is accredited by the authority of the Lord in retrospect and the Lord's words to the apostles in the Upper Room before His betrayal reveal that He accredited the New Testament in prospect, as we shall now consider more fully.

The Lord promised His disciples that on His return to heaven He would send "the Comforter... the Spirit of truth" (John 14:16,17). The Lord led the apostles to expect that when the Holy Spirit came to indwell them He

would be their Teacher and Guide. The Lord had many things to tell them, but He said, "Ye cannot bear them now"(John 16:12). In describing some of the functions of the indwelling Spirit the Lord said, "He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you" (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit would work on the human faculty of memory assisting them in the recall of the Lord's teaching and of events they had witnessed. Addressed to the apostles the Lord's words no doubt included the promise of an unction of the Holy Spirit in their oral ministry. There can be no doubt, however, that they also refer to the writing of the New Testament. This is a promise of the Spirit's guidance in the completion of the canon of Scripture. The Spirit of God would teach them, guide them into all the truth and show them things to come. All these elements are found in the Gospels, the Epistles and the book of Revelation. Through the operation of the Holy Spirit these men became channels through whom fresh truth was communicated to men. Secrets were divulged in their oral and written ministry. The divine Spirit became to the New Testament writers "the Spirit of wisdom and revelation" in their knowledge of Christ (Eph. 1:17).

HYLAND, D. T. | May 1980
General