Transcript
A young boy named Timothy was planning to give his grandmother a Bible for Christmas. He wanted to write something special inside the front cover but wasn’t sure what to say. So he decided to copy what he had seen in a book his father had received from a friend.
Christmas morning came and Grandmother opened her gift. She was not only pleased to receive the Bible, but she was amused by the inscription Timothy had put in it. It read: “To Grandma, with compliments of the author.”
Even though that boy was unaware of it, he had suggested a unique fact about the Bible. It came to us from its Author—God the Holy Spirit.
The apostle Paul wrote, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” That makes the Bible the most valuable and desirable of all books.
Knowing who wrote a book often determines whether we’ll pick it up and read it. The Bible, with its divine origin, not only ought to be read, but it demands our respect, our trust, and our obedience. It comes “with compliments of the Author.”
2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
Second Timothy was Paul’s last letter. He wrote it from the jail in Rome. Shortly afterward he was beheaded by the Emperor Nero.
He wrote his son in the faith, Timothy, and right after telling him about all Scripture being given by inspiration of God, he challenged Timothy to “preach the Word” and not hold back in his proclamation of God’s truth and not to be ashamed of God’s Word.
He was to preach the Word, because his words would be resting upon a solid foundation since all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
The term “inspiration” can be misunderstood today. Because it is used in our vernacular to refer to a feeling or enthusiasm that produces a beautiful song, a motivating speech, or a work of art. We say they were inspired and refers to a human level of excellence.
But when we talk about inspiration in a biblical sense we’re talking about the manner in which God used a supernatural miraculous process to reveal His own Word.
The words “given by inspiration of God” in 2 Timothy 3:16 is translated from one word in the original Greek: theopneustos.
Theopneustos is a compound Greek word which can be broken into two parts: THEOS meaning God and PNEUSTOS meaning wind, breath, blow, or spirit.
In English, when we say pneumatic drill, we are speaking of an air-powered drill. Pneumonia is an infection in the lungs causing difficulty breathing. That’s what pneustos is referring to: air, wind, breath.
Putting theos and pneustos together, you find that inspiration means God-breathed.
God-breathed reminds you how “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and BREATHED into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
God also breathed life into something else. God breathed life and wisdom into the written Word of God. And thus “the Word of God is quick [or living], and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword” as Hebrews 4:12.
It also reminds you of Psalm 33:6: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the BREATH of His mouth.”
It was by the breath of His mouth that the host of heaven, or the innumerable, massive stars, were made. In His almighty power, He simply breathed them out, meaning He spoke them into existence. And by the word of the Lord everything was created.
God breathed refers to God speaking, that God said, God stated. Scripture is God speaking, it is His Word. That is why Romans 3:2 calls Scripture “the oracles of God,” or the utterances of God. God is the Author of what the Bible says.
Everything in the Bible comes from God. All Scripture is God breathed. God breathed out the words of the Bible. The very words of Scripture come ultimately from the mind and mouth of God. It conveys to us precisely what He wanted to say.
The Greek word, theopneustos, translated as “inspiration,” means to breathe OUT something. It’s not to breathe in.
Paul is speaking of the origin of Scripture here. All Scripture being God-breathed teaches not that God breathed His Word in to the authors, but rather that the product, all the Holy Scriptures, is that which God has breathed out.
2 Timothy 3:16 is really not telling us anything about the biblical writers. It’s telling us about what they wrote, the very Word of God.
All of it is breathed out by God, from the “In the beginning” in Genesis 1:1 to 1189 chapters later and the “Amen” in Revelation 22:21, and everything in between.
Paul wrote this verse by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And thus ultimately the Spirit is teaching us about the origin of His Word.
He is explaining to us that it did not simply come from the mind of man. It comes from His mind, the mind of God. It is all God-breathed.
Some time ago a man took his worn New Testament to a book-binder to bind it with a fine Morocco leather cover and to print “The New Testament” on the edge in gold leaf letters. The book-binder told him when he would have it ready.
