Holy Spirit in Inspiration (No. 1)
Text: II Timothy 3:16-17
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:
- State the three divine-human things described in the introduction and explain what makes each of them "divine-human."
- Explain the three-horned dilemma of partial inspiration — what problem is created if "only a part" of the Bible is inspired and who is qualified to identify which part.
- Define inspiration as it applies to persons and as it applies to the Bible, and explain what inspiration did not do (did not make a truth truer or a fact more real).
- Explain the relationship between revelation and inspiration — which one requires the other, and in what order they operate.
- State the governing implication of the last point: when inspiration ceased, what else ceased with it?
Thesis
The Bible is a divine-human book: human language carrying divine content, the will of God expressed through the words of human writers who were divinely guided in speaking only the truth. The inspiration of Scripture did not make truth truer; it ensured that what was recorded was true. When that inspiration ceased, revelation ceased with it — which means the closed canon is not an arbitrary tradition but a necessary consequence of the nature of inspiration itself.
Burden
Most people who believe the Bible is inspired have not thought carefully about what inspiration means. The word is used but not understood. This sermon is the first in a series that gives inspiration the careful examination it deserves — beginning with the difficulties that any theory of inspiration must address, the definition of inspiration itself, and the relationship between inspiration and revelation that determines the canon.
Introduction
Three divine-human things exist in the world.
The divine-human man: Jesus Christ. He is fully divine — "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). He is fully human — "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Two natures, one person; divine reality carried in human form.
The divine-human institution: the church. It is human in its composition — it consists of human beings, meets in human buildings, operates through human leadership, produces human documents. It is divine in its origin — "I will build My church" (Matt. 16:18); its design — "the church of God which He purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28); and its purpose — "the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church" (Eph. 3:10).
The divine-human book: the Bible. It is human in its writing — human authors with different vocabularies, styles, concerns, and historical contexts. It is divine in its content — "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (II Tim. 3:16-17). Human language carrying divine truth.
I. Some Difficulties
Before defining inspiration, three difficulties that any position on inspiration must address must be identified. They are the logical consequences of whatever view is taken.
If none of the Bible is inspired, it sinks to the level of human production. But this creates a problem: the Bible claims throughout to be inspired — prophets say "Thus says the Lord," Paul says his words were "not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit" (I Cor. 2:13), Peter says the prophets "spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (II Pet. 1:21). If none of it is inspired, then all of it that claims inspiration is wrong — which means the human production it sinks to is specifically a human production that made false claims about itself. The conclusion is more damaging than simple unreliability: it is systematic dishonesty.
If only a part is inspired, which part? The question is not rhetorical — it demands an answer. Anyone who says "I believe part of the Bible is inspired" must be able to say which part. If they cannot, the statement is functionally meaningless.
If only a part is inspired, will it not take inspiration to tell which part? This is the deepest of the three difficulties. The person who claims to have correctly identified the inspired portions must explain how they know. If their ability to identify the inspired portions is itself uninspired, their identification is subject to all the limitations of uninspired human reasoning. If their ability to identify the inspired portions is itself inspired — then the inspiration they used to identify the inspired text is itself an example of the inspiration they are trying to limit to only a part.
II. What Is Inspiration?
Two definitions, one for persons and one for the Bible.
With persons: inspiration is a divine illumination and guidance of the human mind. The prophet or apostle who was inspired was not emptied of their own mind and replaced by the Spirit — they were illuminated and guided, so that what they communicated was what the Spirit intended them to communicate.
With the Bible: inspiration is the will of God expressed in human language. The Bible is not merely a human record of people's experiences with God — it is the will of God, expressed in human words, through human writers, under divine guidance.
Two clarifications that define what inspiration did not do:
Inspiration did not make a fact or principle more real. The resurrection of Jesus was real before it was recorded. The love of God existed before John wrote "God is love." The principles of righteous living were established in God's nature before Moses or Paul articulated them. Inspiration did not add reality to what was already real; it ensured that what was recorded about reality was accurate.
Inspiration did not make a truth truer. Truth is not made true by being written down — it is true, or not, regardless of whether it is recorded. What inspiration did was guide the speaker and writer so that what they recorded about the truth was itself true. Inspiration is not what makes the Bible's contents real and true; it is what ensures the record of those contents is reliable.
Inspiration guided the speaker in speaking only the truth. This is the positive definition: not that it produced new reality, but that it prevented false communication about existing reality.
III. The Relation of Revelation and Inspiration
The two concepts are related but distinct, and their relationship determines what must be true about the canon.
The fact of God's existence implies revelation. An intelligent creature — a being capable of knowing and of responding to what it knows — who exists in a universe created by God, is a being to whom God has already communicated something by the fact of creation itself. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made" (Rom. 1:20). Revelation begins with existence.
A revelation implies God speaking to man. The more specific communication — the communication of God's will and purpose — requires God to speak, not merely to create. The prophets did not discover God's will through observation; they received it through communication: "the word of the LORD came to me."
God speaking to man necessitates the use of human language. God did not speak to the prophets in a purely divine language that had to be translated; he spoke in the language of the people to whom the prophet would speak. The message was given in human words so that it could be delivered in human words.
