Did God Write the Bible?
2 Timothy 3:16 states: All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (NKJV). The Greek word for inspiration means “God-breathed”, therefore the Bible is the breathed-out words from God. When the original authors of Scripture wrote each of the books of the Bible, they were supernaturally superintended by the Holy Spirit so the entire Bible was from God. Theologians call this plenary (all of it) verbal (the very words themselves) inspiration of the Bible.
2 Peter 1:21 declares: “Prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” This verse tells us that the Holy Spirit influenced men in such a way that they were carried along, with their unique personalities and writing styles intact, to record what would become the Bible. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonian Church, said, When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13). The Bible repeatedly claims to be the Word of God. Over 400 times in the Old Testament we see the phrase “Thus says the Lord.” At every turn, the authors of the Bible give affirmation that the origin of their writings came from God. Since God inspired the authors of Scripture to record exactly what He wanted recorded, there could never be any errors in what was produced. God actively worked through the process of producing the Bible and had his hand in the outcome of what it would actually say. Thus, Scripture is God’s Word written with man’s pen.
How did God inspire the authors?
The writer to the Hebrews tells us that, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets (Hebrews 1:1). At times God actually wrote Scripture; the Ten Commandments would be a good example of this. Deuteronomy 9:10 states: Then the LORD delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God. At other times God dictated to the writers the words they were to record and protected them from making any errors in writing. Jeremiah 26:2 is a good example of this: Thus says the LORD…speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the LORD’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word. However, most of Scripture was not written with the finger of God or dictated by God, but superintended by the operation of the Holy Spirit. God worked with the personality of each of the biblical writers and providentially guided them to reveal what He wanted the world to know. The human authors were not robots writing in God’s language, rather what we see in Scripture is a diversity in vocabulary, grammar, styles and figures of speech conveying to us that men were free to write what they intended. However, at the same time God was mysteriously guiding every word! God in His providence engaged in a divine concurrence between their words and His so that what they said, He said.