It is my hope in writing here that our understanding of the personal authority of Scripture will be refreshed. It is a powerful word that bears weight in our lives precisely
because of Him who authored it, God Himself. The words in Scripture are God’s
very own words revealing His very own self to us. For when the Scripture speaks,
God speaks. If in the Scriptures God speaks, then there is nothing that bears
greater authority for the life of the Christian.
The Author of Scripture
In an overview of
Scripture, we must first begin with who authored the words we hold before us in
our Bible. Paul reveals to us and the church at Thessalonica who authored the
words we read, “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you
received the word of God, which you heard form us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it
really is, the word of God” (1 Thess.
2:13, emphasis mine). Scripture self-attests that is itself written by and
contains the words of God Himself. Orthodox Christians have held to this
understanding of the Bible for century upon century, before even both the Old
and New Testaments were formally canonized. John Calvin reiterates the orthodox
understanding that in the Bible, “God in person speaks in it.”[1]
Scripture is first and
foremost a personal revelation. God in Scripture reveals Himself to His
creation through a written medium. What once was orally circulated among the
Israelites and early church was written for our benefit. It was written for
many reasons[2]
but chief among all reasons the Apostle John records for us in 20:31, “but
these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” The content of the Christian faith, which has
come to be written in our Bibles, is a personal revelation of God. It contains
that which God has designed and implemented for His creation to know regarding
who He is and therefore who we are. Or as R.C. Sproul puts it,
“The
Scriptures come to us as divine self-disclosure. Here the mind of God is laid
bare on many matters. With a knowledge of Scripture we do not have to rely on
secondhand information or bare speculation to learn who God is and what he
values. In the Bible he reveals himself.”[3]
Think with me now for
a moment. Imagine you have been diagnosed with a rare disease. You head to your
doctor for treatment and while waiting in the room you see a diploma on the
wall. The diploma states that the doctor graduated a month ago. That might not
instill much confidence in you for the decided treatment. If however the
diploma was issued twenty years ago, it might garner more trust with the
recommended treatment for the disease.
The authority and
therefore subsequent trust of the patient, relies on the experience of the
doctor. We assess articles and books in much the same way. We assess their ideas
and propositions based on who wrote it, do we not? If we read a statement on
the political climate in Israel only to find it was written by a botanist, it
might not carry the same weight from a statement provided by a foreign affairs
journalist.
The same concept holds
true for Scripture. If we say they are simply words thought up by some who had
incredible wisdom and stories to share, it would bear some weight. But if we were to say Scripture instead contains the
very words of God almighty, there is no higher trump card with regards the
author’s authority in the subject. Therefore we must begin any discussion on
the place of Scripture in the life of the Christian with the awe-inspiring
understanding that the words contained therein are no mere human word, but a
divine self-disclosure of God Himself written for the benefit and direction of mankind.
Divine Inspiration
But the question then
becomes “How did God reveal Himself
if we know human authors put pen to paper to record the words we find in our
Bible?” Theologians call the how of
this recording process inspiration.
Among the many verses
that speak of the inspiration of Scripture, 2nd Timothy 3:16 ranks
highest in clarity, “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” The term “breathed
out,” θεόπνευστος in the original
Greek, literally translates “inspired by God.” Paul here with this language
urges Timothy to recognize the Author of Scripture and the means by which He
used to bring His word into being, inspiration. Inspiration is God’s design and
means to reveal himself, and therefore “God’s word is God himself, understood as
a speaking God, one who eternally communicates.”[4]
Scripture therefore comes from God. It is his word, His pouring into written
form His very own self. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes inspiration in this way,
“The Old
Testament in Hebrew (the native language of the ancient people of God) and the
New Testament in Greek (the language most widely known internationally at the
time the New Testament was written) were directly inspired by God and have been kept uncontaminated throughout time
by his special care and providence.”[5]
Through the means of
inspiration, God literally “breathing out” His word, God enables human writers
to accurately record in written format what He desires us to know. Chief among
this relationship between the breathed out word and the method of writing it
down is the action and influence of the Holy Spirit, “The infallibility and
divine authority of the Scriptures are due to the fact that they are the word
of God; and they are the word of God precisely because they were given by the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost.”[6] But the
Spirit guided the inspiration of God’s word through human writers, a relational dynamic between the Author and authors
to which we must now turn.
Inspiration and Human Authors
While God inspires
Scripture He has only written by hand the Ten Commandments on the two tablets
of stone that He gave to Moses (Exodus 31:18). He has spoken to many to record
what He has said and stimulated others to write a Divine word. God’s method of
inspiration has worked in a myriad of ways to record for us, in our Bible, the
very words of God, even if mankind was the one to put pen to paper. Or as John
Calvin puts it, “…we affirm with utter certainty (just as if we were gazing
upon the majesty of God himself) that [scripture] has flowed to us from the
very mouth of God by the ministry of men.”[7] There is
a miraculous relationship in the formation of the Bible between man and God.
