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The two main texts for the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures are:
11 Timothy 3:16. All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. (NIV)
11 Peter 1:20,21. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (NIV)
Instead of 'given by inspiration of God" (KJV), the NIV more correctly and literally translates the single Greek word theopneustia "God-breathed." All Scripture is "God-breathed." The words "given by" are not in the original. To say the Scriptures are 'Inspired of God" can be misleading. "Inspired" or 'Inspiration" means "breathed into." This could be mistaken to mean that God breathed into the writers of Scripture or the things they wrote, but this is not what the Greek word theopneustia means. It means breathed out, not breathed into. It means that the Scriptures themselves are the direct product of the breath of God. They are of divine origin and are a divine creation. Understanding this difference between 'inspiration" and "expiration," nevertheless, the doctrine of the divine nature of the Scriptures has always been and continues to be referred to as the "doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures."
The second text tells us more about how God produced the Scriptures. He used chosen men as instruments. They did not write, however, what their own minds and wills chose to write, but what was in God's mind and will for them to write. The KJV says they were "moved" by the Holy Spirit, or, as the NIV says, "carried along" by the Holy Spirit. As B.B. Warfield says,
'The term here used is a very specific one. It is not to be confounded with guiding, or directing, or controlling, or even leading in the full sense of that word. It goes beyond such terms, in assigning the effect produced specifically to the active agent. What is "moved" is taken up by the "mover', and conveyed by the "mover's" power, not its own, to the "mover's" goal, not its own. The men who spoke from God are here declared, therefore, to have been moved by the Holy Spirit and brought by His power to the goal of His choosing. The things which they spoke under this operation of the Spirit were therefore His things, not theirs. And that is why "the prophetic word" is so sure [v. 1 91. Though spoken through the instrumentality of men, it is, by virtue of the fact that these men spoke as 'moved by the Holy Spirit,' an immediately divine word." (The Intemational Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Gen. Ed.; Eerdmans:Grand Rapids,MI; 1982, "Inspiration," B.B. Warfield, Vol.2,p.841)
Although these are the two main texts for the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures, the doctrine by no means rests on these alone. As Gordon Clarke says, "Even those who have a fair knowledge may not realize how insistently the Bible makes this claim" [that it is divinely inspired). Robert L. Saucy writes:
"When we consult the biblical writers, we find they claim to have written and spoken God's words. In the first chapter of the Bible, we note the statement, 'And God said' repeated at least 10 times. Various other introductory statements permeate the O.T. Scriptures: 'Thus says the Lord' (Amos 1:3); 'the Lord spoke to me ... saying' (Isa.8:11); 'the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken'(Micah 4:4). Someone has counted some 3,808 phrases such as these in the O.T. Isaiah alone declared at least 20 times that his writings were the 'word of the Lord' (see lsa.1:10). Jeremiah claimed almost 100 times that the word of the Lord came to him (see Jer.1:2, 4; 2:1). Ezekiel made the same claim some 60 times (see Ezek.3:16). The O.T. writers asserted, further, that they were commanded by God to write His words. Moses said the Lord told him, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel" (Ex.34:27). Jeremiah related God's similar instructions to him: 'Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book' (Jer.30:2) .... One of the strongest evidences of the inspiration of the O.T. is seen in the many citations of these writings in the N.T. Roger Nicole, professor of theology at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, has counted at least 295 direct references. If we include clear allusions and passages reminiscent of the O.T. Scriptures,the number,according