_____________________________
This brings us to another point which must be raised in opposition to the assertion that human fallibility precludes infallibility in the Scripture. It is that the advocates of this position are for the most part extremely inconsistent. Certain parts of the Bible, they tell us, are pure and true. For example, the injunction to love one’s enemies is acceptable to modern theologians. There, certainly, is the Word of God. That we are to obey. In saying this, however, modern theology is in effect admitting the very case which it wishes to deny. In admitting that there is even one bit of Scripture that is the pure and infallible and trustworthy Word of God, the modern theologian is tacitly acknowledging that at least some of the Word of God has come through the medium of fallible human writers without itself becoming fallible. It was protected from error so that we today might regard it as trustworthy. It is the truth free from error; our duty in fact is to love our enemies. If, however, even a portion of the Word may have been transmitted through fallible human channels without error, why may not all have been so transmitted? To acknowledge that some may be preserved from error is to give the case away. If some may thus have been kept from imperfection, without doubt all may likewise have been so kept. Moreover, if it is true that humanity, because it is necessarily fallible, may thwart the revelation of God, so that that revelation comes to us marred, what is to be said about Christ? Jesus Christ was a true man, and if manhood necessarily involves fallibility, Jesus Christ was fallible. If humanity, simply because it is humanity, is characterized by error and imperfection, Jesus Christ is not our Savior.
From these consequences we cannot flee. We are not warranted in making an exception of the Person of our Lord, and if we have once adopted the position that the human necessarily entails imperfection, let us be consistent and admit that Christ also is imperfect. It is a sad conclusion to draw; sad as it is, however, it is one that we must draw if the premise which we have adopted is correct. If our Lord, in His human nature, was necessarily subject to fallibility, then, of course, He was not what He claimed to be; He was subject to sin. There is no escape from this conclusion, none whatever. If Jesus Christ was a sinner (for fallibility is the consequence of sin) we might as well face the fact that He is not, nor could He be, our Savior. As a matter of fact, however, this vicious premise is not correct. The God whom we worship is powerful enough to convey His revelation through human channels and to do so in such a manner that His revelation does not acquire the imperfections that adhere to sinful humanity. In the Person of His Son, He is able to take to Himself a true human nature which is not touched with sin. Although error and imperfection are found in sinful human nature they are not at all necessary characteristics of human nature as such.
Is it not, the charge is sometimes made, an illogical position to adopt, this position which asserts that God can give an infallible revelation through fallible channels? Man is fallible; man is the only instrument available to God through which this revelation can come. Simple logic demands that said revelation must then partake of fallibility. Thus the view for which we are contending is dismissed as “illogical.”
But is this view, as a matter of fact, illogical? The charge, grave as it is, is based upon the premise that man is capable of qualifying or affecting the revelation which God gives through him. Is this premise, however, warranted by the facts? Can man, in truth, control God’s revelation? Is God the Revealer subject to man? According to the Bible this premise is utterly and completely false. According to the Bible God has created man in His own image. Man therefore is subject to God, and dependent upon Him. God, on the other hand, is utterly independent of man, and self-sufficient unto Himself. “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things” (Romans 11:36a).
Man is entirely subject to the law of God. As created by God, Adam, although finite, was nevertheless not fallible. Adam, however, sinned, and all mankind sinned in him and fell with him. Man, therefore, is a sinful creature and as a sinner is subject to error. God, since He is the omnipotent Creator, has absolute control over those whom He has created. In His good pleasure, which is a sovereign good pleasure, He may bear the human writers of the Bible, so controlling them, yet preserving intact their personalities, that they can write His revelation exactly as He wishes. If once we think rightly about God, other matters will appear in their proper perspective. Once we realize that God is in control of the situation, it will become clear that the Biblical doctrine of inspiration, mysterious as it may be, is nevertheless not illogical.
Thus we come to that which is basic in modern thought. In all this talk of the Word of God we would ask the question, What is it that modern theologians have in mind when they are speaking of the Word of God? Who is this God in whose Word they are so interested? It is difficult to identify Him. He seems to be a creation in the image of man, and not the Triune God who has spoken in the Bible. The issue involved is in reality that of theism. Who is our God? Are we followers of the King, or have we bowed the knee to Baal? Unless first we become as little children and acknowledge the true God in all our ways, we shall not speak profitably on the subject of that Word which has been breathed forth from His mouth. The modern god, created by man, lives and rules in the City of Destruction. From him and from his reign, however, we have been delivered by the God of Holy Scripture.
