The Inspired Word — Anton Bosch

Peter’s Teaching on the Prophetic Word

And we're in 2nd Peter if you can remember it's been I think four months since we were in Peter last and we're going to finish off chapter 1 the last verse of chapter 1. So 2nd Peter chapter 1 and we're going to read 16 through the end of the chapter.

And this is a very very important message. They're all important but this one is very important nothing that you haven't heard before. And yet it's absolutely vital that we reestablish these truths. So 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 16.

Sorry 2nd Peter. 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 16. For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came from came to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with him in the holy mountain.

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts knowing this first that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation for prophecy never came by the will of man but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Revelation, Illumination, and the Interpretation of Scripture

Now I'm not going to recap because I'm concerned about running out of time. So if you can't remember where we've been go back to YouTube and you'll you'll find it there. But he is speaking about the prophetic word that we have in verse 19 which has been confirmed the Word of God.

And then verse 20 deals with the fact that the way we interpret the scripture is not of private interpretation. You can't just interpret the scripture any way you like. It's not up to you to put whatever meaning you want to put to the scriptures.

And we know that people like to do that. But then he says and the reason we can't do that is in verse 21. So we can't we can't interpret the scripture as we choose because the scriptures did not come by the will of man.

So because the scripture didn't come by the will of man the scriptures cannot be interpreted by the will of man. But holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit inspired the writing.

And that's what we're going to speak about this evening inspired the writing of the scriptures. And therefore we need the Holy Spirit to help us to interpret the scriptures. And and and this doesn't mean that you get some kind of to some kind of revelation but but what we speak about is illumination.

The Holy Spirit illuminates lights up our mind so that when we read the Word of God it begins to make sense. The unbeliever reads the scriptures and it doesn't make sense to him. It's it's just it's just a bunch of words.

It's a bunch of stories. It's a bunch of good sayings but they don't they they really are dead to him. And once we are born again and I'm sure that many of us have had that experience suddenly the Word of God becomes alive and the Holy Spirit illuminates lights up our minds so that we can understand the scriptures.

So there's a difference then between revelation and illumination. Many people speak about revelation that God reveals things to them. There is no more revelation. I'm not going to continue. I'm not going to deal with that in detail because we've dealt with that many times in the past.

There is no revelation beyond the 66 books that we have this thing of prophets running around and saying well God revealed to me this and God revealed to me that no there is no more revelation that we have the scriptures but what we do have is illumination which is different.

And so he's not showing us new things. He's showing us what is in the scriptures and making them real and making them alive to us. And so that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Now what we want to speak about is the last part of that of that verse.

Men Carried Along by the Holy Spirit

They men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Now that word moved is a difficult word to translate from the from the Greek but it it literally and moved is a good word in a sense. The one of the other ways to translate this word is as they were carried along as they were born along by the Holy Spirit.

I don't know if you saw on the news they've been these big floods in in Australia and there was this house the whole house just run flowing running carried down by the river and it was the most amazing thing to see the whole house was intact with the addition on the back and everything and about half of it was above the water and half of it but there it was and it was being born along by the river it was being carried along by the river.

The house even if it had a will of its own couldn't say well I want to get off here. The river was going to take it wherever the river was going to take it. And that's the same word here. So men wrote as the Holy Spirit bore them along carried them along as that river carried that house along.

And so how then is does scripture. How then is scripture in inspired. And so we speak about the inspiration of scripture. And to Peter chapter 3 we're going to get there sometime in verse 15 and we've looked at this verse before it's a it's a cop.

There's two verses together and they're a little bit more complicated but consider that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. Forget about that part for now as also our beloved brother Paul. So Peter's writing and he says our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given to him has written to you.

So he is saying Paul wrote to you. Let's just focus on that now verse 16 as also in all his epistles all his letters in other words the the letters that we have in the New Testament from Romans through to Titus speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand which untaught non-stable people twist their own destruction as they do also the rest of the scriptures.

