How I Know For Sure My Bible Is Inspired By God (1 of 5)

Series:How Do We Know for Sure That the Bible Is God's Word?

Stan Coffey

Hebrews 1:1-2

Today we are going to begin a brand new series. It will be a brief series about 5 or 6 lessons. This series is entitled "How Do We Know For Sure That The Bible Is God's Word." I know most of you believe the Bible is God's Word, but I am not sure that all of us know why we believe the Bible is God's Word. How do we know for sure that the Bible is God's Word? There is a doctrine that we hold dear here in this church and most conservative Bible believers hold dear called the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy or Infallibility. Meaning that every word of the Bible is true and accurate. Now properly understood, this means that this is a teaching that the Bible contains no errors applied to the Bible's original documents. The original writings of the Bible came directly from God through human authors. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Hebrew of course, is an ancient language that has been revived today and is spoken in Israel. Aramaic is also an ancient language and is sort of a combination of Arabic and Hebrew that is still spoken in many of the lands in the Middle East today and was spoken in Jesus' time. If you saw the movie the Passion of the Christ, the words of Jesus, the words of a few of the characters in that movie were in Aramaic, because it was a commonly spoken language in Jesus time. The Romans in the movie spoke in Latin. And the Hebrews in the movie spoke in Aramaic.

The universal language during the time of Jesus was Greek so the New Testament was penned in Greek. And everyone in the world, the educated world, at the time of Christ's life was Greek. They understood the language of Greek. So when the authors of the New Testament wrote down the gospels and the epistles of the New Testament they wrote them in the language of Greek.

Now in God's province, we no longer of course, have any of the original text or documents of the old or the new testaments. So, how can we know for sure then that we really have God's Word since we don't have the original copies? Well, what we do have available are copies of those original documents, copies that were produced over a number of centuries. And by comparing and analyzing all of those copies, through a process called textural criticism or textural analysis, we are able to determine what the original manuscripts said and where variations crept into the copies. Now that process has confirmed that God has miraculously and remarkably preserved His Word for us. So that the Bibles that we have in English are for the most part exactly what God has written down in the original copies.

Here is a famous statement called the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. It says "since God has no where promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textural criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this science however is that the Hebrew and Greek text appear to be amazingly well preserved. So we are aptly justified in affirming a singular providence of God in this matter. And declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error free. Similarly no translation is or can be perfect and all translations are an additional step away from the autograph. Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English speaking Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true Word of God is within their reach."

I. THE PURPOSE OF GOD'S WORD: REVELATION

So while you can't handle the original documents of the Bible today, you can still have the confidence that most English Bibles faithfully represent the original documents of the Word of God. And that God has supernaturally preserved and provided for us His Word as He gave it through the human authors generations ago. Now with that in mind let's go to Hebrews 1:1-2 and look at the purpose of God's Word. Why did God give us the bible? Why did God give us the written Word? Well, the purpose of it was to reveal Himself to us. God wanted to reveal Himself to man.

Hebrews 1:1-2 "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe."

Now first of all notice God revealed Himself through diverse men. It says in times past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets. Now the prophets here are used in the generic sense. He is not just talking about prophets who foretell the future. But he is using prophets with the meaning intended being those who foretell the Word of God or those who forth tell the Word of God. Not those who predict the future, but those who declare God's Word and God's revelation. There is a difference. He is not talking about the prophet like Nostradamus or prophetess like Jean Dixon; he is talking about those who speak the message of God. In the Bible when the word prophet is used many times, most of the time it is not talking about someone who just predicts the future and future events, it is talking about somebody who declares the message of God and the truth of God. A preacher for example that is what it is really talking about. He is talking about someone who preaches or declares the revealed truth of God. So he says these human writers declared the Word of God, the truth of God to our forefathers. There were prophets such as Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel; we could name many others, Amos, Hosea and other Old Testament writers. These men spoke the revelation of God as God gave it to them.

And then God used kings. It says here that God revealed Himself through diverse men. When you look at the writers of the Old Testament, they are not the same at all. They are very diverse, from very diverse backgrounds. Amos was a herdsman of sheep, but He also used Kings like David and Solomon, very powerful men. Men who were poets and philosophers. But he used others like Daniel, men who were men of great vision.

