All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Paul writes that the Scripture “is given by inspiration of God” (KJV). To inspire means to breathe or blow into something. However, the Greek word refers to expiration, to breathe or blow out. Inspiration can also refer to mere stimulation or incitement. That is, a grand scenery may “inspire” a poem or painting. An exciting event may “inspire” a novel or documentary. The triumph of an unlikely hero may “inspire” others to reach for greater goals. We often refer to inspiration in this weak sense, but there is only an indirect relationship between what inspires and what is inspired. In fact, the relationship consists of mere correlation, not direct causation. This idea of inspiration is far from what Scripture teaches about God’s relationship to itself, that is, how he produced the Bible.
The NIV is more literal and says “All Scripture is God-breathed.” The ESV makes the meaning clear: “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” He did not produce the Bible by merely stimulating the minds of the writers or by suggesting ideas to them. He did it by direct causation. You say, “Certainly this cannot be, since human authors were the ones who wrote down the words.” But God is not a man – he does not write out only words on paper, but also entire planets and galaxies. No, he “wrote” out the human authors themselves by his creation and providence, and then he directly caused the human authors to write out what he wanted them to write. This does not mean that he suspended their consciousness. His control was much more extensive than that – he “wrote” out their very thoughts and personalities. Peter tells us that the prophets “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
It is not necessary to abandon the use of “inspiration.” The word has taken on a theological meaning that could accurately represent the doctrine of Scripture. Except for those who are unfamiliar or those who are unfaithful to the doctrine, it is understood that the word does not refer to mere stimulation or incitement, but an exercise of God’s supernatural power to communicate his thoughts, control the human writers, and to ensure the exact recording of his words. This is what we mean by divine inspiration, or that the Bible is given by the inspiration of God. Then, by his providence, the various documents were caused to be compiled into a single complete volume, with no error, and with nothing to be added to it or subtracted from it.
The Bible is inspired, infallible, and inerrant. This doctrine is mandatory belief for all Christians, all church leaders and members, and all seminary professors. We excommunicate those who affirm heresy after they have been repeatedly instructed and warned, but the Scripture is the standard by which truth is known and heresy is detected, as well as the basis of the authority by which the Christian community expels unrepentant members. In fact, the Scripture is the standard by which everything about Christianity itself is defined.
Therefore, our view toward the Scripture is the root of the matter. This is one battle where no Christian can run from, and this is one place where no compromise and no disagreement can be tolerated. This is one doctrine that is not open to negotiation, and whose truth is not even open for discussion. Our conflict with those who reject the doctrine of divine inspiration is not a quarrel about semantics, or a foolish and unproductive controversy. This is it. This is everything.
For this reason, dissenters are to be met with the harshest treatment imaginable that is within biblical and legal boundaries. This includes public ridicule and condemnation, the use of imprecatory prayers against them, and excommunication, including their physical removal from church and seminary properties. The offenders should be removed from employment where applicable. Any church or seminary that pays someone to resist biblical inspiration and inerrancy does not deserve to exist. There is to be no leniency. Those who openly disagree with this policy should be regarded as accomplices and co-conspirators against the Lord, and should be punished in the same manner.
Of course, I do not expect this to be implemented in churches and seminaries, because in this period in history, it appears that most people who call themselves Christians do not care about the Lord Jesus to this extent. They would much rather allow him to suffer disgrace than to make even the slightest effort to root out evil in their congregations, let alone a decisive policy so faithful to God and Scripture that it would certainly be met with tremendous shock and resistance.
Sometimes Scripture is rejected in ways that are less than forthright, so that there are people who claim to affirm the inspiration of Scripture, but who disagree with what it presents itself to be. For example, there are theologians who assert that, because of the great gulf or distinction between God and men, between the creator and his creatures, men can know the mind of God in an analogical way at best. Therefore, even Scripture cannot speak of God or to reveal God in an exact or univocal manner. However, Scripture does not present itself this way. It presents itself as an univocal revelation of the mind of God.
Paul writes, “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:13). He does not say, “expressing spiritual truths in natural words,” but “spiritual words,” or words that are able to express the meaning of spiritual truths. This means that God is really the way he is as he describes himself in Scripture, and he really thinks the way that he says he thinks. There is no difference. Of course, God knows and thinks more than what he says in Scripture, but to the extent that Scripture says what it says, it is what God thinks and says. The Bible is the exact, perfect, and univocal expression of the mind of God. To deny this is to reject the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Once this has been clearly and repeatedly explained to the offenders, if they do not repent, they should be treated in the same way as those who explicitly reject biblical inspiration and inerrancy.
