Our God-Breathed Bible

Inspiration is God's revelation communicated to us through writers who use their own minds and their own words, and yet the words that they chose out of their own minds were the very words that God determined from eternity past they would use to write His truth. You say, that's a miracle.

That's right. That's a miracle. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. How can you be sure that the scientific, historical and geographic details in the Bible are accurate? Did every word in the Bible come directly from God, or did He inspire only the ideas and let men choose the words?

And does it matter if you even know for certain? John MacArthur has answers today as he continues his compelling study titled, Is the Bible Reliable? Find out why it's vital to have an accurate understanding of the divine inspiration of Scripture.

And here's John now to help you do just that. Let me take you to two passages and show you what inspiration really is. 2 Timothy 3.16. It says, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, the Authorized. Really it could be translated, All Scripture is God-breathed, all scripassa graphae theopenustas, three words, all Scripture God-breathed, all Scripture is the breath of God, all writing.

Let's take these three words and see what they mean. Theopenustas from theos and penu is a root that has to do with breath, from which we get pneumatic tires or pneumonia, any of those terms, the same. So it's God-breathed. Now what do we mean when we say the Bible is God-breathed? All Scripture is God-breathed.

You ought to write that in the margin so you don't get mixed up on inspiration. God-breathed. You know God does everything by His breath? It means what comes out of His mouth, His Word. We are studying now when we look at the Bible, what kind of revelation is this?

Special, right? What other kind of revelation is there? Natural revelation.

Do you know that natural revelation was also authored in the same way? The whole creation was accomplished by the breath of God's mouth. Psalm 33, 6, By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made and all the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth. God breathed into existence the universe. Then God breathed into existence the Bible.

Special revelation following natural revelation. Whatever the Scripture says, God said. In fact, you know, Paul amazingly feels free to personify the Scripture as if it was God speaking, Galatians 3.8. And the Scripture says, in thee shall all nations be blessed.

The Scripture says, interesting, he personifies the Scripture as God speaking. You know, back in Exodus, God said unto Pharaoh, even for this purpose have I raised thee up. Did you know God said that to Pharaoh? Listen to what Paul said in Romans 9, 17. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh...how about that?

Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up. Whatever the Scripture saith is the same as God said. In Exodus it says God said, here it says the Scripture says. When the Scripture speaks, God speaks.

Beloved, in every sense you pick up that word and you read it, that's God's voice. God is the author of what Scripture records. God is the author of what Scripture says. Do you realize in Romans 3, 2 that the totality of Scripture is summed up in this phrase, the oracles of whom?

God. Scripture is the oracles of God. Beloved, the Bible is the Word of God.

Jeremiah wrote, the Word of Jehovah came unto me saying, before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee. I sanctified thee, I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations. Listen, whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak. Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. Jeremiah 1, 4 to 9.

Listen to Jeremiah 5, 14. I will make my words in thy mouth fire and the people wood and it shall devour them. And then Jeremiah responded to God in chapter 15 and said, Thy words were found and I did eat them. Thy words, not thoughts, words. Then he was given the promise of the Lord, if you take forth the precious from the vial, thou shalt be as my mouth, said God.

Jeremiah, you're my mouth. Yes, these are the words of God. Ezekiel, all my words shall I speak unto thee, receive in thy heart and hear with thine ears and go and speak unto them. God said, I'll give you the words and you tell them.

Paul was told by Ananias, remember back in Acts chapter 22, it tells us about his encounter with Ananias and his conversion. And it said in Acts 22, 14, the God of our fathers hath appointed thee to know His will, to see the Righteous One, to hear a voice from His mouth for thou shalt be a witness for Him unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. John wrote in Revelation 1, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard a great voice crying, What thou seest, write in a book and send it to the seven churches. Write there for the things which thou sawest, the things which are, the things which shall come to pass. And so it is that the Bible writers, whether Old Testament or New Testament, were commissioned to write the revelation of God in God's own words. According to an interesting passage in Acts 24, 14, we read this as Paul defends himself before Felix.

This I confess unto thee that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I, the God of my fathers. Listen, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets. You want to know what Paul's view of Scripture was? Every bit of it was to be believed. Do you think he doubted its integrity? I can't understand how these modern day people and liberals can come along and deny Scripture when somebody like the Apostle Paul says, I believe every bit of it written in the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament, Scripture is God-breathed. That's the first point. The second point in 2 Timothy 3, 16, interestingly is, how much Scripture is God-breathed?

How much? All. And that can be passed out, can be translated every, all or every. Now some of you say, what do you mean all Scripture is inspired? Why, that is in 2 Timothy 3, so that only refers to the Old Testament. That's a big argument to use. It can't refer to the New Testament because the New Testament isn't finished yet, it hasn't been brought together yet.