He also used priests. Samuel was a priest of the Lord. And He used Samuel to write the books of I & II Samuel. Samuel recorded many of the acts of God and he gave us much of the revelation of God in the history of that time. So God used many different writers in many different times to reveal His truth to our forefathers.

Moses gave us the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch and then of course we have the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, then Ruth, then we have Samuel and the books of I & II Chronicles and I & II Kings and then we have books of poetry such as Job and Psalms and Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon and then we come on down and we have the prophetic books like Jeremiah, Daniel and others. We have the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets and so God used many diverse men.

Secondly he said that God used many diverse ways. God revealed Himself to our forefathers through diverse men and in diverse ways. In verse 1 diverse ways means segments of time. In diverse ways God revealed Himself not totally at one time but He revealed Himself progressively through the years of time. It is an unfolding of God's revelation of Himself. As you begin the Bible in the book of Genesis and as you continue through the Word of God, God is gradually, progressively revealing Himself and His plan for mankind. And if you look at how He did this in segments, you would say that we have 39 specific portions or books in the Old Testament and 27 segments or portions in the New Testament making up 66 books of the Bible.

Of course we know that as far as the chapters go and the verses go, there were no chapters and there were no verses in the Bible in the original documents. These were added by scribes later to help divide the Scripture and make it easier to read. In many cases, they made it more difficult to read. So your chapters and your verses are not inspired, but the books of the Bible or the segments and the portions that were inspired by different writers.

Within the portions there are various sections, there are paragraphs, there are phrases and those are very obvious to you as you read the Bible. If you had no verses and you had no chapters, you could still analyze the Scripture and outline the Scripture and you would notice that there is different subject matter, that there is different parts that go together and that the subject matter changes as you go through the Word of God.

And then God revealed Himself with diverse methods, many times and in various ways. When you read the Old Testament you will see that God sometimes used visions. And then the men of God that He used to give us the Scripture wrote down the vision. Daniel had many visions and God would show him His truth through visions. Zechariah wrote visions. His entire book is about visions that he had. Amos had visions, mainly the prophets had visions and their books are about the visions that God gave them. And these visions reveal the truth about God.

And then sometimes God used direct words that He placed within the heart of writers. Sometimes God used parables and He gave them parables. And the parables illustrated truth. Sometimes God used symbols to illustrate a greater truth. Now these were literal symbols but they illustrated even a greater truth. Sometimes He used ceremonies such as in the book of Leviticus we read of all the ceremonies that God gave to Israel. The Feast Days that God gave to Israel that illustrate the greater spiritual truth about Christ who would come. We read the story about the brazen serpent that the Israelites were told to make and lift up on a pole in the camp. They were being bitten by poisonous snakes and God said raise up a snake of brass in the camp. And whoever will look at the snake of brass if he has been bitten by a serpent, if he will look at that snake of brass, he will live. And of course that snake of brass illustrated the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior who would be lifted up on a cross. And Jesus said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believes on Him will not perish but have everlasting life. We have been bitten with the poison of sin and the only way of salvation is to look unto Christ. So God began to reveal Himself through symbols and ceremonies and types.

A type is simply an illustration of bigger and greater things to come, a shadow of things to come. In the Old Testament you have things concealed but in the New Testament you have things revealed. So God used that method to reveal Himself, diverse methods. So these authors don't use the same method. You have different writers, writing at different times, using different methods and yet God is using each one to reveal His truth over many different years.

And then God revealed Himself in the last days through one man in only one way and that is Jesus Christ, His Son, the Messiah. Now the birth of Jesus Christ marked the beginning of the period of time known as The Last Days. We think about the last days as just the days before the coming of Christ, the immediate time before the coming of Christ. But when it says here that in these last times, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. The writer of Hebrews is writing somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 A.D. and he is saying I am living in the last days. And God has spoken to us in these last days by His Son whom He has made heir of all things.

