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For example, someone might complain, "I understand that the Bible is sufficient, but it does not tell me which stocks to buy," or less reverently, "You say that the Bible is sufficient, but it does not tell me which stocks to buy." Of course, people ask questions about all kinds of topics. Another one would be, "The Bible does not tell me whom to marry, so how I am supposed to decide?" Thus I am not only thinking about stocks, but there are common problems with these questions, so with the appropriate adaptations, the following response will apply to all of them.
First, like most people, this person probably never read the entire Bible, so he is just assuming that the Bible does not specify, even by name, which stocks he is supposed to buy. And even if one has read the entire Bible, he cannot say that he has derived all that is possible from it. More often than not the Bible has something very specific to say about the question, and one can always derive some definite principles that will either render the right choice obvious or at least greatly limit the allowable options. The problem is that this person has too little knowledge of what the Bible says.
Second, the person assumes a goal and the means to that goal that he probably did not derive from the Bible, and then expects the Bible to instruct him on how to attain this goal by such means. He wishes to make a financial profit, and he thinks that purchasing the right stocks would be the right away to attain this goal, and since the Bible is infallible, he approaches it to find the answer. But does the Bible approve or command such a goal? If it does, does it say that this is the right away to attain it? How about the lottery? Is the Bible insufficient if it does not tell you which numbers to choose?
Many people first define what they want or need apart from the Bible, and then come to the Bible for answers. In a financial situation, they would think, "The Bible is supposed to be sufficient for every situation that I face in life, and to tell me God's mind on the subject. With this problem that I am facing, what should I do so that I will make a profit or not suffer loss?"
They appear to seek guidance from the Bible, but they have already assumed the proper result that the Bible is supposed to help them attain. However, they never asked the Bible as to whether God wishes for them to make a profit or not suffer loss. Their respect and dependence on the Bible does not start from the beginning of their chain of priorities and their process of reasoning, but only when they have made enough assumptions apart from the Bible that they are now willing to let it take over to satisfy those assumptions.
But the Bible might not offer them the answers that they seek, since it probably never approved what generated the questions in the first place. Or, in our example, even if the Bible would declare profit a proper goal, it might do so for a different reason, or from another perspective, attaching to it different motives and background assumptions.23
Notes
23 See Vincent Cheung, "Biblical Guidance and Decision-Making" in Godliness with Contentment.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (19)
(This begins the second major section in this series. If you need a reorientation, please review the general outline.)
2. SUFFICIENCY
Although it is not the main focus of our passage (2 Timothy 3:14-17), we have spent so much time on the inspiration of Scripture because, besides its inherent importance, it is the foundation for a proper view of the sufficiency and utility of Scripture. Given its claims and purposes, the Bible can be sufficient and profitable only to the extent that it is authoritative, so that a false view of inspiration will limit and distort all aspects of our relationship with Scripture – that is, all aspects of our Christian life and relationship with God.
Scripture is the very word and mind of God, and just as it is a contradiction to say that we love a person but hate everything about him (since everything about him is him), our love, faith, and reverence toward God can never rise higher than our love, faith, and reverence toward the Bible. Thus only the highest and most extreme view of inspiration can serve as a proper foundation for our Christian life. As we proceed, it will become evident how the sufficiency and utility of Scripture are dependent on its divine inspiration and absolute authority.
Now, when it comes to the sufficiency of Scripture, we cannot just say that "the Scripture is sufficient," and leave it at that. This is because the idea of sufficiency remains empty and meaningless unless we also ask, "For what is Scripture sufficient?" and "For whom is Scripture sufficient?" Something that is "sufficient" is sufficient for something, and not "sufficient" in general or in the abstract. The Bible contains the answers, but what are the questions?
This brings to mind a common pastoral problem. Christians often ask questions that they either should not ask in the first place, or that are latent with false assumptions and unbiblical concerns, so that from the start their approach blinds them to what Scripture is really saying.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (18)
The relationship between God and the human writers of Scripture is wholly different. In the first place, God did not find the human writers, as if they were created and developed apart from God, only to be discovered by him later, but he made them according to his own specifications. Commenting on a related subject, Geerhardus Vos writes, "The revelation does not spring from the character; on the contrary, the character is predetermined by the necessities of the revelation."18
Some theologians are fond of using "natural propagation" to explain human traits, including the universal sinfulness of man.19 However, natural propagation is at best relative – that is, it describes the relationship between past generations to the current one – it cannot function as the metaphysical explanation of the propagation of these traits, the relationship between God and human beings, or the relationship between God and human depravity.