to one scholar, goes up to 4,105. Not only are these passages cited as absolutely authoritative, but the way in which they are introduced is most significant for our understanding of the biblical teaching of inspiration .... [The N.T. writers recognized] the dual author-ship, divine and human" of scriptural statements, attested in the following passages: 'that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet' (Maft.1:22); 'David himself said in the Holy Spirit' (Mark 12:36); 'the Holy Spirit fore told by the mouth of David' (Acts1:16);TheHoly Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah' (Acts 28:25). While we may speak properly of their dual authorship, it is clear from these statements that the biblical writers considered the primary author to be God through His inspiring Spirit .... On at least 56 occasions [in the N.Tj God is said to be the Author [of the O.T.]. For instance, in Acts 13:34-35, a citation from Isaiah and another from the Psalms are both said to be spoken by God. Of particular interest is the fact that many of the citations are actually the words of men addressed to God in their original O.T. setting. The Psalms cited in Hebrews 1:7-12 are all spoken by the psalmist in praise to God, yet they are introduced as spoken by God. Similarly, the words of the psalmist, 'Today if you hear His voice' (Ps.95:7), are introduced as the saying of the Holy Spirit (Heb.3:7)." (Is the Bible Reliable?, Robert L. Saucy; Victor Books: Wheaton, IL; 1978,pp.57,58,60,61)
Louis Gaussen writes:
"Mark, in Scripture, how the prophets testify of the Spirit that makes them speak, and of the wholly divine authority of their words: you will ever find in their language one uniform definition of their office, and of their inspiration. They speak; it is no doubt, their voice that makes itself heard; it is their person that is agitated; it is, no doubt, their soul also that often is moved;-but their words are not only theirs; they are, at the same time, the words of Jehovah. 'The mouth of the Lord hath spoken;'-the Lord hath spoken,'they say unceasingly [Mic.4:4; Jer.9:12; 13:15; 30:4; 50:1; 51.-121- Isa.8:11; Amos 3:1; Ex.4:30; Deut.18:21,22; Josh.24:21. 'I will open my mouth in the midst of them, I saith the Lord to his servant Ezekiel.-The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue,' said the royal psalmist [2 Sam.23:1,2].-'Hear the word of the Lord!' It is thus that the prophets announce what they are about to say [Isa.38:14; Jer.19:3; 101; 17:20]....-the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord' [7:1; 11:1; 181; 211; 261; 27:1; 301; and in many other places];---the burden of the word of the Lord by Malachi'[1:11;---the word of the Lord that came unto Hosea' [1:1 1;-'In the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet'[1:1] .... God, when He met Moses, said to him, 'I will be with thy mouth' [Ex.4:12,15]; and that, when he made Balaam speak, 'he put a word in Balaam's mouth' [Num.23:5]. The apostles, too, quoting a passage from David in their prayer, express themselves in these words: 'Thou, Lord, hast said by the mouth of thy servant David' [Acts 4:25]. And St. Peter, addressing the multitude of the disciples: 'Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake before concerning Judas'[Acts 1:161. The same apostle also, in the holy place, under Solomon's porch, cried to the people of Jerusalem, 'But those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled' [Acts 3:18] .... And, yet again, let the reader be so good as carefully to examine, as it stands in the Greek, that expression which recurs so often in the Gospel, and which is so conclusive, 'That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet,-(and even) which was spoken OF THE LORD BY THE PROPHET .... saying' [Matt.1:22; 2:5,15,23; 13:35; 21:4; 27:9; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17]. "' (Theopneustia, The Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, F.S.R. Louis Gaussen, transI. by David Scott; The Bible Institute Colportage Assn.:Chicago; [1841], pp.60-62)
B.B. Warfield notes how often the N.T. writers equated "Scripture says" with "God says," making no distinction between the two:
