The God-breathed Writings

by HYLAND, D. T. | Category: N/a | Nov 2003

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 words 'given by inspiration of God' (2 Tim.3:16 NKJV), 'God breathed' (NIV) and 'inspired by God' (NASB) 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, so 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 has spoken' (Is.1:20). Those who believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture have used two words to describe the nature of the process. Plenary means full or entire; verbal means the Spirit's guidance extended to the very words.

The message did not originate with the writers, nor did they put their own interpretation on what they wrote 'for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit' (2 Pet.1:21). The Greek word 'pheromenoi' (from 'phero') translated moved literally means 'being carried'. The same Greek word is used to describe a ship being driven in a storm, 'So when the ship was caught, and could not head into the wind, we let her drive' (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 the human writers through His Spirit. They were under the constraint of the Spirit of God who bore them along. This clearly excludes the idea that the Scriptures are of merely human origination.

The passages referred to 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 or how Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit. This view of inspiration has been described as 'a theory of biblical inspiration which regards the written words of the Bible as divinely dictated'; or as another writer puts it 'the Holy Spirit used the writers as a dictaphone'. However, these writers do not do justice to the human element in the process. The Spirit of the living God was speaking so directly through the human writers that the 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 sanctified. Consequently there is no uniformity of literary style. Through the leading of the Spirit of God the authors were preserved from error and their writings are authoritative.

Both Testaments accredited

The Gospels reveal that the Lord treated the Old Testament as having divine authority. For Christ, what Scripture says, God says. It has been well said that the veracity of the Old Testament and the deity of Christ stand or fall together. The Old Testament is validated by the Lord in retrospect and His words to the apostles in the upper room confirm that He accredited the New Testament in prospect. The Lord promised His disciples that on His return to heaven He would send '�another Helper� the Spirit of Truth�'. The Lord assured them, '�He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you�' (John 14:16,17,26). This was a promise of the Spirit's guidance in the completion of the canon of Scripture. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the New Testament writers became channels through whom further truth was communicated.

Inspiration refers to the original autographs none of which is extant. The transmission of the text is outside the scope of this article. There are, however, very good grounds to be assured that the original text has been preserved with a remarkable degree of accuracy. We are indeed indebted to scholars whose understanding of the original languages has given us the priceless benefit of having the Scriptures in our mother tongue.

HYLAND, D. T. | Nov 2003
N/a