Otherwise, Romans 9:21 could be referring to only Adam and Eve at best, but of course this is impossible – the immediate context as well as the entire Bible forbid such an interpretation, nor have I read anyone propose such nonsense. Those who make natural propagation into almost an absolute explanation of human traits seem to altogether ignore this verse and others like it, and given their theory, this is indeed what they would need to do. Also, this perspective has never been able to explain the origin of sin. Its proponents must relegate it to a complete mystery.
Rather, this verse as well as the entire Bible affirm God's direct and total control over the characteristics and destinies of all his human creatures.20 And this is both the immediate and ultimate explanation for all human traits, and for the origination and the perpetuation of human depravity. As Luther writes, "the children of wrath" are "created such by God himself" after the pattern of Adam.21
Therefore, the various human characteristics exhibited in Scripture can never undermine its inspiration, for this variety is part of God's design. God did not dictate the Scripture using only one set of characteristics (personality, vocabulary, etc.), nor did he dictate it using a numerous sets of characteristics. Rather, if we wish to speak in terms of dictation, the whole creation is God's "dictation," including these human writers who exhibited different characteristics, since these characteristics themselves were "dictated" by God. He did not only dictate the words of the Bible, but he "dictated" the very people who spoke his words and held the pens to write them down. And he even "carried" them along as they did so.
This is why a theory of mere verbal dictation is far too weak to describe or explain biblical inspiration, since behind the production of Scripture is God's exhaustive and pervasive control over all of history and all of humanity, including the rise and fall of nations, every good deed, every evil thought, the course of every drop of rain, and the precise length and number of a person's hair. And even now he must sustain all things by his word (Hebrews 1:3).
What an insult, then, it would be to say that he dictated the words to the human writers, or that these human writers "actively cooperated" with God. No, God first "wrote" the prophets themselves and then "carried" them to write the Bible. He created, caused, and carried the men to write his words. No weaker description or explanation can do justice to the inspiration of the Bible.
To summarize our position on the inspiration and authority of Scripture, Edward Young is right when he says that the Bible is "not a magical book dropped down from heaven";22 however, the result is the same. The Bible that we have now is so absolutely infallible, inerrant, and authoritative that it is as if God had taken up a pen himself and written the whole book, and then dropped it down from heaven to us. But we have already made the strongest possible statement about this long before, that is, when we refer to the Bible in a personified sense, God and Scripture are interchangeable.
Notes
18 Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 91.
19 For example, see William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (P & R Publishing, 2003).
20 See Vincent Cheung, "More Than a Potter."
21 Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Fleming H. Revell, 1957), p. 314. Luther does not here address what caused Adam to commit the first sin, since he is discussing Ephesians 2:3 and not Adam, but he does assert that all of Adam's descendents are created as sinful by God. Lesser theologians prefer to hide behind "natural propagation" so that they can distance God from evil.
22 Young, Thy Word is Truth, p. 25.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (17)
Third, the dictation theory is far too weak to describe or explain the divine inspiration of Scripture. This might surprise some people, since they think that dictation would have been the strongest possible method for God to produce the Bible through human writers. However, we have shown that if the Bible was nothing more than dictated from God to men, then it was not inspired at all. For if such were the case, although the dictation would indeed be God-breathed, and thus infallible and inerrant, we would not be able to say the same about the written product.
People usually oppose the dictation theory because they think that pure dictation would have obscured the personal characteristics of the human writers, but since the Bible exhibits these characteristics, it is said that the Scripture was not given by dictation. Inerrancy is not in question here, as these people could also affirm it, but we are trying to ascertain what happened in inspiration, and the implication of this perspective is that dictation is too "strong" to describe or explain inspiration.
However, the opposite is true. The above fails to consider where these human characteristics came from in the first place. They were not self-created, and the human writers were not autonomous. Dictation is not false because it minimizes the human role, although the human role was merely to be "carried along," but the theory is false because it undermines the sovereignty of God. It is false not because it gives too little freedom to man, but because it leaves too little control to God.
Consider the relationship between an employer and his secretary, not only on the interpersonal level but on the metaphysical level as well. In the first place, they have to find each other. The employer puts out an advertisement for the opening, and an interested person applies for the job. After reviewing her qualifications, the employer either accepts or rejects the applicant. This continues until the employer finds a satisfactory candidate and hires her.
