INSPIRATION AND REVELATION

 

Dr. W. A. Criswell

 

11-11-87

 

1 Corinthians 7:12

 

This is a most interesting and elucidating and enlightening study.  And, I pray it will be thus to you, both the throngs in the sanctuary here in our First Baptist Church and to you who listen on radio.

The subject is Inspiration and Revelation.  And, it has to do with the Word of God, the Bible, that communicates and reveals to us the presence and the mind of our Lord.

Looking in the seventh chapter of the 1 Corinthian letter, Paul is writing there concerning marriage and the unmarried.  And, in verse 6, he says: “But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.”  In verse 12, he writes:

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. 

And so on.

“And to the rest speak I, not the Lord.”  And, in verse 25:

Concerning virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give my judgment, as one who have obtained mercy from the Lord to be faithful.

And the last verse in that chapter, Verse 40: “But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment; and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.”

These are just passages out of that one chapter.  And, it makes—Paul makes—a terrific distinction between the Word of the Lord, what the Lord says, and what he, personally, in his judgment, avows.  So, that leads us to the how of the writing of Scripture. 

Paul never knew that his writings would become the inerrant Word of God.  The letters he writes are like letters that you would write.  These are personally addressed to these to whom the epistles were sent.  For example, in the sixteenth chapter, the last chapter of the Book of Romans, he sends greetings there to his friends, as would any writer of a personal letter. 

In 2 Timothy 4 and 13, he writes of personal things.  I quote: “The cloak that I left at Troas, with Carpus, when thou comest, Timothy, to visit me, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments,” the scrolls of the Bible.

Was it, as the Word of God, that he made these requests?  Not at all.  What he wrote is without error, but is not a revelation from God.  There is no revelation from God in the request that he brings the cloak that he left at Carpus.  There is no particular revelation from God that he sends greetings to his friends in Rome.

He writes in the light of the soon coming of Christ.  I don’t think there is any doubt at all that Paul believed, in the course of his ministry, that Jesus was coming again.  He had no idea that the world would last thus so long.  For example, in 1 Corinthians 7:29 and 30, in this chapter, he writes:

But this I say, brethren, the time is short; it remaineth, that both they who have wives be as though they had none;  

And they that weep, as though they weep not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoice not; and they that buy, as though they possess not.

Paul believed, I think, that without any doubt, that Jesus was coming in his lifetime. 

Now, looking at the holy Scriptures, at this sacred Bible.  The holy Scriptures are of God and of man, both.  They are like Christ himself.  Christ is not partly God and partly man.  Christ is not only God and only man.  Christ was wholly God and wholly man. 

So with the Bible.  It is not written only by God.  It is not written only by man.  But, it is written wholly by God and wholly written by man. 

First, God—2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God”—theopneustos.  It is “God-breathed.”  There is no doubt that the Holy Scriptures are inspired.  They are a revelation of the mind of God.

You see that in fulfilled prophecies.  In the Bible are things that are declared hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before they came to pass.  I have often said, facetiously, that I can tell you how to become a billionaire, if you can see what is going to happen five seconds ahead of you.  Buy a stock on the New York Exchange before it goes up and sell it before it goes down.  And, you will be a billionaire in no time at all, if you knew what was going to happen five seconds ahead of time.

But, the Bible will reveal things that are going to come to pass hundreds and hundreds of years in the future.  It has a sublime harmony.  It was written over a period of something like 1,500 years, by about 42 different authors.  And, yet, all of it is one harmonious whole. 

It has power to regenerate and transform.  It is an authority that speaks innately, in itself.  It never defends itself as the Word of God.  It just is.

I have often wondered why, in the Bible, there is no presentation of the reality of God.  There is only one sentence in the Bible concerning the revelation, the presence, the reality of God.  And, that is this.  The fourteenth Psalm, in the first verse, it says: “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.”  And that’s all.  There is nothing in the whole Word of God defending the reality of the presence of the great Jehovah, Lord. 

