Is the Bible Inspired?

ONLY within recent years has the question been asked by Christians, Is the Bible inspired? Among the apostolic fathers, as they are called, and for centuries afterwards, there was no dispute on the part of those who accepted the Sacred Scriptures as a revelation from God, concerning their plenary inspiration, their supreme authority, and their divine infallibility from first to last. Clement, for example, of whom Irenseus speaks “as having seen and conversed with the blessed apostles,” and mentioned by one of the apostles as a fellow laborer in the gospel, wrote a long epistle to the Corinthians, the genuineness of which is not doubted. Scattered all through this epistle, when he quotes Scripture, and this he does continually, are such expressions as the following: “Hence we find how all the ministers of the grace of God have spoken by the Holy Spirit;” “For thus saith the Holy Spirit;” “For so says the Holy Scripture;” “The Holy Scripture itself bearing witness,” “For He saith, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard;” “Look into the Holy Scriptures, which are the true words of the Holy Ghost;” “Ye know, beloved, ye know full well the Holy Scriptures; and have thoroughlysearched into the oracles of God: call them therefore to your remembrance.”

In an epistle of Barnabas, another companion and fellow-preacher with Paul, cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, and accepted as genuine by many of the early fathers, we have testimonies like these: ‘’For so the Lord saith again to those heretofore;” “Wherefore He again speaketh to them;” “For thus saith the Scripture;” ‘’For God hath said;” “And therefore the Scripture again speaks;” “And again He saith, hear O Israel, for thus saith the Lord, thy God. And again the Spirit of God prophesieth, saying;” “Furthermore, it is written concerning the Sabbath, in the Ten Commandments, which God spake in the Mount Sinai to Moses, face to face;” “The Lord hath declared unto us by the prophets;” “Thus saith the Lord by the prophets;” “Moses in the Spirit spake.”

The Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature contains an excellent article upon Irenseus whom it reiresents as saying, “Well knowing that the Scriptures are perfect, as dictated (or spoken) by the word of God, and his Spirit.... We follow the one and only true God, as our teacher; and having His words as a rule of truth, do always speak the same things concerning the same things.” “But more than this, by the language which Irenseus uses, we find the church of his day harmonizing with and justifying the very highest claims that have ever been advanced in support of the inspired authority and infallible accuracy of the canonical writings.” Hyppolytus, his disciple, says of the Bible writers, ‘’ Be assured they did not speak in their own strength, nor out of their own minds, what they proclaimed; but first by the inspiration of the word they were imbued with wisdom.”

Origen, according to Lardner, declares ‘’ that the sacred books are not writings of men, but have been written and delivered to us from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the will of the Father of all things, through Jesus Christ;” “the sacred Scriptures come from the fulness of the Spirit; so that there is nothing in the prophets, or the law, or the gospel and the epistles which descends not from the Divine majesty;... one and the same Spirit proceeding from one God, teaching the like things in the Scriptures, written before the coming of Christ, and in the gospels and apostles.”

Augustine is equally emphatic in asserting that the Scriptures were spoken by God through men; and many similar declarations could be furnished from other writers of the first centuries. Indeed, Lord Hailes, as stated in the biography of Robert Haldane, easily discovered in the Christian writings of these centuries the whole of the New Testament with the exception of seven verses, which he felt sure he could also find; and the passages thus plentifully quoted were always presented as the very word of God, and not as the word of man. It is enough perhaps to say that such is the unvarying testimony of the church for four hundred years, and it does not seem to have occurred to these early believers to inquire whether there might be dififerent degrees and kinds of inspiration, or whether some of the books of the Bible, or some portions of some of the books, might be inspired, and others ■unins2:>ired. /

When the light of the reformation broke upon Europe the same profound reverence for the Scriptures, as fully and equally inspired, is discovered in all of the writings and confessions of the church. Thus we find according to Schafif’s Creeds of Christendom in the Belgic Confession, A. D. 1561, Article III., as follows: “We confess that this word of God was not sent nor delivered by the will of man, but that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, as the apostle Peter saith. And that afterwards God, from a special care which he has for us and our salvation, commanded his servants, the prophets and apostles, to commit his revealed word to writing; and he himself wrote with his own fingers the two tables of stone. Therefore we call such writings holy and divine Scriptures.”

So the Helvetic confession of 1566 starts out with the declaration, “We believe and confess, the canonical Scriptures of the Holy prophets and apostles of both Testaments to be the true word of God itself, for God himself spoke to the fathers, the prophets and the apostles, and still speaks to us by the sacred Scriptures.” “The Irish Articles of Religion,” adopted in 1615, state: 1. “The ground of our religion and the rule of faith and all saving truth is the word of God, contained in the Holy Scriptures. 2. By the name of Holy Scriptures we understand all the canonical books of the

Old and New Testament.” Then follow the names of the books in the precise order in which we have them to-day. “All which we acknowledge to be given by the inspiration of God, and in that regard to be of most certain credit and highest authority. ‘’The Westminster Confession of Faith,” 1647, opens with these striking words: ‘^ Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation; therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto his people being now ceased.

II.” Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament, which are these: [the books of the Old and New Testament are then mentioned as they occur in our English Bible,] all which are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life.

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