As she begins to work for this employer, the secretary brings into her work her education, experience, personality, belief system, and even health condition – the employer has no influence over these previously determined factors. He assigns a number of tasks for her to do, and one of these is probably to take down his dictation. He would dictate to the secretary memos, letters, and various documents. For our purpose, we can even assume that his dictation is always perfect, so that all the secretary needs to do is to write down his words exactly as spoken. The written product, of course, should reflect only the personality, vocabulary, and other characteristics of the employer, and not that of the secretary.
After work, the secretary goes home. The employer has no access to her private life, inner thoughts, personal decisions, and physical condition. He has no right or power to determine how many children she has, where they go to school, where her husband works, what friends she makes, and when her mother dies. All he can do is to dictate his words to her, but she has to write them down of her own will (the human employer has no direct control over her will)17 and according to her ability.
Notes
17 Here we are not speaking of her relation to God, who exercises direct, total, and continuous control over her will.
(to be continued)
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Although there are no inherent problems with dictation, there are indeed several definitive reasons to reject it as a description or explanation of biblical inspiration. We will discuss only three – the theory is false, irrelevant, and weak. Any of these reasons would be enough as a basis to reject it.
First, we must reject the dictation theory simply because it is false. It is not that dictation was impossible in principle, but it was not how Scripture was written – it was not how it happened. We mentioned that some parts of Scripture were written when the prophets recorded verbatim what they heard from God, but the whole Bible was not written this way, so that the theory fails to describe or explain the inspiration of the entire Bible. However, even if the entire Bible was written this way, dictation would still fail to describe or explain inspiration, at least because of the next two reasons.
Second, the dictation theory is irrelevant. Although it is called the dictation theory of inspiration, dictation has little to nothing to do with inspiration. Dictation describes how God speaks to a person or conveys that God speaks to a person, but inspiration refers to or must include what God does to a person as this person speaks and writes the words of God to produce an accurate product. Paul refers to the Scripture as God-breathed – something that came directly out of God. And Peter writes that men spoke from God as they were carried along. In other words, God did not just carry the prophets to hear his words, and then left them to relate what he said to the best of their human ability, but God carried them as they were speaking and writing his words.
God could dictate his words to an uninspired individual and the person could write down what he heard, but the product would still be an uninspired document, since without inspiration at the moment of writing, the authenticity and authority of the document would depend on the uninspired person's human ability to recall, arrange, and record what he thought God revealed. And there is no guarantee that he would not subtract from or add to what he heard.15 In fact, God could speak from heaven, and some would say that it thundered (John 12:29). Paul says that the Scripture is God-breathed, and not that the prophets heard God-breathed words which they then tried to relate without any divine guarantee of success or perfection.
For this reason, I wrote earlier, "If God had chosen to speak his words to the prophets and have them write down what they heard, then that is how the Bible would have been written, and there would be nothing wrong with it. In fact, some parts of the Bible were apparently written this way." I said "apparently" because the truth is that, when the subject is inspiration, no part of the Bible was actually written by mere dictation. Even when dictation was involved, if we were to associate "inspiration" with what Paul and Peter are talking about in the passages that we examined, then inspiration must at least refer to how God carried along the human writers as they were speaking and writing the words of God, and not just when they were hearing the dictation.16
Therefore, if the Scripture was nothing more than dictated, then it was not inspired. And even if the original dictation was God-breathed, unless God ensured by his omnipotence that his words were faithfully recorded as the human writers wrote, we still cannot say that the written product is God-breathed. The dictation theory is irrelevant because it addresses something other than the question at hand, that is, whether the written product is the infallible and inerrant revelation of God. As we have seen, Paul's answer is that "All Scripture is God-breathed," regardless of whether it was dictated or not dictated, or whether we are referring to the narratives, the prophecies, or the genealogies.
Notes
15 Of course, the person is still not autonomous in this case, but it would be God who controls him to produce a flawed document. But if this is the case, then the document is not rightly described as inspired, and still less infallible, inerrant, or God-breathed. It would be just another flawed piece of writing produced under God's ordinary providence.
16 It could be that they were also "carried along" by God as they were hearing his words, but it remains that the only issue of immediate relevance is whether they were carried along when they were speaking and writing.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (15)
Now, because Christians affirm that God inspired every word in the Bible and not just the general ideas, critics sometimes allege that this amounts to claiming that God gave the Scripture by dictation, while the prophets served as secretaries and wrote them down. Then, on this basis, the critics attack the inspiration of Scripture by pointing out that such a dictation theory is inconsistent with the actual characteristics of Scripture. This is because the various documents in the Bible apparently reflect the different backgrounds, personalities, conditions, and circumstances of the human writers. But if Scripture came by God's dictation, then supposedly there should not be these variations.
