Dr. Edward J. Young is considered one of the ablest conservative scholars in the field of Old Testament. He served for many years as Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. At a time when the historical-critical method to the study of the Bible was gaining ground, Young (like Warfield) stood firm on the divine inspiration of Scripture and its full inerrancy. In all his works, this fundamental position is assumed. Thus, his works provide evangelicals with a solid example of how a full-scale commitment to divine inspiration and the inerrancy of Scripture may engage the more critical theories of his day, and needless to say, in ours as well.
I was greatly helped by his treatment on the subject of inspiration as a young Christian. His Thy Word is Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1963), together with the writings of B B Warfield on the same subject, provided me with a firm foundation for all these years of ministry. Whenever I run into difficulty with a commentary which may advocate an unreasonable dependence on the critical theories, Young and Warfield have invariably come to my assistance. Since in the last post we had Warfield on the subject, I thought it appropriate to include Young's contribution here. This is the first of three posts.
I was greatly helped by his treatment on the subject of inspiration as a young Christian. His Thy Word is Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1963), together with the writings of B B Warfield on the same subject, provided me with a firm foundation for all these years of ministry. Whenever I run into difficulty with a commentary which may advocate an unreasonable dependence on the critical theories, Young and Warfield have invariably come to my assistance. Since in the last post we had Warfield on the subject, I thought it appropriate to include Young's contribution here. This is the first of three posts.
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There is one very important factor in the doctrine of inspiration which hitherto has been mentioned only in cursory fashion. That is the human side of the Scriptures. Peter stated expressly that “holy men who were borne along of the Holy Ghost spake.” We have said little about these holy men whom God used in the composition of the Bible. We have simply sought to make it clear, since they themselves also emphasize this fact, that the Scriptures are from God. It is, we have contended, necessary to recognize the Divine origin of the Bible, and the implications of such recognition.
It is likewise necessary and important to do full justice to what the Bible has to say about its human side. This is today the more important because of the constant misrepresentations of this aspect of the doctrine. We are told, for example, that the human writers were mere pen holders whose hands moved under the direction of the Spirit. The historic doctrine is quite frequently parodied as being “static.” The writers wrote as mere automata, so the parody runs, having received what was dictated to them and then placed it in writing. When modern authors proclaim, “We want no mechanical theory of inspiration,” they give one the impression that they believe they are refuting an actual error. As a matter of fact, however, the idea of mechanical dictation is nothing more than a straw man. Recent conservative writers on the subject of inspiration have sought to do justice to the human side of Scripture; they have been far from advocating a mechanical dictation theory.
What shall we say about this word dictation in regard to the doctrine of inspiration? It was a word that Calvin, to take one example, did not hesitate to employ. “Whoever, then,” he says, “wishes to profit in the Scriptures, let him, first of all, lay down this as a settled point, that the Law and the Prophets are not a doctrine delivered according to the will and pleasure of men, but dictated by the Holy Spirit.” [2 Timothy 3:16, translated by William Pringle.]
In speaking in such a vein, Calvin is simply following the thought of the Bible itself. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, did not hesitate to say, “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:13). If we were to attempt to bring out more clearly the precise force of the Apostle’s language, we might render, “in words taught of the Spirit.” Paul is saying as patently as he can that the words which he is employing are those which the Spirit has taught him, and this is precisely what Calvin also maintains.
At the same time, although the term dictation in itself is not objectionable and expresses forcefully the Divine origin of the words of the Bible, it is perhaps unwise to use the word today without some qualification. A new connotation has come upon the term which it obviously did not have in the day of Calvin. When we speak of dictation, there immediately comes to mind the thought of the businessman dictating a letter to his stenographer, or the teacher dictating an exercise to her pupils. In both these instances it does not make too great a difference who takes down the dictation. One stenographer can probably do it as well as another, and if one is not available, another can easily be obtained. Likewise, when the teacher dictates a passage to her class, the important thing is that the pupils take down precisely what has been dictated, and do not add to it or subtract from it. The person of the stenographer or of the pupil is in reality a comparatively negligible factor. Such, however, is not the situation with respect to the human writers of the Bible. True enough, the words which they employed were taught them by the Holy Spirit, but it is not the case that it makes no difference who wrote those words. It is not true that Peter might just as well have written the Pauline epistles as the great Apostle himself. It would serve the interests of clarity, therefore, if, in the discussion of this doctrine, we lay stress upon the fact that although the Bible teaches that its very words are from God, it most emphatically does not teach a mechanical dictation view of inspiration.
Men like Turretine, Calvin and others who have written on this subject have been as eager to do justice to the human side of the Bible as have some of the modern rejectors of the Biblical doctrine. It is a sad thing that scholarly men of our day constantly erect a straw man and seek to attack it instead of coming to grips with the Scriptural teaching itself. Those who believe the Bible and who wish to do justice to its teaching are as concerned as anyone to refute the notion that inspiration was a mechanical kind of dictation, that the human writers were mere automata whose personalities were entirely suspended in the writing of the books of the Bible.
Let us then proceed to notice in more detail the emphasis which the Bible places upon these human writers. “How then,” we read, “doth David in spirit call him Lord?” (Matthew 22:43). It is David who calls the Messiah Lord. And there are particular conditions under which he does this. It is while he is in the Spirit that he so speaks. The implication is that there are also times when David is not in the Spirit, when, in other words, he is not inspired. When David spoke of the Messiah as Lord, however, he did so being in the Spirit. David, therefore, is the human author of the utterance; it is his, and it is as a conscious responsible human being that he speaks. At the same time, the conditions under which the Psalmist spoke were not the normal conditions of everyday life; he spoke not as a normal man, but rather under peculiar circumstances; David was in the Spirit.
