INSPIRATION

INSPIRATION — a technical term for the Holy Spirit’s supernatural guidance of those who received special revelation from God as they wrote the books of the Bible. The end result of this inspiration is that the Bible conveys the truths that God wanted His people to know and to communicate to the world.

The primary purpose of the Bible is to lead people to a personal relationship with God as Savior. But everything taught by the Bible on any subject is helpful and instructive for the complete Christian life (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Because Christianity relates to the real world, the Bible’s declarations about the earth and history are completely trustworthy.

Two terms often used in discussion of the inspiration of the Bible are “plenary” and “verbal.” “Plenary,” a term meaning full or complete, means that each book, chapter, and paragraph of the Bible is equally derived from God. “Verbal” inspiration emphasizes the truth that the wording of the text, as well as the ideas conveyed, is supernaturally inspired by God through the Holy Spirit.

“Inerrancy” is a term used along with plenary verbal inspiration to convey the view that the Bible’s teaching is true on everything of which it speaks. The words of Scripture, in the original writings, teach the truth without any admixture of error. The Bible is not just a useful body of human ideas. It makes clear the mind of God Himself.

“Infallibility” is a term often used as a synonym for inerrancy. However, the root meaning of infallibility is “not liable to fail in achieving its purpose.” Truth, or inerrancy, is affirmed of the content of the Bible; infallibility refers to the effectiveness of the wording in conveying reliable ideas, as well as the effectiveness of those ideas when used by the all-powerful Holy Spirit (Is. 55:11).

Important as biblical infallibility is, it is not enough without inerrancy. The reason why the Spirit can use Scripture so effectively is that He directed its production from the beginning so that all of it is God’s reliable information.

Inspiration, then, is a statement about God’s greatness. God is intelligent and able to communicate with human beings, whom He created in His image. God knows everything about all reality in creation and is absolutely faithful and true (Rev. 3:7; 21:5). it follows that ideas communicated by divine revelation are true and conform to reality as God knows it. God overruled human limitations and sinful biases so that His human agents were able to write what He wanted written. God guided the thought conveyed so that it was without error, accomplishing the objectives He intended.

Exactly what role did the human writers of the Bible play in their transmission of God’s message? They were not totally passive as those whose hands move automatically in an unconscious state. Their distinctive ways of writing stand out, as in the four gospels, which describe the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Luke, the beloved physician, used many medical terms not found in Matthew, Mark, or John. Some biblical writers, like Moses and Paul, were highly educated; others were not.

Although some passages of Scripture may have been received by audible dictation (Ex. 4:12; 19:3–6; Num. 7:89), many were guided by a silent activity of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:1–4). To err is human, and the conscious participation of finite, sinful authors would have led to error if not for this supernatural guidance by the Spirit.

God gave these people the distinctive functions of prophets and apostles, originated what they wrote, and kept them from error in all the writing processes. All of Scripture has prophetic authority. None of it originated in the will of human beings. It came about through the will of God (2 Pet. 1:20–21). All Scripture was given by inspiration of God (2 Tim. 3:16).

Clear standards tested whether a person who claimed to speak for God was a true prophet or a false prophet (Deut. 13:1–5; 18:20–22). People who spoke out of their hearts and by their own independent wills were subject to the death penalty (Deut. 13:6–10). Genuine prophets were inspired by the Holy Spirit as authentic speakers for God.

Although the Bible does not tell exactly how God inspired its writers, it was certainly not in a mechanical way. God the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity who is working with persons. How does one person influence another person? Why do some have a more powerful impact upon people than others? Many factors are involved. We do know for certain that the Scriptures originated with God and that the writers were “moved” or carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:20–21) as they recorded God’s message.

The Holy Spirit’s work in the life of the Virgin Mary is a good example of how the Spirit worked with the biblical writers. A fully human, sinful woman bore a sinless child who would be called the Holy One, the Son of God (Luke 1:35). How could that be? The power of the Highest “overshadowed” her so that she conceived Jesus. Likewise, the power of the Highest “overshadowed” the biblical writers so that what they wrote could be called the Holy Bible, the Word of God.

