S3 E3 TRANSCRIPT
THE BIBLE IS GOD-BREATHED
INTRODUCTION
Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and in this episode, we are discussing the topic:
THE BIBLE IS GOD-BREATHED
In the last episode we said the Bible is a big deal because it was inspired by God. In this episode we are going to expand on that. This is a very important topic, and it affects how we view the Bible. It also has a great bearing on living a Spirit-led life.
Let us get started, but I will let you know that my voice is a little ragged today. So please forgive me if I sort of croak into the microphone!
SCRIPTURE IS SELF-ATTESTING
The reason we say the Bible is inspired by God, is because the Bible makes that claim about itself. In other words, the Bible is self-attesting. When you read the Bible, you cannot escape what it says about its own origin.
For example, throughout the Old Testament you will often read the expression, “Thus saith the Lord,” and that expression is followed by words which prophets spoke on behalf of God. In other words, the prophets wrote what God wanted them to say. God was the source behind the words.
In the book of Exodus, we see examples where the words which God spoke to Moses were directly quoted. In the extreme case, we have the ten commandments where not only did God say exactly what was to be written down, but God wrote it down for Moses. This is what it says in the book of Exodus:
And he (and he is speaking of the LORD) gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
Exodus 31:18 ESV
Clearly, this act of God was exceptional, but all through the Old Testament are written records said to be God’s words.
The New Testament writers also affirmed that what is written in the Old Testament comes from God.
Here is what Peter said about the prophets in 1 Peter 1:21:
For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter 1:21 ESV
Isn’t that interesting imagery? “Carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul wrote this:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16 ESV
We know from other verses that when Paul speaks of the Scriptures, he is speaking about what we call the Old Testament. Along with these two verses we just read, the New Testament has many other verses where the Old Testament writings are said to have come from God.
We can see that both the Old Testament and the New Testament make the claim that the Old Testament is in some way God-breathed. But what about the New Testament? Does that fit in the same category? It turns out that it does!
First, we have the words of Jesus. You cannot get more God-breathed than that. We also find that the writers of the New Testament recognize the authority under which they are writing. There are times when Paul says that what he is saying is “a command from the Lord.” Peter (in 2 Peter 3:16) equates the writings of Paul with the other Scriptures. We also know that the Apostles lived with Jesus and were given authority, by Jesus, to speak.
A CIRCULAR ARGUMENT?
What we find, is that from beginning to end, the Bible claims to be the words of God. Again, this is why we call it self-attesting, and why Christians claim that the Bible is God speaking to us.
Now, I do want us to be aware that an objection may come out of this. Here is why…what we have just discussed is that we believe the Bible is God speaking to us because that is what the Bible says. And we believe what the Bible says because it is God’s words. And we believe it is God’s words because that is what it says. And now you see the problem…the complaint can be made that we are using a circular argument.
And you know what? It is a circular argument. There is no way for us to avoid that because God is an absolute authority. This does not apply only to the Bible, but to any situation where there is an absolute authority. If there were something else that we could appeal to that would validate the Bible as the words of God, then whatever we appealed to would be, in some way, greater than God.
HOW DO WE KNOW THE BIBLE IS FROM GOD?
How do we know then that the Bible really is from God? There are a lot of books in the world today claiming to be holy…what would convince us that the Bible is God-breathed?
There are many ways that people answer this question, but in the end, none of them offer proof. For example, we could look at the historical and archaeological accuracy of the Bible. Or we could look at the prophecies that have come true. But if any of them could provide an ironclad proof that the Bible comes from God, then we would have found a way to prove that God himself exists. And that is not going to happen. These things may help convince us individually, but they cannot be used as logical or philosophical proofs to convince someone else.
Ultimately, we become convinced that the Bible is God-breathed by reading it. As we read the text, God speaks through what is written. If we have the courage to listen to what God is saying, we will find that the Bible speaks more accurately about the world and the human condition than any other book. As we read it and allow the Holy Spirit to work within us, we begin to understand what is true. It is in this process, that we accept the Bible as the words of God.
We need to understand that reading the Bible is a spiritual act. If we are not open to the work of the Holy Spirit in us as we read the Bible, then it will be no more than just a book of history, or poetry, or whatever you want to call it. Much of it will not make sense. This is what Paul was talking about when he said:
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV
When we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us as we read the Bible, we will hear God’s words and recognize his voice.
GOD-BREATHED
Let us go back now and look more at some of the verses we read earlier. The Apostle Paul said that all Scripture is God-breathed. Does that mean that sections in the Bible about battles and murders are there because God wanted them there? Yes, it does mean that!
When we read that the Bible is God-breathed, we understand it to mean that there are no errors in the original phrases and words used in the Bible. This is true even though God used people who were not perfect, and often made mistakes. But somehow, they were “carried along” by the Holy Spirit to create something that is holy and is the perfect instrument through which God speaks. We also take God-breathed to mean that the Bible is whole and finished. We must not try to remove parts of it or add anything to it.
There are different ways that people view this combination of God using humans to write the Bible. One liberal view is that the Bible is a combination of divine revelation and human creation. In other words, parts of the Bible are from God, and parts are from humans. I suppose atheism might take the most extreme liberal view possible by saying that the whole Bible originates from the human mind.
