Chapter III: Inspiration Of The Scriptures (1)

I. Definition of Inspiration.

Inspiration is that influence of the Spirit of God upon the minds of the Scripture writers which made their writings the record of a progressive divine revelation, sufficient, when taken together and interpreted by the same Spirit who inspired them, to lead every honest inquirer to Christ and to salvation.

Notice the significance of each part of this definition: 1.
Inspiration is an influence of the Spirit of God. It is not a
merely naturalistic phenomenon or psychological vagary, but is
rather the effect of the inworking of the personal divine Spirit.
2. Yet inspiration is an influence upon the mind, and not upon the
body. God secures his end by awakening man’s rational powers, and
not by an external or mechanical communication. 3. The writings of
inspired men are the record of a revelation. They are not
themselves the revelation. 4. The revelation and the record are
both progressive. Neither one is complete at the beginning. 5. The
Scripture writings must be taken together. Each part must be
viewed in connection with what precedes and with what follows. 6.
The same Holy Spirit who made the original revelations must
interpret to us the record of them, if we are to come to the
knowledge of the truth. 7. So used and so interpreted, these
writings are sufficient, both in quantity and in quality, for
their religious purpose. 8. That purpose is, not to furnish us
with a model history or with the facts of science, but to lead us
to Christ and to salvation.

(_a_) Inspiration is therefore to be defined, not by its method, but by its result. It is a general term including all those kinds and degrees of the Holy Spirit’s influence which were brought to bear upon the minds of the Scripture writers, in order to secure the putting into permanent and written form of the truth best adapted to man’s moral and religious needs.

(_b_) Inspiration may often include revelation, or the direct communication from God of truth to which man could not attain by his unaided powers. It may include illumination, or the quickening of man’s cognitive powers to understand truth already revealed. Inspiration, however, does not necessarily and always include either revelation or illumination. It is simply the divine influence which secures a transmission of needed truth to the future, and, according to the nature of the truth to be transmitted, it may be only an inspiration of superintendence, or it may be also and at the same time an inspiration of illumination or revelation.

(_c_) It is not denied, but affirmed, that inspiration may qualify for oral utterance of truth, or for wise leadership and daring deeds. Men may be inspired to render external service to God’s kingdom, as in the cases of Bezalel and Samson; even though this service is rendered unwillingly or unconsciously, as in the cases of Balaam and Cyrus. All human intelligence, indeed, is due to the inbreathing of that same Spirit who created man at the beginning. We are now concerned with inspiration, however, only as it pertains to the authorship of Scripture.

_Gen. 2:7—_“And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became
a living soul”; _Ex. 31:2, 3—_“I have called by name Bezalel ...
and I have filled him with the Spirit of God ... in all manner of
workmanship”; _Judges 13:24, 25—_“called his name Samson: and the
child grew, and Jehovah blessed him. And the Spirit of Jehovah
began to move him”; _Num. 23:5—_“And Jehovah put a word in
Balaam’s mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou
speak”; _2 Chron. 36:22—_“Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus”;
_Is. 44:28—_“that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd”; _45:5—_“I
will gird thee, though thou hast not known me”; _Job 32:8—_“there
is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty giveth them
understanding.” These passages show the true meaning of 2 Tim.
3:16—“Every scripture inspired of God.” The word θεόπνευστος is to
be understood as alluding, not to the flute-player’s breathing
into his instrument, but to God’s original inbreathing of life.
The flute is passive, but man’s soul is active. The flute gives
out only what it receives, but the inspired man under the divine
influence is a conscious and free originator of thought and
expression. Although the inspiration of which we are to treat is
simply the inspiration of the Scripture writings, we can best
understand this narrower use of the term by remembering that all
real knowledge has in it a divine element, and that we are
possessed of complete consciousness only as we live, move, and
have our being in God. Since Christ, the divine Logos or Reason,
is “the light which lighteth every man”_ (John 1:9)_, a special
influence of “the spirit of Christ which was in them”_ (1 Pet.
1:11)_ rationally accounts for the fact that “men spake from God,
being moved by the Holy Spirit”_ (2 Pet. 1:21)_.

It may help our understanding of terms above employed if we adduce
instances of

(1) Inspiration without revelation, as in Luke or Acts, _Luke
1:1-3_;
(2) Inspiration including revelation, as in the Apocalypse, _Rev.
1:1, 11_;
(3) Inspiration without illumination, as in the prophets, _1 Pet.
1:11_;
(4) Inspiration including illumination, as in the case of Paul, _1
Cor. 2:12_;
(5) Revelation without inspiration, as in God’s words from Sinai,
_Ex. 20:1, 22_;
(6) Illumination without inspiration, as in modern preachers,
_Eph. 2:20_.

Other definitions are those of Park: “Inspiration is such an
influence over the writers of the Bible that all their teachings
which have a religious character are trustworthy”; of Wilkinson:
“Inspiration is help from God to keep the report of divine
revelation free from error. Help to whom? No matter to whom, so
the result is secured. The final result, viz.: the record or
report of revelation, this must be free from error. Inspiration
may affect one or all of the agents employed”; of Hovey:
“Inspiration was an influence of the Spirit of God on those powers
of men which are concerned in the reception, retention and
expression of religious truth—an influence so pervading and
powerful that the teaching of inspired men was according to the
mind of God. Their teaching did not in any instance embrace all
truth in respect to God, or man, or the way of life; but it
comprised just so much of the truth on any particular subject as
could be received in faith by the inspired teacher and made useful
to those whom he addressed. In this sense the teaching of the
original documents composing our Bible may be pronounced free from
error”; of G. B. Foster: “Revelation is the action of God in the
soul of his child, resulting in divine self-expression there:
Inspiration is the action of God in the soul of his child,
resulting in apprehension and appropriation of the divine
expression. Revelation has logical but not chronological
priority”; of Horton, Inspiration and the Bible, 10-13—“We mean by
Inspiration exactly those qualities or characteristics which are
the marks or notes of the Bible.... We call our Bible inspired; by
which we mean that by reading and studying it we find our way to
God, we find his will for us, and we find how we can conform
ourselves to his will.”

Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, 496, while nobly setting
forth the naturalness of revelation, has misconceived the relation
of inspiration to revelation by giving priority to the former:
“The idea of a written revelation may be said to be logically
involved in the notion of a living God. Speech is natural to
spirit; and if God is by nature spirit, it will be to him a matter
of nature to reveal himself. But if he speaks to man, it will be
through men; and those who hear best will be most possessed of
God. This possession is termed ‘inspiration.’ God inspires, man
reveals: revelation is the mode or form—word, character, or
institution—in which man embodies what he has received. The terms,
though not equivalent, are co-extensive, the one denoting the
process on its inner side, the other on its outer.” This
statement, although approved by Sanday, Inspiration, 124, 125,
seems to us almost precisely to reverse the right meaning of the
words. We prefer the view of Evans, Bib. Scholarship and
Inspiration, 54—“God has first revealed himself, and then has
inspired men to interpret, record and apply this revelation. In
redemption, inspiration is the formal factor, as revelation is the
material factor. The men are inspired, as Prof. Stowe said. The
thoughts are inspired, as Prof. Briggs said. The words are
inspired, as Prof. Hodge said. The warp and woof of the Bible is
πνεῦμα: ‘the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit’_ (John
6:63)_. Its fringes run off, as was inevitable, into the secular,
the material, the psychic.” Phillips Brooks, Life, 2:351—“If the
true revelation of God is in Christ, the Bible is not properly a
revelation, but the history of a revelation. This is not only a
fact but a necessity, for a person cannot be revealed in a book,
but must find revelation, if at all, in a person. The centre and
core of the Bible must therefore be the gospels, as the story of
Jesus.”

Some, like Priestley, have held that the gospels are authentic but
not inspired. We therefore add to the proof of the genuineness and
credibility of Scripture, the proof of its inspiration. Chadwick,
Old and New Unitarianism, 11—“Priestley’s belief in supernatural
revelation was intense. He had an absolute distrust of reason as
qualified to furnish an adequate knowledge of religious things,
and at the same time a perfect confidence in reason as qualified
to prove that negative and to determine the contents of the
revelation.” We might claim the historical truth of the gospels,
even if we did not call them inspired. Gore, in Lux Mundi,
341—“Christianity brings with it a doctrine of the inspiration of
the Holy Scriptures, but is not based upon it.” Warfield and
Hodge, Inspiration, 8—“While the inspiration of the Scriptures is
true, and being true is fundamental to the adequate interpretation
of Scripture, it nevertheless is not, in the first instance, a
principle fundamental to the truth of the Christian religion.”

On the idea of Revelation, see Ladd, in Journ. Christ. Philos.,
Jan. 1883:156-178; on Inspiration, _ibid._, Apr. 1883:225-248. See
Henderson on Inspiration (2nd ed.), 58, 205, 249, 303, 310. For
other works on the general subject of Inspiration, see Lee,
Bannerman, Jamieson, Macnaught; Garbett, God’s Word Written; Aids
to Faith, essay on Inspiration. Also, Philippi, Glaubenslehre,
1:205; Westcott, Introd. to Study of the Gospels, 27-65; Bib.
Sac., 1:97; 4:154; 12:217; 15:29, 314; 25:192-198; Dr. Barrows, in
Bib. Sac., 1867:593; 1872:428; Farrar, Science in Theology, 208;
Hodge and Warfield, in Presb. Rev., Apr. 1881:225-261; Manly, The
Bible Doctrine of Inspiration; Watts, Inspiration; Mead,
Supernatural Revelation, 350; Whiton, Gloria Patri, 136; Hastings,
Bible Dict., 1:296-299; Sanday, Bampton Lectures on Inspiration.

II. Proof of Inspiration.

1. Since we have shown that God has made a revelation of himself to man, we may reasonably presume that he will not trust this revelation wholly to human tradition and misrepresentation, but will also provide a record of it essentially trustworthy and sufficient; in other words, that the same Spirit who originally communicated the truth will preside over its publication, so far as is needed to accomplish its religious purpose.

Since all natural intelligence, as we have seen, presupposes God’s
indwelling, and since in Scripture the all-prevailing atmosphere,
with its constant pressure and effort to enter every cranny and
corner of the world, is used as an illustration of the impulse of
God’s omnipotent Spirit to vivify and energize every human soul
(_Gen. 2:7_; _Job 32:8_), we may infer that, but for sin, all men
would be morally and spiritually inspired (_Num. 11:29—_“Would
that all Jehovah’s people were prophets, that Jehovah would put
his Spirit upon them!” _Is. 59:2—_“your iniquities have separated
between you and your God”). We have also seen that God’s method of
communicating his truth in matters of religion is presumably
analogous to his method of communicating secular truth, such as
that of astronomy or history. There is an original delivery to a
single nation, and to single persons in that nation, that it may
through them be given to mankind. Sanday, Inspiration, 140—“There
is a ‘purpose of God according to selection’_ (Rom. 9:11)_; there
is an ‘election’ or ‘selection of grace’; and the object of that
selection was Israel and those who take their name from Israel’s
Messiah. If a tower is built in ascending tiers, those who stand
upon the lower tiers are yet raised above the ground, and some may
be raised higher than others, but the full and unimpeded view is
reserved for those who mount upward to the top. And that is the
place destined for us if we will take it.”

