Inspiration and Authority of Scripture

5.1 How is the Bible the Word of God?^[1]

When we call the Bible the Word of God, we do not mean that it is merely a message about God or the writers’ reports of God’s message insofar as they understood it rightly. Rather, the written words of the Bible are actually God’s Word to us. Heinrich Bullinger said in the sixteenth century, “The doctrine and writings of the prophets … took not their beginning of the prophets themselves, as chief authors; but were inspired from God out of heaven by the Holy Spirit of God: for it is God, which, dwelling by his Spirit in the minds of the prophets, speaketh to us by their mouths.” (Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, p.316)

This view of the Bible is not an artificial doctrine imposed by churches or theologians. Rather, it is the view of the Bible taught by God in the Bible itself.

• The Word of God preached: When the word of the Lord came to his prophets and apostles, their first mode of communicating it to others was oral. Nevertheless, the preached word of God’s prophets is the word of the Lord.
• The Written Word of God: "Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the word of God written, are now contained all the Books of the Old and New Testaments." (WCF I.2)

5.2 What is the doctrine of inspiration?^[2]

All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. (2 Tim 3:16 LSB)

B.B. Warfield once pointed out that the real meaning of 2 Timothy 3:16 has to do not so much with the way in which God communicated His information (through human writers) as with the source of that information.

When we speak of inspiration as a concept, we are talking about the work of the Holy Spirit, who came upon people at various times and anointed them by His power, so that they were inspired to write the true Word of God. The doctrine of inspiration concerns the way in which God superintended the writing of sacred Scripture. (Sproul, R. C. Everyone’s a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 20.)

The Bible identifies the Holy Spirit as the divine agent who spoke through the prophets and apostles (Num. 11:29; Neh. 9:30; Eph. 3:5). Nowhere does the Bible indicate or even suggest that God gave insight to the prophet, who then formulated the message in his own words. God told the prophet exactly what to say, and he said exactly that (Num. 22:38; 23:5, 12, 16). The prophet became the mouth of the Lord (Ex. 4:16).

The result of this process of verbal inspiration was that the individual words written in the Book are the words of God. The precision of verbal inspiration does not imply that God took over the prophet’s body and negated his mind and personality. Inspiration involved a more subtle and pervasive concurrence involving absolute divine sovereignty and full human responsibility.

5.2.1 What are two erroneous views on the nature of inspiration?^[3]

1. Mechanical inspiration: "According to the mechanical view of inspiration, God dictated what the auctores secundarii wrote, so that the latter were mere amanuenses, mere channels through which the words of the Holy Spirit flowed. It implies that their own mental life was in a state of repose, and did not in any way contribute to the contents or form of their writings, and that even the style of Scripture is that of the Holy Spirit." (Berkhof, Intro to ST, p.151)
2. Dynamical inspiration: "This theory renounces the idea of a direct operation of the Holy Spirit on the production of the books of the Bible, and substitutes for it a general inspiration of the writers, which really amounts to nothing more than a spiritual illumination, differing only in degree from the spiritual illumination of Christians in general." (Berkhof, Intro to ST, p.152)

5.2.2 What is the true nature of inspiration?

• Bavinck and Berkhof use the term “organic inspiration” to describe the true nature of inspiration.

• Bavinck wrote, "But just as Christ’s human nature, however weak and lowly, remained free from sin, so also Scripture is “conceived without defect or stain”; totally human in all its parts but also divine in all its parts." (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Vol.1, 435)

  • The organic view of inspiration affirms the idea that the Holy Spirit, through the process of inscripturation, did not spurn anything human to serve as an organ of the divine. [Reformed Dogmatics, 117]
  • The organic view of revelation and inspiration also brings with it the notion that ordinary human life and natural life are made serviceable to the thoughts of God. [Reformed Dogmatics, 117]

• Berkhof wrote, "The term ‘organic’ serves to stress the fact that God did not employ the writers of the books of the Bible in a mechanical way, just as a writer wields a pen; did not whisper into their ears the words which He wanted them to write; but acted upon them in an organic way, in harmony with the laws of their own inner being. He used them just as they were, with their character and temperament, their gifts and talents, their education and culture, their vocabulary, diction, and style. He illumined their minds, prompted them to write, repressed the influence of sin on their literary activity, and guided them in an organic way in the choice of their words and in the expression of their thoughts. This view is clearly most in harmony with the representations of Scripture." (Berkhof, Intro to ST, p.153)

"All which are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life." (WCF I.2) Paul's expression "given by inspiration" (2 Tim 3:16) is literally "God-breathed) (theopneustos) or "breathed out by God."