Theologians are quick to deny this dictation theory of inspiration, charging the critics with attacking a straw man. Many of them would approach the issue from a perspective similar to Michael Green's, stating that inspiration does not imply dictation, but it even required active cooperation from the human writers, only that God "superintended" their writing so that the product is jointly human and divine, and at the same time exactly what God intended to set in writing.
However, this falls short of a biblical answer, and is itself ensnared by false assumptions. We have already said something about this above when we interacted with Michael Green, but here we will apply and extend what we have said to address the dictation theory in particular.
But before explaining why we must reject the theory, we should point out that there is nothing inherently wrong, repugnant, or impossible about dictation. If God had chosen to speak his words to the prophets and have them write down what they heard, then that is how the Bible would have been written, and there would be nothing wrong with it. In fact, some parts of the Bible were apparently written this way. The prophets would say something about the contexts and the circumstances, and then relate a verbatim quotation of what God said to them.
Even if we were to apply dictation to the whole Bible, there still would not be any inherent difficulties. The objection stems from the fact that the Bible reflects a variety of writing styles and personalities. However, God is not a man and does not have the limitations and narrowness of a man's mind. He could have dictated different parts of the Bible in different ways to reflect his intellectual immensity. The essential issue is whether this multifaceted revelation nevertheless exhibits a perfect internal harmony. If it does not, then whether God gave the Scripture by dictation is the least of our problems, but if it does, then this harmonious variety found in Scripture cannot be used to argue against a dictation theory of inspiration.
(to be continued)
Election and Preservation
From Vincent Cheung, The Preservation of the Saints (PDF, p. 17-21):
Election
The biblical doctrine of election teaches that God has chosen a definite and immutable number of individuals for salvation. The other side of election is reprobation, in which God has chosen a definite and immutable number of individuals (all those not chosen for salvation) for damnation. Just as reprobation is an eternal decree predetermining the final destiny of the reprobates, and not just their spiritual condition for an undecided duration, so election is an eternal decree predetermining the final destiny of the elect. It is not a decree to simply convert certain individuals, but to actually, completely, and finally save them. Therefore, if an elected individual could be truly converted and then fall away, it would mean that the eternal decree of election has failed, which is impossible…
Redemption
Christ's atoning work is an actual and complete purchase of all the individuals for which the atonement is designed to redeem. The atonement does not only make salvation a mere possibility for the elect, but it ensures their actual salvation. This means that the atonement guarantees the complete and final salvation of all those for whom Christ died. Since not all will be saved, we know that Christ did not die for everyone, but only for those whom God has chosen in eternity; therefore, the reprobates are justly condemned. However, there is no condemnation for the elect, for whom Christ died. The implication for the preservation of the saints is obvious. Christ's ministry as Mediator does not end with his death and resurrection, but he lives forever to be our High Priest, interceding for us with the Father and preserving our faith in him. Since Christ will never fail in his ministry as Mediator, true believers will never truly and finally fail in their faith…
Regeneration
In regeneration, God imparts to the elect indestructible spiritual life, transforming the very nature and dispositions of their hearts. Since this spiritual life is indestructible, it means that regeneration is irreversible. Therefore, once regenerated, a person cannot then truly and finally turn away from God or denounce Christ. This means that all those who are regenerated will also persevere. Any doctrine that denies this contradicts the very meaning of regeneration…
Certification
As with God's election and Christ's atonement, biblical teaching on the Spirit's sealing also implies the preservation of the saints. Scripture declares that the Holy Spirit has been placed in the believer at conversion as a seal. This seal is not mere decoration, but a guarantee that the believer will reach his designated destiny, which is glorification in Christ..
Sanctification
In God's sovereign and eternal decree, he has not foreordained only the conversion of his elect, but also his justification, adoption, and sanctification. Just as the elect have been foreordained to conversion and thus given faith in Christ, so they have been foreordained to sanctification and thus made holy by the Spirit. In fact, God has predetermined the very good works that the elect shall walk in, and he is the cause and the power behind both the will and the act of these good works done by the elect. Therefore, the elect have been just as certainly foreordained to sanctification as they have been chosen for conversion. This means that true and final apostasy is impossible…
Download PDF for more…
Sufficient and Profitable (14)
Perhaps motivated by his theological bias, as he offers his exposition on this same verse, Michael Green writes, "For revelation was not a matter of passive reception: it meant active co-operation."13 However, this is the very opposite of what Peter emphasizes in the verse. Green makes no mention of the obviously passive sense of "carried along," or how he could derive active human cooperation from the text. Of course, Green serves only as an illustration here in our discussion, since many others describe divine inspiration in such a manner.