Followers of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord will follow Him in His view of the Old Testament Scriptures and the entire Bible. He endorsed all three sections of the Hebrew Bible: the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Writings). He accepted as fact some of the most controversial historical details: Adam and Eve at the beginning of time (Matt. 19:4); Abel’s murder of Cain (Luke 11:51); Noah, the ark, and the Flood (Matt. 24:37–39); the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Lot’s wife (Luke 17:28–30); and Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch (John 5:46). “All things must be fulfilled,” He said, “which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me” (Luke 24:44). People were mistaken, Jesus said, “not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). He expressed His concern for unbelievers: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25).

The view that God’s great mind had to accommodate itself to human errors in the production of the Bible does not fit the high view of Scripture that Jesus had. God certainly adapted His truth to a human level of understanding. But a person can adapt truth about the origin of human life to a child’s level of understanding without teaching errors about storks. In a similar way, God adapts His truth in part to our limited understandings, but neither He, nor His Son, nor His Spirit taught error in the name of God.

Belief in the Bible’s inerrancy and infallibility best fits the claims of Jesus about the Bible and the claims the Bible makes for itself. Salvation is the primary purpose of Scripture, but this is not its only function. It teaches truth about the world’s origins, history, and the future.

Those who believe all that the Bible affirms should live faithfully according to its instruction in all personal relationships. Central to the Bible’s teaching is love for God and love for neighbor. If believers in biblical inerrancy do not love God and their neighbors, their defense of scriptural authority will become “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1, NIV).

 

The Present & Future Work of Christ

The present work of Christ—The present work of Christ begins with His exaltation by God, after the completion of His “finished” work in His death and resurrection.

The first aspect of His present work was the sending of the Holy Spirit to dwell in His people. “If I do not go away,” He had said to his disciples in the Upper Room, “the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7). The fulfillment of this promise was announced by Peter on the Day of Pentecost: “Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

The promise of the Holy Spirit can be traced back to John the Baptist, who prophesied that the One who was to come after him, mightier than himself, would “baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8).

But the present work of Christ that receives the main emphasis in the New Testament is His intercession. Paul, quoting what appears to be an early Christian confession of faith, spoke of “Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34). So too, the writer to the Hebrews says that “He ever lives to make intercession” for His people (Heb. 7:25). He describes in detail Jesus’ exceptional qualifications to be their high priest.

Jesus’ presence with God as His people’s representative provides the assurance that their requests for spiritual help are heard and granted. To know that He is there is a powerful incentive for His followers. No good thing that Jesus seeks for them is withheld by the Father.

The exaltation of Christ is repeatedly presented in the New Testament as the fulfillment of Psalm 110:1: “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” This means that Christ reigns from His present place of exaltation and must do so until all His enemies are overthrown. Those enemies belong to the spiritual realm: “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). With the destruction of death, which occurred with the resurrection of Jesus, the present phase of Christ’s work gives way to His future work.

The future work of Christ—During His earthly ministry, Jesus declared that He had even greater works to do in the future. He specified two of these greater works: the raising of the dead and the passing of final judgment. To raise the dead and to judge the world are prerogatives of God, but He delegated these works to His Son. While the Son would discharge these two functions at the time of the end, they were not unrelated to the events of Jesus’ present ministry. Those who were spiritually dead received new life when they responded in faith to the Son of God. In effect, they were passing judgment on themselves as they accepted or rejected the life He offered.

The raising of the dead and the passing of judgment are associated with the second coming of Christ. When Paul dealt with this subject, he viewed Christ’s appearing in glory as the occasion when His people would share His glory and be displayed to the universe as the sons and daughters of God, heirs of the new order. He added that all creation looks forward to that time, because then it “will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

Both the present work of Christ and His future work are dependent on His “finished” work. That “finished” work was the beginning of God’s “good work” in His people. This work will not be completed until “the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), when the entire universe will be united “in Christ” (Eph. 1:10).

The Finished Work of Christ

    By the “finished” work of Christ is meant the work of atonement or redemption for the human race that He completed by His death on the cross. This work is so perfect in itself that it requires neither repetition nor addition. Because of this work, He is called “Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14) and “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

In the Bible sin is viewed in several ways: as an offense against God, which requires a pardon; as defilement, which requires cleansing; as slavery, which cries out for emancipation; as a debt, which must be canceled; as defeat, which must be reversed by victory; and as estrangement, which must be set right by reconciliation. However sin is viewed, it is through the work of Christ that the remedy is provided. He has procured the pardon, the cleansing, the emancipation, the cancellation, the victory, and the reconciliation.