If we follow the analogy of God’s working in other communications
of knowledge, we shall reasonably presume that he will preserve
the record of his revelations in written and accessible documents,
handed down from those to whom these revelations were first
communicated, and we may expect that these documents will be kept
sufficiently correct and trustworthy to accomplish their religious
purpose, namely, that of furnishing to the honest inquirer a guide
to Christ and to salvation. The physician commits his
prescriptions to writing; the Clerk of Congress records its
proceedings; the State Department of our government instructs our
foreign ambassadors, not orally, but by dispatches. There is yet
greater need that revelation should be recorded, since it is to be
transmitted to distant ages; it contains long discourses; it
embraces mysterious doctrines. Jesus did not write himself; for he
was the subject, not the mere channel, of revelation. His
unconcern about the apostles’ immediately committing to writing
what they saw and heard is inexplicable, if he did not expect that
inspiration would assist them.

We come to the discussion of Inspiration with a presumption quite
unlike that of Kuenen and Wellhausen, who write in the interest of
almost avowed naturalism. Kuenen, in the opening sentences of his
Religion of Israel, does indeed assert the rule of God in the
world. But Sanday, Inspiration, 117, says well that “Kuenen keeps
this idea very much in the background. He expended a whole volume
of 593 large octavo pages (Prophets and Prophecy in Israel,
London, 1877) in proving that the prophets were _not_ moved to
speak by God, but that their utterances were all their own.” The
following extract, says Sanday, indicates the position which Dr.
Kuenen really held: “We do not allow ourselves to be deprived of
God’s presence in history. In the fortunes and development of
nations, and not least clearly in those of Israel, we see Him, the
holy and all-wise Instructor of his human children. But the old
_contrasts_ must be altogether set aside. So long as we derive a
separate part of Israel’s religious life directly from God, and
allow the supernatural or immediate revelation to intervene in
even one single point, so long also our view of the whole
continues to be incorrect, and we see ourselves here and there
necessitated to do violence to the well-authenticated contents of
the historical documents. It is the supposition of a natural
development alone which accounts for all the phenomena” (Kuenen,
Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, 585).

2. Jesus, who has been proved to be not only a credible witness, but a messenger from God, vouches for the inspiration of the Old Testament, by quoting it with the formula: “It is written”; by declaring that “one jot or one tittle” of it “shall in no wise pass away,” and that “the Scripture cannot be broken.”

Jesus quotes from four out of the five books of Moses, and from
the Psalms, Isaiah, Malachi, and Zechariah, with the formula, “it
is written”; see _Mat. 4:4, 6, 7_; _11:10_; _Mark 14:27_; _Luke
4:4-12_. This formula among the Jews indicated that the quotation
was from a sacred book and was divinely inspired. Jesus certainly
regarded the Old Testament with as much reverence as the Jews of
his day. He declared that “one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass away from the law”_ (Mat. 5:18)_. He said that “the scripture
cannot be broken”_ (John 10:35)_ = “the normative and judicial
authority of the Scripture cannot be set aside; notice here [in
the singular, ἡ γραφή] the idea of the unity of Scripture”
(Meyer). And yet our Lord’s use of O. T. Scripture was wholly free
from the superstitious literalism which prevailed among the Jews
of his day. The phrases “word of God”_ (John 10:35; Mark 7:13)_,
“wisdom of God”_ (Luke 11:49)_ and “oracles of God”_ (Rom. 3:2)_
probably designate the original revelations of God and not the
record of these in Scripture; _cf._ _1 Sam. 9:27_; _1 Chron.
17:3_; _Is. 40:8_; _Mat. 13:19_; _Luke 3:2_; _Acts 8:25_. Jesus
refuses assent to the O. T. law respecting the Sabbath (_Mark
2:27_ _sq._), external defilements (_Mark 7:15_), divorce (_Mark
10:2_ _sq._). He “came not to destroy but to fulfil”_ (Mat.
5:17)_; yet he fulfilled the law by bringing out its inner spirit
in his perfect life, rather than by formal and minute obedience to
its precepts; see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:5-35.

The apostles quote the O. T. as the utterance of God (_Eph.
4:8_—διὸ λέγει, _sc._ θεός). Paul’s insistence upon the form of
even a single word, as in _Gal. 3:16_, and his use of the O. T.
for purposes of allegory, as in _Gal 4:21-31_, show that in his
view the O. T. text was sacred. Philo, Josephus and the Talmud, in
their interpretations of the O. T., fall continually into a
“narrow and unhappy literalism.” “The N. T. does not indeed escape
Rabbinical methods, but even where these are most prominent they
seem to affect the form far more than the substance. And through
the temporary and local form the writer constantly penetrates to
the very heart of the O. T. teaching;” see Sanday, Bampton
Lectures on Inspiration, 87; Henderson, Inspiration, 254.

3. Jesus commissioned his apostles as teachers and gave them promises of a supernatural aid of the Holy Spirit in their teaching, like the promises made to the Old Testament prophets.

_Mat. 28:19, 20—_“Go ye ... teaching ... and lo, I am with you.”
Compare promises to Moses (_Ex. 3:12_), Jeremiah (_Jer. 1:5-8_),
Ezekiel (_Ezek. 2_ and _3_). See also _Is. 44:3_ and _Joel
2:28—_“I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed”; _Mat. 10:7—_“as ye
go, preach”; _19—_“be not anxious how or what ye shall speak”;
_John 14:26—_“the Holy Spirit ... shall teach you all things”;
_15:26, 27—_“the Spirit of truth ... shall bear witness of me: and
ye also bear witness” = the Spirit shall witness in and through
you; _16:13—_“he shall guide you into all the truth” = (1)
limitation—all _the_ truth of Christ, _i. e._, not of philosophy
or science, but of religion; (2) comprehension—_all_ the truth
within this limited range, _i. e._, sufficiency of Scripture as
rule of faith and practice (Hovey); _17:8—_“the words which thou
gavest me I have given unto them”; _Acts 1:4—_“he charged them ...
to wait for the promise of the Father”; _John 20:22—_“he breathed
on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” Here
was both promise and communication of the personal Holy Spirit.
Compare _Mat. 10:19, 20—_“it shall be given you in that hour what
ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of
your Father that speaketh in you.” See Henderson, Inspiration,
247, 248.

