Avoiding Evil

Matt had a question in the comments on my previous posts about the Doctrine of Scripture that I will attempt to answer to the best of my ability, without further study on the subject.

“I just had a question about your posts. somebody has been asking questions of me on this that i may be a little fuzzy on. his question is on the authority of who wrote the bible. he keeps using the phrase “sacro sanct” word of God, meaning God basically dictated it to the writers like a boss would dictate a memo to a secretary. he also uses the example (and please don’t get sidetracked here) of homosexuality, saying “what if that was a writer in the old testament who just didn’t like homosexuals” and the third subject that keeps coming up is in the translation. what we have as the bible can’t be the “sacrosanct” word of God because of how many versions there are. NIV, KJ, NKJ, NAS, along with many others, his question is how can the bible be authoriative if there isn’t an exact translation.” - Matt

First of all, sacrosanct is a term used to describe something as being sacred or inviolable. To say “the sacrosanct Word of God” is to say that God’s word is sacred and not violated or corrupted in any way.

Dictation is one of many different things God used to bring about his sacrosanct Word, however, it was not the only way. To claim that dictation was the sole means of communication of God to the writer is incorrect… at least I think so. There are a few times that God directly dictates to people in the Bible. John seeing the vision of Christ and writing down exactly what he was told, “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write…” (Rev. 2:8). We also read that the Word of the Lord came to Isaiah telling him to “Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David you father…” (Isaiah 38:4) These are some examples of where God directly dictates what he wants said to the writers; however, this is not the only way God’s Word came about. Hebrews says that “Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways.” (Hebrews 1:1).

Luke wrote most of his gospel using historical research. He wrote from the message of eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word (Luke 1:1-3). According to Grudems research on the authority of Scripture, God communicated in a variety of ways including dreams, visions, hearing the voice of God, or standing in the council of the Lord. He also spoke through men who were with Jesus and observed his life, men whose memory of these words and deeds was made completely accurate by the Holy Spirit (John 14:26), and many other cases where God manages to bring about the result that the words of scripture were his words.

This certainly begs the question: how do we know that the human writers of the Word of God did not write with their own presuppositions to make Scripture say something that God never intended it to say? Wayne Grudem has an answer to this question:

”In the cases where the ordinary human personality and writing style of the author were prominently involved, as seems the case with the major part of Scripture, all that we are able to say is that God’s providential oversight and direction of the life of each author was such that their personalities, their backgrounds and training, their abilities to evaluate events in the world around them, their access to historical data, their judgment with regard to the accuracy of information, and their individual circumstances when they wrote, were all exactly what God wanted them to be, so that when they actually came to the point of putting pen to paper, the words were fully their own words but also fully the words that God wanted them to write, words that God would also claim as his own.” – Wayne Grudem

To sum that up, God in his sovereignty chose the right people to write the right words. While the Bible isn’t completely dictated by God, it is written under God’s sovereign control so much so that the only things written in it are the things that God wanted written, thus making them God’s own words, written by men who were inspired by God.

I do, however, agree that we are at the mercy of English translators when it comes to the text. If a Christian does not know the original languages then they have to ultimately rely on someone else to translate the message for them. Different people translate in different ways thus creating different translations. Can we call these translations the inerrant, inspired, sacrosanct Word of God? This is an area where I rely on the Sovereignty of God again. I have no reason not to believe that God is actively involved in the world today, and I also have no reason not to believe that God is actively involved in the reading and understanding of his Word, whether it be the original text or simply a translation. God, in his Sovereignty, brings revelation and enlightenment to believers through the Holy Spirit who is our mediator, teacher, and interpreter. It is through God’s Spirit alone that we can understand the truth in any Scripture. This is why all of the translations that we have are translated differently and yet proclaim the same message of Christ crucified and risen again. The important message of Scripture that changes the hearts and lives of people can be found in the reading of any of these translations through the direct leadership of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. In this way I would claim our English translations to be the sacrosanct Word of God, the ultimate standard of truth filled with the authority of God.

Hope that helps…