Commentary on "The Inspiration of the Prophets"

ROY TINKER

 

Day 2: Sunday, January 25, 2009

Today's lesson covers the Seventh-day Adventist answer to the question, “What is the difference between revelation and inspiration?” regarding how God spoke through the prophets in the Bible. The Seventh-day Adventist beliefs regarding Biblical prophecy (which come from Ellen White) are:

• Revelation: the Holy Spirit revealed truth to prophets via “visions and dreams, symbols and figures” (Ye Shall Receive Power, p. 222).
• Inspiration: prophets interpreted what they were given and “embodied the thought in human language” (Ye Shall Receive Power, p. 222), while being “moved upon by the Holy Ghost”, thus creating words of scripture.
• The Bible is not in “grand superhuman language”, but rather in “the language of men.” Therefore, the Bible is imperfect, since “Everything that is human is imperfect” (Ellen G. White Comments, SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 945).

These teachings are designed to devalue the Bible, and they disagree with what the Bible says about itself. As stated in yesterday's notes, we must accept the Bible on its own terms if we are to accept it at all. Let's look at what the Bible says regarding prophets and their words.

In Deuteronomy 18, God speaks to Moses regarding prophets he would later send to Israel:

I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him. (Deuteronomy 18:18-19)

Let's pull some observations from this passage.

• God himself “will raise up a prophet.” No one will raise himself or someone else as a prophet; this work belongs to God alone.
• God will put His words in the prophet's mouth.
• The prophet will speak God's words in obedience to God's command.
• The prophet will speak God's words in God's name, and therefore in God's authority (but also in submission to God's authority, since he is acting in obedience to God's command).
• God Himself will hold accountable those who do not listen to His words.

God's prophets spoke in God's name, and therefore in His authority. Remember from yesterday's notes, that God commands us to listen to Jesus (Matthew 17:5), and that this command to listen is directly tied to the title the Father gave to Jesus as His beloved Son, in whom He is well-pleased. In the gospel of John, Jesus says he only speaks the words the Father has given him to speak:

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. (John 14:10)

Just as we are commanded by God the Father to listen to Jesus and held accountable for listening to Him, God held the Israelites accountable for listening to His words spoken through the prophets of old. f. And just as Jesus' words were not His own, so the words the prophets spoke were not their own:

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Peter 1:20-21)

The Sabbath School lesson for today places emphasis on the phrase “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (NIV) which renders as “moved by the Holy Spirit” in the NASB. But the emphasis of the sentence is that men spoke from God. The moving of the Holy Spirit was the means to that end, not the end in itself. How the Holy Spirit moves in imperfect people is a mystery, but that is not the issue at all. The point is that the end result, the words, were from God and carried the authority of God Himself.

Consider the following passage as an example, when God gave a command to king Rehoboam and his men:

But the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying, “Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, 'Thus says the LORD, “You shall not go up or fight against your relatives; return every man to his house, for this thing is from Me.”'” So they listened to the words of the LORD and returned from going against Jeroboam.

The word of God spoken through God's prophet to Rehoboam and the men of Israel carried the authority of God, and the men listened to God's words and obeyed them.

In other places, God commanded that His words be written down, so that they would be preserved for people in the future. He told Isaiah, regarding words Isaiah had spoken to rebellious Israel,

Now go, write it on a tablet before them

And inscribe it on a scroll,

That it may serve in the time to come

As a witness forever. (Isaiah 30:8)

He spoke similar istructions to Jeremiah:

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book. For behold, days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will restore the fortunes of My people Isrel and Judah.' The LORD says, 'I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it.'” (Jeremiah 30:1-3)

The written words of God are just as authoritative as the spoken words of God.

Scripture is clear regarding the words of God:

Every word of God is tested;

He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.

Do not add to His words

Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)

The Hebrew word translated as tested here can also be translated as refined or pure (Strong's number 6884).

The Psalter also speaks about God's words:

The words of the LORD are pure words;

As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. (Psalm 12:6)

 

As for God, His way is blameless;

The word of the LORD is tried;

He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. (Psalm 18:30)

 

For the word of the LORD is upright,

And all His work is done in faithfulness. (Psalm 33:4)

 

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

And by the breath of His mouth all their host. (Psalm 33:6)

 

Forever, O LORD,

Your word is settled in heaven. (Psalm 119:89)

It is abundantly clear, then, that God's words are as perfect and holy and unchanging and unfailing and powerful as God Himself. As Jesus says: “For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart” (Matthew 12:34). God's heart is expressed and revealed in His words, and to assign any flaw to His words, no matter his vehicle of speaking, would be to assign flaw to God Himself.

A question arises: what about places in the Bible where God is not being directly quoted? Prophets and others often spoke what appear to be their own words. Indeed, the historical accounts of scripture were not always dictated word-for-word by God to prophets. Paul addresses the authority of Scripture as a whole:

All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Words inspired by God have the authority of God: they are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness—things that require the authority of God if they are to be listened to.

The New Testament writers also spoke and wrote with God's authority. The book of Acts records Jesus' last words to His disciples before He ascended into heaven:

He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth.” (Acts 1:7-8)

Jesus also said to them,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)

The apostles went and spoke and taught and baptized and witnessed and wrote in the name and authority of Jesus.

Paul, not one of the original apostles, also spoke and wrote in the name and authority of Jesus. Personally called by Jesus to the work of apostleship (see Acts 9), he began most of his letters identifying himself as one who speaks by the authority of Jesus:

Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name's sake... (Romans 1:1-6)

Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God... (1 Corinthians 1:1)

Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead)... (Galatians 1:1)

Peter, one of the twelve apostles who had been with Jesus during His entire earthly ministry, spoke of the authority of Paul's writings—that they are indeed classified as Scriptures:

...just as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

The Bible is indeed trustworthy. It is the words of God, spoken through men, but in no way imperfect or diluted. We can put our full trust and hope in the words of God, for they are just as trustworthy as God Himself is. So we can say with the psalmist:

I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait,

And in His word do I hope. (Psalm 130:5)

And now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

 

Summary

• Prophets spoke God's words with God's authority, and people were held accountable by God Himself for listening to them.
• Jesus also spoke from God; in fact, none of His words were His own, but the Father's.
• All prophets spoke from God; how the Holy Spirit moved within them is a mystery. What matters is that their words were from God and carried God's authority.
• God's words are perfect, just as God Himself is perfect.
• All scripture is inspired by God and carries His authority—both the Old and New Testaments.
   

 

Copyright 2009 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised January 25, 2009. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com. Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.

 

Official Adventist Resources

Standard Edition Study Guide Week 5

Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 5

Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Week 5

Search the Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings

DOWNLOAD
DOCUMENT
FOR PRINTING