The Scriptures
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
In thinking about the Scriptures in a prior session of Theology 101, we took note of the conviction that the Bible is divine revelation. In doing so, we were thinking about the content that God has revealed about Himself in order that we may know and experience Him personally. The truth of divine revelation gives us assurance that what we read in the Bible is His self-disclosure — through historical acts the messages from Him given through holy prophets, and supremely and finally His central self-disclosure in the person, work and words of Christ.
Then we turned to thinking about inspiration as related to the Bible. In so doing we were thinking about the method God chose by which to communicate knowledge of Himself to people of faith. Thus, we read about the work of the Holy Spirit in enabling men to receive God’s self-revelation, then faithfully and accurately expressing it in human language that others might receive, understand and experience God for themselves.
Last week we considered our need for divine instruction for life such that comes from God’s word. This instruction is like solid food that enables us to grow strong in faith and Christlike in outlook, attitude and actions.
This week we think further about our lives in relation to the Scripture by giving thought to God’s provision to help us understand and receive His revelation in the Scriptures. The term by which believers speak of this divine help is illumination. While we sometimes interchange the terms inspiration and illumination, we probably do well to reserve inspiration to speak of the method by which the Bible came to be and use illumination to speak of the means by which God helps us receive that which He has revealed.
We might say further that illumination is related to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in making clear the truth of God’s written revelation. This immediately tells us that one who has not been regenerated by the Spirit remains blinded to God’s truth. The Bible’s warning is that “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). One of the promises Jesus gave His followers states, “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13a).
Walking in the Spirit
While the illumination of the Holy Spirit cannot function in unbelievers, it also can be short-circuited in believers who are walking according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit is prerequisite to experiencing His illuminating work in helping us understand and experience what God has revealed to us in the Spirit-inspired Scriptures.
Because the Bible is inspired, we can trust it. Because it is divine revelation, we should treasure it. Because it is a treasure house of instruction for a life that knows and pleases God, we should crave it. Because the Spirit works to illumine our minds, the Bible is to be a book we seek to understand. The twin facts of inspiration and illumination mean when the Bible speaks, God is speaking. The words of the inspired writers became the very words of God. Jesus declared that those who had seen Him had seen the Father. In a similar way, we might say that those who read the Bible under the Spirit’s illumination have heard the voice of God.
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