When sin is viewed as an offense against God, it is also interpreted as a breach of His law. The law of God, like law in general, involves penalties against the lawbreaker. So strict are these penalties that they appear to leave no avenue of escape for the lawbreaker. The apostle Paul, conducting his argument along these lines, quoted one uncompromising declaration from the Old Testament: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them” (Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10).

But Paul goes on to say that Christ, by enduring the form of death on which a divine curse was expressly pronounced in the law, absorbed in His own person the curse invoked on the lawbreaker: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)” (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13).

Since Christ partakes of the nature of both God and humanity, He occupies a unique status with regard to them. He represents God to humanity, and He also represents humanity to God. God is both Lawgiver and Judge; Christ represents Him. The human family has put itself in the position of the lawbreaker; Christ has voluntarily undertaken to represent us. The Judge has made Himself one with the guilty in order to bear our guilt. It is ordinarily out of the question for one person to bear the guilt of others. But when the one person is the representative human being, Jesus Christ, bearing the guilt of those whom He represents, the case is different.

In the hour of His death, Christ offered His life to God on behalf of mankind. The perfect life that He offered was acceptable to God. The salvation secured through the giving up of that life is God’s free gift to mankind in Christ.

When the situation is viewed in terms of a law court, one might speak of the accused party as being acquitted. But the term preferred in the New Testament, especially in the apostle Paul’s writings, is the more positive word “justified.” Paul goes on to the limit of daring in speaking of God as “Him who justifies the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5). God can be so described because “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Those who are united by faith to Him are “justified” in Him. As Paul explained elsewhere, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). The work of Christ, seen from this point of view, is to set humanity in a right relationship with God.

When sin is considered as defilement that requires cleansing, the most straightforward affirmation is that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). The effect of His death is to purify a conscience that has been polluted by sin. The same thought is expressed by the writer of the Book of Hebrews. He speaks of various materials that were prescribed by Israel’s ceremonial law to deal with forms of ritual pollution, which was an external matter. Then he asks, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:14). Spiritual defilement calls for spiritual cleansing, and this is what the death of Christ has accomplished.

When sin is considered as slavery from which the slave must be set free, then the death of Christ is spoken of as a ransom or a means of redemption. Jesus Himself declared that He came “to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Paul not only spoke of sin as slavery; he also personified sin as a slaveowner who compels his slaves to obey his evil orders. When they are set free from his control by the death of Christ to enter the service of God, they find this service, by contrast, to be perfect freedom.

The idea of sin as a debt that must be canceled is based on the teaching of Jesus. In Jesus’ parable of the creditor and the two debtors (Luke 7:40–43), the creditor forgave them both when they could make no repayment. But the debtor who owed the larger sum, and therefore had more cause to love the forgiving creditor, represented the woman whose “sins, which are many, are forgiven” (Luke 7:47). This is similar to Paul’s reference to God as “having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands” (Col. 2:14, NRSV).

Paul’s words in Colossians 2:15 speak of the “principalities and powers” as a personification of the hostile forces in the world that have conquered men and women and held them as prisoners of war. There was no hope of successful resistance against them until Christ confronted them. It looked as if they had conquered Him too, but on the cross He conquered death itself, along with all other hostile forces. In His victory all who believe in Him have a share: “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57).

Sin is also viewed as estrangement, or alienation, from God. In this case, the saving work of Christ includes the reconciliation of sinners to God. The initiative in this reconciling work is taken by God: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). God desires the well-being of sinners; so He sends Christ as the agent of His reconciling grace to them (Col. 1:20).

Those who are separated from God by sin are also estranged from one another. Accordingly, the work of Christ that reconciles sinners to God also brings them together as human beings. Hostile divisions of humanity have peace with one another through Him. Paul celebrated the way in which the work of Christ overcame the mutual estrangement of Jews and Gentiles: “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of division between us” (Eph. 2:14).

When the work of Christ is pictured in terms of an atoning sacrifice, it is God who takes the initiative. The word “propitiation,” used in this connection in older English versions of the Bible (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10), does not mean that sinful men and women have to do something to appease God or turn away His anger; neither does it mean that Christ died on the cross to persuade God to be merciful to sinners. It is the nature of God to be a pardoning God. He has revealed His pardoning nature above all in the person and work of Christ. This saving initiative is equally and eagerly shared by Christ: He gladly cooperates with the Father’s purpose for the redemption of the world.

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