(4) Inspiration including illumination, as in the case of Paul, 1 Cor. 2:12;
(5) Revelation without inspiration, as in God's words from Sinai, Ex. 20:1, 22;
(6) Illumination without inspiration, as in modern preachers, Eph. 2:20.
Other definitions are those of Park: “Inspiration is such an influence over the writers of the Bible that all their teachings which have a religious character are trustworthy”; of Wilkinson: “Inspiration is help from God to keep the report of divine revelation free from error. Help to whom? No matter to whom, so the result is secured. The final result, viz.: the record or report of revelation, this must be free from error. Inspiration may affect one or all of the agents employed”; of Hovey: “Inspiration was an influence of the Spirit of God on those powers of men which are concerned in the reception, retention and expression of religious truth—an influence so pervading and powerful that the teaching of inspired men was according to the mind of God. Their teaching did not in any instance embrace all truth in respect to God, or man, or the way of life; but it comprised just so much of the truth on any particular subject as could be received in faith by the inspired teacher and made useful to those whom he addressed. In this sense the teaching of the original documents composing our Bible may be pronounced free from error”; of G. B. Foster: “Revelation is the action of God in the soul of his child, resulting in divine self-expression there: Inspiration is the action of God in the soul of his child, resulting in apprehension and appropriation of the divine expression. Revelation has logical but not chronological priority”; of Horton, Inspiration and the Bible, 10–13—“We mean by Inspiration exactly those qualities or characteristics which are the marks or notes of the Bible. … We call our Bible inspired; by which we mean that by reading and studying it we find our way to God, we find his will for us, and we find how we can conform ourselves to his will.”
Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, 496, while nobly setting forth the naturalness of revelation, has misconceived the relation of inspiration to revelation by giving priority to the former: “The idea of a written revelation may be said to be logically involved in the notion of a living God. Speech is natural to spirit; and if God is by nature spirit, it will be to him a matter of nature to reveal himself. But if he speaks to man, it will be through men; and those who hear best will be most possessed of God. This possession is termed ‘inspiration.’ God inspires, man reveals: revelation is the mode or form—word, character, or institution—in which man embodies what he has received. The terms, though not equivalent, are co-extensive, the one denoting the process on its inner side, the other on its outer.” This statement, although approved by Sanday, Inspiration, 124, 125, seems to us almost precisely to reverse the right meaning of the words. We prefer the view of Evans, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 54—“God has first revealed himself, and then has inspired men to interpret, record and apply this revelation. In redemption, inspiration is the formal factor, as revelation is the material factor. The men are inspired, as Prof. Stowe said. The thoughts are inspired, as Prof. Briggs said. The words are inspired, as Prof. Hodge said. The warp and woof of the Bible is πνεῦμα: ‘the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit’ (John 6:63). Its fringes run off, as was inevitable, into the secular, the material, the psychic.” Phillips Brooks, Life, 2:351—“If the true revelation of God is in Christ, the Bible is not properly a revelation, but the history of a revelation. This is not only a fact but a necessity, for a person cannot be revealed in a book, but must find revelation, if at all, in a person. The centre and core of the Bible must therefore be the gospels, as the story of Jesus.”
Some, like Priestley, have held that the gospels are authentic but not inspired. We therefore add to the proof of the genuineness and credibility of Scripture, the proof of its inspiration. Chadwick, Old and New Unitarianism, 11—“Priestley's belief in supernatural revelation was intense. He had an absolute distrust of reason as qualified to furnish an adequate knowledge of religious things, and at the same time a perfect confidence in reason as qualified to prove that negative and to determine the contents of the revelation.” We might claim the historical truth of the gospels, even if we did not call them inspired. Gore, in Lux Mundi, 341—“Christianity brings with it a doctrine of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, but is not based upon it.” Warfield and Hodge, Inspiration, 8—“While the inspiration of the Scriptures is true, and being true is fundamental to the adequate interpretation of Scripture, it nevertheless is not, in the first instance, a principle fundamental to the truth of the Christian religion.”
On the idea of Revelation, see Ladd, in Journ. Christ. Philos., Jan. 1883:156–178; on Inspiration, ibid., Apr. 1883:225–248. See Henderson on Inspiration (2nd ed.), 58, 205, 249, 303, 310. For other works on the general subject of Inspiration, see Lee, Bannerman, Jamieson, Macnaught; Garbett, God's Word Written; Aids to Faith, essay on Inspiration. Also, Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:205; Westcott, Introd. to Study of the Gospels, 27–65; Bib. Sac., 1:97; 4:154; 12:217; 15:29, 314; 25:192–198; Dr. Barrows, in Bib. Sac., 1867:593; 1872:428; Farrar, Science in Theology, 208; Hodge and Warfield, in Presb. Rev., Apr. 1881:225–261; Manly, The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration; Watts, Inspiration; Mead, Supernatural Revelation, 350; Whiton, Gloria Patri, 136; Hastings, Bible Dict., 1:296–299; Sanday, Bampton Lectures on Inspiration.
II. Proof of Inspiration.
1. Since we have shown that God has made a revelation of himself to man, we may reasonably presume that he will not trust this revelation wholly to human tradition and misrepresentation, but will also provide a record of it essentially trustworthy and sufficient; in other words, that the same Spirit who originally communicated the truth will preside over its publication, so far as is needed to accomplish its religious purpose.
Since all natural intelligence, as we have seen, presupposes God's indwelling, and since in Scripture the all-prevailing atmosphere, with its constant pressure and effort to enter every cranny and corner of the world, is used as an illustration of the impulse of God's omnipotent Spirit to vivify and energize every human soul (Gen. 2:7; Job 32:8), we may infer that, but for sin, all men would be morally and spiritually inspired (Num. 11:29—“Would that all Jehovah's people were prophets, that Jehovah would put his Spirit upon them!” Is. 59:2—“your iniquities have separated between you and your God”). We have also seen that God's method of communicating his truth in matters of religion is presumably analogous to his method of communicating secular truth, such as that of astronomy or history. There is an original delivery to a single nation, and to single persons in that nation, that it may through them be given to mankind. Sanday, Inspiration, 140—“There is a ‘purpose of God according to selection’ (Rom. 9:11); there is an ‘election’ or ‘selection of grace’; and the object of that selection was Israel and those who take their name from Israel's Messiah. If a tower is built in ascending tiers, those who stand upon the lower tiers are yet raised above the ground, and some may be raised higher than others, but the full and unimpeded view is reserved for those who mount upward to the top. And that is the place destined for us if we will take it.”
If we follow the analogy of God's working in other communications of knowledge, we shall reasonably presume that he will preserve the record of his revelations in written and accessible documents, handed down from those to whom these revelations were first communicated, and we may expect that these documents will be kept sufficiently correct and trustworthy to accomplish their religious purpose, namely, that of furnishing to the honest inquirer a guide to Christ and to salvation. The physician commits his prescriptions to writing; the Clerk of Congress records its proceedings; the State Department of our government instructs our foreign ambassadors, not orally, but by dispatches. There is yet greater need that revelation should be recorded, since it is to be transmitted to distant ages; it contains long discourses; it embraces mysterious doctrines. Jesus did not write himself; for he was the subject, not the mere channel, of revelation. His unconcern about the apostles' immediately committing to writing what they saw and heard is inexplicable, if he did not expect that inspiration would assist them.