So he's saying people are twisting Paul's letters and that's been going on for a long time still going on today. But they're twisting Paul's letters as they the rest of scripture. What does that make Paul's letters scripture.

Because he says as they also do the rest of the scriptures. In other words even at this time already this is about 80 60 about 30 years after Jesus was crucified and ascended at this point already Paul's letters are recognized as scripture equal to the Old Testament.

Remember that in the Gospels when it speaks about the scriptures it's meaning the Old Testament. The New Testament hadn't been written at that point. But here is a very important verse because it's saying that at the very least Paul's letters are scripture they're equal to the Old Testament scriptures.

And obviously we believe that the Gospels and Acts and the other letters are also part of part of scripture. Now the thing that I want to emphasize this evening is what we call the verbal inspirational scripture.

Verbal Plenary Inspiration

And I didn't I didn't put it up on the board. But you'll see in many statements of faith and certainly in our statement of faith we say that we believe in the verbal plenary inspirational scripture now that's that's a lot of words.

When it says verbal it doesn't mean with the mouth. That doesn't mean we we speak about written and verbal. That's not what it means in that sense. Verbal means word for word. Verbal means word for word.

When you find it in a statement of faith we believe in the word for word inspiration of scripture that every word is inspired now this is under attack been under attack for a long time for the last 300 years particularly and it's more and more under attack today and so I want to focus on this idea that every word is inspired.

So we believe in the verbal plenary plenary means general or total. So if you if you go the only other place that I've seen them use that word is if you go to a conference and if it's a big conference you'll have you'll have breakout sessions so you'll have 30 people in this room talking on that subject and another 50 in that room.

But then in the evenings you'll have the plenary sessions and the plenary sessions means when everybody comes together. So when we say we believe in the verbal plenary inspirational scripture we mean we believe every word is inspired and that all of scripture is inspired.

Not as we saw a few weeks ago with those who believe that only Paul's letters really are inspired the others are less inspired. They're also inspired but less inspired. There's always been those who said well we don't believe that James for instance is inspired.

No all 66 books are inspired and they're inspired word for word. Now how do we. So I need to I want to spend some time proving that every word is inspired from scripture. But we must at the same time ask the question then how did the inspired.

How did these men who were moved by the Holy Spirit how did they write. And I know this may be a little bit technical but I think that it is helpful because it helps us to understand when people attack scripture that we know where the attack is coming from.

Mechanical Inspiration and the Human Authors

Now they're different views that people theologians have different views as to how scripture is inspired. I'm only going to give you to the two important ones to us. The first one is what we call mechanical inspiration.

Mechanical inspiration now spoken with you before about what we call auto writing. Auto writing is generally used and the only place I think you we ever use the idea of auto writing is with a president of the United States.

If the president of the United States is in Camp David or some other place he is not in Washington and he has to sign a urgent bill and he can't get to Washington to DC to sign the bill but the bill has to be signed by him.

He can't just call his secretary and say well just sign it on my behalf. He can't tell the vice president to sign on these he must sign it himself. And so the way they then do it is they use what they call an auto writer and so he will take a pen and that pen is connected to a machine and that goes over the internet in the old days over the telephone lines to another pen in the White House and as he signs where he is and he can do that from the from Air Force One wherever he is as he signs the actual bill is being signed in Washington.

So the same movements that he is making those movements so that is an auto writer the author the president is controlling what is written in another place by another pen. So the idea then is that people and this was the view when I went to Bible College and it basically says that these men were were robots.

They simply wrote God dictated to them word for word and they wrote those words down word for word as God dictated to them. Now there's a problem with that. The problem is this that if you have read the scriptures carefully and as you have sat under the teaching as we've talked through three of the gospels so far John in the Sunday school and then Matthew quite a few years ago and now the gospel of Luke you can see clear differences in the style of writing in Matthew because we speak about Matthew being written by a Jew for Jews Luke written by a Gentile for Gentiles.

