Revelation versus Inspiration and Extent of Inspiration
Bill Wenstrom
Inspiration • Sermon • Submitted • 1:07:48
0 ratings
· 149 viewsRevelation versus Inspiration and Extent of Inspiration Lesson # 2
Files
Notes
Transcript
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday December 2, 2014
www.wenstrom.org
Inspiration: Revelation versus Inspiration and Extent of Inspiration
Lesson # 2
Inspiration is God revealing Himself through the Word of God which is His mind whereas revelation is God using a vehicle.
Inspiration is the means God used to reveal Himself through the Bible whereas revelation is concerned with the divine origin of Scripture and the giving of truth to men.
Interpretation emphasizes the understanding of God’s revelation to man.
Through revelation, God reveals truth and by interpretation man understands this truth.
Interpretation deals with understanding the revelation provided in Scripture whereas illumination refers to the ministry of the Holy Spirit helping the believer to understand this revelation from God in the Scriptures.
In revelation we have the vertical reception of God’s truth while in inspiration we have the horizontal communication of that revelation accurately to others.
The word of God in its original languages is the vehicle by which God reveals Himself to mankind.
In other words, inspiration is the process by which God worked through the human authors without destroying their individual personalities, vocabularies and writing styles to produce divine authoritative and inerrant writings.
God reveals Himself to man in four ways: (1) by nature or creation (Psalm 19:1-6; Rom. 1:19-20). (2) Human conscience (Romans 2:14-15). (3) The Living Word, i.e., the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:18; 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Cor. 1:24; Heb. 1:1-3). (4) The Written Word, the Bible in its original languages.
God’s will, purpose and plan for your life can only be found in the written Word, not in nature since nature cannot: (1) Give information about God’s purpose for your life. (2) Give information about God’s will for your life. (3) Give information about God’s plan for your life. (4) Give the way of salvation.
God’s will, purpose, plan and way of salvation are revealed to us: (1) in the written Word of God, i.e., the Bible. (2) By the Living Word of God, i.e., the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the process goes like this: (1) revelation is the objective fact of God communicating to mankind (2) inspiration is the means by which God communicated to mankind (3) interpretation is the process of understanding what God has communicated.
The Holy Spirit is involved in every step.
He is the member of the Trinity responsible for this revelation since He guided and directed the human authors of Scripture to put down in the original autographs God’s complete and connected thought to mankind.
So the Spirit was the means by which God communicated His will to men.
He is responsible for the inspiration of Scripture.
He is also the one who guides the believer in the interpretation of this revelation and helps them to understand it so as to make application.
H. Lindsell writes “So technically, revelation preceded inspiration which has to do with the divine method of inscripturating the revelation whether what was written came to the writer by direct communication from God, from his own research, from his own experience or from extant records. Inspiration includes the superintending work of the Holy Spirit, but the human writers of Scripture were not automatons. Each writer had his own style. Each one used the Hebrew or the Greek language according to his own unique gifts and educational background. At the same time that God used human authors in harmony with their gifts He also indited holy Scripture.”[1]
The expression “plenary” inspiration expresses the view of biblical inspiration that contends that God is the ultimate author of the Bible in its entirety. This means that God’s superintending work in inspiration extends to the whole Bible and to each part of the Bible. Plenary inspiration guarantees that all that the church has come to affirm as Scripture is both authoritative and helpful for Christian belief and practice.[2]
The Bible portrays historical statements and details unknown to man and unconfirmed by human records (Gen. 1:11).
Inspiration guarantees the accuracy of these events (Isa. 14; Ezek. 28).
In Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, there are two accounts of Satan’s fall.
Satan existed long before man, yet we have in writing, with perfect accuracy, all that God wants us to know about Satan’s fall.
There are several accounts of the creation of the universe and these are found in the Scriptures from Genesis to Isaiah, and Colossians 1.
We would have no way of knowing these events were it not for the fact that God Himself provided the information through inspiration so that we might know about eternity past.
The Bible is not a history book but it does contain many historical accounts.
All of these are necessary and are accurate.
They form the basis and background for the communication of doctrine.
There have been many archeological discoveries which demonstrate the perfect accuracy of the Scriptures.
Some places in the Bible have direct quotations from God.
Sometimes, God would make known future events which man had no way of foreseeing or understanding at the time of their revelation.
Examples of prophecy: (1) Destruction of the powerful Edomites (Ezek. 25:12-14). (2) Fall of Tyre (3) Person and Work of Christ (Psa. 22; Isa. 53).
These prophecies were fulfilled perfectly.
Future prophecies for the Tribulation, Second Advent of Christ and the Millennium will be perfectly fulfilled also.
The record of human or Satanic lies in the Bible does mean that falsehood is truth.
Inspiration guarantees the accuracy of these lies such as the devil’s lies in Genesis 3:1-5.
The book of Ecclesiastes reveals human viewpoint.
God did not approve of Solomon’s human viewpoint but it was recorded to reveal the thinking of one who is out of fellowship with God.
So “verbal” signifies the words of the original languages of Scripture whereas “plenary” means “full” or “complete” as opposed to partial.
Thus verbal plenary inspiration expresses the idea that each and every word in the original languages of Scripture are inspired by God who gave full expression to His thoughts in the original languages of Scripture.
He influenced the very choice of the words used within the personality and vocabulary of the writers so that the Bible is not only the Word of God but also the words of men.
Charles Hodge has expressed the meaning of verbal inspiration well: It is meant that the Divine influence, of whatever kind it may have been, which accompanied the sacred writers in what they wrote, extends to the expression of their thoughts in language, as well as the thoughts themselves,—the effect being, that in the original autograph copies, the language expresses the thought God intended to convey with infallible accuracy, so that the words, as well as the thoughts, are God’s revelation to us.[3][4]
Geisler writes “The Bible claims to be the verbal, infallible, and inerrant Word of God. Because divine authority extends to every part of Scripture, this is verbal plenary inspiration. Although the general claims of the New Testament explicitly refer to only the Old Testament, they may be applied to the New Testament as well, because it too is ‘Scripture’ and ‘prophetic.’ The divine nature of Scripture does not rule out the fact that it is also a human book, manifesting the variety of literary styles, figures of speech, and individual personalities of its authors. However, like Christ, the Bible is theanthropic, having both the divine and human elements united in one expression. As a result, God adapted His truth to finite understanding, but He did not accommodate it to human misunderstanding. Therefore, on the authority of Christ, the Scriptures are completely inerrant.”[5]
[1] Tenney, Merrill C. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible in Five Volumes. page 288; Regency Reference Library, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1975.
[2] Grenz, S., Guretzki, D., & Nordling, C. F. (1999). In Pocket dictionary of theological terms. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[3] Charles Hodge, source unknown.
[4] Duffield, G. P., & Van Cleave, N. M. (1983). Foundations of Pentecostal theology (p. 24). Los Angeles, CA: L.I.F.E. Bible College.
[5] Geisler, N. L., & Nix, W. E. (1986). A General Introduction to the Bible (Rev. and expanded., p. 64). Chicago: Moody Press.