Inspiration-Erroneous Views of Inspiration (Doctrinal Bible Church in Huntsville, Alabama)
Doctrinal Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday March 8, 2023
Inspiration: Erroneous Views of Inspiration
Lesson # 7
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (NIV)
2 Timothy 3:16 Each and every portion of Scripture does possess, as an eternal spiritual truth the characteristic of being God-breathed. Consequently, it does possess, as an eternal spiritual truth the characteristic of being useful for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for training which is related to righteousness. 17 The purpose of which is that the person belonging to God (the Father) would possess the characteristic of being competent, specifically, by equipping for every kind of action which is divine good in quality and character. (Pastor’s translation)
The doctrine of inspiration contends that, God the Holy Spirit so supernaturally directed the human authors of Scripture, that without destroying their individuality, their literary style, their personal interests, and their vocabulary, God’s complete and connected thought towards man was recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of Scripture.
The original languages of Scripture contain the very words of God, and therefore, bear the authority of divine authorship.
Inspiration is the means God used to reveal Himself through the Bible whereas revelation is concerned with the divine origin of Scripture and the giving of truth to men.
The word of God in its original languages is the vehicle by which God reveals Himself to mankind.
In other words, inspiration is the process by which God worked through the human authors without destroying their individual personalities, vocabularies and writing styles to produce divine authoritative and inerrant writings.
The expression “plenary” inspiration expresses the view of biblical inspiration that contends that God is the ultimate author of the Bible in its entirety.
This means that God’s superintending work in inspiration extends to the whole Bible and to each part of the Bible.
“Verbal” signifies the words of the original languages of Scripture whereas “plenary” means “full” or “complete” as opposed to partial.
“Plenary” inspiration guarantees that all that the church has come to affirm as Scripture is both authoritative and helpful for Christian belief and practice.
Thus, “verbal plenary” inspiration expresses the idea that each and every word in the original languages of Scripture are inspired by God who gave full expression to His thoughts in the original languages of Scripture.
There are many scholars who disagree with our “verbal plenary” view of inspiration.
The “natural” inspiration view denies the supernatu¬ral element in biblical inspiration in that it contends that the human authors of Scripture were basically men of extraordinary genius who possessed a special insight into moral and spiritual truth.
This view argues that these men wrote the books of the Bible through their unique abilities just like an individual might write any book.
Those who adhere to this view believe the human authors of Scripture wrote about God in the same way Shakespeare wrote literature, thus this view contends that they wrote by their own will.
“Spiritual” or “mystical illumination” view of inspiration goes a step farther than natural inspiration in that it conceives of the writers as more than natural geniuses in that they were also Spirit-filled and guided.
This view contends that anyone can write Scripture who is illuminated by the Spirit.
The “degree” inspiration view adheres to the inspiration of Scripture but it also adheres to the idea that some parts of the Bible are more inspired than others.
Though it is true that some parts of Scripture are more relevant than others to certain groups of people like the church, but 2 Timothy 3:16 rejects this view teaching all of Scripture is equally inspired and accurate, and it all has an important place in the overall revelation of God.
The “partial” inspiration view is a false view of inspiration because it teaches that some parts of the Bible are inspired and some parts are not.
They say that the parts of the Bible related to matters of salvation and faith are inspired, but those parts that deal with history, science, chronology, or other non faith matters may in fact be in error.
This erroneous view contends that even though some material in the Bible may be factually in error, God still preserves the message of salvation in the Bible.
So they say that we can trust the Bible in spiritual matters, but in some areas, we might find error.
The “partial” view of inspiration clearly rejects both verbal inspiration (that inspiration extends to the words of Scripture) and plenary inspiration (that inspiration extends to the entirety of Scripture).
The “conceptual” view of inspiration is also a false view of inspiration because it believes that the concepts or ideas of the writers of the Bible are inspired but not the words, thus they contend that God communicated the concepts to the human author, but not the words.
God did not dictate Scripture.
However, He did superintend or supernaturally directed the authors so that the words they used from their own vocabularies were guided by the Holy Spirit.
The “dictation” view of inspiration maintains that the entire Bible was dictated word for word by God and that the human authors of the Bible were passive, in the same way as secretaries or stenographers who sat and wrote down what was given to them.
Although some parts of the Bible were given by dictation as when God gave the Ten Commandments, the books of the Bible reveal a distinct contrast in style and vocabulary, which would indicate that the authors were not mere robots.
However, if one reads the Greek New Testament, one will find that the apostle John’s writing style and vocabulary is different than Paul’s or Peter’s.
Therefore, if the dictation view is true, the style of the books of the Bible would be uniform but they are clearly not.
The “Neo-orthodox” or “Barthian” view argues that the Bi¬ble is not the Word of God, but only becomes the Word of God through a special encounter when God speaks to a person in some kind of subjective experience or in other words, the Bible only witnesses to the Word of God, but it is not the Word of God.
They contend that the Bible is enshrouded in myth necessitating a demythologizing of the Bible to discover what actually took place and they say that the historicity of the events recorded in the Bible is unimpor¬tant.
For example, whether or not Christ actually rose from the dead in time and space is unimportant to the neo orthodox adherent.
The important thing is the experiential encounter that is possible even though the Bible is tainted with factual errors.
In this view, authority is the subjective experi¬ence of the individual rather than the Scriptures themselves.
As we have seen from this study, the Bible itself claims to be and demonstrates itself to be the Word of God.
These claims are both specific and general for the Bible as a whole, specific sections as well as individual books.
There are many sources which support the Bible’s claim as being the written Word of God.
First of all, of course we have the very nature of the Bible itself.
There is also the internal witness of the Holy Spirit who testifies to the believer’s human spirit that the Bible is inspired by God.
Thirdly, many believers throughout history have testified even up to this present day that the Bible is inspired by God due to the fact that it has transformed their lives.
There is then the very unity of the Bible despite the fact that the Bible has many authors from diverse backgrounds, and languages.
There is a great diversity of topics in the Bible that are addressed, yet the Bible is unified.
A fifth source is that of history in the sense that many archaeological discoveries have confirmed the Bible’s claims thus they defend the Bible’s claim of being a divine book.
There is also the testimony of Jesus Christ Himself who throughout His ministry appealed to Scripture when defending Himself against His enemies or teaching His disciples.
He clearly was of the conviction that the Old Testament was inspired by God.
We also can’t overlook the fact that fulfilled prophecy demonstrates that the Bible is inspired by God.
Furthermore no other book of antiquity or in human history has had a greater influenced than the Bible which supports its claims of being inspired by God.
Another interesting fact about the Bible which supports its claims of being a divine book is that no other book has been attacked like the Bible or has faced greater scrutiny from men as the Bible has and this too supports its claim of being a book which originates with God.