04.06. Difficulties Met And Objections Answered

6. DIFFICULTIES MET AND OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

Some questions have been raised which I wish to answer. One of these is relative to the scholarly support of my position on the first part of Luke, in which I set forth in a former chapter a possible translation justifiable a translation that would make Luke claim inspiration for everything he wrote.

Those who are familiar with the Greek will understand the explanation better than those who are not. It depends upon the translation of a single word. Luke says that he had perfect understanding of all things, and now comes in the modifying word, “anothen. ” That word primarily means, “from above.” It is so translated in the third chapter of John: “Except a man be born anothen; ” it is so translated in the letter of James: “The wisdom that cometh anothen, ” and in an overwhelming majority of cases in the New Testament it has that translation. So that if you translate that word, “Having had perfect understanding of all things from above,” it makes his claim to inspiration refer to his entire record.

Now the question is as to whether that translation had any real scholarly support. I stated that John Gill favored that translation, and he was a great scholar of the early English Baptists. But the question now is, “What other scholarship supports it?”

I answer: Matthew Henry, in his Commentary; Erasmus, the prince of the Greek scholars; Gomar, another distinguished Greek scholar; Lightfoot, another distinguished exegete all these men adopt that rendering, together with Galson, the great French scholar, who not only adopts it but makes an elaborate argument in support of it. These are all very distinguished men.

Now the objection made to that translation is, that the verb which accompanies it indicates mental activity in tracing out an examination, and the question arises as to whether that verb is so used. Does the verb require that we should not translate this word “from above”? I will give two uses of the word that are unexceptional, and that bear directly upon the question. What would a Greek say if he were going to use the word anothen as it is used here by Luke? What word would he use with it?

Demosthenes’ On the Crown has a sentence in which we have the same word as used here by Luke. We have the same verb of Luke, and here he wishes to express the precise idea “from the first,” and he uses there, not anothen, but ap’ arches, just as it is in the preceding verse, as he wishes to express the idea of “from the beginning.” If any one wishes to look this up he can find it in Demosthenes, fifty-fifth line of the First Section.

Another use of the word (the most significant use of the word I know of) is that of Josephus where he institutes a comparison between following sacred revelation on the one hand, and securing information from the people on the other hand, and when he wishes to convey the idea of getting information from sacred revelation he uses this very word, and puts it over against another word that illustrates the idea of getting information from other people. That is a very remarkable thing.

I will give you another use of the word bearing in the same direction. There was a very noted Greek speaker and writer, and in one of the books he used that same verb which Josephus used. Now it is a little singular that we should have this much of Greek testimony bearing upon this point.

Another objection to that translation was that it was not necessary for God to give Luke from above a revelation of those things that could have been obtained from earthly sources. I answer that Paul could have obtained from Peter or John (who were still living) all he did not know, yet he did not get a jot from them. God revealed it to him direct.

Then take another point: Balaam prophesied in the camp of Balak. There was not a Jew there to hear it. Moses was not there, but he got a remarkable series of prophecies of Balaam in the camp of Balak. The record of what he prophesied, in the very words, was given by Moses. How did Moses get it?

There was evidently a revelation made to Moses of just what Balaam said.

Now still another point: The word in this passage in Luke expresses the highest possible degree of certainty: “That thou mayest know with absolute certainty, the things which thou hast been taught,” and that certainty cannot be obtained from the many histories that have been written without inspiration, for he says that many have undertaken for themselves to write these things of what the Lord did and said, “but,” he states, “I, having obtained information of all things from above, write unto thee in order that thou mayest know with certainty the things which thou hast believed.” Certainly, no one needs to be ashamed to stand with such scholars as I have mentioned. It may not be the right translation, but certainly a strong crowd stands there.

I now take up the second question submitted to me. “Please make a little distinction between ‘inspired men’ and ‘inspired books.”’ I answer that an inspired man can only reach his hearers; an inspired book can reach every generation of the world. In the next place, inspiration did not necessarily accompany an inspired man all the time. It came according to the sovereign disposition of the Spirit.

Balaam did not have inspiration resting upon him all the time. The word of God came to him; God put words in his mouth. When that inspired hour passed, he spoke like other men. But a book is inspired all the time. The Word of God-the written Word of God-liveth and abideth forever.

Yet again, it would amount to very little to you and to me that certain men nineteen hundred years ago or three thousand years ago were inspired. When they spoke, you did not hear them, and I did not hear them. The need of the inspiration of the Book is to transmit to all mankind exactly what the inspired men said. Therefore, the principle of the inspiration with which we are concerned has to do, not with the inspiration of men, but to make certain the writing God inspired, and so far as you and I are concerned it does not make any difference whether the number of inspired men back yonder was many or few. The inspiration that interests us and comes home to us is the inspiration of the record that we have.