What beliefs and assumptions is Green trying to protect, so that he would assert them even when they are nowhere to be found in the verse, or anywhere around the verse? He continues, "The fact of God's inspiration did not mean a supersession of the normal mental functionings of the human author….Moreover, he did not use any men, but holy men, those who were dedicated and pledged to his service. And even with such men, he did no violence to their personalities…."14
Green is concerned to preserve the "mental functionings" and the "personalities" of the human writers, and also the fact that they were holy men. And from this he infers that revelation could not be "a matter of passive reception," but demanded man's "active co-operation." To put this another way, he wants to prevent the misunderstanding that the human writers were unconscious, unthinking, unaware, or in a trance when they spoke and wrote from God.
However, Green's inference does not follow from his concerns. When I write, of course the "pen moves," and when I play tennis, of course the "racket swings." In this sense, both the pen and racket are active, but they are active only relative to themselves, and relative to their previous resting condition. Relative to me, they are completely passive, being carried along by my strength and my design to do my bidding. Do they "cooperate"? Of course! But this is not because I politely request their assistance, to allow me to channel my thinking and energy through them. They "cooperate" because I have control over them.
Such an analogy will stir up much indignation: "How much greater is a man than a pen, and an intelligent thinking being is in an entirely different category compared to a tennis racket!" Rather than enforcing a right view of man, this objection betrays a false view of God. For if you think that God needs you to be in a trance or somehow get your mind out of the way to exercise exhaustive control over you, then your view of God is way too small.
Of course the "mind thinks," but what causes it to think? And what causes it to think a certain thought in a certain way at each moment of the man's life? Do you think that God does not continuously control man's conscious mental states? Of course God spoke through holy men, but what caused them to be holy? Did they create themselves or make themselves holy, or did God, as the Scripture says, out of the same lump of clay created some for noble purposes and others for common use? "It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13). It is God who works in man to produce holy decisions and actions.
Moreover, although he rarely did it, God could just as easily speak his words through a wicked man, exercising exhaustive control over him just as he does all his other creatures, including the holy prophets, so that he would speak his words just as infallibly as the prophets did. Balaam is such an example. For inspiration is not a matter of man's cooperation, but the Spirit's power to carry the person to do and say all that God wills. And God's control over man is so exhaustive that he does not need to suspend the person's thinking and personality in order to speak through him exactly what he wills, since even the person's thinking and personality are under his direct and continuous control.
Therefore, that the prophets retained their "mental functionings" (most of the time), their personalities, and that they were holy men have no immediate relevance to whether they offered active cooperation – God had direct access and total control over all of these factors. Rather, we must ask Peter what happened as the prophets spoke, and he tells us that they were "carried along by the Holy Spirit," as if they were ships passively driven by the wind.
Notes
13 Michael Green, 2 Peter and Jude (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), p. 103.
14 Ibid.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (13)
Peter indeed says that Scripture came about as "men spoke from God," so that it did not come by human initiation or interpretation. But he also says that "men spoke from God," so that men were involved in the writing of Scripture. What was this role? What did they do? In what sense and in what way were they involved? Peter proceeds to tell us. He writes, "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (v. 21).
The translation "moved by" (KJV, NASB) at least indicates that the men were passive, that they were acted upon by the Spirit, and this is certainly a main emphasis here. But the translation "carried along" (NIV, ESV) paints a better picture of what the word means. It is a metaphor taken from the nautical world, and describes how a ship is carried and compelled by the wind. Thus in Acts 27:15 and 17, the word is translated "driven along" (NIV, ESV). In that passage, the ship is not self-powered, nor does it actively cooperate, but it is passive – acted upon and driven along by the wind, which is active.
Likewise, when men spoke from God and wrote Scripture, they were passive and the Spirit was active. In fact, the men were so passive relative to the Spirit that they were described as being "carried along," as if the Spirit went under them, lifted them up and carried them for his own purposes. They were the passive objects carried entirely by the power of the Spirit, and this was their role and their involvement.
