The Bible is the most enduring book of human history. Its pages have been read and copied and studied for ages. It is the only book that although consisting of many different authors spread out over various ages, is not only consistent with itself, but also claims divine authorship. God inspired the scripture and gave it to us so that we may understand and know Him. As such, it carries divine authority that no other source has nor ever will contain. It requires divine illumination in addition to the normal modes of hermeneutics that are necessary for a proper understanding.
“Revelation” comes from the Greek word apokalupsis, which means “disclosure” or “unveiling.” Revelation may be instantaneous or it may be extended over a period of time, it may be imprinted a priori or it may be learned. Revelation is the act of God’s own self-discloser to mankind whereby he transmits or imputes knowledge of Himself, vague or specific, general or special, that men are incapable of knowing or attaining by any innate sense or rationality. Revelation is God specifically revealing Himself to us. It may have either one or another of two results: it may be so that no man is without excuse for refusing the grace of God, or it may be to the purpose that God might rescue a sinner from his own rebellion.
“Revelation” is divided into two different means: God’s General Revelation and His Specific Revelation. General Revelation is God’s self-discloser through broad and unspecific means such as creation, history, or conscience. Special Revelation is God’s specific revelation of Himself through both His Word and the incarnate Word.
General Revelation may be divided into three categories, the first of which is nature. Psalms 19:1-4:
The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And the expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
In them He has placed a tent for the sun,
God has so displayed His own attributes and power and beauty that creation literally sings of His honor. It says, that there is no speech, no language on earth, where their voices – the unending displays of the knowledge of God – cannot be heard. Romans 1:18-21 says that the “invisible attributes” of God are clearly seen and “understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead [divine nature, deity].” So, men are “without excuse” they are left with no reason why they do not believe God.
God also reveals Himself in His providence. He sends His “rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). This is what is known as common grace, or God’s benevolent care for even those who may curse Him (Acts 14:15-17). Daniel 2:21 shows that God is in control of the times and of the kingdoms of the world – “He removes kings and raises up kings” (see also Romans 13). His providential directing of the world is total and complete. God is not distant nor is He at all surprised by what happens in the world but rather He directs it (Psalm 93).
Lastly, God reveals Himself in the human conscience (Romans 2:14-15). The conscience is defined as the law of God written on man’s heart so that he is guilty or convicted of the sin and lawlessness he commits. It is our spiritual nervous system that tells us when we are doing something that is damaging to us. Through this means, God imprints His law on the hearts of people so that we are responsible for whether or not we choose to suppress it or to answer it.
In all this, God’s attributes and power are put on display; it is through these means that God, instead of only telling His creatures who He is, He actually shows them. Nature does not speak words but it demonstrates through beauty and common grace the goodness and power of God. In creation, man actually tastes God. A man without the sense of taste is a man who cannot sense the wonder of who God is in the world around him, he may experience it but he by no means truly partakes of the satisfaction of knowing God for whose sake all things are to be enjoyed. He may experience God’s goodness, yet he cannot taste the source – God. At the same time, God cannot truly be known except through the revelation of His Word.
Psalm 119 is a long exaltation of the Glory of God that is revealed in the pages of His Word. In it David exalts God for His wisdom and particularly for His Word. It is the Bible’s greatest praise for the revelation of God. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that it is sufficient for doctrine for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness. The Word of God is the means whereby God tells us about Himself and guides us into all truth, repentance, and discipline as we become more like Him from day to day. So, in God’s Word we see Him; we can actually know Him who created us. Instead of a God who is vague and who can be known about. Rather, He is a God who is near who can be known, loved, communed with, a God who may be near.
John 1:14 says,
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
God also gave to us Himself as He came and dwelt amongst us as the exact representation of the Father – Jesus Christ. He is the imago dei invisiblis, “image of the invisible God.” Special Revelation reached its apex in the revelation of the Son of God, and for us who do not see Him, the Gospel, as revealed in the New Testament. This is the means by which rebels are reconciled to a holy God, and while this “good news” may not be known anywhere in the world or in human intuition or even in the stars, it is specifically and exclusively known in the Word of God (Romans 10:14-17) though all men are accountable for their disobedience (v18).
Luke 1 says that while there was human parentage, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary in her conception of Christ thus creating the supernatural union of the God-man in Jesus Christ. In the same way, the Spirit of God breathed out the very words of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17) acting through men of God (2 Peter 1:21) thus creating the God-man authorship of the Holy Scriptures, which retains both the divine authority and message yet the human nature in its writings.
