Thursday, May 11, 2006

On the Verbal Inspiration of Scripture

Verbal inspiration of Scripture is the truth that the Bible is exactly word-for-word what God wanted to say. This doctrine has been under attack by liberals and post-moderns. They argue that God did not put the writers of Scripture in a trance and use their bodies to write the Bible, nor did audibly dictate to them exactly what to write like a boss to a worker. And we agree with both of these statements. So how did God get word-for-word what He wanted out of the writers? Below is a great quote by Gordon Clark on this topic…

“Verbal inspiration therefore must be understood in connection with the complete system of Christian doctrine. It many not be detached there from, and a fortiori it may not be framed in an alien view of God. Verbal inspiration is integral with the doctrines of providence and predestination. When the liberals surreptitiously deny predestination in picturing God as dictating to stenographers, they so misrepresent verbal inspiration that their objections do not apply to the God of the Bible. The trouble is not as the liberals think, that the boss controls the stenographer too completely; on the contrary, the analogy misses the mark because the boss hardly controls the stenographer at all.

Put it this way: God, from all eternity, decreed to lead the Jews out of slavery by the hand of Moses. To this end he so controlled events that Moses was born at a given date, placed in the water to save him from an earthly death, found and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, given the best education possible, driven into the wilderness to learn patience, and in every way so prepared by heredity and environment that when the time came, Moses’ mentality and literary style were the instruments precisely fitted to speak God’s words.”

Gordon H. Clark – God’s Hammer, The Bible and Its Critics

6 Comments:

At Friday, May 12, 2006 3:49:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Doug,
It is amazing how God used every human writer of His Word to get written what He wanted. Every writer's personality is seen, and their hearts. Yet, it is the very Word of God. Just what He intended us to have.
Great words.

 
At Friday, May 12, 2006 6:35:00 AM, Blogger Nephos said...

Love the underlying truth that applies to all God's actions, whether inspiration or redemption.

Great quote!

 
At Friday, May 12, 2006 7:02:00 AM, Blogger Jada's Gigi said...

He's a very BIG God. :) He gets exactly what He wants all the time...and what He wants is always flexible to fit the era, culture and specific situation necesaary...very strange..only God could pull that off. lol

 
At Friday, May 12, 2006 7:19:00 AM, Blogger Gordon said...

Great truth, Doug. What a blessing to have an inspired Word of God upon which to build our faith.

 
At Saturday, May 13, 2006 12:51:00 PM, Blogger Johnnie Burgess said...

I wonder why liberals want a god who can not even get the words he wants the way he wants it written.

 
At Saturday, May 13, 2006 9:38:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good post, Doug! Sadly it seems that PoMo Christians (emergent) are rejecting the language of inerrancy simply because "inerrancy" from their perspective was articulated through "modernistic" (rationalist) categories in reaction to the liberal higher criticism your post speaks of here. It seems "evangelical" PoMo's have sadly/naively slipped back into the very "supposed" shackles that "fundies" so wisely "reacted" to in the first place!

In Christ,

Bobby Grow

 

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