He returned to the shop to find his New Testament beautifully bound. The bookbinder had one apology though. He explained, “I did not have small enough type in my shop to print out fully the words ‘The New Testament’ on the edge so I abbreviated them.”
Turning the Bible to look on the edge, the man saw T.N.T. (The New Testament). That isn’t a bad title for the Word! It is God’s dynamite.
It has real power because it proceeds from God, God the Holy Spirit. It is God-breathed. And the Word of God has power, real power, power to transform our lives by His grace.
2 Peter 1:20-21: “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.”
There are certain divine undertakings which are wrought by all three Persons of the Godhead, such as the creation and the resurrection of Christ.
But then there are other activities which belong specifically to One or Another of the members of the Trinity. Such as, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” It could not be said that the Son gives the Father, or the Holy Spirit gives the Son or God the Father.
And it is the Son who came to the world, took on flesh, died the death of the Cross, was raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is coming again.
The Father and the Spirit worked along with the Son in all these areas, but the Father or the Spirit did not take on flesh, die, rise from the dead, and ascend to heaven.
Like there are activities only carried out by God the Father and God the Son, there are likewise, undertakings which belong only to God the Holy Spirit, one of which is the inspiration of the Scriptures.
2 Peter 1:21 tells us that the Holy Spirit is the One by whom the Scriptures were written: holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
It’s been said well that “[The Scriptures’] first line, its last line, all its instructions, understood or not understood, are from the same Author…Whoever the writers may have been, and whatever their understanding of the book; they have all written with a faithful, superintended hand…under the guidance of the same Master, to Whom a thousand years are as one day; such is the origin of the Bible.” S. R. L. Gaussen
That faithful hand that guided the writers was the Holy Spirit. The Bible is the Holy Spirit’s literary monument. It is His masterpiece.
One of the most overlooked ministries of the Spirit is that of inspiration as the Author of the Scriptures. The Church tends to focus more on the outward, showy, miraculous works of the Spirit and neglect this foundational one. This work, however, is one of the most important, if not the most important, work of the Spirit.
It’s a quiet, behind-the-scenes work of the Spirit, which is very much how He works under grace. But inspiration is no less powerful and remarkable than the greatest of miracles that the Spirit has performed.
The value of the works of God are infinite. The perfection of His works is likewise infinite. And that is true of the holy Scripture.
As the Word is the work of the Holy Spirit, its value is infinite, as Psalm 138:2 says, “for Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name.”
And its perfection is infinite, as Psalm 12:6 says, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”
When Peter begins verse 20 with “Knowing this first,” this is to cause the reader to give the following statement our full attention, because what he’s about to say is of utmost importance. Because when it comes to the Bible, Peter takes us to what is most important.
The truth Peter wanted his readers to know is: “that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.”
The word “prophecy” as used by Peter in 2 Peter 1:20-21 is not used here in the sense of the predictions of prophecy but in its basic and broader meaning of speaking forth, of proclaiming a message. The term takes in all Scriptures.
The word “interpretation” is not the normal Greek words for interpreting the meaning of a biblical text. “Interpretation” refers to something that is released, loosened, or sent forth.
No prophecy of Scripture, which refers to all of it, so no place in Scripture, no message from God, no speaking forth of God in Scripture is a matter of private interpretation.
In other words, none of the Scriptures is of any human loosening and releasing. This is speaking of origin, the source of the Scriptures.
Peter here is dealing with the origin of the Word, and not with the way men interpret it after it has been given. It refers to the way in which the Word came into being.
The point Peter is making is that when the writers sat down to write, they did not give their own private interpretation or their own conclusions.
Scripture is not merely a writer’s personal interpretation and human explanation of God’s revelation. It is not a record of imperfect human ideas and opinions.
Scripture’s source is God. It is God’s actual inerrant and authoritative Word, written through human authors who were prevented from error as they wrote the original documents by the working of the Holy Spirit.
The writers of the Bible did not give their own private interpretation of things, but wrote the message which was given to them by God.
