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The Biblical
Doctrine of the Verbal, Plenary Inspiration of God’s Word
Jack Sin
Introduction
The Holy Bible is the most
important possession of the redeemed community. Christians are often
called the people of a book. The Bible is the providentially preserved,
inerrant, inspired, authoritative and sufficient 66 books of canonical
Scripture that is the rule of faith for life and practice for the
church. The Christian religion stands on the inspiration and authority
of these 66 books of Holy Scripture, which have also been the target of
attack by the evil one all these years. The first four centuries saw the
attack of the devil on the nature of Christ – but in the 20th century
during the early debate between the fundamentalists and the liberals
(the former was led by Dr. J. Gresham Machen), one of the keenly
contested issues was on the inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy
Scripture among others. The former stood for the plenary, verbal
inspiration of the Holy Scripture but the latter denied that and argued
for a limited inspiration and hence, limited inerrancy. Today, the
battle still rages centring on the different aspects of Bibliology
including its preservation and sufficiency (i.e., some quarters of
Christianity still claiming special direct revelation from God today) of
which the verbal inspiration of the Scripture is still central to the
issue.
Definitions
Inspiration may be defined
as the direct act of God whereby He “breathes out” the very words
through the prepared human authors so that their record of His
revelation is complete and without error. God’s specific revelation was
given in words either mentally or verbally directly to specially
prepared men through the Holy Spirit who guided those men as they wrote
it or uttered it, (while employing their individual personalities,
vocabularies and writing styles) to produce in the original languages,
an errorless revelation of God's truth.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17 say,
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good
works.” The word “inspiration,” which is theopnuestos in 2 Timothy 3:16,
is used in a way to mean that God breathed into His Word the exact words
that He wanted the inspired writer to write. It was the work of the Holy
Spirit that so influenced and guided the holy authors that they wrote
down exactly what He would have them to write. The position maintained
by orthodox theologians is the verbal and plenary inspiration of the
Bible. Each and every word of the Scripture is inspired and therefore
there is no error in them at all.
The apostle Peter in 2
Peter 1:20, 21 says, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the
scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in
old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost.” The consequence is that the chosen sacred
writers were so influenced by the Holy Spirit that their writings are,
as a whole and in every part, God's Word to us – is an authoritative and
absolutely trustworthy revelation to us from God, endorsed by Him, and
given to us as an infallible rule of faith and practice, clothed with
absolute divine authority from above that we can trust wholeheartedly.
Hence, the 66 books of the
canonical Bible are given by the inspiration of God, that is, they are
not the contrivance of any man's imagination but a revelation of the
mind and will of God. Those who wrote them were supernaturally assisted
in it, by the Spirit of God; and that every part of Scripture is
divinely inspired or breathed by God. Every word was written without any
error at all.
The doctrine of the verbal
inspiration of Scripture held by historic Christianity views the Bible
differently from any other literature written by man (e.g., Caesar’s
Wars), that it is a unique canon of literature authored by God Himself.
Inspiration is consistent and does not go against the human personality
of prophets and apostles through whom God communicated the truth about
Himself and the message He wants them to write.
Reasons for Believing in Verbal Inspiration
There are at least 4
convincing arguments among others for the doctrine of the verbal,
plenary inspiration of the Bible. They are the following:
1. The Support of the Early Church Fathers
The early church fathers,
untainted by modern liberalism, had a high view and believed in the
doctrine of inspiration of the Bible. The early church fathers like
Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Tertullian, Ignatius and Justin
Martyr and others spoke in favour of the Bible as the very words
inspired of God and not just by mere men. For example, Polycarp, the
disciple of John, said, “The scriptures are perfect, inasmuch as they
are uttered by the Word of God and His Spirit.”
If these celebrated
patristic witnesses are anything to go by, we have a cloud of united
venerable witnesses that stood for the inspiration of the Bible during
the first 400 years of the New Testament church, which is highly
significant.
2. The Reference to Reformation Creeds and
Confessions
Confessions and creeds are
summary statements of the beliefs and doctrinal stand of the church
during a particular period in history. It would be instructive to
consider some historic confessions and creeds of the various
denominations in their stand on the Bible. "The Belgic Confession of
1561" (representing some Reformed churches in Europe generally) has in
its Article 3 this statement, "We confess that this word of God was not
sent nor delivered by the will of man, but that holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost, as the apostle Peter saith. And that
afterwards God, from a special care which he has for us and our
salvation, commanded His servants, the prophets and apostles, to commit
His revealed word to writing, and He Himself wrote with His own finger
the two tables of the law. Therefore we call such writings holy and
divine Scriptures."
The Westminster Confession
of Faith (1643-48) which is the established historic creed for
Presbyterian and Reformed churches has it as follows: "Therefore it
pleased the Lord, at sundry times and in divers manners, to reveal
himself and to declare His will unto His church; and afterwards, for the
better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure
establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the
flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same
wholly unto writing." "The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it
ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any
man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the Author
thereof; and therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of
God."