But this combination of God’s words along with human thought creates a problem. Who determines what is true? What is the authority of the biblical literature? In this type of construction, universal truth disappears. It is now up to the individual to determine what is true and to determine the accuracy of how the Bible portrays God and the world.
The conservative view sees the whole Bible as the Word of God, even though fallible humans were involved. So how does that work? How did mistake-prone humans produce something that was perfect? Let us consider three ways.
One possibility is that God dictated to the writers every single word and every single point of punctuation. This is called the “verbal dictation” theory. If you think of a court reporter writing down everything that was said in a trial, you have a good idea of what this might look like.
While there are verses in the Bible where God says to write his words down, the verbal dictation theory is not very well accepted. This is because the various books of the Bible reveal unique writing styles. In the last episode we mentioned that over 40 authors wrote the Bible over a span of about 1500 years. While the substance of what these authors wrote is consistent, they do not all write with the same voice.
Another possibility is that God told the authors what he wanted said and the authors wrote in their own words. In this case, God’s thoughts are conveyed but the word selections come from the author. This possibility is sometimes called “dynamic inspiration.”
It is interesting to compare the verbal dictation approach to dynamic inspiration. With verbal dictation, there is almost no human element. The authors are essentially robots doing what God said. With dynamic inspiration, it goes in the other direction. God says his part but then he is totally out of it as the authors decide how they want to speak and convey the message.
The third possibility is called “verbal plenary inspiration.” I know, that is an odd expression but that is part of what we will encounter as we do systematic theology. “Verbal” just means “words,” and “plenary” comes from a Latin word meaning “full.” This approach views every single word of the original biblical writings as coming from God without error. And yet, somehow, God worked within the personality and culture of each author, using a variety of methods. There is a holy mystery about this. It is a beautiful interaction between God and humans as the Holy Spirit moved the authors to say exactly what God wanted said. It was this process that allowed Paul to say that all Scripture is God-breathed.
Of these three possible ways that God used humans to write the Bible, it is this third approach that is most accepted. It is the approach that I will use throughout this teaching series. The understanding that the whole Bible is God-breathed, makes the Bible our ultimate authority and our standard of truth.
SPIRIT-LED LIFE APPLICATION
In this episode then, we have seen that the Bible claims to be God-breathed. The Holy Spirit worked through human agents across time to speak to us in just the way God wished. I think it would be nearly impossible to overstate how important the Bible is to us from the perspective of a Spirit-led life and a life of hope.
From a practical perspective, there are many directions in which we could go right now, but I want to speak about one thing that is so obvious, that many Christians overlook it. I do think that what I am going say may be more common in Pentecostal denominations, but it is certainly not unique to charismatic Christians. And here, I am speaking to Christians, but in a moment, I will also speak to non-Christians.
One thing that can happen is that Christians can start to place a premium on hearing God outside of the Bible. In other words, there is a belief that the best way to hear God is through hearing his voice. This may be through someone else speaking prophetically, or by hearing God audibly, or by hearing that still small voice that comes from God that may sound like our own. Or any combination of these or other things like dreams.
Again, I think this is more common in Pentecostal circles, but it is not unique to those denominations. Christians from all sorts of backgrounds have come to me for pastoral guidance and a common cry is, “If only God would speak to me.” Christians want to hear the voice of God.
What I want to remind everyone in this episode, is that the Bible is not like any other book. These are words spoken to us by our Creator. Often, we can be so focused on hearing the voice of God speaking to us outside of the Bible that we miss the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the words he himself placed on its pages through human writers.
As we read the Bible, the Holy Spirit living within us illuminates what he has written to give us what we need. Please do not think that this is in any way inferior to hearing God outside of the Bible. It is not! In fact, it is only because of the Bible that we can hear God in other ways. We will talk more about that in a following episode.
Am I saying that we should not listen for the voice of God? Absolutely not. If you listened to Season 1 you know that I am a big believer in responding to the voice of the Holy Spirit. But what I am saying, is that no one needs to think that God is silent or ignoring them, because we have hundreds of pages where he speaks to us, gives us wisdom, and shows us how much he loves us. If you are a Christian and feel like God is not speaking to you, then please, allow him to speak to you through the Bible.
If you are not a Christian, and you have a desire to hear from God, then the Bible is also for you. But there is a catch, of sorts. If we seek God, we will find him because he is constantly pursuing us. All that is required is that you read the Bible with an open mind to pursue the truth. You can have doubts, you can have fears, you can have pre-conceived ideas, and you can even hate God if you think he exists, but what you cannot have, is an unwillingness to change through pursuit of the truth. Jesus said he is the way, the truth, and the life. Read the Bible with an intent to find the truth, and you will hear from God.
CLOSING
In our next episode, we will continue learning about the Bible by looking at how it was written and preserved over time.
As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please email me at glenn@spiritledhope.com, or simply use the Contact Form at spiritledhope.com. That is spiritLEDhope.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
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As always, receive this blessing:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Until next episode, take care.
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