Inspiration is the superintendence of the Spirit of God in the actual words of the writings of the individual authors so as to produce an infallible, inerrant, and absolutely authoritative writing. Inspiration is, in its source, theopneustos (2 Tim. 3:16-17) “breathed out” by God. God accomplished this through human agents (2 Peter 1:20-21), this being His chosen means. The result is that not even one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law till all is fulfilled (Matt. 5:18). The word of God is perfect and complete in both the Old and New Testaments (see 1 Tim. 5:18 and 2 Peter 3:16). This is what is called the Verbal/Plenary view of Inspiration:
The Biblical View: Verbal, Plenary Inspiration. God through his Spirit inspired every word penned by the human authors in each of the sixty-six books of the Bible in the original documents (i.e., the autographs). Inspiration describes the process of divine causation behind the authorship of Scripture. It refers to the direct act of God on the human author that resulted in the creation of perfectly written revelation. It conveys the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit whereby he used the individual personality, language, style, and historical context of each writer to produce divinely authoritative writings. These works were truly the product of both the human author and the Holy Spirit. This fits the word Paul used in 2 Timothy 3:16 (theopneustos). This Greek word itself carries the sense of “God breathing out” the Scriptures through the biblical writers. “All Scripture is breathed out by God” (ESV) may even be the most accurate way to translate 2 Timothy 3:16. What is most important here is to recognize that the biblical claim of inspiration is one of divine superintendence. God produced the Scriptures by influencing the human author’s own thoughts. This resulted in divinely authoritative and inerrant words written in the autographs.
John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, eds., Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 77–78.
The Bible’s Authority is rooted in the fact that it is the infallible and inerrant genuine words of God. Therefore, men ought to fear and obey God who Himself authored the text and words of the Scriptures. The Bible is not merely conceptually inspired or a means by which people may be inspired, but it is itself inspired in its very words that it uses, and for this reason, the Bible is not to be simply reflected on or talked about as if we could supplement it or spring from it with our own thoughts but rather it is to be explained and understood and accepted with the whole heart – both mind and emotions.
Some, however, will point out that while perhaps the original autographs were inspired, the transmissions and translations of them are not. Therefore, the Bible, as it is, is not the actual Word of God as God first inspired it. However, the same God who was sovereign over the inspiration of the autographs is the same God who was sovereign over the transmission of the text from one stage to another so that what men read today is complete and there is nothing missing from the original manuscripts. At most, the copies we have show a variance of only 2%. That means that they are 98% accurate.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest manuscripts in scholars’ possession were dated back to 900 AD but some of the parchments from the Dead Sea Scrolls dated back to as early as 125 BC. The overwhelming find was that these copies were practically no different than the ones previously held. So, in over 1000 years the transmission had remained accurate. If anything, there have actually been some small additions or personal notes from scribes that have found their way into the different texts over the years yet virtually none of these are controversial and none affect any major doctrines. Ninety percent of the Bible is unanimously affirmed to be accurate, of the ten percent remaining, ten percent is not agreed upon as belonging in the text or not. So, therefore, only one percent of the Bible is at all questionable and of these places, no significant doctrine is at stake.
Illumination is defined as that particular work of the Holy Spirit that teaches and enlightens a person’s mind so that they can understand the Bible and know God. Without this help, our minds cannot grasp the divine truth of the Holy Scriptures (1 Cor. 2:11). So, in order to know the Scriptures, there must be divine assistance.
1 Corinthians 2:12-16 shows that Christians, as those who possess the Holy Spirit, are enabled to understand the things of God. Christ also spoke of this ministry of the Spirit to the disciples throughout John 14-16 (see 14:26). It is not enough for men to simply possess the Scriptures and then, through their own reason, come to a knowledge of Christ, but it is essential that the Holy Spirit awaken the unregenerate heart and cause the individual to believe the Scriptures.
Principles of Interpretation consist in four rules: The Bible must be, first of all, interpreted literally. The words and meanings must be taken at face value like any other writing that a person might read. The Bible was not written in codes; it was written to be understood. Also, because not only the words (verbal) but also the whole (plenary) Bible is inspired, this means that the expositor must examine the grammatical relationships of the words and sentences to more fully understand the meaning of a given text. There is thirdly an historical/cultural context through which a person must examine the Scriptures. The books of the Bible were written in a real-world context to real people living in a normal setting. In order to understand with accuracy what it is that God was saying through His prophet at that time a person must understand the context in which that person spoke. Lastly, understanding the literary context requires not only an identification of the genre, but also a comprehension of the immediate context, the remote context, and the broader context of the whole book.
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