Of particular interest is the statement, “For David himself said by the Holy Ghost” (Mark 12:36). Very strong is the emphasis that it was the man David who spoke. This emphasis receives additional confirmation and strength from the passage, “And David himself saith in the book of Psalms” (Luke 20:42). Of unusual relevancy is this verse because it attributes the authorship of certain words to the man David. In the place of saying that it was in the Spirit that he spoke, it substitutes the phrase “in the book of Psalms.”
In the words addressed to God “who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things?” a passage from the second Psalm is attributed to David. It is God who uttered these words; they find their origin in Him; they are His; He, and He alone, is their author. Nevertheless, He spoke them by the mouth of His servant David. David spoke, but God spoke through him. Similar is the statement to the effect that the Lord received the name Jesus in fulfillment of the words which were “spoken of the Lord by the prophet” (Matthew 1:22). The tender and mysterious prophecy of the Virgin was of Divine origin, but God spoke it through the mouth of the prophet.
In referring to the passage about the burning bush which He says is in the “book of Moses,” Christ quotes, “God spake unto him, saying . . .” (Mark 12:26). The words are regarded by Christ as those which God Himself has spoken, but they are to be found in a book written by the man Moses. In another place, however, no reference is made to the human author other than the question “have ye not read?” which implies that the words uttered by God are nevertheless to be found in a book where they can be read (cf. Matthew 22:32). In a similar type of statement the Apostle Paul makes reference to the Old Testament, “Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying . . .” (Acts 28:25, 26a). Paul would here make it clear that the Holy Spirit spoke, yet at the same time it was through the mouth of the individual Isaiah that He gave His utterance. The prophet was the human author of the message, yet the one who was speaking through Isaiah was none other than the Spirit of God Himself.
A careful consideration of the above passages should make it clear that God, in revealing His Word, spoke through the instrumentality of men. In the first place, they were holy men; men who knew and loved their God. This does not mean at all that they were not sinful men; they were sinful, sometimes great sinners. David, for example, had committed sins which few, if any, men would forgive, but David, nevertheless, was one through whom the Spirit spoke. The writers of the Bible were indeed sinners, but they were men who, despite their sins, loved God and were used of Him in the composition of Scripture.
It would be most unjust to the data of Scripture to maintain that God merely looked about to see if here and there He could find a man through whom He might speak to the world. There is nothing in the Bible to support or to sustain this idea; in fact, everything teaches the very opposite. Did it matter, we may ask, through whom the Divine message was spoken? According to the Bible it mattered very greatly. In the first verse of Amos’ rugged prophecy we read, “The words of Amos . . . which he saw.” Only nine short chapters, yet from them we learn something of the man who wrote them. How different they are from the quiet tenderness of Hosea! How unsuited was Amos to have undergone the sad experiences of a Hosea! At the same time, different as each was from the other, each was clearly conscious of speaking forth the words of God.
The same is true when we turn to the pages of the New Testament. Do not the human writers of the New Testament also differ greatly one from another? It would seem that God had chosen specific men to write specific portions of His Word. And such was indeed the case. Not only, however, did the Lord select certain men to write certain portions of His Word but, more than that, they were used as real men. Their personalities were not held in abeyance; their talents were not obscured; they were not somehow placed in a state of suspended animation. Rather, God used them as they were. All their gifts of training and native talent God called into play.
The matter may be very clearly illustrated by the case of the Apostle Paul. God very obviously did not look about to discover if there were somewhere on the face of the earth a man who might be used in the composition of those writings which we now call the Pauline Epistles. There was only one man that could have written those Epistles, and that man was the Apostle himself. The Apostle, however, required training and preparation before he could commit to writing the glorious epistles which now bear his name. His very birth and upbringing in the city of Tarsus were of importance. The instruction which he received at the feet of Gamaliel and his indoctrination into the tenets of the Pharisees served as a background which stood him in good stead throughout the remainder of his life. Not the least of his talents was his ability to use the Greek language both in speaking and preaching. After his conversion he spent three years in Arabia, years, we may well suppose, in which he engaged in study and meditation.
Did all this, however, occur simply through chance? Not at all; it was God who was at work in the events of Paul’s life, shaping him so that he would be precisely the man whom God wanted and whom He needed to write the great epistles. It was a providential preparation; a schooling and training conducted at the hands of God Himself through the ordinary course of His providential working.
Similar was the case with Moses. Here again we note the long years of preparation. In childhood and youth Moses learned of the afflictions of his people in Egypt. He knew well the Egyptian mind, and how to deal with the taskmaster. Then came the period of training in the desert, where, in the stillness of the wasteland, he might mediate and reflect. Thus, through this time, followed by his own participation in the events of the Exodus, Moses came to the place where he was prepared for the task of writing the first five books of the Bible. It is clear that these books represent a unified plan and that they are the work of a great mind. Only a mind such as that of Moses could have composed them. And for this work of writing, Moses, in the providence of God, had been prepared and equipped. How graciously did the Lord deal with His recalcitrant and stubborn servant! How wondrously He led the man on, step by step, until Moses was ready to write.
Very wondrous was God’s providential preparation and equipment of those men whom He had appointed to be the human instruments in the writing of the Scripture. Thus He prepared and raised up an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a John, and a Paul. His work of providence and His special work of inspiration should be regarded as complementing one another. Those through whom the Spirit desired to give the Scriptures were individuals who had been equipped for the task in the providence of God. When, therefore, the Spirit bore a holy man of old (2 Peter 1:21) it was not any man who happened to be on the scene, but rather, just that holy man whom God, through years of training, had prepared to speak and to write precisely that portion of the Scripture which He desired to have him write.