Now let us see whether the New Testament discusses inspiration that way. Let the reader turn to Romans 16:26. We read it in the English, but it would be better to read it in the Greek.

I want to show that it is not so much the prophets that Paul is speaking about as the recorded prophecy. He is saying that it is not made manifest by the sayings of the prophets, but by the prophetic writings. The Greek expression is graphon prophetikon, i. e., “ the prophetic writings” or “the writings of the prophets.” To show again that when Peter used that remarkable language in 2 Peter 1:20-21, about men speaking who were moved by the Holy Spirit, he is not discussing the speech of these prophets, but he uses this language: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy,” the prophecy of the record the prophecy of the writing. What Peter is saying is, “Here you have a writing, a Book, and that Book tells you about the mysteries of God.”

He says this is the prophecy, or the writing, that was moved by the Holy Spirit that took possession of the men. It is the Book that we are concerned about.

Let me bring the matter still more closely to your attention. Romans 1:2 : “Which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy scriptures.” He did not refer to any words of the prophets, except their recorded words. How are these men to get in touch with what Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah and Malachi penned? Paul says, “Which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy scriptures.” So you can see what kind of inspiration we are after. We are after the inspiration of a Book and not that of a man. Let us illustrate. I want to give you an idea of prophecy. One of the commonest meanings of the word is what the man writes from God, no matter whether it is a prediction or not. It is a writing from God, and is what the man wrote because God put it into his heart to write it. In Exodus 4, where God wants Moses to represent Him, to go and speak for Him, and Moses objects upon the score that he is not eloquent, God says:

“There is your brother, Aaron. Take him and let him be your prophet, and you be God to him. I will be God to you, and you shall be my mouth, and Aaron shall be your mouth.”

Now, what is a prophet? A prophet is one who speaks for God; that is why we are getting at His utterance. But how do I know that Moses said those things when he went before Pharaoh? How did it get to me? We learn that God commanded Moses to do some writing, and that writing was deposited in the Ark of the Covenant, and that writing gives an account of all these things.

Now, what are the references in the New Testament to that case?

Deuteronomy, the book the Lord commanded Moses to write, our Lord Jesus, in the hour of His temptation, quotes from three times, “It is written.”

God told Moses to write that, and Moses was God’s mouth whenever he spoke. But he was God’s penman when he wrote, and that which the Saviour said was what the man wrote. So when Paul wanted to make a reference to Genesis, one of these books written by Moses, he did not stop to say that Moses said a certain thing about Abraham, but he says in his letter to the Galatians, “The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen by faith, said to Abraham.”

Now those were the words of God, but those words were recorded, and what Paul is going to use now is in the record. He says that the Scriptures foresaw that God was going to justify the heathen by faith: “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” And now he is talking about those very things about which Moses was commanded to write.

Take the case of Pharaoh. Paul says, “Therefore, the scripture said to Pharaoh, For this purpose have I raised thee up.” The thing that with him is inspired is that record which he has in his hand. He is too far removed from that period in time, and too far in distance to know anything about the voice or to hear that voice, but he has that record, and he quotes it in that way: “The scripture says to Pharaoh.”

Again: in one of His discussions where He wants to bring out the inspiration of David’s word, God quotes the one hundred and tenth Psalm: “Jehovah saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Jesus says to these Pharisees, “How is it that David in the Spirit used that language?” referring to the record.

Then let us see how Peter used it. He takes another one of the Psalms, and he does not discuss the inspiration of David as a man, but he is discussing the inspiration of the record, and he says, “This scripture must needs be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spake before by the mouth of David” (Acts 1:16).

It is quite probable that David himself did not understand the signification of what he wrote in that record, but now, when Peter used it, he did not employ a proof of what it said, but he simply referred to a record that he had in his hand, and said, “This scripture must needs be fulfilled,” and it is true with reference to David and Moses.

I have cited only two cases by way of example, but this is equally true with reference to Isaiah, and with every other one of the prophets. I want to show that it is just as true when it refers to some prediction they were making as when it refers to some historical fact.

I introduce Paul on that. Paul says, “Do you not remember how the scriptures tell us of Elijah’s intercession? “The prophet Elijah, in history, is recorded as having dealt with God. He is not now recording prophecy, but facts, and Paul states, as an infallible guide on the subject, the Scripture records of that historical transaction, and his intercession about the prophets of Baal, and so on every other point.

Hebrews 11:1-40 takes up the events all along, “according to the scripture.” The author commences with Abel, enumerating quite a number whose exploits are recorded in the book of judges, and goes on clear down through the list to Samuel and the prophets, and it is the record that he cites to prove his point. At this point I consider the next question presented to me: “Please make a little plainer the distinction between illumination and inspiration.”