As Edward J. Young writes: "If a person picks up something and bears it, he does it by his own power. That which is picked up and borne, however, is absolutely passive. So the writers of Scripture who spake from God were passive. It was the Spirit of God who bore them. It was He who was active, and they were passive."11
Some commentators insist that the words "men spoke" grant an active role to the prophets, but in what sense were they active? If I were to take up a pen to write a letter, of course the "pen writes," but its role is active only relative to itself and relative to when it is not writing at all. Relative to me, the pen is entirely passive, and cannot even be described as actively cooperating. For those who always seem to misconstrue analogies, I am not saying that a man is exactly like a pen,12 but I am saying that we cannot infer too much from the words "men spoke" themselves, but the sense and the extent of these words are restricted by the context.
Peter qualifies "men spoke" by saying the Spirit carried them, so that even their speaking was performed under this passive condition. So the men did speak, but only as they were carried by God's active power. That is, their act of speaking was active only relative to not speaking at all, but they were in no sense self-moved or self-powered as they spoke, nor did they have a "free will" from which God must obtain cooperation. Thus the entire verse speaks of men as passive, and God as active.
Notes
11 Edward J. Young, Thy Word is Truth (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1957), p. 25.
12 See Vincent Cheung, "More Than a Potter."
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (12)
Thus in declaring the inspiration of Scripture, Peter first makes an important denial. He denies that Scripture is a product of human initiation and interpretation, unlike all non-Christian religions and philosophies. But then, he makes an affirmation about the origin of Scripture that tells us something about the nature of inspiration. Scripture "came about" (v. 20), he explains, as "men spoke from God" (v. 21). The words of Scripture came from God, and not from the men themselves.
We can learn something about the nature of true prophetic utterances by noting how false prophecies are described and condemned in Scripture. For example, Jeremiah 23:16 says, "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD." False prophets speak "from their own minds," but true prophets speak "from the mouth of the LORD." The New Testament says that "God…spoke through David" (Hebrews 4:7), and that "The Holy Spirit spoke the truth…through Isaiah the prophet" (Acts 28:25).
It was God who spoke, not men – he spoke through men. The implication is unmistakable – the words of Scripture are so much "from God" that it is as if they came straight "from the mouth of the LORD," and in fact, they did. Therefore, we are to make no distinction between the words of Scripture and the words of God.
In fact, we can – we must – regularly and in various contexts use "God" and "Scripture" as interchangeable terms, for this is also the Bible's own practice. Genesis 12:1-3 says, "The LORD had said…," but referring to the same instance, Galatians 3:8 reads, "The Scripture foresaw…and announced…." Exodus 9:13-16 says, "Then the LORD said…confront Pharaoh and say to him…," but referring to the same instance, Romans 9:17 reads, "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh…."
In the Bible, "Scripture" is personified and sometimes used in the place of "God" altogether. This is only right and natural if Scripture is exactly the word of God, so that there is zero difference between them in thought and in authority. And it is only right that we as Christians adopt the same practice. It reflects our belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture to think of God and the Bible as interchangeable. We refer to both as powerful, penetrating, wise, just, pure, and holy. Galatians 3:8, cited above, attributes prescience to Scripture. We can even refer to the Scripture as the judge of mankind: "And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him – the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day" (John 12:47-48, NKJ).
All of this does not apply only to the Old Testament, as if the Old and the New are two separate books forcibly put together instead of one organic whole foreordained, developed, and preserved by God. As Peter writes, "I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles" (2 Peter 3:2). The apostles also "spoke from God." Their inspired words were not their own, but came from the mouth of the Lord, and thus carry the authority of God (1 Corinthians 2:13, 14:37).
Scripture "came about" when "men spoke from God," so that Scripture carries absolute authority, and the term can even be personified to be used interchangeably with God. The ramifications for the sufficiency and utility of Scripture should be as obvious as they are numerous. But before we take this next step, we must recall the purpose for this detour into 2 Peter in the first place, which is to explain the human role in divine inspiration and the writing of Scripture.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (11)
The word "interpretation" can mean "explanation," but it can also mean "loosening," "release," or "discharge." In the New Testament, the noun is used only here, whereas the verb appears in Mark 4:34 and Acts 19:39. In Mark 4, the verb means "to expound" or "to explain," and in Acts 19, it means "to decide." Its meaning in our verse should be determined by the context.
The immediate context has to do with how "Scripture came about" (v. 20), and Peter insists that "prophecy never had its origin in the will of man" (v. 21). The issue is the origin of Scripture and its relation to the will of man, and not the interpretation of the product of inspiration. Therefore, the "interpretation" is referring to the writers of Scripture and not the readers of Scripture.
