Inspiration of the Old Testament

Text: 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21

Series: Restoration Sermons

Date:

Speaker: Ed Rangel

Location: Waupaca Church of Christ

Bible Version: NASB 1995

Sermon Type: Expository

Learning Objectives

By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:

1. Define "inspiration" as it applies to Scripture: divine illumination and guidance of human writers so that their words accurately express God's will.
2. Explain how the Old Testament writers themselves claimed Holy Spirit origin for their words — this is not a claim made about them from outside.
3. Describe the three ways Christ endorsed the Old Testament: by calling it the Word of God, by speaking of David's words as Holy Spirit words, and by fulfilling it.
4. Identify the New Testament witnesses who endorsed the Old Testament as divinely inspired: Paul, Peter, and the book of Hebrews.
5. Affirm the full and equal inspiration of both Testaments, with the Old serving as the necessary foundation that the New fulfills.

Thesis

The Old Testament is the inspired Word of God — a claim made by the writers themselves, confirmed by Jesus Christ in person, and endorsed by the apostles throughout the New Testament.

Burden

The church has at various times been tempted to treat the Old Testament as a lesser scripture: a historical record of how God dealt with Israel, useful for background but not binding or fully authoritative for Christians. This outline refuses that position. It argues from three directions: the Old Testament writers' own claims, Christ's personal endorsement, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit through New Testament writers.

Introduction

"Inspiration," in its technical theological sense, denotes a divine and miraculous illumination and guidance of the human mind in expressing God's will. This is not the loose sense in which one says a poet was "inspired by the landscape." It is a specific claim about origin: that the words of the biblical writers did not arise solely from their own reflection, research, or emotional experience, but were produced under the active guidance of the Holy Spirit in such a way that the result is genuinely God's Word.

This sermon argues that the Old Testament qualifies by this definition — and that it qualifies not because later Christian tradition said so, but because the Old Testament writers themselves said so, because Jesus said so, and because the New Testament as a whole says so.

I. Old Testament Writers Claimed the Holy Spirit

The claim of divine origin begins with the writers of the Old Testament themselves — not with later interpreters.

1. When the New Testament writers use the word "Scripture" (graphē), they are overwhelmingly referring to the Old Testament. The New Testament's habit of treating Old Testament texts as decisive proof ("it is written...") is the practical form of the inspiration claim.
2. The Old Testament explicitly claims inspiration at key points. In 2 Samuel 23:1-2, David says: "The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue." In Isaiah 1:1-2, Isaiah says he saw a vision and quotes the LORD directly. These are not modest editorial notes — they are direct claims that the words came from God.
3. The prophets consistently claimed to speak "the word of the LORD." This formula appears hundreds of times. "Thus says the LORD" is not rhetorical convention — it is a claim that what follows is a divine oracle, not a human opinion (1 Pet. 1:10-12).
4. The Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament — was the Bible in use throughout the Greek-speaking world during Jesus's ministry and the apostolic era. It was translated approximately 285 years before Christ and contained all the books of the present Old Testament. Its wide circulation meant that the Old Testament's claims were well-known before the New Testament was written.

II. The Old Testament Endorsed by Christ

Jesus did not merely quote the Old Testament; he treated it as the Word of God, argued from it as decisive authority, and identified himself as its fulfillment.

1. He recognized its three-fold division. In Luke 24:44, Christ said: "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." By naming these three sections — Law, Prophets, Writings (represented by Psalms) — Jesus acknowledged the full structure of the Hebrew canon as authoritative.
2. He called David's words Holy Spirit words. In Matthew 22:43 and Mark 12:36, Jesus asked the Pharisees: "How does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord'?" He did not say "David wrote" or "David thought." He said David spoke "in the Spirit." The inspiration of Psalm 110 was explicitly stated by Christ himself.
3. He called the Old Testament "the Word of God." In John 10:35, Jesus said "Scripture cannot be broken" — and he said this in the context of quoting Psalm 82. The basis of his argument was that Scripture cannot fail or be set aside. He clearly treated the Old Testament as unfalsifiable.
4. He came to fulfill the law and the prophets. "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill" (Matt. 5:17). He did not treat the Old Testament as a collection of obsolete religious customs — he came to bring it to its full intended expression.
5. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10). The prophets spoke of Christ; Christ is what prophecy is ultimately about. The Old Testament's deepest purpose was fulfilled in him.
6. He commanded the searching of the Old Testament. "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me" (John 5:39). He did not discourage this search — he reoriented it, pointing to himself as its purpose.

