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Inspiration of the Bible (3)
Inspiration of the Bible (3)
By Mike Willis
Since the Bible claims to be a Divine production, it should bear some evidences that would make the book impossible to be a mere human production. There are a number of such internal evidences. I begin with this: The Wonderful Unity of the Bible Attests Its Divine Authorship.
Throughout the pages of the Bible, one general theme is developed: God’s plan of redeeming mankind. From man’s creation and his sin in the Garden of Eden, God was working out an eternal plan that included the sending of the Son of God to die on Calvary’s cross for man’s redemption. Every book of the Bible is related to that one central theme.
Writing about the Bible, Arthur W. Pink said, “In the Old Testament we have the Promise of our Lord's incarnation and mediatorial work. In the Gospels we have the Proclamation of His mission and the Proofs of His Messianic claims and authority. In Acts we have a demonstration of His saving Power and the execution of His missionary Program. In the Epistles we find an exposition and amplification of His Precepts for the education of His People. While in the Apocalypse we behold the unveiling of His Person and the Preparation of the earth for His Presence. The Bible is therefore seen to be peculiarly the Book of Jesus Christ” (The Divine Inspiration of the Bible, 88-89).
However, the Bible is the product of approximately forty different men writing over a period of 1600 years in three languages on two continents. The different authors could not have colluded with one another to be sure that all understood the plan of redemption in the same way. Paul never met Moses, nor Peter Isaiah. Not all of the men were highly educated authors. The occupations of the writers included a tentmaker, fishermen, a tax collector, a physician, scribe, herdsman, military rulers who became king, and kings raised in the palace. They lived in Egypt, Palestine (or Canaan), Babylonia, Persia, Bithynia (Tarsus), and perhaps some places I have overlooked.
They lived in different social contexts. As I have now lived for 75 years, I have been made aware more progressively every year how cultures even in the same geography change over brief spans of time. Moses lived in 1500-1400 BC in Egypt; David lived in 1000 BC in Israel; Hosea lived 8th century BC, in the declining years of the northern ten tribes of Israel, whereas Isaiah and Micah lived in Judah about the same time. Ezekiel ministered to exiles in Babylonian captivity. The New Testament authors lived under the influence of Greco-Roman times. Yet, despite their cultural backgrounds and prejudices, the forty different writers created a book that contains one system of doctrine, one code of ethics, and one rule of faith. Even though the last book in the Bible was completed almost 2000 years ago, still it consistently outsells every other book any man has or group of men have written to such a degree that it is not even included in the best sellers list. How were these men able to do this?
Pink concluded, “The more one really studies the Bible the more one is convinced that behind the many human mouths there is One overruling, controlling Mind. Imagine forty persons of different nationalities, possessing varying degrees of musical culture visiting the organ of some cathedral and at long intervals of time, and without any collusion whatever, striking sixty-six different notes, which when combined yielded the theme of the greatest oratorio ever heard: would it not show that behind these forty different men there was one presiding mind, one great Tone-Master?” (Ibid., 87).
What other explanation can be offered for the organic unity of the Scriptures, except that One Mind permeates the entire book?