Well, to illustrate the difference: Inspiration is that influence of the Spirit which enables its subject, or constrains its subject, to write what God wants to be written. Illumination is that influence of the Spirit that enables its subject to understand what is written. One may have only inspiration and no illumination. The reader will recall that I cited the case of Caiaphas, who, being high priest that year, prophesied, “It is expedient that one man die, etc.” The record says,

“This he spake not of himself.” He did not say that of himself. There was an Influence upon him that put those words in his mouth, and he was totally unconscious of it. He did not know anything about what it meant. Illumination comes from God to enable a student of that inspired statement to understand it.

Take that other passage where Peter refers to the prophets who, under the influence of inspiration, having written certain things, were very much exercised as to the meaning of those things, and they prayed God to enable them to understand them. They prayed God for illumination. God declined to give it to them. To inspire these men to write was to constrain them to use the words that God wanted them to use. Illumination is to be enabled by the Spirit to understand the words which God has constrained the writer to use. This is so exceedingly important in this discussion that I am going to elaborate it a little more. Illumination is an ordinary grace of the Spirit possessed by every Christian. Inspiration is an extraordinary or miraculous gift of the Spirit.

Illumination continues with a Christian; inspiration may be intermittent, even with the inspired man. God may inspire him on one occasion by the miraculous influence of His Spirit, and then divest him of it forever afterward.

There are many instances of that in both Testaments, and Paul distinctly says,

“Whether there be tongues they shall cease, whether there be prophecies they shall fail,” and as Daniel foretold, “the vision shall cease.”

Inspiration, having the definite object to make a complete and accurate record of the words of God, is no longer needed. Just as soon as the canon of the Old Testament Scripture was completed, prophecy ceased for four hundred years; and just as soon as the New Testament record was completed, it ceased again, and no man living can, under the Scriptural interpretation, claim inspiration now for anything that he may write. The object of faith is not a state of mind of the writer. It is not presented as an object of my faith that Caiaphas was a regenerated man, for he was not; that he was a sanctified man, for he was not; that he understood, for he did not. But the object of my faith is his words that the Spirit of God constrained him to speak. My faith has nothing to do with the understanding or the knowledge of the subject of the inspiration. My faith has nothing to do with the character of the man or the spiritual nature of the one who speaks the inspired word, for it may be Balaam’s ass which testifies with the inspired words which God may have wanted spoken.

Yea, it may be a hand attached to no body, that mysteriously comes out on the wall and writes the word of God. What concerns me are the words that are written on the wall; that is the object of faith. It is evident that we get at these words by the record of these words. Therefore, said the Apostle Paul, these records are sacred books, or, as he says in the letter to the Romans, they are Holy Scriptures; or, as he says again in the letter to the Romans, they are the oracles of God; or, as Stephen says in his speech, they are the living oracles; or, as Peter says, they are the prophecies of Scripture; or, as Paul says, they are the prophetic writings.

“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Believeth what? The object of man’s belief is the Word of God, and hence this entire Book is called the Word of God, or the oracles of God. Now, that is inspiration-the inspiration of a Book.

We see, then, that in nature, and in object, and in duration, and in method, there is a radical difference between illumination and inspiration. A man’s illumination may go up and down. There may be a big measure of it or a little measure of it, a big degree or a little degree. But inspiration is a fixed measure, without any degree whatever. There are no degrees in inspiration. The prophecies of Balaam were no more inspired than that sentence of 1 Chronicles 1:1 : “Adam, Seth, Enoch.” That book is as much inspired as any other. And if Luke is inspired he is as much inspired as Paul. If Mark’s book is an inspired book, it is equal in its power to any other book. If the Song of Solomon is inspired, the inspiration is as high in degree as Psalms 45:1-17, or Psalms 23:1-6 ” The Lord is my shepherd.”

I repeat that there are no degrees in inspiration. And we see how it is that there cannot be any inspiration of a book apart from the words of the book. That is exactly what inspiration is to write the words of God. And that record extends, not only to the words, but necessarily to the letters which make each word; yea, it extends to the vowel points, for what would a book of consonants be? And this idea of inspiration is the old idea of inspiration.

It is the New Testament idea of inspiration.

It is the idea of Josephus and the early fathers, and only in modern times has infidelity, bald and blatant, seeking the destruction of religion, like a cuckoo, laid its egg in the nest of people who claim to be Christians, and they have raised that up for a real chicken; hatched it out and raised it for one of God’s chickens.

There is not a thought even in all of the modernistic books on inspiration of which I cannot trace the fatherhood to an open and avowed infidel who has made open assaults upon the Christian religion, and it doesn’t make a bit of difference to me whether they are college presidents or any other great men of modern times claiming to be preachers, or even bishops. When they pat that little fellow on the head and call him “son,” we may be sure it is an adopted child.

