Inspiration | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 1, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 47.

Inspiration.

The inspiration of the Scriptures is a most important matter. On the essential truths connected with it rests the salvation or the loss of the soul. It is well worth consideration, not in the light of higher criticism, but in the light of the Bible itself.

What the Word Means.

The word “inspiration” as applied to the Scriptures occurs but once in all the Bible, namely, in 2 Tim. 3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The word “inspiration” comes from the Greek word theopneustos (from theo, God, and pneō, to breathe), and signifies literally “God breathed.” Therefore “all Scripture is God-breathed.”

The Word, Not the Man.

Note that it is not the man that is inspired or God-breathed, but the word, or the writings. We often hear the expression, “the inspired apostles,” “the inspired prophets,” “the inspired writers,” but the Scripture does not know these terms. It is the inspired word. God breathed the word, or the writings. The writings, or scriptures, are therefore his writings, the word is his word.

Inspiration Not Illumination.

Another error which must be guarded against is in making inspiration identical with illumination, or enlightenment, whereas they are entirely different. Illumination depends somewhat on the condition of the man’s mind, while inspiration does not. He who is illuminated, or enlightened, understands what he speaks or writes, while he who speaks or writes the in-breathed word may have no understanding of the matter which comes through him. Many of the Bible writers were greatly illuminated, no doubt, some of them marvelously so, as, for instance, Moses and Paul, but it is safe to say that they did not understand all they wrote. Daniel did not understand his own prophecies. Dan. 12:8–10. The apostle represents the prophets as searching their own writings that they might understand the things of Christ. 1 Peter 1:10, 11. They were writing for other times than their own, and could not in the nature of the case understand fully.

The Agent.

The agent of illumination and inspiration is ever the same, God’s Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Christ. Elihu says, “There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration [breath, spirit] of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” God’s Spirit enlightens man’s spirit. “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord” (Prov. 20:27), lighted by the Spirit of God. “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.” John 16:13. “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.” 1 Cor. 2:10. Generally the Spirit illuminates through the word of God, which is but the voice of the Spirit. The illumination comes to the meek and humble heart (Ps. 25:9, 14), to the diligent, faithful searcher (Prov. 2:1–9; James 1:5–7). But the inspired word of God is spoken by the covetous Balaam (Numbers 22–24), by the disobedient prophet (1 Kings 13), by the wicked priest (John 11:49–51), as well as generally by holy men. But each, as with the high priest, “spake not of himself.”

But in inspiration, in God’s inbreathings, the word, as respects man, originates. Says David, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.” 2 Sam. 23:2. Peter, in referring to an expression in the Psalms, says of it, “Which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake.” Again we read, referring to the Psalms, “As the Holy Ghost saith.” Heb. 3:7. Peter, in speaking of the writings of the prophets, writes: “Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” 1 Peter 1:11. See 2 Peter 1:21. Jesus Christ, in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead, says of the Old Testament scriptures, as he bases an irrefutable argument on a single word, “The Scriptures cannot be broken.” John 10:35. Of his own and other apostles’ messages Paul says: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” 1 Cor. 2:13. See 1 Thess. 2:13; Acts 1:8.

God’s Word Not Man’s.

The word is therefore the word of God. Whether written by Moses, the “man of God;” whether penned by David, Israel’s “sweet Psalmist;” whether by Solomon, the wise king; whether by Isaiah, the prophet of the evangel; whether inscribed by Jeremiah, “the weeping prophet” in the land of Judah, or by Ezekiel in captivity; whether by Daniel, the “man greatly beloved,” or by Jonah, the disobedient; whether by Matthew, the publican, Luke, the physician, Peter, the fisherman, Paul, the learned, or John, the beloved disciple; whether penned in the wilderness of sin, or in the temple at Jerusalem; whether written in the freedom of the prophet herdsmen of Tekoa, or in the palace of Babylon, or in the dungeons of Rome, always and everywhere it is the word of God; for all Scripture (the Holy Writings known to Paul and Timothy, with the writings of the apostles) is God-breathed, and is profitable. They are all the words of God, mighty with the power of God to everyone who will receive them.

God’s Word and Man’s.

Yes, they are man’s words, not in the sense that they are fallible and erring, but in the wondrous fact everywhere apparent that they reveal man to himself. They reveal all his fallible weakness and wretchedness and need in the infallible words of the Holy Spirit. Each part of the Holy Book bears to a greater or less extent the characteristics of the men who wrote it, from Amos, the shepherd, to Ezekiel, the learned priest. Man’s sorrows, burdens, griefs, woes, heartaches, as well as joys and blessings, are portrayed as no human being could portray them. His selfishness, sin, hatred, ingratitude, and rebellion against God are faithfully set forth over against God’s wondrous love, his justice and mercy combined. It is man’s book in that it reveals man in the language of man, and instructs, comforts, and saves man by words which find response in his own being. Yet the words are of God. As the master musician produces the same sweet harmony on the piano, harp, organ, flute, cornet, and other instruments, the music showing the character of the instrument on which it is produced and the master skill behind it, even so does the Spirit of God breathe words through all the various classes of men, each class revealing its characteristics in the words, and yet all revealing the infinite wisdom, power, and love breathing through them. And as each musical instrument above all others will charm some particular ear, so will each class of men through whom God has spoken reach a particular class which could not be reached by others. As the simple harp may educate the mind to higher, sweeter music, so the rougher breathings of the Spirit in some particular scripture may open the heart

to its sweeter, fuller revelations. All the Scriptures are through man; all are God-breathed.

What It Is to Us.

God’s word, all the words which Christ spake by his Spirit, are life to him who receives them by faith as his word. Says Jesus, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63. Says the apostle: “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” To receive the word of Christ in the heart is to receive Christ there. God’s word to us, given to us through fallible men, is the word made flesh, even as the Son of God, the Eternal Word, was made flesh. He was human, and unbelief said, He is a mere man, a deceiver, a criminal, but to faith he was the love, wisdom, and power of God, mighty to save. Unbelief says of the written word, It is only human, erring, deceiving, fallible, but faith says, what Christ said, It is spirit and life, quick and powerful. And as it was mighty to bring worlds into existence (Ps. 33:6), so is it mighty to cleanse and save (Matt. 8:3; John 15:3; Acts 20:32).

READER, What is God’s word to you? Know that what that word is, that is what Christ is. What is that word to you?