Now this is very important, listen, God has spoken to us in these last days; we are living in this same period of time known as the last days. When did the Last Days begin? They began with the birth of Jesus Christ the Messiah. And God began to speak to man through one way, whereas He had spoken to man through poets, kings, shepherds, prophets, now in these last days, God has spoken to man in only one way, through His Son, Jesus Christ. The birth of God's Son initiated the beginning of the Last Days and the record of God's Son was written down in what we have as the New Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament.

The full and final record of God's revelation of Himself to man was the incarnation and the work of Jesus Christ. And we have the full record of that work in the New Testament. That doesn't mean that we have every act that Jesus did in the New Testament because when you read the book of John, do you remember what John said in the very last chapter? He said, I haven't included all that Jesus did in my book, if I did that, the world could not contain all the volumes that would be written, if I included all that Jesus did and said. But it means that all that we need to know about God, God has given us through His Son Jesus Christ. And that has been written down for us in the New Testament. And the full and final revelation of God to man has been given to us in His Son Jesus Christ. And that is the emphasis that the writer of Hebrews is making.

The writer of Hebrews is writing to Jewish believers. And Jewish believers were being told that they had to keep the law as well as believe on Jesus. That salvation was by grace through faith, but they also had to keep all the ceremonies of the Old Testament. They had to go to the temple, they had to offer sacrifices, they had to keep the feasts, and they had to believe on Jesus. So the writer of Hebrews writes to these Jewish Christians and says, NO, in times past God revealed Himself to you through those ceremonies, through those rituals, through those symbols, through those types, but now in these last days, He revealed Himself in only one way, through His Son Jesus. And that is all you need to be concerned about. And that is His message to us today. All you need to be concerned about is Jesus and God's revelation of Himself through Jesus Christ.

Does that mean the Old Testament is not for us? No, because the Old Testament simply points us to the coming of Christ. The Old Testament is background for the New Testament. It is a rich background that now makes sense to us because Jesus has come and fulfilled it and now we see what the Old Testament was pointing to. Now we see Christ revealed in the Old Testament. But it does mean that the full and final revelation of God, what it was all about, was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That is the purpose of God's Word. The purpose of God's Word is to reveal to us God. It is His revelation and the final revelation of God is Jesus Christ, because He is the one and the only way of salvation. It doesn't reveal to us Buddha, it doesn't reveal to us Mohammad, and it doesn't reveal to us any other great religious leader because you don't need them. What the world needs is Christ and so it reveals to us Christ and Christ alone. And that is what he says here, in the last days, He has spoken to us by His Son whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom He made the universe.

Now it goes on to describe in this chapter and throughout the book of Hebrews that Christ is superior to every thing else that the Bible has ever mentioned, that He is superior to priests, He is superior to angels, He is superior to principalities and powers, that Christ is the ultimate revelation of God because He is God in human flesh. And you will never get closer to God than Jesus Christ. That is the closest to God you will ever get because He was God in human flesh. And you can't get any closer to God than that. A God who has skin just like you and me.

II. THE PROCESS OF GOD'S WORD: INSPIRATION

Now the process that God used to write down His revelation is called inspiration. If God is going to reveal Himself through a written word, through a written book, there must be a process involved. How is God going to get this book to us? Is God going to drop it out of the sky as Joseph Smith claimed he received his book of Mormon? Is God going to drop a golden tablet out of the sky and then direct somebody to go dig here and you will find these golden tablets and on the golden tablets will be God's revelation of Himself to all mankind? And God is only going to reveal that to one man in all the world, is that the way God is going to do it? And then that revelation is going to be interpreted and interrupted, and interpreted. And it is going to change from time to time. I don't think so. God chose a method called inspiration.

And let's see what the inspiration means. Let's look at 2 Peter 1:20-21, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." Prophecy not in a predictive sense, but in a declarative sense to speak forth God's revelation. So this process that God used to give His revelation to man is called inspiration.

Let's look at the writer's inspiration. What it says is, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Now this is a word that can mean something carried downstream by the current, like a log or a little stick. A log is in a river and it is being carried downstream and it really has no choice of its own where it is going to go because it is in the flow of the current. And the current is taking it where it wants to go. So he is saying the writers did not choose what to write, it was what they wrote in the Bible didn't come from their human mind or their human origin, but they were carried along downstream by a power outside themselves, by the Holy Spirit.