So Paul is simply referring to the Old Testament and they leave us hanging with the New Testament and they can shoot the New Testament down. All right, let me make a statement to you. All ducks waddle. We know that's a fact. All ducks waddle. Okay, what are you trying to prove? Does that mean that all the past ducks waddle only?

No. Present ducks waddle too. What about future ducks? Future ducks will also waddle.

In other words, whatever period ducks live, they waddle. The point is this, to say all Scripture is God-breathed doesn't just mean all past Scripture, it means all Scripture, whether it has been written, is being written, or will be written. So 2 Timothy 3 16, I believe, can have reference to the entire Scripture, written, being written, yet to be written. All Scripture is God-breathed includes all of the group of writings classed as Scripture.

All of them are God-breathed. The Scripture was understood by Paul to be an aggregate and he knew he was adding to it and he knew there would be others who would add to it. And he is making the statement that applies to the books being written as well as the books that would be written, all Scripture.

You know what Jesus said? John 10 35, listen, Scripture cannot be...what?...broken. Jesus said all Scripture is authentic, none of it can be violated, all of it. And Jesus meant all that was written, all that was being written, all that would be written that fit into the classification of holy writings of God couldn't be broken, all.

Now what is Scripture? That's the other word, grafe, from which you get graphite, which goes into pencil so you can write. Grafe is just writing, all writing. You mean all writing is God-breathed?

That's kind of shaky. Well, what writing are you talking about? Go back to verse 15, it tells you. And that from a child thou hast known the...what kind of writing?...holy Scriptures. All holy writing is God-breathed. The apostle says, notice now, nothing about the writers. He doesn't say all the writers are God-breathed.

No, no, no. He says all the writings. It is not the writer that's inspired. When you say Paul was inspired, that is technically not right.

Paul was not inspired. Romans was inspired. And Corinthians and Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, they were inspired, not Paul. The Bible doesn't talk about inspired men.

Do you know that? The Bible doesn't say Isaiah was inspired, Paul was inspired, David was inspired, John was inspired. No, not the men, the message. That's why a man could write an inspired message and never write another one in his whole life, because it was the message that was inspired, not the man. The only writing that's inspired of God is the holy writing. That's verse 15. Mark that down, the holy Scripture. All of that holy Scripture has been breathed out by God. And beloved, the holy Scripture can't be broken. Boy, when you start talking to some of these people who want to take this verse out and that verse out and the other verse out, and they're the ones who decide what stays and what goes.

You know what their usual principle is? They have this thing called the Spirit of Jesus. This is the big liberal jag, the Spirit of Jesus. Whatever fits the Spirit of Jesus, you accept. Whatever doesn't, you reject. So you read along a passage that says God wipes out the Canaanites.

Oh no, no. Why that doesn't fit the Spirit of Jesus who is loving and gentle. We'll just throw that out. Or they come to the New Testament and don't like the cleansing of the temple.

Oh, that's not there. That's not in the Scripture. We'll can that because that isn't the Spirit of Jesus. They've already determined what the Spirit of Jesus is.

It's sort of a Casper milk toaster goes around just lovey-dovey all the time, and that's it. It has no sense of judgment or justice or anything else. Just whoever they want them to be, they make them and throw everything else that doesn't conform. Listen to what Jesus said, verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Listen to what the next verse says, but wherefore whosoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. God doesn't want anybody tampering with His Word. Not any Scripture can be broken because all Scripture is given inspired of God. Luke 16, I think it is, verse 17, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fall.

One little infinitesimal dot, easier for the entire universe to fold up than for that to happen. Boy, I'm telling you, God's Word is eternal. Let's go to one other passage, 2 Peter 1 verses 20 and 21. 2 Peter 1, 20, knowing this first, get this straight right off the bat. No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.

What it means there is origin, no private origin. For the prophecy came not at any time by the will of some man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. No Scripture is of private origination. No Scripture came out of a man's mind.

That's what it says. Now the key word here I think is important is that it doesn't come from a private origin because all the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were born along by the Holy Spirit. They were carried along by the Spirit. Not their words, God's words.

Not their origin, God's origin. Now notice this little thought, for the prophecy came not. You say, well this is only talking about prophecy. What does prophecy refer to? Listen, prophecy isn't just prediction. We say the word prophecy and immediately everybody thinks about the Second Coming. The word prophecy is much broader than that. Did you know that Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are prophecies?

You say, you're kidding. No, Moses was a prophet and when a prophet spoke he prophesied. You say, where's the prediction?

