Theological Term of the Week

 

inspiration of scripture

A term referring to the fact that the Bible is breathed out by God; it is a divine product. God superintended the writers of scripture in such a way that the words of are not only the words of the writer, but also the words of God. 

• From scripture:
  

  And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:19-21 ESV).

•  From The New Hampshire Baptist Confession, 1833:

  We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.

• From B. B. Warfield in The Authority and Inspiration of the Scriptures :

  When we consider the promises of supernatural guidance which Christ made to his apostles (Matt. x. 19, 20; Mark xiii. 11; Luke xxi. 14; John xiv and xvi), in connection with their claim to speak with divine authority even when writing (1 Cor. xiv. 37; 2 Thess. iii. 6), and their conjunction of their writings with the Old Testament Scriptures as equally divine with them, we cannot fail to perceive that the apostles claim to be attended in their work of giving law to God’s Church by prevailing superintending grace from the Holy Spirit. This is what is called inspiration. It does not set aside the human authorship of the books. But it puts behind the human also a divine authorship. It ascribes to the authors such an attending influence of the Spirit in the process of writing, that the words they set down become also the words of God; and the resultant writing is made not merely the expression of Paul’s or John’s or Peter’s will for the churches, but the expression of God’s will. In receiving these books from the apostles as law, therefore, the Church has always received them not only as books given by God’s agents, but as books so given by God through those agents that every word of them is God’s word.
  

Learn more:

1. GotQuestions.org: What does it mean that the Bible is inspired?
2. Blue Letter Bible: In What Sense Is the Bible the Inspired Word of God?
3. Theopedia: Inspiration of the Bible
4. A. A. Hodge: The Inspiration of the Bible
   
5. Rick Wade: The Inspiration of the Bible
6. Herman Ridderbos: The Inspiration and Authority of Holy Scripture
7. David G. Peterson: The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture
8. Bruce Ware: Biblical Inspiration (mp3)
   

Related terms:

• authority of scripture
• autographs
• inerrancy of scripture
• infallibility of scripture

Filed under Scripture.

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