It could refer to something carried onto the beach by the tide. Something is floating in the ocean and the tide comes in and the power of the tide is so mighty and forceful that what is out there in the ocean has to be brought in. It cannot resist the power of the tide, it cannot stay out there where it is, and it has to come in. And so it was with these men, they had to write what they wrote because of the power of the Holy Spirit moving through them.

But number 3, the wind in the sails which powers a boat, a sailboat. And this is the best description of this word. This is a Greek word which actually was a nautical term used by sailors. It says, men spoke from God as they were carried along; it is a nautical term meaning the wind in the sails. These men were carried along like a ship. And of course the reason Peter uses this term, carried along, is because the word for Spirit is pneuma and that is the word for breathe. The word for Holy Spirit is the same Greek root for breathe, pneuma. And you add to that hagion, hagion pneumas you have holy breathe. And you have the idea of the Holy Spirit breathing into their sails, to breath into the sails and that breathe, that wind carried them along and they wrote what the Spirit wanted them to write. They were carried along by the wind of the Spirit. Not writing anything of their human origination, but wrote what the Spirit inspired them to write.

So the Holy Spirit moved the writers of Scripture so they actually spoke from God not just the ideas of God, but also the very words of God. This doesn't mean that all of them spoke in the same way because each writer had his own style; each writer had his differing degree of education, so that you can tell Paul's writing was from a man who had several degrees, who spoke several languages. You can tell Simon Peter's writing is from a man who was a fisherman who had no formal degrees. God didn't bypass their human abilities. He used their human abilities and yet still the words they wrote were the words God put into their heart to write. That is the writer's inspiration, they were carried along as the breathe of the Spirit breathed on them. They wrote what the Spirit wanted them to write. That is how you know that your Bible is inspired by God. That is how you can be sure it is God's Word, not the word of man because the Scripture says no prophecy is of any private interpretation, but holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, as He breathed into them the words.

Now, notice the writer's origination. He says in this verse, the writing was not by human imagination that is they spoke as they were carried along; it was not something they imagined and decided to write like a novel or a poem. The Bible is not inspired like a poem is inspired or as a novel is inspired or even like a hymn is inspired. We have hymns, choruses, and praise songs that are inspiring but they are not inspired like the Bible is inspired. The Bible is inspired much differently.

The writing was not by human interpretation. The Greek word here is eppaluscious or source. It is speaking here that no writing of Scripture was from any human source in verse 20 that is what it is saying. No Scripture was from any human source. And the idea there is unleashing, no Scripture was the result of a human writer unleashing his own ideas. So the Holy Spirit selected the author then gave the message to the author so that the message written down was inerrant and infallible. It was from God and not the word of man.

Now the last thing is the Spirit's Confirmation. And for this we go to II Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Notice, all Scripture is God-breathed. In the King James it says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Again that word means God-breathed. The word God-breathed means God breathed out the very words of Scripture and breathed them in to the minds of the writer. Just as one cannot speak without air, he must breath in to speak and then breathe out. The air must pass over the vocal cords to stimulate the vocal cords to form the words so the writers had to have the breathe of the Holy Spirit in order to write down the words of God that God gave to them. God breathed in those words into their hearts and minds.

This is known as the Plenary-Verbal belief of biblical inspiration. Plenary means full or all. All Scripture is God-breathed. Notice that, II Timothy 3:16. Not part of Scripture, all Scripture. Now all Scripture is not equally interesting. The genealogies of Genesis are not as interesting as the parables or the miracles of Jesus but they are all God-breathed. All Scriptures are the Word of God, ALL.

Then verbal means words, not just the thoughts of the writers but the very words are inspired of God. Because if you change the words of Scripture you can change the entire meaning of Scripture. And that is why you have to be very careful when you are interpreting the Bible, if you change a word, you can change an entire doctrine. For instance if you change the meaning of the word virgin and you say that Mary was a young woman not a virgin, then you have changed the whole doctrine of the birth of Christ. And you destroy the fundamental truth of salvation. And so the word must be inspired. Not only the thoughts but also every word is inspired.

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