5.2.3 What is the extent of inspiration?

Paul writes, “all Scripture.” This should be understood to say that the entire Bible is inspired. Similarly, Peter says that “no prophecy of the scripture” arises merely from man’s interpretation or will,31 but from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we may speak of plenary inspiration, the divine inspiration of the whole Bible. (Beeke, RST, p.328)

5.2.4 What are the implications of inspiration?^[4]

1. The Bible has divine authority. Paul immediately follows his statement about inspiration (2 Tim. 3:16) by reminding Timothy that God has all authority to judge men. Therefore, the Bible has authority as the standard of judgment and must be preached to call men to obey it (2 Tim 4:1–2).
2. The Bible has divine veracity. Paul exhorted Timothy to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2), which in this epistle is “the word of God,” the “faithful” word, or “the word of truth” (2:9, 11, 15).
3. The Bible has divine sufficiency to inform our faith and direct our obedience. Paul reminded Timothy that the sacred writings are sufficient to equip ministers of the Word for every aspect of their calling to lead the church (2 Tim. 4:17).
4. The Bible has divine clarity. Paul implied this when he wrote, "from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
5. The Bible has divine necessity. Paul taught the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures in the context of warning Timothy against man’s depravity, sinful love for error, and tendency to persecute those who hold the truth (2 Tim. 3:1–13; 4:3–5).
6. The Bible has divine unity in Christ. Since all Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, though written by many different people over centuries of time, it has one unified message. Paul summarizes it as “salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
7. The Bible has divine efficacy. Whether used for teaching the truth, reproving sin, correcting sinners unto repentance, or instructing people in the way of righteousness, the Bible is “profitable” (2 Tim. 3:16).

5.3 What are some key Bible verses about the origin of the Holy Scriptures?

• "All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16).
• "For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them" (2 Pet 2:21).
• "The Spirit of Yahweh spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue" (2 Sam 23:2).

5.4 What is meant by the authority of the Bible?^[5]

When we speak of the Bible’s authority, we refer to its property as the Word of God to obligate its readers to submit to it entirely. The Bible has authority as the rule for faith (what man is to believe) and behavior (what man is to do). Where the Bible teaches a doctrine or reports an event, it binds our consciences to hold it for truth. When it commands an attitude, affection, or action, it binds our consciences to obey.

The Bible’s property of authority arises from its divine origin: it is God’s Word.

• The Bible says more than four hundred times, “Thus saith the Lord.”
• As the testimony of God, the Bible has infinitely more authority than the testimony of man (1 John 5:9).
• "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." (WCF, I.4)

5.5 How did Rome differ from the Reformation regarding the grounds of Scripture’s authority?

Before the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church claimed that the Roman Magisterium, that is, the church’s teaching office as embodied in the pope, was the supreme authority on earth to bind the conscience and arbitrate disputes over doctrine, morality, and worship. The Roman Catholic Church also claimed that while the Bible is the Word of God, we receive it only on the authority of the church. In other words, we need the church to authenticate the Bible to know it is God's Word. (Beeke, RST, p. 337–338)

Reformed theologians teach that the Bible is self-authenticating (autopistos). God’s Word contains in itself those marks of divinity that, when the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the heart, produce a sense of the Bible’s authority as God’s Word. (Beeke, RST, p.339–340)

• "The supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture."(WCF, I.10)

The issue between Rome and the Reformation concerns the ground of authority. For the Reformers, Scripture was self-authenticating; the church was founded on the truth of Scripture. For Rome, the church is temporally and logically prior to Scripture, which needs the church’s acceptance and recognition. Thus, a Roman Catholic Church Council (Trent) established the canon of Scripture, including the Apocrypha. The believer accepts Scripture “because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author; and because they have been entrusted as such to the church."

While Protestants agree that the church’s testimony is a motive for faith, they do not believe it can be the ground of faith. Instead, the Reformation insisted that the Scriptures are self-authenticating; the Holy Spirit, who inspired the biblical writers, confirms the inner testimony within the believer. Protestants disagreed among themselves about whether scriptural authority is only descriptive (historical) or normative (prescriptive). A balanced view acknowledges that while not all historical accounts in Scripture set prescriptive rules for believers, the descriptions are true and the Word of God to his people. (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Vol.1, 449)

5.6 How does John Calvin explain Scripture’s authority?^[6]

• Scripture has its authority from God, not from the church.
• The church is itself grounded upon Scripture.
• Augustine cannot be cited as counterevidence.
• The witness of the Holy Spirit is stronger than all proof.
• Scripture bears its own authentication.