III. The Holy Spirit Endorsed the Old Testament

The New Testament writers, working under Holy Spirit inspiration, repeatedly appealed to the Old Testament as binding, authoritative Scripture.

1. The Holy Spirit endorsed the Old Testament through the New Testament writers. Paul, Peter, Hebrews — each used Old Testament texts as decisive, binding authority in doctrinal argument. They did not say "the ancient Israelites believed..." — they said "Scripture says" or "God says."
2. "All Scripture is inspired by God" (2 Tim. 3:16). The word theopneustos — God-breathed — means the Scriptures originated from God's breath, his Spirit. This is the most compressed statement of the doctrine of inspiration in the New Testament, and it is applied to the Old Testament writings Timothy had known from childhood (2 Tim. 3:15).
3. "The Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good" (Rom. 7:12). Paul did not treat the Old Testament as merely human legislation. Its holiness was intrinsic, derived from its divine origin.
4. God spoke by the prophets (Heb. 1:1). The book of Hebrews opens by stating that God spoke "in the prophets" — using them as the instrument of his communication. This is not a metaphor. It is a claim about the mechanics of inspiration.
5. "Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Pet. 1:21). Peter's statement is the New Testament's clearest direct description of how Old Testament inspiration worked. The prophets were carried along ("moved") by the Holy Spirit as a ship is moved by the wind — the human writer was the vessel, but the Spirit was the power.
6. Paul endorsed the Old Testament explicitly in 1 Timothy 5:18 by quoting Deuteronomy 25:4 alongside a saying of Jesus and calling both "Scripture."
7. The Old Testament is called "the sacred writings" and "sacred Scriptures" in multiple texts (2 Tim. 3:15; Acts 28:25; Heb. 10:15). The New Testament treats the Old Testament not as a historical artifact but as living, authoritative, present-tense Scripture.

Application

The Old Testament is not background reading for the New. It is the inspired Word of God — half of the canon, the larger half in volume, the necessary foundation for everything the New Testament says about Christ, the church, sin, salvation, and the end of all things.

For the preacher: every Old Testament narrative, psalm, and prophecy is fair game for the pulpit. It is all God-breathed and profitable. The sermon on the cross is shallower without Isaiah 53. The sermon on the church is weaker without the assembly language of the Old Testament. The sermon on prayer is incomplete without the Psalms.

For the Bible student: you have not read your Bible until you have read Genesis through Malachi with the same seriousness you give to Matthew through Revelation. The Old Testament is where you learn what "the glory of the LORD" means, what it costs to be a prophet, and what human sin looks like over the long arc of a nation's history. You cannot understand Paul without Moses.

For the skeptic: the convergence of evidence here is significant. The writers of the Old Testament claimed divine inspiration. Jesus Christ — whose own authority is attested by his resurrection — explicitly endorsed their claim. The New Testament writers, working under their own Holy Spirit inspiration, quoted the Old Testament as Scripture dozens of times. These are not independent voices; they are a chain of testimony. If you accept Jesus as Lord, you have already accepted the Old Testament as the Word of God.

Conclusion

The Old Testament is the inspired Word of God. Its own writers said so. Jesus Christ confirmed it. The apostles preached from it and built their theology on it. The church that neglects it impoverishes itself. The church that reads it through the lens of Christ — as Christ himself directed — finds there a picture of everything the New Testament announces: the nature of God, the problem of human sin, the need for a sacrifice, the coming of a King, and the beginning of a new covenant.

"Every Scripture is God-breathed." Every — not merely the ones that seem comfortable, or the ones that have clear New Testament parallels, or the ones that are not too strange for a modern audience. Every one.

Invitation

If the Word of God — both Testaments — has been speaking to you through this series, the natural response is to obey what it says. The Old Testament pointed forward to a Savior; the New Testament tells us his name and what he requires of us. You are living on the near side of the fulfillment. You have no excuse the prophets lacked: the identity of the one they were pointing to has been made plain.

Believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Repent of your sins. Confess his name. Be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38). The testimony of both Testaments converges on this response. God called through the prophets and speaks now through his Son (Heb. 1:1-2). Hear him.

Word Study

Scripture Interlock Table

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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 78 (formerly misindexed as #77 before the 2026-06-06 index correction). Primary texts: 2 Tim. 3:16 (foundational inspiration statement) and 2 Pet. 1:20-21 (clearest description of how OT inspiration worked). OCR fix: source shows "Luke 24:43" — the three-fold canon text is Luke 24:44; corrected. Doctrinal audit: OT inspiration established from three independent directions (writers' own claims, Christ's endorsement, apostolic testimony); theopneustos explained precisely; "men moved by the Holy Spirit" passage developed fully; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).