Both these historic
confessions and others like the second Helvetic Confession (1566), the
Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and the Baptist Confession of 1789 espoused
a view of verbal, plenary inspiration that is adhered to by most of the
churches during and after the Reformation times and some even today.
3. The Claim of the Bible to be Inspired
It is not an insignificant
thing that the Bible claims for itself that it is inspired of God. 2
Peter 1:20, 21 relate of specially prepared men who were moved by the
Holy Ghost to perform the awesome task of writing Scripture as the very
words of the Almighty God. In Matthew 5:18, Jesus said that not one jot
or tittle of the Word of God shall pass away although the heaven and
earth would. The Psalmist speaks of the Word that is purified seven
times and shall be preserved forever (Psalm 12:6, 7).
The Bible claims to be
inspired and the familiar refrain, “thus saith the Lord” (Isaiah 7:7)
fills the pages of Scripture. The apostolic writings were boldly
described in the same authoritative terms that denoted the Old Testament
(2 Peter 3:15, 16). The inspiration of the Bible is the basis for
inerrancy of the autographs (the originals) and the apographs (extant
copies that we have today) and hence, the authority and trustworthiness
of what we have today (in the English language; it is best represented
by the KJV) providentially preserved by God. The life transforming
ability of the Bible bears living and convincing testimony of its
inspiration and the number of fulfilled prophecies (which is not a
statistical probability) as well as an invincible argument for its
inspiration.
The Bible is the result of
the inspired writing of about 40 inspired penmen whose lives were
specially prepared by God, spanning nearly 1,500 years in three
languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) over three continents. From Moses
to the apostle John, the Bible contains historical, poetic, geographic
and doctrinal themes from the pens of these writers supernaturally
inspired by God Himself. With so many contributors, we might expect that
there would be a total diversity, perhaps even contrary opinions within
the writings. However, we find a consistency of theme, a thread of
continuity and unity from Genesis to Revelation. It is as though there
was collusion among the members of the group to produce something
flawless and inspiring. The conclusion must be that there was a single
mind and therefore the author behind the book is the Almighty God.
4. The View of the Scripture by our Lord Jesus
Christ
The most convincing of all
the proofs and arguments for the verbal inspiration of the Scripture is
the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ regarded them and treated them as
such. He Himself submitted to their authority. When assaulted by Satan,
three times He replied, "It is written," and it is particularly to be
noted that the point of each of His quotations and the force of each
reply lie in every single word of the Scripture – "Man shall not live by
bread alone;" "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God;" "Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." When tempted
by the Pharisees, who asked Him, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his
wife for every cause?" He answered, "Have ye not read?" (Matthew
19:4-5). To the Sadducees He said, "Ye do err, not knowing the
scriptures" (Matthew 22:29). On another occasion, He accused the
Pharisees of "Making the word of God of none effect through your
tradition" (Mark 7:13). When speaking of the Word of God, He declared,
"The scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). Sufficient has been
adduced to show that the Lord Jesus regarded the Scripture as the Word
of God in the most absolute sense. Let us not detract in the smallest
degree from the perfect and full inspiration of the Holy Scripture by
the Almighty God.
The apostles and the
prophets wrote both the Old Testament and New Testament books under
divine superintendence. These inspired writers recorded the everlasting
words and teachings in the inerrant and preserved Word of God in their
distinctive own styles under the supernatural inspiration of the Holy
Spirit (2 Peter 1:20, 21). Inspiration did not involve the suspension or
suppression of the human faculties, neither did it interfere with the
free exercise of the mental characteristic of the individuals, but that
God supernaturally used prepared men to write His Word without error.
The biblical doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible is the very
bedrock of the providential preservation of the Word of God today.
Conclusion
The Word of God is
self-authenticating and self-vindicating and is indestructible after
about 2,000 years in existence though many monarchs (e.g., Emperor
Diolcetian) and other critics have tried unsuccessfully to destroy or
undermine it. The liberal Christian community attempted to discredit the
veracity of the Word of God by firstly undermining its inspiration but
failed. The doctrine of inspiration is the cornerstone of the Bible for
the other doctrines of revelation, inerrancy and infallibility and
preservation of the Bible. The absolute unity of the Bible and its
numerous fulfilled prophecies silenced the unbelieving critics and
confirmed in the hearts of the believing Christians of its inspiration,
authenticity and reliability. The Bible is the very Word of God and not
just “contain the words of God” (liberal view) nor it “becomes the Word
of God” (neo-orthodox view). The means or process of inspiration is a
mystery of the providence of God, but the result of the process is a
verbal (the words), plenary (extending to all parts equally), inerrant
(errorless) Bible that is an authoritative and preserved record still
available to us today.
Rev. Jack Sin is the pastor of Maranatha
Bible-Presbyterian Church.
- Published in
Bible Witness,
Vol 2 Issue 4 (October - December 2002)
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