I now answer another question that has been propounded to me and runs as follows:

“Is not the Bible merely a human expression of a superhuman revelation? That is, there are certain things in the Bible that are inspired, and certain things with which inspiration is mixed, and certain things in which it is not inspired. Now, does not the human element necessarily bring in imperfection?” My answer is that I don’t care whether the element is human or mule; if it speaks the words that God puts in the mouth there will be no imperfection in the word, and there is no inspiration without it.

I give a crucial test of that: Whoever takes the position that the Bible is merely a human expression of a superhuman revelation necessarily brings out one of two things, and one or the other of these two things comes like a conqueror: That he either sinks the Divine element below the human or he draws up the human element above the Divine.

I give three examples, the first of which is this: There are a vast number of Protestants who hold just exactly that view-prominent men in England, Germany and the United States, Th.D.’s, LL.D.’s, and others having a whole alphabet attached to their names. Mark my point: That position of “part-inspired,” “part-mixed,” and “part-uninspired” inspired in spots-necessarily destroys the standard of authority and leaves no standard at all.

Now we will say that a part of the Bible is inspired. I prove it is mixed here, at least the degree of inspiration is mixed did not need much and a part is not inspired at all. Who is to determine what is inspired and what is mixed, and what is uninspired?

“I can tell,” says one. “I can read the Bible and I can see that some parts of it are not inspired.”

Well, then, you are the judge; you are the one to fix what is inspired and what is not inspired. You pass it to B, who says:

“I see the same things, but I don’t agree with A.”

Then you pass it to C, who says: “I endorse A and B, but I don’t agree with them as to the limit or degree of inspiration.”

Result: No standard. Where is there an authoritative God’s Word under that system? There is none, and there are thousands of young men today that are reading the Bible just that way. They have no standard.

I saw one of them not many months ago. He was reading Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and as he was reading along he was separating in his mind what was inspired and what was not inspired. He said: “Here Paul says he is writing as a man, so that he was not inspired when he said this.” Thus he was sifting as he went along. Would that man have any certainties? How long is he going to hold on to inspiration?

I am going to make a test still stronger, and that will bring out more sharply than it has yet been done, the distinction between illumination and inspiration. The Jews said the Scriptures were inspired, but they had an illumination that put a meaning upon a passage different from the accepted meaning of its words. I quote some of their sayings:

Rabbi Isaac: “Oh, students, pay more attention to the words of the scribes than to the words of the law.”

Rabbi Eleazar (and he was on his deathbed when he said that): “Turn away your children from the study of the Bible and place them at the feet of the wise men, whose illumination can interpret them.”

Rabbi Jacob: “The words of the scribes are more agreeable to common sense than the words of the prophets.”

Let us illustrate by a comment. Jesus said, “But ye do make void the commandments of God with your traditions,” a free rendering of which is this:

“The commandments of God-that is the standard but you take away that standard; you make it void and set up a false and shifting standard.” The Roman Catholic says: “Yes, the Bible is inspired, but the Pope and the Council have equal or greater infallibility.” Tradition is thus made equal with their Bible, which is a version, a translation, and an exceedingly faulty one at that; that is their inspiration.

Again, they say that the Holy Scriptures do not contain all that is necessary for salvation, and by themselves are not sufficient. I quote their words:

“It does not belong to the people to read the Holy Scriptures. We must receive with the obedience of faith many things not contained in Scripture. It is in the power of the Pope to establish articles of faith.” Our missionary to the Jews writes home a report.

“Here is the trouble,” he says. “When I present their own Scriptures to them they have no standard of authority for the Scriptures. They say (quoting a rabbi), ‘Scripture is water; the Talmud is wine; the tradition is spiced wine,’ and that obtrudes between them and the voice of their own prophets.”

Suppose I was contemplating a debate with one of them; it would be impossible.

It has been said that a war between England and Russia would be like a fight between an elephant and a whale. The whale would say to the elephant, “You come out here, and I will drown you.” The elephant would reply, “You come upon the land, and I will crush you.” One being a land power and the other a naval power, they have no common ground on which to fight.

I cannot have a debate with a Romanist, because we have no common ground on which to stand. I might try to prove my case by the Scriptures, but he would say, “Yes, but the Vulgate says so and so;” or I might quote a Scripture, and he would say, “Yes, but the Pope interprets that thus, and it is the interpretation of the Pope that is infallible, and not the literal Scripture.”

Now, how are we going to make an issue? We have nothing by which to decide. But when we take the Word of God as inspired, whether God causes a dumb ass to speak a part of it; whether God moved a hand that had no arm to write a part of it; whether God influenced Caiaphas, a wicked, vile scoundrel, to speak a part of it; whether God influenced prophets to write a part which they could not understand, the words are inspired, and that constitutes the standard.

Every one of the Scriptures is God-inspired. That is the true doctrine of the inspiration. It is the doctrine set forth in the New Testament.