In the Old Testament
we see many examples of this inspiration. In Exodus 19:6b we see God speaking
and inspiring Moses to record God’s very words, “These are the words that you
shall speak to the people of Israel.” The inspiration and recording of God’s
word continues with Joshua and moves towards the prophets. When a prophet says,
“Thus says the Lord,” they are speaking on behalf of Another the very words God
inspired them to speak. The prophets are “claiming that their words are the
absolute authoritative words of God.”[8] In the
New Testament we have a myriad of written forms, from Gospels and Acts recounting
the life, death, burial of Jesus, and the formation of the Chruch, to a myriad
of letters to individual churches or peoples. In all of these writers God
inspired both the form and words to communicate the good news of the Gospel for
our benefit. The great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge states the doctrine
of inspiration this way,
“Inspiration
was an influence of the Holy Spirit on the minds of certain select men, which
rendered them the organs of God for the infallible communication of his mind
and will. They were in a sense the organs of God, that what they said God
said.”[9]
However Hodge’s
initial definition could lead us to believe that all the human writers did was
act as “organs” for God, as mere puppets whose hands the Spirit moved. Theologians
call this misunderstanding of inspiration the “mechanical theory of
inspiration.” Hodge continues to clarify what we mean and don’t mean with
inspiration,
“The
ancients, indeed, were accustomed to say, as some theologians have also said,
that the sacred writers were as pens in the hand of the Spirit; or as harps,
from which He drew what sounds He pleased. These representations were, however,
intended simply to illustrate one point, namely, that the words uttered or
recorded by inspired men were the words of God. The Church has never held what
has been stigmatized as the mechanical
theory of inspiration. The sacred writers were not machines. Their
self-consciousness was not suspended; nor were their intellectual powers
superseded. Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. It was men,
not machines; not unconscious instruments, but living, thinking, willing minds,
whom the Spirit used as his organs.”[10]
We must affirm that
men were not coopted by the Spirit, but retained their very humanness in the
inspiration and recording of Scripture. The writers of the Old and New
Testament “wrote out of the fullness of their own thoughts and feelings, and
employed the language and modes of expression which to them were the most
natural and appropriate. Nevertheless…the spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost, and their words were his words.”[11] God
employed the uniqueness of his writers but this does not negate it is a word
from God. 2nd Peter 1:21 sums it up nicely, “For no prophecy was
ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried
along by the Spirit.”
The means of God’s
self-revelation in Scripture, divine inspiration through created beings, is
simply an astounding method. Of all the ways God could have given us a
revelation of Himself, He chose to employ His very fallen creation to do so. In
so doing God further displays His desire to be in relationship with us when He
could have simply written it all with His own hand. This is the awe-provoking
doctrine of inspiration.
Authority
Therefore, because of
the cooperation in Scripture’s inspiration, it is “correct to conclude that
there is no untruthfulness of error in any part of the words of Scripture.”[12]
Scripture retains then the utmost authority, because of the Author and truthfulness
of the words recorded. Calvin states, “Hence the Scriptures obtain full
authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from
heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard.”[13] The
reformers in the Protestant Reformation came to refer to this understanding of
the authority of Scripture as sola
scriptura, Latin for by Scripture alone. Scripture is the sole rule of
faith and practice for the life of the Christian. It’s authority for our lives
cannot be overstated.
But what do we mean by
authority? Authority implies obedience. If you have a supervisor at work, he
bears authority over you in regards your job. If he is a tyrant who knows
little of the job he is asking you to perform, it will be difficult to be
obedient to his authority. If however he is all-knowing, all-powerful, and has
your flourishing in mind, obedience and submission will be a delight. God
wields this kind of authority and it is given to us in the Scriptures. The
Westminster Confession of Faith speaks of this authority,
“The Bible
speaks authoritatively and so deserves to be obeyed. This authority does not
depend on the testimony of any man or church but completely on God, its author,
who is himself truth. The Bible therefore is to be accepted as true, because it
is the word of God.”[14]
God has chosen to
reveal Himself to us. He does so through human writers who are inspired by His
Spirit to record everything sufficient for our salvation and knowledge of Him.
Therefore the Bible itself bears the authority of God Himself. How joyful we
are to be to submit to His word for our lives because God longs for our
flourishing, He longs for us to be a joyful people, a people knowing their
created purpose to bask in and exalt in the very glory of God Himself. Christian,
know that when you pick up your Bible and read it, you are reading the very
words of God to you that He has so miraculously joined together for His glory
and your joy.
* * *
[1] Calvin John
Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian
Religion, 2 vols., ed. John T. McNeill, Ford Lewis Battles trans. (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1960),
78.
[2] See chapters 2, 3, and 4 for a
fuller understanding of the purpose of Scripture.
[3] R.C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity, 1977), 25.
[4] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God
(Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2010), 48.
[5] The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.8, emphasis mine.
[6] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Peabody:
Hendrickson, 2008), 153.
[7] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion,
80.
[8] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to
Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 74.
[9] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 154.
[10] Ibid., 157, emphasis mine.
[11] Ibid., 157.
[12] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 83.
[13] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion,
74.
[14] The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.4.