There isn't any prediction. There are some like the prediction of the Messiah, but basically prophecy was any speaking forth to tell forth. It didn't have to be predictive, that's only one kind of prophecy. What he's saying here is a prophecy is a communication from God and all communication from God came not by the will of man but men were used but born along by the Holy Spirit. That's how inspiration worked. Notice, no prophecy had a human origin, verse 20, none. Every bit of it came from God. And verse 21 really explains verse 20.

Prophecy was never at any time brought by the will of men, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit to speak His words. What then is inspiration? Inspiration is God's revelation communicated to us through writers who used their own minds and their own words and yet God had so arranged their lives and their thoughts and their vocabularies that the words that they chose out of their own minds were the very words that God determined from eternity past they would use to write His truth. You say, that's a miracle. That's right.

That's a miracle. And we believe, if you want a title in what is called plenary verbal inspiration, all Scripture is inspired and every word in it is inspired. Plenary means all of it. Verbal means every word of it. We believe the Bible is the breath of God. What are the conclusions to such a definition? What does this mean to us? If we say that the Bible is inspired by God in this sense, what does that mean? All right, let me give them to you.

Ready? One, it's infallible. If God wrote it, it's infallible.

That means it is absolutely authoritative. It is infallible. You remember Psalm 19.7? Listen, the law of the Lord is...what?...perfect...perfect. It is authored by God who cannot lie. This is God's Word. You say, John, are there any mistakes? In the original autographs, in the original manuscripts, absolute inerrancy, no mistakes as it's come down through the generations of men, scribes have made little changes here and there, but basically as it stands today, there are so few scribal errors and omissions and additions that most of them are obvious and known to us and the totality of the Word of God that we can still stand and say this is as it stands in its original languages the words of God Himself. Do you believe that God could inspire the Bible at the beginning? You believe that? Do you believe if He could inspire it at the beginning, He could keep it the way He wanted it?

Would that be a big problem? He created the universe by the word of His mouth. He upholds it by the word of His power. Could He not create the special revelation and uphold it?

We believe He has. The Bible then, first of all, is inerrant and infallible. Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6, listen to this, every word of God is pure. Now listen to this, add thou not unto His words lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar. When anybody comes along and wants to add a new revelation or a new inspiration, let them fall into the category of Revelation 22, 18 and Proverbs 30, 5 and 6. The law of the Lord is perfect. Every word of God is pure. Beloved, if I'm going to let biblical writers err anywhere, then I'm going to have a lot of trouble believing them anywhere else.

What else? Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is also complete. It is complete. Did you know this is all you need? You don't need a vision. You don't need a new revelation. You don't need some great act of God. You don't need voices from heaven.

The canon is closed. The word of God is finished. You know, when you look at the history of the church throughout the centuries, nothing has been added to the Bible. The only thing that comes close to that is the Catholic Church having slapped in the middle of the Apocrypha, which is a pile of books written in the 400 years between the Old and the New Testament.

And it's erroneous. It's obviously not inspired of God. It has too many problems, too many prayers, too many contradictions, propagates of salvation by works, etc. But apart from that throughout the history of the church, nobody has added. It is so obvious that God has written these books.

There is such a tremendous gulf. You stack on one side of your table all the greatest books ever written by men and the Bible on the other side and there's a gulf so vast it could never be compared. These books, our New Testament, demanded for their authenticity, authorship by an apostle or someone close to an apostle and, beloved, there aren't any more apostles around, believe me. Ephesians 2.20 says the apostles were the foundation of the church. This is the 20th century.

You don't put the foundation on the 20th story. No more inspired writings. No more inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now we are enjoying illumination from the Holy Spirit. That's when the Holy Spirit all of a sudden puts the searchlight on the verse and it comes flying off the page. You know that? And the meaning comes clear.

That's illumination. So the Word of God is infallible, inerrant, complete. Then it is authoritative...authoritative. Boy, when it speaks, you better respond. Listen to Isaiah 1, 2.

Boy, I love this. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. Why? For the Lord has spoken.

That really says it. This is God's voice. You better listen. Let me add another thing. Because the Word of God is the breath of God, it is also sufficient. You don't need anything else.

It's sufficient. You say, what do you mean by that? Listen. Remember our verse, 2 Timothy?

Listen to this. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be...what?...perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Is anything missing? What do you want beyond perfection?

What do you want beyond thoroughly furnished unto all good works? When somebody comes along and says, Oh, you need this and you need that. Oh my, have you had this?

Have you had that? I don't need that. I don't need that.

All I need is this. Spirit of God through the Word of God is sufficiency. Oh, the Bible is sufficient for every man, for every need.

Listen. For whatever things Romans 15, 4 says were written in earlier times, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Paul says all we need is the Scripture. That's sufficient.