As for the broader context, Peter asserts in verse 16, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." He is contrasting his own preaching and the words of the prophets in Scripture against the "false prophets" and "false teachers" (2:1) who would exploit people "with stories they have made up" (2:3).
With the above in mind, we may paraphrase Peter (1:20) as follows: "The false prophets and false teachers would exploit you with stories that they made up, but we did not invent what we told you about Christ's transfiguration and God's voice from heaven. Likewise, nothing in Scripture came from man's personal decision or understanding. Scripture was produced in a very different way than how these false prophets and teachers operate, since they made up their doctrines and stories, but everything in Scripture came from God."
A. T. Robertson writes, "No prophecy of Scripture comes out of private disclosure,' not 'of private interpretation."8 Gordon Clark suggests the translation, "No written prophecy ever came into being by any individual's setting it free [or, more literally] by private release."9 The emphasis would be that Scripture did not come by man's decision ("never had its origin in the will of man," v. 21), or just because a person "wanted to prophesy" (NLT).
I should add that even if the word "interpretation" takes on the meaning of "explanation" here, it would make no essential difference. The emphasis would shift slightly to the fact that Scripture did not come from human understanding about historical events and current affairs, or human speculation about the future. Wuest takes this perspective and translates, "every prophecy of scripture does not originate from any private interpretation [held by the writer]."10
Both ideas are found in verse 21, which says that "prophesy never had its origin in the will of man" (not by human initiation) but that "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (not by human interpretation).
Notes
8 A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol. 6 (Broadman Press, 1960), p. 158.
9 Gordon H. Clark, New Heavens, New Earth: A Commentary on First and Second Peter (The Trinity Foundation, 1993), p. 192-193. Brackets in original.
10 Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation. Brackets in original.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (10)
At first glance, the latter part of verse 20 appears to offer several possible meanings. The various translations and commentaries favor different meanings and perpetuate them.
The Jerusalem Bible translates, "the interpretation of scriptural prophecy is never a matter for the individual," and this has been used to teach the Catholic doctrine that ordinary individuals cannot just pick up the Bible and understand what it says – only the Church can interpret it for them. The Reformers fought against this false doctrine, and defended the right of individuals to read the Bible.
Then, the KJV says, "no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation." This could also be construed as above, but Protestants would tend to think that this is a repudiation of a subjective and relativistic understanding of Scripture. Indeed, much damage has come from the American way of thinking, that every person is entitled to his opinion, and that every person has a right to contribute to a discussion, even in the church. The Bible denies both – every person must affirm what God's word says, and anyone who ignores God's word must himself be ignored (1 Corinthians 14:38).
In many churches, Bible studies are performed by allowing the participants to give their private interpretations of Scripture. They would begin by saying, "I think this means…" or "To me this means…." Nobody is ever wrong and no view is denounced as heretical, but the moderator would construe all the views presented so that they are all correct and all in agreement with one another.7 But then they might as well write their own Scripture, since in effect that is what they are already doing. In any case, the Reformers defended the right of individuals to read the Bible, but not to violate the text and assign subjective meanings to it.
So this second option is true enough in itself. Each passage of Scripture has an intended and fixed meaning, so that a subjective and relativistic approach to reading the Bible is to be denounced as an assault upon the word of God. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that this is what verse 20 conveys.
Notes
7 See Vincent Cheung, The Parables of Jesus for additional comments.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (9)
In explaining the Scripture's true origin and nature, Peter writes, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21).
This important passage is just as rich as our main text from 2 Timothy, and it would take just as much attention to do it justice. But as this is something of a digression, all the fascinating details will have to await another time. Right now we will take time to extract not much more than what is needed to address the issue mentioned above – that is, the role of the human writers in the Scripture's formation, or the relationship between the human writers and divine inspiration.
To begin, Peter refers to the "prophecy of Scripture." He could be talking about specific portions of the Old Testament that are narrowly considered prophecies. Even if this is the case, it would still include much more of the Bible than what many people realize, since prophecies do not refer to only predictions, but the term refers to inspired utterances and writings by which God communicates through his agents, whether or not these utterances and writings are predictive in content.
However, it is likely that Peter has in mind something broader, so that by the expression he intends to place emphasis upon the prophetic nature of Scripture (as in "the prophetic word" in v. 19, NASB), that it is a revelation from God. This would not be surprising given the context, since he is combating false teachers and prophets that claim to speak the truth, when they could offer only their own opinions and speculations.