These theologians and those who follow them have wormed their way into churches and seminaries, and have established themselves as faithful defenders of the faith, by hiding their heresy behind a false humility, namely, the assumption that the difference between creator and creature entails a total qualitative difference between God’s thoughts and our thoughts. The Bible indeed says that God’s ways are higher than our ways, that his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and that “no mind has conceived what God has prepared,” but then it adds, “but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:10).
Therefore, to deny that we know the exact thoughts of God to the extent that he has revealed them in Scripture, and in the exact way that he himself thinks them, is to reject not only the idea of the inspiration of Scripture, but the actual content of Scripture. These theologians and their followers speak about human finitude so much that I am inclined to believe that they are vastly more finite than the rest of us. So some patience is needed when explaining to them again the elementary teachings of Christ. However, there comes a point when idiocy is seen to be so mixed with obstinacy that they must be regarded as unrepentant heretics who deny the inspiration, the usefulness, and the teachings of Scripture. They claim to honor God with their false humility, but in reality they harbor a secret contempt for him, and their doctrine makes room for them to maintain their personal and speculative views regarding the nature of God and man, and the relationship between the two.
Since they turn biblical revelation into analogical communication, how can they believe the univocal gospel? Their faith can never rise above the level of an analogy. Therefore, although they claim to be faithful Christians, they are Christians only in an analogical sense – that is, Christians, but not exactly. If, contrary to their own theology, some of them have an univocal faith in the gospel, then although they are real Christians, they are teaching people to have only an analogy of belief in the truth, since even an univocal belief in an analogy of the truth can amount to only an analogy of belief in the truth. In other words, no one who truly affirms such a theology believes in the gospel. Unless a person at least implicitly rejects this theology, he cannot be a Christian. And if he affirms it explicitly but rejects it implicitly, he is a hypocrite and a deceiver.
What the Bible says is what God says. There is no difference. For this reason, a person’s attitude toward the Bible is his attitude toward God. To the unbelievers, to heretics, and to theologians of analogy and paradox, this is bad news, because it means that there is no significant barrier between them and God’s voice. There is no basis to make the excuse that we cannot know what God says or what he means. The explicit and univocal words of God are right before us.
On the other hand, those who reverence God rejoice in this fact, that God has given us an exact revelation of himself, of his thoughts and commands, of the nature of reality, of man and the world, and of salvation, and that he has expressed this revelation in explicit and univocal statements, and not in analogies and paradoxes. We want to submit to his authority, and we will not hide behind excuses and say this or that is difficult to understand, or this or that statement must mean something other than what the words say. We want to hear from him and be taught by him, and we can, because in the Bible he speaks clearly, and what he says there is what he means, and what he truly thinks in his divine mind.
The authority, usefulness, and sufficiency of Scripture are therefore established on this basis, that the Bible is divinely inspired, and that its content is comprehensible and its language is univocal. How can you teach me anything, or be so presumptuous as to rebuke me, when all you have is an analogy of what God means? Why should I pay any attention to you, when the basis of your assertions is an interpretation of an analogy by a ridiculously finite mind that insists on seeing paradoxes? Let me hear from God himself, directly and univocally, or deliver his word to me without analogies and paradoxes, and I will believe and obey. This is what we have in the Bible, and this is what true preaching accomplishes, so that the Scripture is useful for “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
Even though I am a mere man, I have the authority to teach another person, and to tell him what to believe about God, man, sin, and salvation, because as long as I communicate to him what the Bible says, it is as if God speaks to him, and God has the authority to teach him these things. Although I am a mere man, and have no direct knowledge of a man’s heart or the authority to condemn him, God has this knowledge and authority, and the Bible is God himself speaking; therefore, the Bible has the authority to rebuke and to correct. And as long as I speak in accordance with biblical revelation, I have the authority to rebuke and to correct those who are in error in their doctrine and behavior. When the message of the Bible is faithfully communicated, it is as if God is speaking, teaching, and rebuking. All believers are priests of God, and are permitted to handle the Scripture, to teach and to rebuke, but those whom God has called to be ministers of the gospel are especially authorized and obligated to do so.