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)

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