Jesus’ testimony here is the testimony of God. In _Deut. 18:18_,
it is said that God will put his words into the mouth of the great
Prophet. In _John 12:49, 50_, Jesus says: “I spake not from
myself, but the Father that sent me, he hath given me a
commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I
know that his commandment is life eternal; the things therefore
which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto me, so I speak.”
_John 17:7, 8—_“all things whatsoever thou hast given me are from
thee: for the words which thou gavest me I have given unto them.”
_John 8:40—_“a man that hath told you the truth, which I heard
from God.”

4. The apostles claim to have received this promised Spirit, and under his influence to speak with divine authority, putting their writings upon a level with the Old Testament Scriptures. We have not only direct statements that both the matter and the form of their teaching were supervised by the Holy Spirit, but we have indirect evidence that this was the case in the tone of authority which pervades their addresses and epistles.

_Statements_:—_1 Cor. 2:10, 13—_“unto us God revealed them through
the Spirit.... Which things also we speak, not in words which
man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth”; _11:23—_“I
received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you”; _12:8,
28_—_the λόγος σοφίας was apparently a gift peculiar to the
apostles_; _14:37, 38—_“the things which I write unto you ... they
are the commandment of the Lord”; _Gal. 1:12—_“neither did I
receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me
through revelation of Jesus Christ”; _1 Thess. 4:2, 8—_“ye know
what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus.... Therefore he
that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy
Spirit unto you.” The following passages put the teaching of the
apostles on the same level with O. T. Scripture: _1 Pet. 1:11,
12—_“Spirit of Christ which was in them” [O. T. prophets];—[N. T.
preachers] “preached the gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit”; _2
Pet. 1:21_—O. T. prophets “spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit”; _3:2—_“remember the words which were spoken before by the
holy prophets” [O. T.], “and the commandment of the Lord and
Savior through your apostles” [N. T.]; 16—“wrest [Paul’s
Epistles], _as they do also the_ _other scriptures_, unto their
own destruction.” _Cf._ _Ex. 4:14-16_; _7:1_.

_Implications_:—_2 Tim. 3:16—_“Every scripture inspired of God is
also profitable”—a clear implication of inspiration, though not a
direct statement of it = _there is a divinely inspired Scripture_.
In _1 Cor. 5:3-5_, Paul, commanding the Corinthian church with
regard to the incestuous person, was arrogant if not inspired.
There are more imperatives in the Epistles than in any other
writings of the same extent. Notice the continual asseveration of
authority, as in _Gal. 1:1, 2_, and the declaration that disbelief
of the record is sin, as in _1 John 5:10, 11_. _Jude 3—_“the faith
which was once for all (ἅπαξ) delivered unto the saints.” See
Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:122; Henderson, Inspiration (2nd ed.), 34,
234; Conant, Genesis, Introd., xiii, note; Charteris, New
Testament Scriptures: They claim truth, unity, authority.

The passages quoted above show that inspired men distinguished
inspiration from their own unaided thinking. These inspired men
claim that their inspiration is the same with that of the
prophets. _Rev. 22:6—_“the Lord, the God of the spirits of the
prophets, sent his angel to show unto his servants the things
which must shortly come to pass” = inspiration gave them
supernatural knowledge of the future. As inspiration in the O. T.
was the work of the pre-incarnate Christ, so inspiration in the N.
T. is the work of the ascended and glorified Christ by his Holy
Spirit. On the Relative Authority of the Gospels, see Gerhardt, in
Am. Journ. Theol., Apl. 1899:275-294, who shows that not the words
of Jesus in the gospels are the final revelation, but rather the
teaching of the risen and glorified Christ in the Acts and the
Epistles. The Epistles are the posthumous works of Christ.
Pattison, Making of the Sermon, 23—“The apostles, believing
themselves to be inspired teachers, often preached without texts;
and the fact that their successors did not follow their example
shows that for themselves they made no such claim. Inspiration
ceased, and henceforth authority was found in the use of the words
of the now complete Scriptures.”

5. The apostolic writers of the New Testament, unlike professedly inspired heathen sages and poets, gave attestation by miracles or prophecy that they were inspired by God, and there is reason to believe that the productions of those who were not apostles, such as Mark, Luke, Hebrews, James, and Jude, were recommended to the churches as inspired, by apostolic sanction and authority.

The twelve wrought miracles (_Mat. 10:1_). Paul’s “signs of an
apostle”_ (2 Cor. 13:12)_ = miracles. Internal evidence confirms
the tradition that Mark was the “interpreter of Peter,” and that
Luke’s gospel and the Acts had the sanction of Paul. Since the
purpose of the Spirit’s bestowment was to qualify those who were
to be the teachers and founders of the new religion, it is only
fair to assume that Christ’s promise of the Spirit was valid not
simply to the twelve but to all who stood in their places, and to
these not simply as speakers, but, since in this respect they had
a still greater need of divine guidance, to them as writers also.

The epistle to the Hebrews, with the letters of James and Jude,
appeared in the lifetime of some of the twelve, and passed
unchallenged; and the fact that they all, with the possible
exception of 2 Peter, were very early accepted by the churches
founded and watched over by the apostles, is sufficient evidence
that the apostles regarded them as inspired productions. As
evidences that the writers regarded their writings as of universal
authority, see _1 Cor. 1:2—_“unto the church of God which is at
Corinth ... with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ in every place,” etc.; _7:17—_“so ordain I in all the
churches”; _Col. 4:16—_“And when this epistle hath been read among
you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans”;
_2 Pet. 3:15, 16—_“our beloved brother Paul also, according to the
wisdom given to him, wrote unto you.” See Bartlett, in Princeton
Rev., Jan. 1880:23-57; Bib. Sac., Jan. 1884:204, 205.