The human authors were instruments, not originators. The Holy Spirit is the divine Author of all Scripture.
Scripture is not human in its ultimate origin. It is God’s interpretation, not man’s private interpretation.
No message of Scripture originated and was sent forth by men’s own private wisdom and interpretation. Rather the godly men through whom God’s Word was revealed and recorded were divinely moved and carried along by the Spirit.
Peter says that the prophecy of the Scripture, or the message and words of the Bible, “came not in old time by the will of man.” The Word did not arise from the will of man. What the writers wrote was not a concoction of their own ideas.
It was not by the intelligence, will, effort, or plan of men. Man was the instrument. About 40 men were moved by the Spirit to write. But the cause was God.
Peter gives these two disclaimers in these verses and both of them say Scripture doesn’t come from any human source. It is a miraculous book, authored by God through the Holy Spirit moving human writers to write exactly what God wanted said.
Accuracy required the active guidance of God in the writing. God’s Word and message could not be left to the thought and work of human beings who are fallible and imperfect.
Action by God was necessary to guarantee that the record conveyed exactly the truth God intended. And God produced exactly what He wanted said.
Peter describes the process of inspiration through a vivid word picture. The writers were “moved by the Holy Ghost.”
The key word in verse 21 is the word “moved.” “Moved” means to be carried along, borne along. “Moved” is the Greek word “phero.” It’s a word that is used in secular Greek sources to refer to something floating down stream like a leaf.
And “moved” is also a nautical term in the Greek describing ships at sea. When a ship is at the mercy of the winds, waves, and currents of the sea, it is “moved” by a power apart from its own ability or power.
Luke used the same Greek word when speaking of the wind that drove the ship that Paul was on that was taking him to Rome.
Acts 27:15,17 read, “And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive [phero]…Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven [phero].”
That storm-tossed ship was driven by the wind in that storm. In the same way, Scripture is God-breathed, and in the process of writing the writers were under the unique control of the Spirit and were driven by Him as they wrote.
The writers of Scripture raised, as it were, their sails, the Holy Spirit filled them, and they were “moved” by His desires, literally carried along by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit selected the author and the Holy Spirit moved and carried the writer along so that what he wrote down was the very Word of God, inspired and infallible.
And in 1 Peter we find how when the prophets were inspired by the Spirit of God they did not always fully understand what they were writing and prophesying.
“Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 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.”
The knowledge of what the prophets wrote by the Spirit was above and beyond them and it made them search to try to determine their meaning and when they would take place, especially when it was concerning Israel’s Messiah, and His sufferings and the glory of His kingdom.
Here’s a couple quotes which I think explain well the moving by the Holy Ghost as it pertained to the writers of Scripture:
“God so supernaturally directed the writers of Scripture that without excluding their human intelligence, their individuality, their literary style, their personal feelings, or any other human factor, His own complete and coherent message to man was recorded in perfect accuracy, the very words of Scripture bearing the authority of divine authorship.”
“We grant, that they used their own abilities in the choice of words; but the Holy Spirit, who is more intimate to the minds and skill of men than they are themselves, so guided them, that the words they fixed on were as directly and certainly from Him, as if they had been spoken to them by an audible voice.” (John Owens, Holy Spirit, p.78)
The Spirit directed these men to write, and yet He did not destroy the individuality or style of the writers. They were not mere copyists or transcribers.
The inspiration of Scripture does not mean that God audibly dictated the words, whispered the words in the writer’s ears, or that the writers went into some kind of hypnotic trance and that man just wrote exactly what he heard God say.
Now some of Scripture is writing down exactly what God said, but the majority is not, and the Spirit’s inspiration allowed for the style and background of the author.
Here’s an illustration of what I mean, which I’ll freely admit is weak. Take soda for example. If the Spirit wanted the human author to write about someone drinking a soft drink, He did not dictate the usage of the term.
Instead, he would allow the author’s language, style and background to come through, which depending on where you are from or the background of how you were raised, you might say soda, or you might say pop, or you might say soft drink, or you might say Coke, because in some areas of the United States, every soft drink is a Coke.
