BIBLICAL INSPIRATION

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1880

BIBLICAL INSPIRATION.

One of the most important questions of the day, as we read in the Illustrated Christian Weekly, is that of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. We may not conceal from ourselves the fact that there is a large number of those who profess and call themselves Christians, who hold very low and very loose views on this point. We should demand proof for the assertion that this class is growing largely in proportion to the number of those who still hold the old evangelical doctrine. But whatever be the case relatively, in point of fact, the number of those who at the least minify inspiration is large. "Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." They were inspired in a different sense from that in which we speak of an inspired orator or artist. They were inspired in a different sense from that inspiration to holy thoughts, and motives, and actions, which the Holy Ghost puts into the soul of the believer. They were the Almighty's penmen, to be sure, not his pens; their individuality, their particular circumstances, their personal experiences, were all made use of along the channel of the divine purpose. But they were "inbreathed" of the Holy Spirit, that through their utterances the will of God might be communicated to man. The collection of their writings becomes thus, the Bible, the Book, which, while composed in so many parts, along so many generations, is still a unit,—one Book of God.

Here the evangelical church takes its stand. In the language of inspiration itself, it says, "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, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." The whole Bible, says the evangelical church, is inspired, not simply such parts of it as we may pick and choose. The Bible as a whole is inspired, and so we will use its different parts to shed light upon each other. Now, because the Bible is inspired, it is authoritative. The only question that remains for the honest seeker after truth is, "What does the Bible say?" If anything comes to him guaranteed with a "Thus saith the Lord," that is the end of all controversy.—Christian Union.