It should be clear from the discussion so far that the Bible is not to be regarded as a “joint” product, the combined effort of God and man. Surely the Bible itself does not make such a claim. There were indeed human writers of the Scripture, but they are not to be considered as co-authors with God. It is not that God contributed certain parts of the Scriptures, and men supplemented these, and it most certainly is not the case that men contributed the greater portion of Scripture to have it supplemented by God. Nor did God and man take counsel together as to what should be included in the Scripture. God did not consult man as to what should be written. The Bible is truly the Word of God. He is the final and the ultimate Author; the Bible comes from God. Without Him there could have been no Bible. Without men, however, there could have been a Bible. God could have given us His Word in some other manner than that which He actually did choose. As a matter of fact, He did choose to speak through inspired men but He was not compelled to do so. In no sense was He limited. That he employed human writers was an act of grace, and the heart of faith will ever adore and revere Him that He so honored the human race as to employ lost sinners as writers of His pure and holy Word. While the human authors were true authors, nevertheless they were not the originators of the words and the thoughts that are found in the Bible. They were holy men indeed, but they were holy men who were borne by the Spirit.
Were these human writers infallible, even when they were not borne by the Spirit? Obviously the Bible does not teach that this was so. They were men of their own day. No doubt their own views of astronomy, for example, were not one whit more advanced than those of their contemporaries. On the other hand, when they were the penmen of the Spirit of God, they were expressing the words of God. The thoughts which they were penning had been revealed to them by God; they were placed in their minds by the Spirit Himself. It therefore will not do to assert that they did not have a knowledge of modern astronomy and hence could not have written an account of the creation that was scientifically accurate. If Moses had depended only upon the wisdom of the Egyptians, he would have produced a rather clumsy account of Creation. If he had relied alone upon the thoughts and opinions of his own heart, he would have composed a first chapter of Genesis that for crudity and error might have equaled the writings of Babylonia. Moses, however, in writing the first chapter of Genesis was not drawing upon his own ideas and thoughts. He was giving expression to thoughts which he had learned by revelation of God. He was an inspired penman. What went on in his own mind as he wrote we can never tell, but he acted as a conscious, responsible human being. Without doubt he must have realized that he was writing far more deeply than he himself could fathom. However he composed, however he gathered his material and set it down in writing, whether he wrote and crossed out and polished, we do not know. Nevertheless he worked, and what was finally set down as the completed product was just what the God of Truth desired to have written down; it was the Word of God.
At other times, however, to continue our use of Moses as an illustration, what Moses may have said and done, and what he may have written down, was no more free from error, no more infallible, than any other purely human word or composition. Not at all times was he kept from error, but only when he served as the penman to write down the Divine oracles. The same is true of the other writers of the Bible. Hence, the folly of Reimarus’ objection that the moral character of some of the human writers would preclude them from being the recipients of Divine revelation. In giving the Bible to mankind God did not make use of men who were free from sin. David was a sinful man, and yet through him God gave many of the Psalms. Moses was a murderer. Paul persecuted the Church of God. Yet God selected them to be His instruments of inspiration. That they were thus chosen in no sense condones or excuses their sins. If anything, it would seem to heighten their guilt. What they wrote, however, and what they said when they were not borne by the Spirit was not inspired; it was as subject to error as the utterances of anyone else. Only when borne of the Spirit were the authors infallible in what they wrote.
In the book of 2 Samuel there is recorded a letter which David wrote to his general Joab (11:15). When David penned this letter he was doing a despicable thing. It is a tragedy indeed that the man who had composed many of the Psalms should also have stand out against him the words of this letter: “Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.” Those words will ever stand to blacken the record of David. An evil thing indeed was the writing of this letter. Was David inspired when he wrote it? Most obviously he was not. It was something that was composed from his evil heart; this was the stratagem which he devised to cover up his own sin by removing the innocent Uriah from the scene. David did not write this letter under the impulsion of the Spirit of God.
Inspiration naturally extends only to that which the writers produced when they were under the impulsion of God’s Spirit. How then, it may be asked, do we find a copy of this letter in the Sacred Scriptures? The answer must be that the writer of the book of Samuel was inspired as he recorded the letter. It was the intention of God to include this letter in the Scripture, and the author of Samuel, being borne of `the Spirit, has given an accurate copy thereof. We have, in other words, a correct copy of the words which David wrote. To draw from this the conclusion that the letter had the approval of God upon its contents would be unwarranted indeed. In writing this letter David did an evil thing, and it was the will of God that we today should know of this evil thing; for that reason the letter was included in the Scripture. The writer has given an accurate copy of the letter, for inspiration secures accuracy. Inspiration does not, however, involve Divine approval of the contents of all that is inspired.