Johnson, Systematic Theology, 40—“Miraculous gifts were bestowed
at Pentecost on many besides apostles. Prophecy was not an
uncommon gift during the apostolic period.” There is no antecedent
improbability that inspiration should extend to others than to the
principal leaders of the church, and since we have express
instances of such inspiration in oral utterances (_Acts 11:28_;
_21:9, 10_) it seems natural that there should have been instances
of inspiration in written utterances also. In some cases this
appears to have been only an inspiration of superintendence.
Clement of Alexandria says only that Peter neither forbade nor
encouraged Mark in his plan of writing the gospel. Irenæus tells
us that Mark’s gospel was written after the death of Peter. Papias
says that Mark wrote down what he remembered to have heard from
Peter. Luke does not seem to have been aware of any miraculous aid
in his writing, and his methods appear to have been those of the
ordinary historian.

6. The chief proof of inspiration, however, must always be found in the internal characteristics of the Scriptures themselves, as these are disclosed to the sincere inquirer by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the Holy Spirit combines with the teaching of the Bible to convince the earnest reader that this teaching is as a whole and in all essentials beyond the power of man to communicate, and that it must therefore have been put into permanent and written form by special inspiration of God.

Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 105—“The testimony of the
Spirit is an argument from identity of effects—the doctrines of
experience and the doctrines of the Bible—to identity of cause....
God-wrought experience proves a God-wrought Bible.... This covers
the Bible as a whole, if not the whole of the Bible. It is true so
far as I can test it. It is to be believed still further if there
is no other evidence.” Lyman Abbott, in his Theology of an
Evolutionist, 105, calls the Bible “a record of man’s laboratory
work in the spiritual realm, a history of the dawning of the
consciousness of God and of the divine life in the soul of man.”
This seems to us unduly subjective. We prefer to say that the
Bible is also God’s witness to us of his presence and working in
human hearts and in human history—a witness which proves its
divine origin by awakening in us experiences similar to those
which it describes, and which are beyond the power of man to
originate.

G. P. Fisher, in Mag. of Christ. Lit., Dec. 1892:239—“Is the Bible
infallible? Not in the sense that all its statements extending
even to minutiæ in matters of history and science are strictly
accurate. Not in the sense that every doctrinal and ethical
statement in all these books is incapable of amendment. The whole
must sit in judgment on the parts. Revelation is progressive.
There is a human factor as well as a divine. The treasure is in
earthen vessels. But the Bible is infallible in the sense that
whoever surrenders himself in a docile spirit to its teaching will
fall into no hurtful error in matters of faith and charity. Best
of all, he will find in it the secret of a new, holy and blessed
life, ‘hidden with Christ in God’_ (Col. 3:3)_. The Scriptures are
the witness to Christ.... Through the Scriptures he is truly and
adequately made known to us.” Denney, Death of Christ, 314—“The
unity of the Bible and its inspiration are correlative terms. If
we can discern a real unity in it—and I believe we can when we see
that it converges upon and culminates in a divine love bearing the
sin of the world—then that unity and its inspiration are one and
the same thing. And it is not only inspired as a whole, it is the
only book that is inspired. It is the only book in the world to
which God sets his seal in our hearts when we read in search of an
answer to the question, How shall a sinful man be righteous with
God?... The conclusion of our study of Inspiration should be the
conviction that the Bible gives us a body of doctrine—a ‘faith
which was once for all delivered unto the saints’_ (Jude 3)_.”

III. Theories of Inspiration.

1. The Intuition-theory.

This holds that inspiration is but a higher development of that natural insight into truth which all men possess to some degree; a mode of intelligence in matters of morals and religion which gives rise to sacred books, as a corresponding mode of intelligence in matters of secular truth gives rise to great works of philosophy or art. This mode of intelligence is regarded as the product of man’s own powers, either without special divine influence or with only the inworking of an impersonal God.

This theory naturally connects itself with Pelagian and
rationalistic views of man’s independence of God, or with
pantheistic conceptions of man as being himself the highest
manifestation of an all-pervading but unconscious intelligence.
Morell and F. W. Newman in England, and Theodore Parker in
America, are representatives of this theory. See Morell, Philos.
of Religion, 127-179—“Inspiration is only a higher potency of what
every man possesses in some degree.” See also Francis W. Newman
(brother of John Henry Newman), Phases of Faith (= phases of
unbelief); Theodore Parker, Discourses of Religion, and
Experiences as a Minister: “God is infinite; therefore he is
immanent in nature, yet transcending it; immanent in spirit, yet
transcending that. He must fill each point of spirit, as of space;
matter must unconsciously obey; man, conscious and free, has power
to a certain extent to disobey, but obeying, the immanent God acts
in man as much as in nature”—quoted in Chadwick, Theodore Parker,
271. Hence Parker’s view of Inspiration: If the conditions are
fulfilled, inspiration comes in proportion to man’s gifts and to
his use of those gifts. Chadwick himself, in his Old and New
Unitarianism, 68, says that “the Scriptures are inspired just so
far as they are inspiring, and no more.”

W. C. Gannett, Life of Ezra Stiles Gannett, 196—“Parker’s
spiritualism affirmed, as the grand truth of religion, the
immanence of an infinitely perfect God in matter and mind, and his
activity in both spheres.” Martineau, Study of Religion,
2:178-180—“Theodore Parker treats the regular results of the human
faculties as an immediate working of God, and regards the
Principia of Newton as inspired.... What then becomes of the human
personality? He calls God not only omnipresent, but omniactive. Is
then Shakespeare only by courtesy author of Macbeth?... If this
were more than rhetorical, it would be unconditional pantheism.”
Both nature and man are other names for God. Martineau is willing
to grant that our intuitions and ideals are expressions of the
Deity in us, but our personal reasoning and striving, he thinks,
cannot be attributed to God. The word νοῦς has no plural:
intellect, in whatever subject manifested, being all one, just as
a truth is one and the same, in however many persons’
consciousness it may present itself; see Martineau, Seat of
Authority, 403. Palmer, Studies in Theological Definition, 27—“We
can draw no sharp distinction between the human mind discovering
truth, and the divine mind imparting revelation.” Kuenen belongs
to this school.