"What Scripture says, God says; and accordingly we read such remarkable declarations as these: 'For the scripture says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you up for this very purpose..."' (Rom.9:17); 'And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "in you shall all the nations be blessed"' (Gal.3:8). These are not instances of simple personification of Scripture, which in itself is a sufficiently remarkable usage (Mk.15:28; Jn.7:38,42; 19:37; Rom.4:3; IO: 1 1; 1 1:2; Gal. 4:30; 1 Tim.5:18; Jas.2:23; 4:5), vocal with the conviction expressed by James (4:5) that Scripture cannot speak in vain. They indicate a certain confusion in contemporary speech between 'Scripture' and 'God,' the outgrowth of a deep-seated conviction that the word of Scripture is the word of God. It was not 'Scripture' that spoke to Pharaoh, or gave the great promise to Abraham, but God. But 'Scripture' and 'God' lay so close together in the minds of the writers of the N.T. that they could naturally speak of 'Scripture' doing what Scripture records God as doing .... [Quoting Heb.3:7 (Ps.95:7)-l Acts 4:25 (Ps.2:1); Acts 13:34 (Isa.55:3 and Ps.16:10)] The words put into God's mouth in each case are not words of God recorded in the Scriptures, but just Scripture words in themselves. When we take the two classes of passages together, in the one of which the Scriptures are spoken of as God, while in the other God is spoken of as if He were the Scriptures, we may perceive how close the identification of the two was in the minds of the writers of the N.T. This identification is strikingly observable in ... [the first chapter of Hebrews, for example, v.5 (Ps. 2:7; 2 Sam.7:14); v.6 (Deut.32:43, LXX, or Ps. 97:7); v.7 (Ps.104:4); v.8 (Ps.45:6); v.10 (Ps.102:25-27); v.13 (Ps. 110:1)]. Here not only passages in which God is the speaker but also passages in which God is not the speaker (but is addressed or spoken of) are indiscriminately assigned to God, because they all have in common that they are words of Scripture, and as words of Scripture are words of God." (ISBE, op.cit., pp.843,844)
Jesus Himself repeatedly confirmed the divine inspiration of O.T. Scripture throughout His earthly ministry, from beginning to end. As Robert Saucy writes:
"On every hand we find Him quoting Scripture or alluding to its contents in His teaching, and personally submitting His life to its authority .... There are 3,779 verses in the Authorized KJV of the four Gospels. According to Graham Scroggie, 1,934 of these verses, in whole or in part, contain the words of Christ. Out of these 1,934 verses approximately 180, or close to 1out of 10 verses of Jesus' recorded teaching, cite or indirectly allude to the O.T. Moreover, the Lord's references encompass the entire scope of the O.T. history. Among the many people and events mentioned are the creation of man and the institution of marriage (Mt.19:4-6), the death of Abel (Mt. 23:35), the days of Noah (Mt.24:37), the destruction of Sodom (Lk.17:29), Abraham (Jn.8:56), the appearance of God in the burning bush (Mk.12:26), the life of David (Mt.12:3), the ministry of Elijah (Lk.4:25), and the martyrdom of the prophet Zechariah (Mt.23:35). Jesus frequently referred to the Mosaic authorship of [the first five books of the Bible]. He mentioned Moses as the writer of the Law some 24 times and quoted him 16 times. He stated plainly in John 7:19, 'Did not Moses give you the law ... ?..... Jesus quoted from all sections of the book [of Isaiah] and ascribed the statements to [him] .... Jesus ... accepted [the historicity of the first chapters of Genesis]. According to our Lord, God did create Adam and Eve (Matt. 19:4), Cain and Abel existed (Lk. 1 1:51), and there was a flood in the days of Noah (Mt.24:38). Jesus accepted the reality of the destruction of Sodom by fire and brimstone and the story of Lots wife (Lk.17:29-32). He acknowledged the miracles of Elijah (Lk.4:25-26) and even the much ridiculed record of Jonah and the great fish is attested as reliable by Jesus (Mt. 12:40) .... No instance appears in Scripture of Jesus questioning the truthfulness of the O.T. record. Interspersed in the teaching of Jesus .... are several explicit statements about Scripture, which give us His understanding of their nature....
Matthew 5:17,18. 'Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.'(NIV)
"In these words, Jesus declared the absolute authority of the Scriptures down to the very detail....
