Inspiration (theology)

“ LESSON VI. (Scripture Reading Exercise.)
IV. REVELATION.
SPECIAL TEXT: "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Matt. xi:27.
NOTES.
1. Revelation By Divers Means: "Revelation is the name of that act by which God makes communication to men. Inspiration is the name of that influence, that divine influence which operates upon the minds of men under which they may be said to receive divine guidance." (Cambridge Bible Helps) . The inspiration may be strong or it may be weak. ”

“ Inspiration arises in the first instance from God’s intention to express in writing certain truths through the instrumentality of human agents. To carry out this intention God moves the writer’s will to write down these truths, and at the same time suggests them to his mind and assists him to the right understanding and faithful expression of them. The assistance has been reduced by some theologians to a mere surveillance or watching over the writer ”

“ The third theory, which is a modification of the second, is that of essential inspiration, which distinguishes matters of doctrine and conduct as closely related to God’s purpose in the Scriptures from the remaining contents of the Scripture, and claims for the Bible only such inspiration as was necessary to secure accuracy in regard to these. The theology and the morality of the Bible are inspired, but not its history, science, philosophy. ”

“ Revelation and inspiration have resolved themselves into exceptional mental states, and are no longer looked upon as a sort of telepathy between divine and human minds. If we reflect, we see that all these intellectual difficulties in modern theology arise from the advance of scientific knowledge, which has shown that the older ideas of God were only symbolic, and therefore false when the attempt was made to give real value to them. ”

“ Similarly, divine inspiration is the influence of God's spirit or personality upon the mind and spirit of man. It may find expression in an exalted emotional state, in an heightened clarity of mental perception, in noble deeds, in the development of character, indeed in a great variety of ways; but its seat is always the mind of man and its ultimate cause the Deity himself. ”

“ One of the corner-stones of Christianity is the miracle of inspiration, and this same miracle lies at the foundation of all religions. How can the fact of inspiration be established? How could even the inspired man know that he was inspired? If he was influenced to write, and did write, and did express thoughts and facts that to him were absolutely new, on subjects about which he had previously known nothing, how could he know that he had been influenced by an infinite being? ”

“ The purpose of inspiration is practical; the inspired men are used of God to give guidance in belief and duty by declaring the word and will of God as bearing on human life. (5) As revelation is progressive, inspiration does not exclude defects in doctrine and practice in the earlier stages and their correction in the later stages of development. (6) As the progressive revelation culminates in Christ, so He possesses fullest inspiration ”

“ The conception of God is attained by inward experience, that is, by the observation of certain remarkable thoughts and feelings which are attributed to the inspiration of a deity. Practical dangers of the theory of inspiration. ”

“ All scripture is of divine inspiration. But why so? Because holy men of old, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Now the above collect, as well as Christ and his apostles, oblige us in like manner to hold, that all holiness is by divine inspiration, and that therefore there could have been no holy men of old, or in any latter times, but solely for this reason, because they LIVED, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. ”

“ Inspired by the same spirit which inspired the prophets, he can behold glories lying over the face of revelation that the eye of an uninspired man never saw nor can see; by this spirit he discovers the iniquities, and apostacy of his own days, his mind being strengthened by the spirit of inspiration so as to enable him to understand the religion of Jesus Christ and believe it, he looks over the world with feelings peculiar to the saints, and through the light of revelation gazes upon the follies and wickedness of this generation: his cares are saluted with the Lo! ”

“ Now the matter is not at all about the different effects, proceeding from inspiration, as whether by it, a man be made a saint in himself, or sent by God with a prophetic message to others, this affects not the nature and necessity of inspiration, which is just as necessary to all true goodness, as to all true prophecy. ”

“ Inspiration, or the presence and influence of the Divine Spirit in the soul of man, cannot be limited to the writers of the Scriptures; but, comparing the Bible with the other sacred literature of the world, its religious and moral superiority cannot be denied, and we may, therefore, claim for it as a whole a fuller inspiration. (2) As different writings in the Bible have more or less important functions in the progressive divine revelation, we may distinguish degrees of inspiration. ”

“ If it be conceded, however, that holy men may partake of such an inspiration, even then it is plain that it requires a much higher inspiration to declare others to be divinely inspired than to make such a claim for oneself alone. ”

“ The Word or eternal Reason of God is the Revealer; but Scripture, whether it is a record of divine revelations or of naturally observed facts, is, in the belief of the Christian Church, throughout "inspired" by the Spirit. Inspiration is the word which describes the presence and action of the Holy Spirit everywhere in Scripture. We know not how our own spirits, hour by hour, are acted upon by the eternal Spirit, though we do not question the fact; we content ourselves with recognizing what we can not explain. ”

“ By the word inspiration, when used in a theological sense, we understand such an illumination and guidance of the Holy Spirit as raises a speaker or writer above error, and thus gives to his teachings a divine authority. If we attempt to investigate the interior nature of this superhuman influence, its different degrees and modes of operation, and the relation which the human mind holds to the divine in the case of those who receive it, we find ourselves involved in many difficulties, some of which at least are to our finite minds insuperable. ”

“ In this sense the term occurs in 2 Tim. iii. 16. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” &c. (See Scriptures, Inspiration of.)
The word inspiration also expresses that ordinary operation of the Spirit, by which men are inwardly moved and excited both to will and to do such things as are pleasing to God, and through which all the powers of their minds are elevated, purified, and invigorated. “There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” ”