We don't need anything else. Revelation 1, 3 says this, Blessed is he that reads and hears the words of this prophecy and keeps the things that are written therein. James put it this way. He said, Whosoever looks into the perfect law of liberty continues in it, being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed. Earlier be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

To be doers of the Word is to be blessed. It is sufficient. There's nothing more needed. The Word of God is all. It is infallible. It is inerrant. It is complete. It is authoritative.

It is sufficient. Lastly, it is effective. Remember this verse? Well the Word of God is alive and...what?...powerful. Hebrews 4.12, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It is alive, powerful.

Do you know that? How many of you can say, Amen, the Word of God is alive and powerful? I'll tell you, it is in my life. It tears me up, doesn't it, you? I mean, one of the reasons I know God wrote it is it tells me things about me only He and I know.

And I don't know Him usually until He tells me and then I recognize it. Isaiah 55, 11, So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void but it will accomplish that which I please. Boy, it's powerful. This book is powerful. It is able to make one wise to salvation.

It is able to make one perfect. Listen to what Paul said to the Thessalonians, our gospel came not unto you in word only but in power and in the Holy Spirit. Powerful book. You take the Word of God and the Spirit of God and you've got dynamite, friend, dynamite. Beloved, we're to stand faithfully and carefully on this inspired Word of God. The sad thing is that there's a world of people who don't and Jesus classified them with these words. He that is of God hears God's words.

Did you know that? He that is of God hears God's words. Ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God. You want to know how you tell a saved person from an unsaved one? One listens to the Word of God and one doesn't. Beloved, let's listen. This is God's Word to us.

You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today's lesson is part of his current study titled, Is the Bible Reliable? And what we're seeing in this series about what the Bible says about itself.

Some people might dismiss that as circular reasoning that carries little weight, but there really is something compelling about the Bible's own evidence to its veracity. For example, I grew up in a liberal church that never taught on prophetic passages like Isaiah 53 that foretold Christ's crucifixion hundreds of years before it happened. But the first time I saw Isaiah 53 as a new believer, that erased every doubt I had ever had about whether the Bible was true or not. That doesn't surprise me because a powerful, powerful apologetic for biblical inspiration is fulfilled prophecy.

And by that, I'm not talking about end time prophecy. I'm talking about the things that were prophesied concerning Christ that came true in his life, like he was born in Bethlehem, like he was born of a virgin. The details of Isaiah 53, of course, details of his life, the fact that he was rejected, that he was looked upon as nothing more than a sucker branch to be cut off, to preserve a tree or a root growing out of the ground that could trip somebody up.

There was no attractiveness in him. It just chronicles the whole story of Jesus. And then Isaiah 53 talks about his death and the reality of his death, that it was a vicarious death.

He was wounded for our transgressions and so forth and so on. And that same chapter talks about his resurrection. But so do the Psalms talk about his resurrection. So yeah, I think if you're going to pick one category of evidence for biblical truthfulness, it would, in my mind, be the fact that the Old Testament predicts things that came true specifically concerning Jesus Christ. That and a whole lot of other wonderful validating truths of Scripture are contained in the study notes of the MacArthur Study Bible, about 25,000 footnotes on every page of the Bible. And as I have been saying, the MacArthur Study Bible is now going to be available in the Legacy Standard Bible translation, soon to be offered free by grace to you. And I'm so thankful that the new edition of the MacArthur Study Bible features the Legacy Standard Bible text, because I think it's the best yet. And here's an inside scoop for you. My monthly letter in October will include an offer for a free hardbound copy of the brand new Legacy Standard version of the MacArthur Study Bible.

That's right, a free copy. For those who get the letter, the pre-production process for this October mailing is well underway. So we need to finalize the mailing list in the next couple of days. If you currently don't receive my monthly letter, let me encourage you to contact us by no later than tomorrow.

That's tomorrow, Friday, September 13. And ask to receive the October letter with the offer for the MacArthur Study Bible in the Legacy Standard Version. Yes, friend, get in touch with us quickly so that you can get on our mailing list in time to receive this important free offer.

Once again, tomorrow is the deadline, so contact us today. You can call us at 800-55-GRACE or contact us by email when you write to letters at gty.org. Or you can go to our website, gty.org.

Don't miss out on this free offer. Ask to receive John's October letter when you call us at 800-55-GRACE or send us an email to letters at gty.org. And remember, at the website gty.org you'll find thousands of free resources that will help you deepen your study of God's word and enrich your worship, and that includes more than 3,600 of John's sermons, daily devotionals from John, there's the Grace to You blog, and at the blog, look for the series called Preach the Word. It's a helpful supplement to John's current radio study. And remember, you can catch up on any episodes of this broadcast that you may have missed, including the first eight Days of John series, Is the Bible Reliable?

All of those resources and much more are free of charge at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Join us again tomorrow as John shows how to stand against the Bible's critics and defend its truthfulness. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.