This difference in style. So if God was dictating word for word how come the style of the writer comes through. You understand the problem. How come when you read Peter's epistles you can see that they are different to Paul's epistles.

Thought Inspiration and the Tension of Divine and Human Agency

So that is that is the problem. So to answer that problem you now have the other extreme which in fact there's further extremes but that basically says that God gave these guys the idea the thoughts but they wrote down as they understood those thoughts from God.

Maybe somewhat like it like an interpreter in in a court of law or it or anywhere where you have an interpreter that interpreter does not translate the words word for word. So the speaker says today is Thursday and then he says today is Thursday.

No he listens to a sentence or two and and and when you're used to speaking with an interpreter who is a good interpreter you can speak to three sentences. He is not going to translate every word you said he's going to translate the ideas the thoughts that you presented in those in those sentences he's going to paraphrase is going to put it into his own not just in his own language but in his own thoughts.

So that so there are those who totally reject the inspiration of scripture. The most liberal more liberal theologians today say no God inspired them thought-by-thought. So not word-by-word but thought-by-thought.

So here we have a problem so that answers the question as to why do you apparently have differences. Oh well because Luke wrote and God just gave him the ideas. But Luke wrote in his own ideas. I cannot accept that and I'm going to give you scriptures.

Why I cannot accept that that every word is inspired. So how do you bring these two things together. Because we believe implicitly that God inspired every word. Yet we can see the men writing in their own in their own vocabulary.

And this is one of the things that you do when they study scriptures to try and understand. Was this written by Paul. You can look at his vocabulary look at his style. Is this Paul who's writing. Or is this somebody else who's writing.

Looks like they're looking for somebody. So so how do you bring these two things together. And the answer is by faith. By faith. We have no intellectual way of bringing these two things together. They are things that we've spoken about before that we have to hold intention.

It is true that every word is inspired. But it is true that the authors are writing in their own language their own background their own understanding. Somehow in a way we don't fully understand God is able to to to have them write the words that he wants them to write.

And yet there's writing in their own style. Remember that this idea of holding things in tension is a very important thing. It right throughout scripture we say that God is three and yet we say God is one.

How can he be three and one at the same time. And and of course we try and give it analogies and explanations how that works. But they all they all fail. We have to accept by faith God is three father son and Holy Spirit but he is one at the same time at the same time.

And so there are many truths in the Word of God where they appear to be contradictory. And yet we look at the scriptures and it says this is true. One of those examples is that God will keep us and yet at the same time we have a responsibility to make sure that we don't neglect so greater salvation.

Now is God keeping me or must I do my part. Well both things are true and I have to hold these things in intention there many other truths like that all right. I know that that's a difficult idea to to to grasp.

Biblical Evidence for Every Word of Scripture

But for now let's focus then on the idea of every word and I'm going to go through quite a few scriptures. Try and we're gonna go as fast as we can. So 2nd Samuel 23 verse 2. 2nd Samuel 23 verse 2. The Spirit of the Lord spoke by or through me and his word was on my tongue his word not his ideas.

His word was on my tongue. Jeremiah 1 9. And this whole passages whole first part of Jeremiah 1 Jeremiah explains how God had called him and and and and and and given him this job to speak. And he says then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said to me behold I have put my words not my message or my thoughts or my ideas my words in your mouth.

So when I when Jeremiah was speaking and the other prophets they were speaking the words the very words that God wanted to speak in Matthew chapter 4 he answered and said it is written. This is Jesus being tempted to turn stones into bread.

It is written. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God every word. Now if every word was not inspired if if if Paul could choose or Isaiah could choose and say I'm going to use this word and not that word.

For those who've done some writing you know that a lot of your a lot of the time in writing is choosing words and and and I'm not a I'm not a good writer and it takes me a long time because I write and I say no this is not the right word.

It's not fully expressing what I want to say. There's got to be a different word a better word and I think and I find another word. If that was what Isaiah was doing then how can man live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Because every word that Isaiah wrote or that Paul wrote did not come from God but they did come from God. And therefore we must live by every word. Now again it emphasizes those two things. Remember I shared those two ideas with you the verbal and the plenary the total.