And when Paul wrote, “I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart” (Rom. 9:2), he was truly expressing his own feelings, yet his desire to express that sorrow, and how he expressed it, were put into his heart and guided by the Holy Spirit.
So when Ezekiel sat down to write his prophecy he wrote using his own personality, heart, and natural style and way of saying things from his background. And the Spirit used that. No one else could have written exactly what Ezekiel wrote in the way he wrote it.
Yet as he wrote, he was “moved [or carried] along” by the Holy Spirit so that the result was entirely Ezekiel’s, and at the same time, and without any contradiction, the perfect Word of God.
As the writers of Scripture put their words on paper, the Spirit so superintended the whole process so that what was ultimately written was exactly what God wanted written.
Behind each book of the Bible stands God Himself. And though it is true to say that Paul is the author of Romans, yet behind Paul is the Holy Spirit.
What Paul wrote ultimately the Holy Spirit wrote. Which means that what the Bible says, God says. It is God’s Word.
And the stamp of divine inspiration is everywhere in the Word. In Scripture you often read, “thus saith the Lord” or “the word of the Lord came unto me saying,” or “God said.” Those kind of phrases and their equivalents are found in hundreds of places in Scripture.
The following are a few examples where you actually read of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration in what was written. Referring to David’s prophecy in Psalm 110:1, Mark 12:36 reads: “For David himself SAID BY THE HOLY GHOST, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
In the Upper Room, Peter said in Acts 1:16: “Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, WHICH THE HOLY GHOST BY THE MOUTH OF DAVID SPAKE BEFORE CONCERNING JUDAS, which was guide to them that took Jesus.”
In Acts 28:25, we read: “And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, WELL SPAKE THE HOLY GHOST BY ESAIAS THE PROPHET unto our fathers.”
At the Berean Bible Society, our Doctrinal Statement regarding the Bible reads that we believe and stand on “The verbal inspiration and plenary authority of the Bible in its original writings.”
So what do we mean by verbal inspiration? Verbal has to do with words that you speak and words that you write. This means that the words of the Bible, not just the ideas, were inspired. And this is true of not just some, but all the words of the Bible in its original writings. As a result, we believe the Bible is free from error in what it says.
What do we mean by plenary authority? The word plenary means extending to all parts. Verbal means word for word. Plenary means to every part.
Therefore, plenary verbal inspiration asserts that the Holy Spirit inspired the complete original texts of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, including all historical, geographical, scientific, and doctrinal details.
All Scripture is equally inspired. God inspired every part of it. Every word and every part of the Bible is the Word of God. It is all the authoritative Word of God.
It is our first and final authority in all matters of faith and practice. It is the supreme source of our knowledge of God and of the salvation provided through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is our indispensable resource for daily living.
The Bible stands alone, towering above all other writings. And it is a miraculous Book. It is miraculous for a number of reasons:
- It is miraculous in its origin—It has come to us by divine inspiration. When we read this Book, there is one brilliant Author behind all its words: the Holy Spirit.
- It is miraculous in its durability—It has outlasted the opposition of its critics and survived the attempts of its enemies to exterminate it.
- It is miraculous in its results—It transforms the lives of those who read and believe it and gives them an eternal hope.
- It is miraculous in its harmony—I agrees in all its parts, even though written over a period of 1400 years by 40 different authors. When we pick up this book, we hold in our hands one unified volume with a logical beginning, a climactic ending, a story that comes full circle, an unfolding drama based around a central character and theme.
- It is miraculous in its message—It tells of many occasions when God supernaturally intervened in the affairs of men to accomplish His redemptive purposes.
- It is miraculous in its preservation—It has maintained its accuracy and reliability down through the centuries.
When you turn to God’s Word you are consulting the most reliable of all sources. The Bible alone contains God’s Word. And it is complete.
It is our objective and unchanging standard of truth. And when we trust it, live by it, and obey it, our lives will be transformed by grace.