By Gary Ray Branscome
All
of the passages that tell us that the Lord (or the Holy Spirit) spoke by the
prophets reveal the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Holy writers. The
words, “All this took place, to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the
prophet,” and the words, “Fulfilling what was spoken of the Lord by the
prophet,” tell us that the Lord was doing the talking even though the words
came through the prophet (Matthew 1:22 and 2:15). The words, “Lord… You said
through the mouth of your servant David,” and the words, “The Holy Ghost
long ago spoke by the mouth of David,” tell us that what was spoken was the
Word of God even though it came through David (Acts 4:24-25). And, the words, “As
the Holy Ghost says, Today if you hear Him speak, do not harden your hearts,
as in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert,” tell us
that the words of the Psalm being quoted are the words of the Holy Spirit
(Hebrews 3:7-8 and Psalm 95:8).
History
may very well remember our age as an age of skepticism, an age when many were
so infatuated with their own thoughts that without ever speaking one word
through divine inspiration they denied its supernatural aspects, limited (in
their minds) God’s ability to control what was said, and described inspiration
in terms of their own experience. To all who are guilty of that charge God
says, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken” (Luke 24:25). “Hasn’t God made the wisdom of this world foolish?”
(1Corinthians 1:20) Hasn’t God “Scattered the proud in the imagination of
their hearts”? (Luke 1:51) If you encounter such skeptics, do not be deceived, on the contrary, “Let God be true,
but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). For it is written, “If they do not
speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them”
(Isaiah 8:20).
“It is fundamentally vital that we realize that this Bible is Christ’s
Word, God’s Word, a divine Book; that, unlike the many volumes published in the
United States last year, here is a book that came into existence not ‘by the
will of man,’ but, as the apostle tells us, by the immeasurable and unending
love of God to give His weak and inconsistent children a positive and unfailing
guide through the perplexities of the here into the hereafter. — Externally, of
course, the Bible has much the same appearance as any other volume of its size
and proportions. But because it is God-breathed; because, as we are expressly
assured, ‘all Scripture is given by inspiration’; because the men who wrote the
various books of the Bible; spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,’ we
believe that the Bible, as 2,600 different passages of the Old Testament and
526 different references in the New individually claim, presents to us the Word
of God, written by men who were chosen and supernaturally endowed by God for
that purpose and who, through the divine process of inspiration, were given the
exact, literal messages they have recorded for us.” (Dr. Walter A.
Maier, from the sermon, “Christ’s
Estimate Of The Scriptures,” 1930.)