With regard to this theory we remark:

(_a_) Man has, indeed, a certain natural insight into truth, and we grant that inspiration uses this, so far as it will go, and makes it an instrument in discovering and recording facts of nature or history.

In the investigation, for example, of purely historical matters,
such as Luke records, merely natural insight may at times have
been sufficient. When this was the case, Luke may have been left
to the exercise of his own faculties, inspiration only inciting
and supervising the work. George Harris, Moral Evolution, 413—“God
could not reveal himself _to_ man, unless he first revealed
himself _in_ man. If it should be written in letters on the sky:
‘God is good,’—the words would have no meaning, unless goodness
had been made known already in human volitions. Revelation is not
by an occasional stroke, but by a continuous process. It is not
superimposed, but inherent.... Genius is inspired; for the mind
which perceives truth must be responsive to the Mind that made
things the vehicles of thought.” Sanday, Bampton Lectures on
Inspiration: “In claiming for the Bible inspiration, we do not
exclude the possibility of other lower or more partial degrees of
inspiration in other literatures. The Spirit of God has doubtless
touched other hearts and other minds ... in such a way as to give
insight into truth, besides those which could claim descent from
Abraham.” Philo thought the LXX translators, the Greek
philosophers, and at times even himself, to be inspired. Plato he
regards as “most sacred” (ἱερωτατος), but all good men are in
various degrees inspired. Yet Philo never quotes as authoritative
any but the Canonical Books. He attributes to them an authority
unique in its kind.

(_b_) In all matters of morals and religion, however, man’s insight into truth is vitiated by wrong affections, and, unless a supernatural wisdom can guide him, he is certain to err himself, and to lead others into error.

_1 Cor. 2:14—_“Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot
know them, because they are spiritually judged”; _10—_“But unto us
God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God.” See quotation from
Coleridge, in Shairp, Culture and Religion, 114—“Water cannot rise
higher than its source; neither can human reasoning”; Emerson,
Prose Works, 1:474; 2:468—“’Tis curious we only believe as deep as
we live”; Ullmann, Sinlessness of Jesus, 183, 184. For this reason
we hold to a communication of religious truth, at least at times,
more direct and objective than is granted by George Adam Smith,
Com. on Isaiah, 1:372—“To Isaiah inspiration was nothing more nor
less than the possession of certain strong moral and religious
convictions, which he felt he owed to the communication of the
Spirit of God, and according to which he interpreted, and even
dared to foretell, the history of his people and of the world. Our
study completely dispels, on the evidence of the Bible itself,
that view of inspiration and prediction so long held in the
church.” If this is meant as a denial of any communication of
truth other than the internal and subjective, we set over against
it. _Num. 12:6-8—_“if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord
will make myself known unto him in a vision, I will speak with him
in a dream. My servant Moses is not so; he is faithful in all my
house: with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and
not in dark speeches; and the form of Jehovah shall he behold.”

(_c_) The theory in question, holding as it does that natural insight is the only source of religious truth, involves a self-contradiction;—if the theory be true, then one man is inspired to utter what a second is inspired to pronounce false. The Vedas, the Koran and the Bible cannot be inspired to contradict each other.

The Vedas permit thieving, and the Koran teaches salvation by
works; these cannot be inspired and the Bible also. Paul cannot be
inspired to write his epistles, and Swedenborg also inspired to
reject them. The Bible does not admit that pagan teachings have
the same divine endorsement with its own. Among the Spartans to
steal was praiseworthy; only to be caught stealing was criminal.
On the religious consciousness with regard to the personality of
God, the divine goodness, the future life, the utility of prayer,
in all of which Miss Cobbe, Mr. Greg and Mr. Parker disagree with
each other, see Bruce, Apologetics, 143, 144. With Matheson we may
grant that the leading idea of inspiration is “the growth of the
divine through the capacities of the human,” while yet we deny
that inspiration confines itself to this subjective enlightenment
of the human faculties, and also we exclude from the divine
working all those perverse and erroneous utterances which are the
results of human sin.

(_d_) It makes moral and religious truth to be a purely subjective thing—a matter of private opinion—having no objective reality independently of men’s opinions regarding it.

On this system truth is what men “trow”; things are what men
“think”—words representing only the subjective. “Better the Greek
ἀλήθεια = ‘the unconcealed’ (objective truth)”—Harris, Philos.
Basis of Theism, 182. If there be no absolute truth, Lessing’s
“search for truth” is the only thing left to us. But who will
search, if there is no truth to be found? Even a wise cat will not
eternally chase its own tail. The exercise within certain limits
is doubtless useful, but the cat gives it up so soon as it becomes
convinced that the tail cannot be caught. Sir Richard Burton
became a Roman Catholic, a Brahmin, and a Mohammedan,
successively, apparently holding with Hamlet that “there is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” This same
scepticism as to the existence of objective truth appears in the
sayings: “Your religion is good for you, and mine for me”; “One
man is born an Augustinian, and another a Pelagian.” See Dix,
Pantheism, Introd., 12. Richter: “It is not the goal, but the
course, that makes us happy.”

(_e_) It logically involves the denial of a personal God who is truth and reveals truth, and so makes man to be the highest intelligence in the universe. This is to explain inspiration by denying its existence; since, if there be no personal God, inspiration is but a figure of speech for a purely natural fact.

