(2 Peter 1: 19)
(Only one Word of God)
by Rev Alex. MacPherson
Let me first very briefly, show the force of this phrase in its context. Peter, aware of approaching death, assures the readers that the Gospel was not a mere fable. It was a powerful Word of witness to the powerful Saviour who had come, and who will come again in differently manifested power to judge, and complete his people’s salvation. Peter, James and John had been witnesses of that power in a unique way at the transfiguration. At that time the Father had put such honour and glory on Jesus of Nazareth, that it was impossible for these three to think of Him as anyone else but the Son of God. What they had learned earlier by divine teaching, they now had revealed to their senses, and it had reinforced their conviction that the Gospel was a power-word.
But, notwithstanding this extraordinary reason Peter had for regarding the Gospel as a power-word, he at once adds that there was an even more convincing reason, namely, that the Scriptures said so:—”We have also a more sure word of prophecy.” He refers primarily to the Old Testament, what “holy men of God” wrote. These Scriptures were, in a sense, all prophetic of Christ, the divine prophecy of his coming and power as the God-man Mediator. These Scriptures spoke of Christ’s power (his Godhead), his coming (his incarnation), and were a divinely given development of the very first prophecy of Him. The Saviour described the Old Testament Scriptures’ main function as one of testimony to Himself: “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me” (John 5: 39). And after His resurrection, He expounded to Cleophas and his friend “in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” The perfect agreement between the Old Testament Scriptures and the events recorded in the New, the record of Christ coming from the Father and going to the Father, should impress us with their trustworthiness, that they are indeed a “more sure word of prophecy”. Peter writing his own appointed portion of the Word of God, unhesitatingly sets aside as secondary his experience of the transfiguration, and finds in Scripture the ultimate ground and authority for his teaching, “a more sure word of prophecy”.
As we have observed, the grand subject of Old Testament Scripture is Christ, the truth about his Person and work as the Saviour of sinners; which truth is to be received and trusted in. In order to obtain religious truth, we must go to the Scriptures: they are God’s Word and that inevitably is truth.
Here, let us pause, and think of what happened in Eden while our first parents were busy at their clothesmaking. They had forgotten God, so great was their carnality. Yet God came to them, and amazingly, his message was that the ruin they had wickedly brought about, would be undone by a descendant of Eve. In addition, they were instructed that communion with God must in future be through sacrifice. Their religion, therefore, was to consist in belief of a promised Deliverer, worship by animal sacrifice, and obedience to the moral law. As far as they and their descendants for 2500 years were concerned, this religious truth was in a class by itself, transcending the truth about anything else that concerned them.
It is truth, however, that sinners dislike, and the biblical history from Eden to Abraham shows that the majority forsook it in favour of religious ideas and practices of their own. Even Abraham’s descendants, notwithstanding their privileges, did not perfectly preserve this truth. Which leads to this, that whatever tradition may do or fail to do, regarding the preserving of truth on other matters, it has never succeeded in preserving religious truth, so great is the opposition of men’s sin to that. Only divine intervention brought some saved sinners in each age to cherish the religious truth that God had made known prior to the time of Moses. Another method was needed, and God provided that from the time that He gave his religion a public and greatly enlarged form at Mt Sinai. At that juncture, God was pleased to begin the giving of religious truth in written form, and to preserve it as his Word thenceforth. With Moses began the “more sure word of prophecy” on which sinners depend for the knowledge of how they can be saved, in other words, the Gospel. Of the Old Testament part the Saviour said, “The scriptures cannot be broken” (John 10 v 35) — they are truth most sure.
Inspiration
We come now to the very pertinent question, How did God give his Word regarding salvation in a written form — what method was used? Now, before we come to that, let us briefly think of the difficulty inherent in communicating by words. The difficulty in it for men, I mean. Our minds have been adversely affected by sin, so that quite often we speak with vagueness just for want of care. Faulty memory often causes inaccuracy of statement. Insufficient knowledge produces erroneous statements, and sometimes we wish, for some reason, not to tell all we know. Prejudice often produces errors, and so on. This tendency to inaccuracy was acknowledged by the framers of the Westminster Confession of Faith, who so arranged their work that it was scrutinised by many minds before reaching completion.