So every word deals with the whole of the Word of God. You can't cut certain sections out and say I don't like those sections. You have to take the whole of the word every word. But you can also not say well it doesn't matter if you know that that you know I don't like this word.

I don't like the word repentance. So so I'm just gonna ignore it. No every word is important and I need to pay attention to every word. So I pay attention to the whole and I pay attention to the detail.

Jots, Tittles, and the Importance of Every Letter

Now in Matthew chapter 5 and I think I've shared this with you before probably when we did the book of Matthew that's quite a long time ago. Assuredly I say to you Jesus speaking and he says this on different times in different ways but the same message till heaven and earth pass away.

One jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. So he is saying as far as the law is concerned the first five books. And obviously that now applies to all scripture. Not one jot or one tittle will pass away.

Now if not one jot or one tittle will pass away. What does it mean. Then are these things inspired by God. Are they there by the will of God. Yes they are. Because God's gonna uphold them. Heaven and earth passes away.

Now what are these things. Well they are part of the of the Hebrew alphabet. And and there is the there is the Hebrew alphabet. And you'll see that the first and it's it. I don't know why this list put it first but it because it doesn't normally fit in first.

But the first letter here is Yod. So the what we have in the translation is Jod or jot. But in fact he is saying Yod. Can you see something about that letter in comparison to all the other letters. It is the smallest of all the letters.

The Yod is the smallest. It's at least a quarter I would say half or a quarter of the size of any of the other letters. So what is Jesus saying. He is saying not the smallest letter will pass away. So is every word inspired.

Yes in fact every letter is inspired and he's going to uphold that until heaven and earth pass away. Then he uses the word turtle. Now up here we have and I think everyone can see the screen. Sorry Jason and Angela.

But here we have the letter bet and here we have the letter cap. Are they the same. Are they different. I always wanted to be an optometrist. They're actually not the same. There's a little difference here.

Can you see that. I think I have another slide. Okay there you are. You see it has a little tail. That's the turtle a little squiggle. And I think it's this. Yeah this one makes the point that it's the same as the as the the tail in the O which changes an O to a Q.

So what's the difference between an O and a Q. Well they two very different letters. But it's just one little squiggle that makes the difference in the same way in a sense you can say what's the difference between L and an I.

Well it's it's the dot. That's what what makes the difference. And so and and and then appears a number of places and you'll see that Dalit and calf are the same except this is just extended just a a little bit.

And there are others that are so similar that just one little squiggle makes the difference. And so when he says that not one jot then he means not the smallest letter and not the little embellishment.

The little line that changes one letter to another will pass away. So by Jesus's own word every letter now remember not in English but every letter in the original languages Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek is inspired now.

Why is that important. Well we know that one letter difference changes the whole word. And I'm not going to bore you with many examples where we have problems where scribes didn't always some scribes didn't write as bad ugly as I do.

But some of them didn't pay too much attention to to these things. And so is there is there a tittle there or isn't there a tittle in in the manuscripts. And in some cases it changes the word. In some cases you can clearly see it's a mistake.

I think all of us when we text we we make lots of mistakes in texting because you know the nature of the thing. But and and we we don't always correct the mistakes because the person on the other side is going to figure out that you know I I meant this or I meant that.

But when it comes to the scripture sometimes those mistakes can make a big difference. And that's why we get into the doc the manuscripts and why the manuscripts become important. So by Jesus's testimony.

Then the smallest letter and the little squiggles that change the letter are not going to pass away. They're part of the will and the plan of God. If that is true then every word is important. Every word is important.

The Holy Spirit Teaches the Words of Scripture

And so in the first Corinthian chapter 2 verse 13 these things we also speak all of course writing not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

We're not using words of man's wisdom but words of the Holy Spirit. Again not ideas or thoughts or general messages. You know if you go home tonight and your spouse wasn't here and they say well what was the message.