The _animus_ of this theory is denial of the supernatural. Like
the denial of miracles, it can be maintained only upon grounds of
atheism or pantheism. The view in question, as Hutton in his
Essays remarks, would permit us to say that the word of the Lord
came to Gibbon, amid the ruins of the Coliseum, saying: “Go, write
the history of the Decline and Fall!” But, replies Hutton: Such a
view is pantheistic. Inspiration is the voice of a living friend,
in distinction from the voice of a dead friend, _i. e._, the
influence of his memory. The inward impulse of genius,
Shakespeare’s for example, is not properly denominated
inspiration. See Row, Bampton Lectures for 1877:428-474; Rogers,
Eclipse of Faith, 73 _sq._ and 283 _sq._; Henderson, Inspiration
(2nd ed.), 443-469, 481-490. The view of Martineau, Seat of
Authority, 302, is substantially this. See criticism of Martineau,
by Rainy, in Critical Rev., 1:5-20.

2. The Illumination Theory.

This regards inspiration as merely an intensifying and elevating of the religious perceptions of the Christian, the same in kind, though greater in degree, with the illumination of every believer by the Holy Spirit. It holds, not that the Bible is, but that it contains, the word of God, and that not the writings, but only the writers, were inspired. The illumination given by the Holy Spirit, however, puts the inspired writer only in full possession of his normal powers, but does not communicate objective truth beyond his ability to discover or understand.

This theory naturally connects itself with Arminian views of mere
coöperation with God. It differs from the Intuition-theory by
containing several distinctively Christian elements: (1) the
influence of a personal God; (2) an extraordinary work of the Holy
Spirit; (3) the Christological character of the Scriptures,
putting into form a revelation of which Christ is the centre
(_Rev. 19:10_). But while it grants that the Scripture writers
were “moved by the Holy Spirit” (φερόμενοι—_2 Pet. 1:21_), it
ignores the complementary fact that the Scripture itself is
“inspired of God” (θεόπνευστος—_2 Tim. 3:16_). Luther’s view
resembles this; see Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 236, 237.
Schleiermacher, with the more orthodox Neander, Tholuck and
Cremer, holds it; see Essays by Tholuck, in Herzog, Encyclopädie,
and in Noyes, Theological Essays; Cremer, Lexicon N.T.,
θεόπνευστος, and in Herzog and Hauck, Realencyc., 9:183-203. In
France, Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 90, remarks: “Prophetic
inspiration is piety raised to the second power”—it differs from
the piety of common men only in intensity and energy. See also
Godet, in Revue Chrétienne, Jan. 1878.

In England Coleridge propounded this view in his Confessions of an
Inquiring Spirit (Works, 5:669)—“Whatever _finds me_ bears witness
that it has proceeded from a Holy Spirit; in the Bible there is
more that _finds me_ than I have experienced in all other books
put together.” [Shall we then call Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest”
inspired, while the Books of Chronicles are not?] See also F. W.
Robertson, Sermon I; Life and Letters, letter 53, vol. 1:270;
2:143-150—“The _other_ way, some twenty or thirty men in the
world’s history have had special communication, miraculous and
from God; in _this_ way, all may have it, and by devout and
earnest cultivation of the mind and heart may have it illimitably
increased.” Frederick W. H. Myers, Catholic Thoughts on the Bible
and Theology, 10-20, emphasizes the idea that the Scriptures are,
in their earlier parts, not merely inadequate, but partially
untrue, and subsequently superseded by fuller revelations. The
leading thought is that of _accommodation_; the record of
revelation is not necessarily infallible. Allen, Religious
Progress, 44, quotes Bishop Thirlwall: “If that Spirit by which
every man spoke of old is a living and present Spirit, its later
lessons may well transcend its earlier”;—Pascal’s “colossal man”
is the race; the first men represented only infancy; _we_ are “the
ancients”, and we are wiser than our fathers. See also Farrar,
Critical History of Free Thought, 473, note 50; Martineau, Studies
in Christianity: “One Gospel in Many Dialects.”

Of American writers who favor this view, see J. F. Clarke,
Orthodoxy, its Truths and Errors, 74; Curtis, Human Element in
Inspiration; Whiton, in N. Eng., Jan. 1882:63-72; Ladd, in Andover
Review, July, 1885, in What is the Bible? and in Doctrine of
Sacred Scripture, 1:759—“a large proportion of its writings
inspired”; 2:178, 275, 497—“that fundamental misconception which
identifies the Bible and the word of God”; 2:488—“Inspiration, as
the subjective condition of Biblical revelation and the predicate
of the word of God, is _specifically_ the same illumining,
quickening, elevating and purifying work of the Holy Spirit as
that which goes on in the persons of the entire believing
community.” Professor Ladd therefore pares down all predictive
prophecy, and regards _Isaiah 53_, not as directly and solely, but
only as typically, Messianic. Clarke, Christian Theology,
35-44—“Inspiration is exaltation, quickening of ability,
stimulation of spiritual power; it is uplifting and enlargement of
capacity for perception, comprehension and utterance; and all
under the influence of a thought, a truth, or an ideal that has
taken possession of the soul.... Inspiration to write was not
different in kind from the common influence of God upon his
people.... Inequality in the Scriptures is plain.... Even if we
were convinced that some book would better have been omitted from
the Canon, our confidence in the Scriptures would not thereby be
shaken. The Canon did not make Scripture, but Scripture made the
Canon. The inspiration of the Bible does not prove its excellence,
but its excellence proves its inspiration. The Spirit brought the
Scriptures to help Christ’s work, but not to take his place.
Scripture says with Paul: ‘Not that we have lordship over your
faith, but are helpers of your joy: for in faith ye stand fast’_
(2 Cor. 1:24)_.”