We may then say with assurance that the writers of the Bible were inspired only when they were actually engaged in composing the books of Scripture. Apart from that they were men of their times, and erred just as other men err. They were sinful human beings, and inspiration did not by some magical process keep them from error. It was only when the Spirit mysteriously came upon them as they wrote down His Word that they were in His power and so kept from making in their writings errors such as adhere to everything merely human.
Very remarkable is this doctrine of inspiration! It is remarkable above all because it is taught in the Bible itself. The Bible is God’s Word, we may say, but the Bible is also the work of men. They were not, however, men who wrote under their own power and under ordinary circumstances. Great indeed was the honor which had been placed upon them. There were times when they were lifted from the ordinary level of human experience. There were times when what they set down in writing was free from error. There were times when they were under the compulsion of the Spirit of God. There were times when these chosen few of the human race were the writers of Scripture.
From these consequences we cannot flee. We are not warranted in making an exception of the Person of our Lord, and if we have once adopted the position that the human necessarily entails imperfection, let us be consistent and admit that Christ also is imperfect. It is a sad conclusion to draw; sad as it is, however, it is one that we must draw if the premise which we have adopted is correct. If our Lord, in His human nature, was necessarily subject to fallibility, then, of course, He was not what He claimed to be; He was subject to sin. There is no escape from this conclusion, none whatever. If Jesus Christ was a sinner (for fallibility is the consequence of sin) we might as well face the fact that He is not, nor could He be, our Savior. As a matter of fact, however, this vicious premise is not correct. The God whom we worship is powerful enough to convey His revelation through human channels and to do so in such a manner that His revelation does not acquire the imperfections that adhere to sinful humanity. In the Person of His Son, He is able to take to Himself a true human nature which is not touched with sin. Although error and imperfection are found in sinful human nature they are not at all necessary characteristics of human nature as such.
Is it not, the charge is sometimes made, an illogical position to adopt, this position which asserts that God can give an infallible revelation through fallible channels? Man is fallible; man is the only instrument available to God through which this revelation can come. Simple logic demands that said revelation must then partake of fallibility. Thus the view for which we are contending is dismissed as “illogical.”
But is this view, as a matter of fact, illogical? The charge, grave as it is, is based upon the premise that man is capable of qualifying or affecting the revelation which God gives through him. Is this premise, however, warranted by the facts? Can man, in truth, control God’s revelation? Is God the Revealer subject to man? According to the Bible this premise is utterly and completely false. According to the Bible God has created man in His own image. Man therefore is subject to God, and dependent upon Him. God, on the other hand, is utterly independent of man, and self-sufficient unto Himself. “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things” (Romans 11:36a).
Man is entirely subject to the law of God. As created by God, Adam, although finite, was nevertheless not fallible. Adam, however, sinned, and all mankind sinned in him and fell with him. Man, therefore, is a sinful creature and as a sinner is subject to error. God, since He is the omnipotent Creator, has absolute control over those whom He has created. In His good pleasure, which is a sovereign good pleasure, He may bear the human writers of the Bible, so controlling them, yet preserving intact their personalities, that they can write His revelation exactly as He wishes. If once we think rightly about God, other matters will appear in their proper perspective. Once we realize that God is in control of the situation, it will become clear that the Biblical doctrine of inspiration, mysterious as it may be, is nevertheless not illogical.
Thus we come to that which is basic in modern thought. In all this talk of the Word of God we would ask the question, What is it that modern theologians have in mind when they are speaking of the Word of God? Who is this God in whose Word they are so interested? It is difficult to identify Him. He seems to be a creation in the image of man, and not the Triune God who has spoken in the Bible. The issue involved is in reality that of theism. Who is our God? Are we followers of the King, or have we bowed the knee to Baal? Unless first we become as little children and acknowledge the true God in all our ways, we shall not speak profitably on the subject of that Word which has been breathed forth from His mouth. The modern god, created by man, lives and rules in the City of Destruction. From him and from his reign, however, we have been delivered by the God of Holy Scripture.
It should be clear from the discussion so far that the Bible is not to be regarded as a “joint” product, the combined effort of God and man. Surely the Bible itself does not make such a claim. There were indeed human writers of the Scripture, but they are not to be considered as co-authors with God. It is not that God contributed certain parts of the Scriptures, and men supplemented these, and it most certainly is not the case that men contributed the greater portion of Scripture to have it supplemented by God. Nor did God and man take counsel together as to what should be included in the Scripture. God did not consult man as to what should be written. The Bible is truly the Word of God. He is the final and the ultimate Author; the Bible comes from God. Without Him there could have been no Bible. Without men, however, there could have been a Bible. God could have given us His Word in some other manner than that which He actually did choose. As a matter of fact, He did choose to speak through inspired men but He was not compelled to do so. In no sense was He limited. That he employed human writers was an act of grace, and the heart of faith will ever adore and revere Him that He so honored the human race as to employ lost sinners as writers of His pure and holy Word. While the human authors were true authors, nevertheless they were not the originators of the words and the thoughts that are found in the Bible. They were holy men indeed, but they were holy men who were borne by the Spirit.