When God, however, came to make his mind known to men on the all-important matter of salvation from sin, He did it in such a way that only absolute truth would mark his statements. No room would be permitted for errors, mistakes, vagueness or anything else that mars human statements; He would cause the writings to be his very own Word which would therefore be truth. The method used was inspiration. It is directly referred to in 1 Timothy 3: 16; “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” Inspiration means, “God-breathed”; Scripture came into existence by the breath of God, i.e. his Holy Spirit. In its first literal meaning, “inspire” means “to breathe in or inhale”; but in its figurative sense, it is “to breathe into, or excite”. The Holy Spirit excited or worked on the minds of the writers, so that the words produced were God’s words. Being God-breathed, the words naturally have that truth and accuracy that one would expect from such a source.
You can see therefore, that the fact of inspiration emphasises the divine origin of the Scriptures. Men were employed as writers, but what they wrote was inspired. The Scriptures are the product of the creative activity of the divine breath, the Holy Spirit. And for this reason they are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.
There is another text that speaks directly of divine inspiration. It follows the words of our title: “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Scripture is a more sure word of prophecy because it comes directly from God. It was not something thought of by men themselves, but was produced by the Spirit of God moving men, bearing them along, so that the words they uttered or wrote were God’s words. We can sum up with Dr Shedd’s definition: “Inspiration is the influence of the Holy Spirit upon a human person, whereby he is infallibly moved and guided in all his statements while under this influence.”
Moses was the first of these holy men of God to pen the Word of God. So he began: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” These words and all that follow are God’s words, most sure, everlasting truth. The Christian sets them before and above anything that men say to the contrary.
Remainder of the Old Testament
Other divinely chosen authors continued the production of the Old Testament, until by the time of Christ it consisted of 39 books. It can be asked, whether in the intervening period there were any other religious books in the hands of Israelites, and if so, why were they not regarded as the Word of God? There were other books, some mentioned in the Bible, such as, “The wars of the Lord”, “Jasher”, “Samuel on the kingdom”, “Chronicles of David”, “Acts of Solomon”, and others, 15 of them. In Ecclesiastes 12, Solomon speaks of no end of books made. Additionally, there were fourteen other books called Apocrypha (hidden meaning), which were put along with the 39 Scriptures in the Septuagint Version, 3rd Century BC, but never in the Hebrew Bible. The reason why only the 39 books were regarded as God’s Word, was that only these were recognised as having been inspired. The Holy Spirit who inspired the books guided regenerate men in Israel to recognise their inspiration. Inspiration was the one standard that was applied, and God enabled men to identify it. It was as true in Old Testament times as in New, that Christ’s sheep hear his voice: “My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me,” (John 10: 27). By the same token, all other writings were rejected: their purely human origin was detected.
Malachi was seen to be inspired, and thereafter no other book fell into that category. So, for something like four hundred years before Christ, the Jews regarded the 39 books which we know as the Old Testament, as the inspired, infallible Word of God.
The proof of the correctness of the Jew’s decision regarding the identity of God’s Word was given when God’s Son, the eternal Word, came into this world to save his sinful people: He then set his seal upon the Old Testament Scriptures. Repeatedly He referred to them as absolute truth: “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone,” etc. (Matthew 4: 4). “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5: 18). He said that the Scriptures’ reference to Himself must be fulfilled, whatever the cost to Himself. The truth written by inspiration long before, could not fail, e.g. “The Son of man goeth, as it is written of Him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of God is betrayed” (Matthew 26: 24). “Have ye not read the Scripture; the stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner” (Mark 12: 10). “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears,” that is, Isaiah’s prophecy read in Nazareth. Thus Christ sets his seal to the inspiration, accuracy and authority of the Hebrew Bible. It is God’s Word to sinners, and demands our belief and obedience: “The Scripture cannot be broken”.
Now, one more thing about the Old Testament Scriptures: they formed one book, one Bible. Immense care was taken over the copying of these books; as new copies were needed, they had to conform exactly to the ones in existence. This had been done for centuries, and done because of the conviction that the Scriptures were the very Word of God. Therefore, there must be no mistakes; there must be no omitting of anything that God had said; there must be no addition. Absolutely faithful copying was essential, became the rule, and was continually tested. So that when Christ came, there was one Hebrew Bible; the copies of it were identical, simply because it was in its very nature, the Word of God.