E. G. Robinson: “The office of the Spirit in inspiration is not
different from that which he performed for Christians at the time
the gospels were written.... When the prophets say: ‘Thus saith
the Lord,’ they mean simply that they have divine authority for
what they utter.” Calvin E. Stowe, History of Books of Bible,
19—“It is not the words of the Bible that were inspired. It is not
the thoughts of the Bible that were inspired. It was the men who
wrote the Bible who were inspired.” Thayer, Changed Attitude
toward the Bible, 63—“It was not before the polemic spirit became
rife in the controversies which followed the Reformation that the
fundamental distinction between the word of God and the record of
that word became obliterated, and the pestilent tenet gained
currency that the Bible is absolutely free from every error of
every sort.” Principal Cave, in Homiletical Review, Feb. 1892,
admitting errors but none serious in the Bible, proposes a
mediating statement for the present controversy, namely, that
Revelation implies inerrancy, but that Inspiration does not.
Whatever God reveals must be true, but many have become inspired
without being rendered infallible. See also Mead, Supernatural
Revelation, 291 _sq._

With regard to this theory we remark:

(_a_) There is unquestionably an illumination of the mind of every believer by the Holy Spirit, and we grant that there may have been instances in which the influence of the Spirit, in inspiration, amounted only to illumination.

Certain applications and interpretations of Old Testament
Scripture, as for example, John the Baptist’s application to Jesus
of Isaiah’s prophecy (_John 1:29—_“Behold, the Lamb of God, that
taketh away [marg. “beareth”] the sin of the world”), and Peter’s
interpretation of David’s words (_Acts 2:27—_“thou wilt not leave
my soul unto Hades, Neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see
corruption”), may have required only the illuminating influence of
the Holy Spirit. There is a sense in which we may say that the
Scriptures are inspired only to those who are themselves inspired.
The Holy Spirit must show us Christ before we recognize the work
of the Spirit in Scripture. The doctrines of atonement and of
justification perhaps did not need to be newly revealed to the N.
T. writers; illumination as to earlier revelations may have
sufficed. But that Christ existed before his incarnation, and that
there are personal distinctions in the Godhead, probably required
revelation. Edison says that “inspiration is simply perspiration.”
Genius has been defined as “unlimited power to take pains.” But it
is more—the power to do spontaneously and without effort what the
ordinary man does by the hardest. Every great genius recognizes
that this power is due to the inflowing into him of a Spirit
greater than his own—the Spirit of divine wisdom and energy. The
Scripture writers attribute their understanding of divine things
to the Holy Spirit; see next paragraph. On genius, as due to
“subliminal uprush,” see F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality,
1:70-120.

(_b_) But we deny that this was the constant method of inspiration, or that such an influence can account for the revelation of new truth to the prophets and apostles. The illumination of the Holy Spirit gives no new truth, but only a vivid apprehension of the truth already revealed. Any original communication of truth must have required a work of the Spirit different, not in degree, but in kind.

The Scriptures clearly distinguish between revelation, or the
communication of new truth, and illumination, or the quickening of
man’s cognitive powers to perceive truth already revealed. No
increase in the power of the eye or the telescope will do more
than to bring into clear view what is already within its range.
Illumination will not lift the veil that hides what is beyond.
Revelation, on the other hand, is an “unveiling”—the raising of a
curtain, or the bringing within our range of what was hidden
before. Such a special operation of God is described in _2 Sam.
23:2, 3—_“The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, And his word was upon
my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to
me”; _Mat. 10:20—_“For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of
your Father that speaketh in you”; _1 Cor. 2:9-13—_“Things which
eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the
heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love
him. But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For who
among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man,
which is in him? even so the things of God none knoweth, save the
Spirit of God. But we received, not the spirit of the world, but
the spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that
were freely given to us of God.”

Clairvoyance and second sight, of which along with many cases of
imposition and exaggeration there seems to be a small residuum of
proved fact, show that there may be extraordinary operations of
our natural powers. But, as in the case of miracle, the
inspiration of Scripture necessitated an exaltation of these
natural powers such as only the special influence of the Holy
Spirit can explain. That the product is inexplicable as due to
mere illumination seems plain when we remember that revelation
sometimes _excluded_ illumination as to the meaning of that which
was communicated, for the prophets are represented in _1 Pet.
1:11_ as “searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of
Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should
follow them.” Since no degree of illumination can account for the
prediction of “things that are to come” (_John 16:13_), this
theory tends to the denial of any immediate revelation in prophecy
so-called, and the denial easily extends to any immediate
revelation of doctrine.

(_c_) Mere illumination could not secure the Scripture writers from frequent and grievous error. The spiritual perception of the Christian is always rendered to some extent imperfect and deceptive by remaining depravity. The subjective element so predominates in this theory, that no certainty remains even with regard to the trustworthiness of the Scriptures as a whole.

While we admit imperfections of detail in matters not essential to
the moral and religious teaching of Scripture, we claim that the
Bible furnishes a sufficient guide to Christ and to salvation. The
theory we are considering, however, by making the measure of
holiness to be the measure of inspiration, renders even the
collective testimony of the Scripture writers an uncertain guide
to truth. We point out therefore that inspiration is not
absolutely limited by the moral condition of those who are
inspired. Knowledge, in the Christian, may go beyond conduct.
Balaam and Caiaphas were not holy men, yet they were inspired
(_Num. 23:5; John 11:49-52_). The promise of Christ assured at
least the essential trustworthiness of his witnesses (_Mat. 10:7,
19, 20; John 14:26; 15:26, 27; 16:13; 17:8_). This theory that
inspiration is a wholly subjective communication of truth leads to
the practical rejection of important parts of Scripture, in fact
to the rejection of all Scripture that professes to convey truth
beyond the power of man to discover or to understand. Notice the
progress from Thomas Arnold (Sermons, 2:185) to Matthew Arnold
(Literature and Dogma, 134, 137). Notice also Swedenborg’s
rejection of nearly one half the Bible (Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon,
and the whole of the N. T. except the Gospels and the Apocalypse),
connected with the claim of divine authority for his new
revelation. “His interlocutors all Swedenborgize” (R. W. Emerson).
On Swedenborg, see Hours with the Mystics, 2:230; Moehler,
Symbolism, 436-466; New Englander, Jan. 1874:195; Baptist Review,
1883:143-157; Pond, Swedenborgianism; Ireland, The Blot on the
Brain, 1-129.