Even if the narrow view is true – although the opposite appears to be the case – the application cannot be limited to only certain portions of Scripture. We have established from Paul that all Scripture is inspired, and Peter is here telling us something about how inspiration occurred; therefore, the principle must apply to all of Scripture. Indeed, although Peter is writing against "false teachers" and "false prophets" (2:1), he does not say, "no true prophecy came about by the prophet's own interpretation," but "no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation." His focus is on the written product.
(to be continued)
Soteriology and Preservation
From Vincent Cheung, The Preservation of the Saints (PDF, p. 17):
Biblical soteriology, of course, does not start with the preservation of the saints, but with divine election. A truly biblical soteriology is in turn founded on a biblical view of theology proper, or the nature of God. Scripture declares that God is one who works out all things according to the counsel of his own will, and according to all his good pleasure. This becomes the controlling factor in a truly biblical soteriology, and any theological conception that contradicts this must be immediately judged as false.
As the Reformed confessions illustrate, the preservation of the saints is not a standalone doctrine, but it follows from other biblical doctrines concerning salvation. If I tell you that I have determined to reach the finish line in a race, it is assumed that I will transverse the distance between the starting line and the finish line, and that I will also jump over any hurdles in the way. The preservation of the saints is thus not a standalone doctrine, and to deny it would be to contradict not only this particular doctrine, but the whole pattern of biblical soteriology.
Thus even before we examine the biblical passages that directly support the preservation of the saints, we are already assured that it is indeed a biblical teaching, because it is the necessary implication of other biblical doctrines. The whole pattern of biblical soteriology demands it.
That said, there are numerous biblical passages that are directly relevant to the doctrine. We will list a number of them in this section. To keep this article from becoming much too lengthy, we cannot take time to examine each passage; however, we will place many of them under well-defined sections. This will make the meaning and relevance of each passage more easily discerned. Also, for most passages, we will also highlight the relevant words to aid in understanding…
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Sufficient and Profitable (8)
Another point that is often missed is that, as long as the issue is inspiration and not the merits of the individuals, we are not even comparing Jesus to the prophets and the apostles, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to the other writers of Scripture. Without hesitation, we acknowledge the utter superiority of Christ over all men, but the issue is whether Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were inspired. Since they were, then the documents that they produced, which included the words of Jesus, carry maximum authority, just as the writings of the prophets and the apostles carry maximum authority, and just as any word from God would carry maximum authority. There is no room for one to be superior to another. Since all of them carry the authority of God, none can be any greater or lesser in authority.
We may even concede that, if "inspiration" applied to him at all, it occurred differently in Jesus than in the prophets and the apostles. Among other things, he had no sin whose effects the Spirit must overcome or suspend to ensure the perfect communication of God's mind. And he could speak by his own divine authority in harmony with the Father's will. So the mode of operation was certainly different. Yet the product is the same – infallible and inerrant "God-breathed" words. The point is that to make any distinction in authority between God and Scripture, or Jesus and Scripture, is also to deny the inspiration of Scripture.
Disregarding for now the ramifications of this truth for theology, hermeneutics, and other disciplines, it has immediate relevance to our text. Paul says that all Scripture is God-breathed and is "useful" or "profitable" for the purposes that he enumerates. It follows that we must not consider the words of Jesus in the Bible as more useful or profitable than the words of the inspired human writers in the rest of the Bible.
In fact, an exposition of our text does not strictly require us to mention the human writers at all, or to consider how divine inspiration occurred in them. This is because the word "God-breathed" has no reference whatever to any human role or agency in the production of Scripture. The term emphasizes the God-given nature of Scripture, and that it is directly given by God in terms of content. God wrote on tablets of stone when he gave the Ten Commandments, but the rest of the Bible came from him just as much, so that there is no essential difference than if God had taken up a pen and wrote the whole thing himself without using human writers. The word "God-breathed" forbids us to form a weaker conclusion.
Nevertheless, most portions of Scripture indeed came through inspired human writers rather than by a voice from heaven, by dictation, or by the finger of God, and it is often observed that the various parts of the Bible reflect the different circumstances, backgrounds, and personalities of the inspired writers. Our text does not mention or explain this about the Bible, but calling it God-breathed, it stresses the divinity of the source and the purity of the product. To learn about how God wrote down his thoughts through inspired human writers, and in a way that the Bible can be called God-breathed without qualification, we will have to take a quick detour into another biblical passage.
(to be continued)