#4. The Inspired Book.


Many and varied definitions of the term “Inspiration”, when used of the Scriptures, have been suggested. The following adapted from that given by Dr. Henderson may be helpful:--

“Divine inspiration is an extraordinary and supernatural influence exerted by the Holy Spirit on the minds of the sacred writers, in such words and degrees as to lead to, and secure, in documentary forms, the depositions of such historical, doctrinal and prophetic truth as Infinite wisdom deemed requisite for the immediate and future guidance of His people.”

Inspiration is found in operation in the Scriptures in two modes:

(1) Immediate, without the use of external means.
(2) Mediate, by the intervention of outside agencies.

Under the first heading we place such passages and statements as II Sam. xxiii. 2, “in me”, Matt. x. 20, “in you” and I Pet. i. 11, “in them”.

Under the second we place those cases where a variety of means is employed.

(1) Audible and articulate sounds (as recorded in Numb. vii. 89; viii. 1 and xii. 8).
“There fell a voice” (Dan. iv. 31; Matt. iii. 17; xvii. 5; II Pet. i. 17, 18; and John xii. 28, 30).

(2) Appearance accompanying the spoken word.
We have the fire, blackness, tempest and sound of a trumpet at the giving of the law (Heb. xii. 18-21); the vision of the Seraphim in Isa. vi.; the appearing of the Lord to Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts ix. 4; xxii. 9; xxvi. 14); the appearing of angels to Abraham, to David, to Gideon and Mary, and the mediation of angels at the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai (Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 1, 2), and at the birth of Christ at Bethlehem (Luke ii. 9-14).

The inspiration of “words” (I Cor. ii. 13; John xvii. 8), as well as of the Scriptures as a whole, is stressed; indeed the testimony of the Scriptures regarding inspiration is rather to the inspired Book than inspired men, for the instruments used by God may be as holy as Moses and as wise as Daniel, or they may be as crafty as Caiaphas and as greedy as Balaam: as insensible as the hand at Belshazzar’s feast, or as intangible as the phenomena at Sinai.

The whole of the O.T. Scriptures are the work of men named “Prophets”. Moses was a prophet (Acts vii. 37); David was a prophet (Acts ii. 30); all who “spoke since the world began” were prophets (Luke i. 70). The O.T. Scriptures are therefore the work of prophets.

What of the N.T. writers? Peter was a prophet (II Pet. iii. 2), and Paul was a prophet (Rom. xvi. 24). N.T. prophets are greater than those who were before them (Luke vii. 28). Moreover, the apostle is always placed higher than the prophet (I Cor. xii. 28; Eph. ii. 20; iv. 11), so that if inspiration is associated with prophetic office, much more is it to be associated with the apostolic gift. The apostles spoke “as though God did beseech” by them (II Cor. v. 20). Their words were received, not as the words of men, but as the words of God (I Thess. ii. 13); the new covenant message given through the apostles is in every way “more excellent” than the old covenant message of Moses. These apostles were led into “all truth” by the Holy Ghost (John xvi. 13); and Paul asserts that the revelation of the mystery, made known by himself as the prisoner of the Lord, “completes” the word of God (Col. i. 25). Luke declares that he received perfect understanding “from above” (Luke i. 3), as the words “from the very first” should be translated, and the Book of the Revelation declares itself a prophecy, with solemn warning (Rev. i. 3; xxii. 18, 19).

We may speak of Shakespeare, of Beethoven, or of Michael Angelo as being “inspired”, for their thoughts were indeed raised above the common level of mankind, but we search in vain throughout the writings of Shakespeare for such an expression as “Thus saith the Lord”.

To repeat, and to conclude, we do not contend so much for the inspiration of the men, who wrote as for the fact that in what they wrote; in the Bible; we possess an inspired Book, and we would ever press upon ourselves and our hearers the fact that:

“Men doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deut. viii. 3).

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 32, page 170).

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