The use of human language by human agency to express God's will necessitates divine guidance. Human language is imprecise; human memory is fallible; human communication is subject to distortion. If the communication of God's will through human language is to be reliable, the human agent must be guided in the use of that language. That guidance is inspiration.
God inspires; man reveals. The roles are distinguishable: inspiration is the divine act; revelation is the human act of communicating what was divinely given. God did not reveal — he inspired human agents who revealed.
When inspiration ceased, revelation ceased. This is the governing implication. Revelation requires inspiration because unreliable transmission of God's will is not revelation — it is distortion. When the Holy Spirit's inspiration of human writers ceased with the completion of the apostolic age, the communication of new revelation through those writers also ceased. The canon is not an ecclesiastical decision; it is the necessary consequence of the nature of inspiration.
Application
The clarification of what inspiration means and does not mean has practical consequences.
The person who treats the Bible as merely an interesting collection of ancient human wisdom has not reckoned with the claim: "All Scripture is inspired by God." That claim is either true or it produces the three difficulties outlined in Section I.
The person who holds a partial-inspiration view has an obligation to specify which part — and to explain how they know, without using an uninspired faculty to evaluate inspired text.
The person who understands that inspiration guided the writers "in speaking only the truth" has a reason to treat the text with a confidence that has nothing to do with denominational tradition: the confidence belongs to the nature of what the text is.
Conclusion
Three divine-human things: the Christ, the church, the Bible. Each one is both fully what the human dimension suggests and fully what the divine dimension requires. The Bible is not divine in spite of its human language; it is divine through its human language, because the Spirit who inspired the language is the Spirit who chose to communicate through it. "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness."
Invitation
The Bible that is the subject of this sermon is the same Bible that contains the gospel. Its reliable communication of God's will includes the reliable communication of what God requires of the person who has not yet obeyed it. "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). Believe. Repent. Confess. Be baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). The book that was given to make the man of God adequate is also the book that contains the terms of the man of God becoming one.
Word Study
| English Term | Greek Term | Basic Meaning | Usage in This Sermon | Sermon Significance | Key Texts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inspired by God | theopneustos | God-breathed — theos (God) + pneō (to breathe). A compound word appearing only in II Tim. 3:16. | Used in II Tim. 3:16 as the defining description of Scripture: "All Scripture is theopneustos." | The image is of breath: the same creative breath that produced life (Gen. 2:7) was exercised in producing Scripture. The word is active and personal — not "Scripture has a divine quality" but "God breathed it out." The human writers were the instrument; the divine breath was the source. | II Tim. 3:16-17 |
| Prophecy | prophēteia | Forth-telling — pro (forth, forward) + phēmi (to speak). Not primarily prediction but speaking forth what was given. | Used in II Pet. 1:21 to describe how Scripture came: "no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." | The human element is explicit (men spoke); the divine element is explicit (from God); the Spirit's role is explicit (moved by the Holy Spirit). The word does not describe what the content is (predictive or not) but how it was communicated (as given, not as invented). | II Pet. 1:20-21 |
| Revelation | apokalypsis | Uncovering, disclosure — removing what covered what was hidden. | Used conceptually in Section III: revelation is the communication of what was divinely given; inspiration is the divine guarantee of its accurate transmission. | Revelation and inspiration are distinguishable acts: revelation is God's self-disclosure; inspiration is the divine guidance of the human act of recording that disclosure. When the inspiring ceased, the recording of new revelation ceased with it — hence the closed canon. | Rom. 1:20; I Cor. 2:9-10 |
| Moved | pheromenoi | Carried, borne along — the word used for a ship driven by the wind. | Used in II Pet. 1:21: the prophets were "moved by the Holy Spirit" — carried along in their speaking, as a ship is carried by the wind. | The image preserves both the human and divine elements: the ship is a real ship with real sailors (the human element is not eliminated); but the direction and power come from the wind (the Spirit is the controlling force). The writers were not passive robots; they were active agents being carried. | II Pet. 1:21 |
Scripture Interlock Table
| Theme | Boles' Outline | Supporting Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| "All Scripture is inspired by God" — the governing text | Text | II Tim. 3:16-17 |
| "The Word became flesh" — the divine-human man | Intro. | John 1:14 |
| "I will build My church" — the divine-human institution | Intro. | Matt. 16:18 |
| "Spoke from God as moved by the Holy Spirit" | III.4 | II Pet. 1:21 |
| "Words taught by the Spirit" — Paul's inspiration claim | I.1 | I Cor. 2:13 |
| "His invisible attributes clearly seen" — revelation in creation | III.1 | Rom. 1:20 |
| "Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ" | Invit. | Rom. 10:17 |
| Baptism for remission — the obedient response to the revealed gospel | Invit. | Acts 2:38 |
---
Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 162. Primary text: II Tim. 3:16-17 (stated by Boles). This is No. 1 of a four-part series on the Holy Spirit in Inspiration. OCR corrections: "lll." → "III." Doctrinal audit: the divine-human character of the Bible affirmed without denying the human element (human language, human writers, human styles); the three difficulties of partial inspiration developed logically without being merely polemical; the definition of inspiration ("guided the speaker in speaking only the truth") preserved carefully — this is verbal inspiration without mechanical dictation; the relationship of inspiration and revelation developed to ground the closed canon, not as ecclesiastical tradition but as a necessary consequence of the nature of inspiration itself; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).