"John 10:34-36. 'Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 1 1 have said you are gods' [Ps.82:6]? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came-and the Scripture cannot be broken-what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, I am God's Son'?" (NIV)
"...Referring to Christ, Bishop Moule declared, 'He absolutely trusted the Bible; and though there are in it things inexplicable and intricate that have puzzled me so much, I am going, not in a blind sense, but reverently, to trust the Book because of Him."' (Saucy, op. cit., pp.63,64,69-72)
Our entire discussion thus far of the inspiration of the Scripture deals only with the O.T., but the claim for inspiration is easily transferred to the New as well. Warfield says of the writers of the N.T.:
"They do not for an instant imagine themselves, as ministers of a new covenant, less in possession of the Spirit of God than the ministers of the old covenant : they freely recognize, indeed, that they have no sufficiency of themselves, but they know that God has made them sufficient (2 Cor.3:5). They perform their work of proclaiming the gospel, therefore, in full confidence that they speak 'by the Holy Spirit' (I Pet.1:12), to whom they attribute both the matter and form of their teaching (I Cor.2:13). They, therefore, speak with the utmost assurance of their teaching (Gal.1:7); and they issue commands with the completest authority (I Thess.4:2,14; 2 Thess.3:6,12), making it, indeed, the test of whether one has the Spirit that he should recognize what they command as commandments of God (1 Cor.14:37). It would be strange, indeed, if these high claims were made for their oral teaching and commandments exclusively. In point of fact, they are made explicitly also for their written injunctions. It was 'the things' which Paul was 'writing,' the recognition of which as commands of the Lord he makes the test of the Spirit-led person (I Cor.14:37). There seems involved in such an attitude toward their own teaching, oral and written, a claim on the part of the NT writers to something very much like the 'inspiration' which they attribute to the writers of the OT. And all doubt is dispelled when we observe the NT writers placing the writings of one another in the same category of 'Scripture' with the books of the OT. The same Paul who, in 2 Timothy 3:16, declared that 'every (or 'all'I scripture is God-breathed' had already written in I Timothy 5:18, 'for scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain," and 'The laborer deserves his wages."' The first clause here is derived from Deuteronomy and the second from the Gospel of Luke, though both are cited as together constituting, or better, forming part of the 'scripture' which Paul adduces as so authoritative as by its mere citation to end all strife. Who shall say that, in the declaration of the later epistle that "all' or 'every' Scripture is God-breathed, Paul did not have Luke and, along with Luke, whatever other new books he classed with the old under the name of Scripture, in the back of his mind, along with those old books which Timothy had had in his hands from infancy? And the same Peter who declared that every 'prophecy of scripture' was the product of men who spoke 'from God,' being 'moved' by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), in this same epistle (3:16), places Paul's epistles in the category of Scripture along with whatever other books deserve that name. For Paul, says he, wrote these epistles, not out of his own wisdom, but according to the wisdom given him,' and though there are some things in them difficult to understand, yet it is only 'the ignorant and unstable' who wrest these difficult pas-sages-as what else could be expected of men who wrest 'the other scriptures' (obviously the OT is meant)-'to their own destruction'?" (ISBE, op.cit., pp.848,849)
That the concept of the inspiration of Scripture included not just the main ideas but also the very words themselves can be seen in both Jesus' and Paul's use of Scripture. Warfield says,
"How completely the Scriptures were to them just the word of God may be illustrated by a passage like Galatians 3:16: 'it does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many; but, referring to one, "And to your offspring," which is Christ.'We have seen Our Lord hanging an argument on the very words of Scripture (Jn. 1 0:34); elsewhere His reasoning depends on the particular tense (Mt.22:32) or word (Mt.22:43) used in Scripture. Here Paul's argument rests similarly on a grammatical form." (ISBE, op.cit., p.844)
The doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures does not overlook the fact, however, that God used human instruments to do the actual writing. Neither are we to think of the writers as robots or writing by dictation. God used each author's own personality and vocabulary to convey His message, but He moved them in such a way that no human error was permitted to enter. In this regard, the Bible is often referred to as a divine-human book, and the similarity in this of the divine and human aspects of the Person of Christ is often cited. Is Jesus God or is He man? He is both God and man united in a single individual. Similarly, are the Scriptures divine or are they human? "Men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Warfield writes:
"The NT writers have, therefore, no difficulty in assigning Scripture to its human authors, or in discovering in Scripture traits due to its human authorship. They freely quote it by such simple formulas as these: 'Moses says' (Rom.10:19); 'Moses said' (Mt.22:24-1 Mk.7:10; Acts 3:22); 'Moses writes' (Rom.10:5); 'Moses wrote' (Mk.12:19-1 Lk.20:28); 'Isaiah ... to say' (Rom.10:20); 'Isaiah said' (Jn.12:39); 'Isaiah cries' (Rom.9:27); 'as Isaiah predicted' (Rom.9:29); 'said Isaiah the prophet' (Jn.1:23)-l 'did Isaiah prophesy' (Mk.7:6; Mt.15:7); 'David says' (Lk,20:42; Acts 2:25; Rom. 1 1:9); 'David said' (Mk. 12:36). It is to be noted that when thus Scripture is adduced by the names of its human authors, it is a matter of complete indifference whether the words adduced are comments of these authors or direct words of God recorded by them. As the plainest words of the human authors are assigned to God as their real author, so the most express words of God, repeated by the scriptural writers, are cited by the names of these human writers (Mt.15:7; Mk.7:6; Rom.10:5,19; cf.Mk.7:10 from the Decalogue). 'Moses says 'or 'David says,'which is thus only a way of saying that Scripture says, 'which is the same as to say that 'God says.'" (ISBE, op.cit., p.845)
From the preceding considerations (as well as many more) we may conclude the following doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures:
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, inspired by the Spirit of God equally in all parts (commonly called plenary ["full'] inspiration), including not only the ideas but also the very words (commonly called verbal inspiration), so that what is written is without error (inerrant) whether of doctrine, fact, or precept. or, more briefly, "What Scripture says, God says-through human agents and without error." The Scriptures are complete and sufficient. Nothing is left out that God wanted in them, and nothing is in them that God wanted out. And nothing is to be added to them or taken from them. Scripture is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. According to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1571), "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation."
Or, as the Westminster Confession (1646) states: "The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture; unto which nothing at any time is to be added whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men."
Any later purported revelation since the completion of the NT that "corrects" or contradicts Scripture is false. Although God has often inspired men to speak or write many things that are helpful, this inspiration is not at all to be compared to the inspiration of the Scriptures. MI writings of men by ordinary inspiration are fallible. Only Scripture is infallible. We should never hold the writings of men under common inspiration in the same regard that we do the Scriptures. This applies also to all traditions, revelations, and utterances. The "moving" of the Holy Spirit of the writers of Scripture goes beyond mere guiding, directing, or controlling as in ordinary inspiration. On the other hand, this does not mean that the Scripture writers were robots or wrote by dictation. Their individual personalities and vocabularies were very much actively involved in the expression of their message, as is evident by the differences in terminology, style, emotion, and personal references in each, so that the Bible is a profoundly human book as well as divine, just as Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. Because the Scriptures are divine, they are infallible (or, inerrant) and have unquestionable authority. MI other writings, utterances, or revelations must be measured and judged by Scripture as a rule. It is the highest or ultimate authority, the "Supreme Court" of truth to which we appeal in all disputes.
BIBLIOLOGY
Gaussen, F.S.R. Louis. Theopnuestia, The Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, transi. by David Scott; The Bible Institute Colportage Assn.:Chicago; [1841] pp.60-62.
Saucy, Robert L. Is the Bible Reliable? Victor Books:Wheaton,IL; 1978, pp.57,58,60,61,63,64,69-72.
Warfield, B. B. "Inspiration;" The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Gen. Ed,; Eerdmans: Grand Rapids,MI; 1982, Vol.2, p.841,843,844,845,848,849.
Leon Stump, Pastor of Victory Christian Center