You know maybe you be good to give a three minute summary of what I said. No he is saying not the summary but the words the words that the Holy Spirit teaches. So take a second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

All scripture not some scriptures. All scriptures given by inspiration of God and is profitable for the doctrine for a proof for correction instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So again the emphasis here is that the scripture is given by inspiration of God. Men wrote as they were born along by the Holy Spirit. Men did not write these things out of their own ideas. One of the things that you can clearly how you can clearly see this is when you when you read the the Holy Writings of other faiths of the Quran for instance when you read it you can see clearly this is written by a man because there's mistakes in his contradictions and and it's it's just it just doesn't make sense.

There's also what we call the apocryphal books books that in the Catholic Church and and the Orthodox Church are added to the scriptures and many Christians study those books and they think well these things contain truth.

But when you read it if you read it carefully you you you see no it it doesn't make sense. It contradicts the rest of scripture. It has ideas that are totally wacky. It just does not have the same witness of the spirit that this is in fact the scripture.

The Miraculous Unity of the Scriptures

But when you look at the Word of God there is a there is something about it that is miraculous. There are no contradictions. And and I've been studying the scriptures for for 50 years now and and I and I wish I will have another 500 years because if the deeper I scratch the more amazed I am at the way that the scriptures fit together.

How that there are messages and as we've been going through Luke and you just read the stories. Oh well here's a story about this another story about that. No in fact they're they're fitting together they dovetail and they and there's a there's a message and a thread which can only come by the Holy Spirit.

It cannot come by a man's intellectual understanding. And so all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is not a human document like other documents. And so let's close then with 2nd Peter 121 then for prophecy never came.

So you can't interpret scripture the way you like because it didn't come by the will of man but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And so two important things he's saying. And we're going to move on to chapter 2 next week Lord willing.

Cherishing Every Word of God

But two important things he's saying. First of all you can't interpret scripture the way you choose. And secondly the scripture is inspired. It is the holy word of God. It is God speaking word for word.

We need to give attention to what God is saying. I love Samuel Samuel. It says that as a young boy growing up in the temple it says that he did not let a single word of God fall to the ground. He did not let a word of God fall to the ground.

In other words every word of God as Eli the high priest would read the scriptures as the priests would read the scriptures. Every word he he he he hung on to it because it was important. And I wonder how easily we just let the word of God fall to the ground.

We just let it slip through our fingers in one ear out the other ear gone. No it is it is the life-giving word of the Spirit and it is inspired and it is God speaking. And one of the the final things that that is so amazing about the word of God is that while it was written thousands of years ago some of it the newest ones 2 ,000 years ago others written 3 ,000 4 ,000 years ago yet they are still relevant today.

You read the book of Proverbs and he's writing for us today. You you you read the Psalms. Every time we read the Psalms on Sunday morning I say yes Lord that's that's me crying out to you for for whatever it is finding in you my comfort finding in you my strength those scriptures are still alive and real today.

That's true of some human writings in a some sense the the writings of Shakespeare. I think it's 300 years now and and it still makes good reading if you can understand that English but guaranteed it's not going to survive 2 ,000 years of the Lord Terry's it's it's it's going to it's going to go it's going to disappear because it doesn't have the same inspiration that the word of God has endured thousands of years and that will continue to endure thousands of years if the Lord Terry's until heaven and earth passes away he says my word will endure forever.

Father thank you for your word thank you Lord that it is miraculous supernatural given by the Spirit Lord we don't fully understand how the process worked. But Lord what we do know is that these are not the thoughts of men and they're not even your thoughts put in human ideas but Lord they are your words word for word.

Lord help us to believe that help us Lord to not just believe it in a theological sense but Lord help us to believe it as we read it. We would not let your word fall to the ground but Lord that we would cherish every word hang on to every word because in them we have eternal life.

And so Lord we pray that these things may be real for us. We pray that you'd go with us keep us protect us bring us together again safely on Sunday. I pray in Jesus name.