“ Hath my spirit enough of inspiration, are my hands pure enough to reproduce those holy features? to give to stone, or marble, or wood the charm and majesty of those divine forms which from their golden halos call and smile on me? to express the sweetness of the Christ-child, the tenderness of Christ the Mediator, or the virginal motherhood of his holy mother? No; to inspiration must be added the heart of a Christian ”

“ Divine revelation, as illustrated by numerous examples in scripture, may consist of disclosures or declarations concerning the attributes of Deity, or of an expression of the Divine will regarding the affairs of men.
2. The word inspiration is sometimes invested with a signification almost identical with that of revelation, though by its origin and early usage it possessed a distinctive meaning. To inspire is literally to animate with the spirit; a man is inspired when under the influence of a power other than his own. ”

“ The principle of inspiration is different, if indeed it be not opposite: the paths may come together for a moment, but they cross one another. And it is this delicate ideal of devotedness, of moral purification, of continual renouncement and self-sacrifice, breathing in the words and embodied in the person and life of Christ, which constitutes the entire novelty as well as the sublimity of Christianity taken at its source. ”

“ Take from the New Testament all passages upholding the idea that belief is necessary to salvation; that Christ was offered as an atonement for the sins of the world; that the punishment of the human soul will go on forever; that heaven is the reward of faith, and hell the penalty of honest investigation; take from it all miraculous stories,—and I admit that all the good passages are true. If they are true, it makes no difference whether they are Inspired or not. Inspiration is only necessary to give authority to that which is repugnant to human reason. ”

“ Another refuge from the oppression of the encyclical is in the elasticity of the word ‘inspiration.’ That the whole of Scripture is inspired is an article of faith; what inspiration is, has never been defined. ”

“ Inspiration implies that in the least particulars of the Word, as in the historical so in the other parts, there are celestial things which are of love or good, and spiritual things which are of faith or truth, and therefore things Divine. ”

“ God in Christ, operating in the person of the Holy Ghost, must be the principle of inward inspiration moment by moment, the crucifier of every wrong desire and purpose, the Author of every right and holy purpose, the Light and Life of the soul."—Upham. ”

“ Disowning faith in an infallible revelation, which, by restricting the inspiring grace of God to a certain period of antiquity and to a limited portion of the world, seems to lie but a few stages off the camp of cold Deism, the Theist finds in his God a living Deity and a loving Father who knocks at the door of every heart, lights the lamp of inspiration in every soul, seeks after and reclaims every wandering sinner. ”

“ Then only do we feel the power of the inspiration which could so subdue even stone that it shines spectrally possessed, and make the most insensate of materials voice forth the grand teaching of Christianity, the triumph of the spirit over the flesh. ”

“ A spiritual creation is, similarly, a combination of two preceding mental tendencies into a new synthesis. Every physical creation presupposes the eternal Creator, and every spiritual creation an inspiration, which is only a channel through which the immediate influences of the Creator are conveyed. Religion is the greatest and the highest of such inspirations. ”

“ From every point of view, therefore, it must be seen that in no other way than only from the prophets who teach us by divine inspiration, is it at all possible to learn anything concerning God and the true religion. ”

“ The 'logical' order of belief is often no doubt not the order of experience. The Bible can draw men to itself, and through itself to Christ, before they take any heed of the Church. But to feel the power of inspiration is a different thing from having reasoned grounds for calling certain books inspired. ”

“ I believe that historians have not yet reckoned sufficiently with the disastrous influence which this worship of insanity,—for it is often nothing less—has exercised on the fortunes of peoples and on the development or decay of their institutions.
The belief in inspiration leads to the worship of living men as gods. Outward experience as a source of the idea of God. ”

“ When they hear the voice of the Spirit of inspiration—the power of God, through any person, let the feelings and sensibilities of every one who professes to know anything of the things of God, be in a state to know and discern between that which is of God and that which is not. ”

“ It must be that the Bible appeals to something fundamental in life itself. The final test of inspiration must, of course, be found in what the Bible does for life. A book that is not inspiring cannot be proved to be inspired. ”

“ What he had learned of God’s unity and creative power and connection with man, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he imparts to his contemporaries through the vehicle of an account of creation they could all understand. It is not in his knowledge of physical facts that he is elevated above his contemporaries, but in his knowledge of God’s connection with all physical facts. No doubt, on the other hand, his knowledge of God reacts upon the entire contents of his mind and saves him from presenting such accounts of creation as have been common among polytheists. ”

“ Why then should we hesitate to believe that the similar investigation of the Old Testament will in its result similarly enrich our sense that 'God in divers portions and divers manners spake of old times unto the fathers,' and that the Inspiration of Holy Scriptures will always be recognised as the most conspicuous of the modes in which the Holy Spirit has mercifully wrought for the illumination and encouragement of our race? ”

“ In the days of fresh inspiration men surely did not fail to prize the blessed books whence had come their new life. But the sense of the divine life in their own spirits enabled them to judge of the inspiration of the Apostles at once reverently and rationally. ”

“ All these reasons go to prove that the inspiration came from God, since it is strengthened by good works and weakened by evil deeds. Sins and falls are of great assistance in teaching us the nature of divine inspirations, even while they trouble them, and seem to interrupt their course. ”

“ Now there are the Holy Spirit’s own operations, and there are reports about them. The only true reports are those that are made by inspired persons; and if there were no such persons, there could be no true reports of the matter. And therefore to consult uninspired persons, and such as deny, and reproach the pretence to inspiration, to be rightly instructed about the truth of immediate, continual divine inspiration, is a degree of blindness, greater than can be charged upon the old Jewish Scribes and Pharisees. ”