In 1839, twenty thousand negroes in Jamaica gathered to begin a life of freedom. Into a coffin were put the handcuffs and shackles of slavery, relics of the whipping-post and the scourge. As the clock struck twelve at night, a preacher cried with the first stroke: “The monster is dying!” and so with every stroke until the last, when he cried: “The monster is dead!” Then all rose from their knees and sang: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!”… “What do you do that for?” said the sick Chinaman whom the medical missionary was tucking up in bed with a care which the patient had never received since he was a baby. The missionary took the opportunity to tell him of the love of Christ. … The aged Australian mother, when told that her two daughters, missionaries in China, had both of them been murdered by a heathen mob, only replied: “This decides me; I will go to China now myself, and try to teach those poor creatures what the love of Jesus means.”… Dr. William Ashmore: “Let one missionary die, and ten come to his funeral.” A shoemaker, teaching neglected boys and girls while he worked at his cobbler's bench, gave the impulse to Thomas Guthrie's life of faith.
We must judge religions not by their ideals, but by their performances. Omar Khayyam and Mozoomdar give us beautiful thoughts, but the former is not Persia, nor is the latter India. “When the microscopic search of scepticism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found on this planet a place ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children, unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy protected, manhood respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard—when sceptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the sceptical literati to move thither and to ventilate their views. But so long as these very men are dependent upon the very religion they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate before they rob the Christian of his hope and humanity of its faith in that Savior who alone has given that hope of eternal life which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom.” On the beneficent influence of the gospel, see Schmidt, Social Results of Early Christianity; D. J. Hill, The Social Influence of Christianity.
Chapter III. Inspiration Of The Scriptures.
I. Definition of Inspiration.
Inspiration is that influence of the Spirit of God upon the minds of the Scripture writers which made their writings the record of a progressive divine revelation, sufficient, when taken together and interpreted by the same Spirit who inspired them, to lead every honest inquirer to Christ and to salvation.
Notice the significance of each part of this definition: 1. Inspiration is an influence of the Spirit of God. It is not a merely naturalistic phenomenon or psychological vagary, but is rather the effect of the inworking of the personal divine Spirit. 2. Yet inspiration is an influence upon the mind, and not upon the body. God secures his end by awakening man's rational powers, and not by an external or mechanical communication. 3. The writings of inspired men are the record of a revelation. They are not themselves the revelation. 4. The revelation and the record are both progressive. Neither one is complete at the beginning. 5. The Scripture writings must be taken together. Each part must be viewed in connection with what precedes and with what follows. 6. The same Holy Spirit who made the original revelations must interpret to us the record of them, if we are to come to the knowledge of the truth. 7. So used and so interpreted, these writings are sufficient, both in quantity and in quality, for their religious purpose. 8. That purpose is, not to furnish us with a model history or with the facts of science, but to lead us to Christ and to salvation.
(a) Inspiration is therefore to be defined, not by its method, but by its result. It is a general term including all those kinds and degrees of the Holy Spirit's influence which were brought to bear upon the minds of the Scripture writers, in order to secure the putting into permanent and written form of the truth best adapted to man's moral and religious needs.
(b) Inspiration may often include revelation, or the direct communication from God of truth to which man could not attain by his unaided powers. It may include illumination, or the quickening of man's cognitive powers to understand truth already revealed. Inspiration, however, does not necessarily and always include either revelation or illumination. It is simply the divine influence which secures a transmission of needed truth to the future, and, according to the nature of the truth to be transmitted, it may be only an inspiration of superintendence, or it may be also and at the same time an inspiration of illumination or revelation.
(c) It is not denied, but affirmed, that inspiration may qualify for oral utterance of truth, or for wise leadership and daring deeds. Men may be inspired to render external service to God's kingdom, as in the cases of Bezalel and Samson; even though this service is rendered unwillingly or unconsciously, as in the cases of Balaam and Cyrus. All human intelligence, indeed, is due to the inbreathing of that same Spirit who created man at the beginning. We are now concerned with inspiration, however, only as it pertains to the authorship of Scripture.
Gen. 2:7—“And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”; Ex. 31:2, 3—“I have called by name Bezalel … and I have filled him with the Spirit of God … in all manner of workmanship”; Judges 13:24, 25—“called his name Samson: and the child grew, and Jehovah blessed him. And the Spirit of Jehovah began to move him”; Num. 23:5—“And Jehovah put a word in Balaam's mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou speak”; 2 Chron. 36:22—“Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus”; Is. 44:28—“that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd”; 45:5—“I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me”; Job 32:8—“there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” These passages show the true meaning of 2 Tim. 3:16—“Every scripture inspired of God.” The word θεόπνευστος is to be understood as alluding, not to the flute-player's breathing into his instrument, but to God's original inbreathing of life. The flute is passive, but man's soul is active. The flute gives out only what it receives, but the inspired man under the divine influence is a conscious and free originator of thought and expression. Although the inspiration of which we are to treat is simply the inspiration of the Scripture writings, we can best understand this narrower use of the term by remembering that all real knowledge has in it a divine element, and that we are possessed of complete consciousness only as we live, move, and have our being in God. Since Christ, the divine Logos or Reason, is “the light which lighteth every man” (John 1:9), a special influence of “the spirit of Christ which was in them” (1 Pet. 1:11) rationally accounts for the fact that “men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).
It may help our understanding of terms above employed if we adduce instances of
(1) Inspiration without revelation, as in Luke or Acts, Luke 1:1–3;
(2) Inspiration