Were these human writers infallible, even when they were not borne by the Spirit? Obviously the Bible does not teach that this was so. They were men of their own day. No doubt their own views of astronomy, for example, were not one whit more advanced than those of their contemporaries. On the other hand, when they were the penmen of the Spirit of God, they were expressing the words of God. The thoughts which they were penning had been revealed to them by God; they were placed in their minds by the Spirit Himself. It therefore will not do to assert that they did not have a knowledge of modern astronomy and hence could not have written an account of the creation that was scientifically accurate. If Moses had depended only upon the wisdom of the Egyptians, he would have produced a rather clumsy account of Creation. If he had relied alone upon the thoughts and opinions of his own heart, he would have composed a first chapter of Genesis that for crudity and error might have equaled the writings of Babylonia. Moses, however, in writing the first chapter of Genesis was not drawing upon his own ideas and thoughts. He was giving expression to thoughts which he had learned by revelation of God. He was an inspired penman. What went on in his own mind as he wrote we can never tell, but he acted as a conscious, responsible human being. Without doubt he must have realized that he was writing far more deeply than he himself could fathom. However he composed, however he gathered his material and set it down in writing, whether he wrote and crossed out and polished, we do not know. Nevertheless he worked, and what was finally set down as the completed product was just what the God of Truth desired to have written down; it was the Word of God.
At other times, however, to continue our use of Moses as an illustration, what Moses may have said and done, and what he may have written down, was no more free from error, no more infallible, than any other purely human word or composition. Not at all times was he kept from error, but only when he served as the penman to write down the Divine oracles. The same is true of the other writers of the Bible. Hence, the folly of Reimarus’ objection that the moral character of some of the human writers would preclude them from being the recipients of Divine revelation. In giving the Bible to mankind God did not make use of men who were free from sin. David was a sinful man, and yet through him God gave many of the Psalms. Moses was a murderer. Paul persecuted the Church of God. Yet God selected them to be His instruments of inspiration. That they were thus chosen in no sense condones or excuses their sins. If anything, it would seem to heighten their guilt. What they wrote, however, and what they said when they were not borne by the Spirit was not inspired; it was as subject to error as the utterances of anyone else. Only when borne of the Spirit were the authors infallible in what they wrote.
In the book of 2 Samuel there is recorded a letter which David wrote to his general Joab (11:15). When David penned this letter he was doing a despicable thing. It is a tragedy indeed that the man who had composed many of the Psalms should also have stand out against him the words of this letter: “Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.” Those words will ever stand to blacken the record of David. An evil thing indeed was the writing of this letter. Was David inspired when he wrote it? Most obviously he was not. It was something that was composed from his evil heart; this was the stratagem which he devised to cover up his own sin by removing the innocent Uriah from the scene. David did not write this letter under the impulsion of the Spirit of God.
Inspiration naturally extends only to that which the writers produced when they were under the impulsion of God’s Spirit. How then, it may be asked, do we find a copy of this letter in the Sacred Scriptures? The answer must be that the writer of the book of Samuel was inspired as he recorded the letter. It was the intention of God to include this letter in the Scripture, and the author of Samuel, being borne of `the Spirit, has given an accurate copy thereof. We have, in other words, a correct copy of the words which David wrote. To draw from this the conclusion that the letter had the approval of God upon its contents would be unwarranted indeed. In writing this letter David did an evil thing, and it was the will of God that we today should know of this evil thing; for that reason the letter was included in the Scripture. The writer has given an accurate copy of the letter, for inspiration secures accuracy. Inspiration does not, however, involve Divine approval of the contents of all that is inspired.
We may then say with assurance that the writers of the Bible were inspired only when they were actually engaged in composing the books of Scripture. Apart from that they were men of their times, and erred just as other men err. They were sinful human beings, and inspiration did not by some magical process keep them from error. It was only when the Spirit mysteriously came upon them as they wrote down His Word that they were in His power and so kept from making in their writings errors such as adhere to everything merely human.
Very remarkable is this doctrine of inspiration! It is remarkable above all because it is taught in the Bible itself. The Bible is God’s Word, we may say, but the Bible is also the work of men. They were not, however, men who wrote under their own power and under ordinary circumstances. Great indeed was the honor which had been placed upon them. There were times when they were lifted from the ordinary level of human experience. There were times when what they set down in writing was free from error. There were times when they were under the compulsion of the Spirit of God. There were times when these chosen few of the human race were the writers of Scripture.
