millennia ago; but what it speaks* it speaks truthfully whether it em ploys figurative language or literal, whether it deals with ethics or with the natural world of science. Inspir ation does mean, finally, that the words of Scripture, although truly human words, are, nonetheless, also the very words by which God com municates His thought to men. The words of the writers of Scripture, therefore, properly interpreted in their total context and in their nat ural sense according to the usage of their day, teach the truth with out any error. ’i" he conclusive evidence that ver bal inspiration is true may be found in the testimony of the God- man, Jesus Christ, and of the di vinely accredited apostles of God. Our Lord Jesus declared: “ Scrip ture cannot be broken” (John 10:35), and, “ It is easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17); and throughout His teaching He showed a continuous and complete acceptance of the authority of every word of the Old Testament Scrip tures. In refuting the argument of the Sadducees, He charged them, “ Ye do err, not knowing the'Scrip tures” (Matt. 22:29); and He re buked His own disciples, “ 0 fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25). In at least two cases (Matt. 22:43-45 and John 10:34, 35) the whole point of Christ’s argument rests upon a single word. In similar fashion the apostles teach the divine authorship and irrefragable author ity, of Scripture. The apostle Paul declared that all Scripture is in spired (literally, breathed forth or produced) by God (2 Tim. 3:161. The apostle Peter, as a true disciple of Christ, teaches that no part of the prophetic word is of merely human origin but all of it is of divine origin through the use and control of the human writer by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:20,21). Since the teaching of both Christ end the biblical writers is so un equivocally clear, what they teach ought to settle the matter for the CONTINUED
Rather, the Spirit of God employed the attention, the investigation, the memory, the imagination, the logic, in a word, all the faculties of the human authors of the Bible. God’s guidance worked through the free exercise of the authors’ historical and theological capabilities. So far from being automata or stenogra phers, the biblical writers made their own choice of words, ex pressed themselves in their own style, and revealed in their writings their own particular personalities. The message which the biblical writers proclaimed was decidedly their own. God, however, prepared them, i l l um i n a t e d them, - and divinely energized them, so that their prophetic message would be at the same time His divine mes sage to men. This view of the verbal inspira tion of the Bible, of course, does not preclude the use of figurative, alle goric and symbolic language. It does not guarantee that Scripture gives us technical, specific data in current scientific vocabulary. Scrip ture speaks rather in the language of the common man of two or more
On the other hand, however, adherence to the doctrine of the divine authority of Scripture by no means restricts our freedom to think realistically, constructively and honestly in the light of all the facts. Rather we hold this doctrine to be the only possible foundation for clear and effective thinking about God and man’s relationship to God. w believe that when God gave the Bible, He did so in order to give men correct ideas about Himself and their relationship to Him. Since it is manifestly impos sible to convey ideas in a book except by employing the written words of some language, the divine inspiration extended to the written words or symbols of Scripture. Verbal inspiration guarantees, ac cordingly, that the written words of Scripture convey the thoughts which God wished to communicate and that the thoughts symbolized by these words are all true. Although God sometimes revealed truth by dictation, inspiration was not by any mechanical means.
S itu e r J kmina y When summer clouds, or drifting clouds of spring, Take fire from some great sunset as it burns, I look beyond their flame, remembering: He will come back in clouds when He returns; And when the winter clouds hang dark and low Above the earth, my eyes look through and see Something beyond their bleakness—for I know He said He would come back in clouds for me. This is the silver lining I have found In heaven’s clouds. And, though the clouds of war, Of earthquake, famine, pestilence abound, • Shall these provoke to terror any more? Nay. God has flashed this comfort on the sky: “ Look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.” Helen Frazee-Bower
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JANUARY 1957
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