20 The Fundamentals pose we eliminate this phrase and its necessary context from the Old Testament in every instance, one wonders how much of the Old Testament would remain. ( b ) Consider how the utterances of the Old Testament Writers are introduced into the New. Take Matthew 1 :22 as an illustration, “Now all this was done that it might be ful filled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.” It was not the prophet who spake, but the Lord who spake through the prophet. (c) Consider how Christ and His apostles regard the Old Testament. He came “not to destroy but to fulfill the law and the prophets.” Matt. 5 :17. “The Scripture cannot be broken.” John 10:35. He sometimes used single words as the bases of important doctrines, twice in Matthew 22, at verses 31, 32 and 42-45. The apostles do the same. See Galatians 3:16, He brews 2 :8, 11 and 12:26, 27. (if) Consider what the apostles directly teach upon the subject. Peter tells us that “No prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21, R. V.). “Prophecy” here applies to the word written as is indicated in the preceding verse, and means not merely the foretelling of events, but the utterances of any word of God without reference as to time past, present or to come. As a matter of fact, what Peter declares is that the will of man had nothing to do with any part of the Old Testament, hut that the whole of it, from Genesis to Malachi, was inspired by God. Of course Paul says the same, in language even plainer, in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable.” The phrase “inspiration of God” means literally God-breathed. The whole of the Old Testament is God-breathed, for it is to that part of the Bible the language particularly refers, since the New Testament as such was not then generally known.
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