This is the Bible: written by God, but it is also written by man.  Matthew writes as Matthew, himself, writes.  And, he is writing for the Jew.  Mark is a man of action and he is writing for the Roman.  Luke is the beloved physician and he is writing for humanity.  John is a mystic, writing for the contemplative and the meditative.  They are men, and they write according to how they respond to the wonderful message of God.  Written wholly by God and wholly by man, as our Lord Himself is wholly God and wholly man: a miracle from heaven. 

Now, this leads to a word concerning the difference concerning revelation and inspiration.  Revelation is something God discloses.  Paul, for example, received his special gospel message from Christ himself, by revelation. 

I do not exaggerate it when I say that the gospel that Paul writes is a fifth gospel.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul.  He received it as a direct revelation from Christ himself.  Galatians 1, verses 11 and 12:

But I certify you, brethren—I avow to you, my brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 

For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ.

And, he goes on to avow—in that same first chapter to the churches of Galatia, verse 15:

When it pleased God, when He separated me from my mother’s womb, and called my by His grace,

To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach it among the nations;

immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood;

Neither I went up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and I returned again unto Damascus. 

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

But other apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.  Now, the things which I write unto you, before God, I lie not.

He says: “I did not receive this message from man.  The apostles did not make it known to me.  It was made known to me by revelation from Christ himself, in those three years that he spent alone with the Lord in Arabia.”

That’s why, so many times, when we have the Lord’s Supper here, in beginning that passage in 1 Corinthians 11 and 23, Paul says: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord—the Lord—when He was betrayed He took bread.”  All of that. 

Paul says: “That which I have received, I received of the Lord.”  It was given to him by direct revelation of Christ Himself. 

Now, you see that throughout Paul’s writings.  For example, in Ephesians 3, verses 2 and 3, Paul—and, I quote: “The dispensation of the grace of God, given me”—how?—“that by revelation God made known to me the mystery that which is known by the Spirit.”  And, of course, what he is speaking of is the wonderful rapture of the church and the Lord’s coming again.  By the revelation of God, it was made known to him. 

And, in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 15, speaking of the revelation of the rapture: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord.”  The Lord said it.  The Lord revealed it unto me and I am making it known unto you. 

And, of course, we know, as a background, the marvelous Revelation of the Lord resurrected, glorified, to the sainted Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos, and the commandment to write the things that followed after.  Now, that is revelation. 

I now speak of inspiration—inspiration.  This is not a part of the revelation of Christ.   So, in these passages I read out of 1 Corinthians 7, and the twenty-fifth verse: “I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my judgment.”

All Paul wrote, he wrote by inspiration—all of it without error, infallible.  He avows that in 2 Timothy 3: 16.  2 Peter 1:21 avows: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”  They speak, not by revelation, but by inspiration.  The Holy Spirit of God is keeping them from error in their writings and in their judgment. 

Now, Simon Peter, writing in the Second Epistle, chapter 3, verses 15 and 16, writes about Paul’s letters:

Account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also proclaimed, according to the wisdom given unto him;

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to be understood… 

And, brother that is an understatement.  Some of the things Paul writes about are, ah—you have to study them forever. 

… which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they also do the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

But you, beloved—you be faithful and steadfast.

That’s a remarkable tribute to what Paul has written in his epistles: Simon Peter calls them Scripture.  They are by inspiration.  That means they are without error.  They are the avowals of the Spirit of God in his own mind and heart, as he strove to reveal the Spirit of Christ.  But, he makes a difference between what is revealed to him from the Lord and what is his own judgment under God. 

Now, I hold in my hand here an English Bible.  This is the King James Version of the Bible.  It is the Bible that I preach out of, have all my life, and will, as long as I live. 

But, the Scriptures were not written in English.  In the Old Testament, they were written in Hebrew, and about half of Daniel is written in Aramaic.  And, of course, the New Testament is written in Greek. 

Now, the original manuscripts of the Bible have been lost, right from the beginning.  They are not preserved.  Why didn’t God preserve those original manuscripts?  Why do we not have, somewhere, the Gospel of Matthew, written by Matthew, in his own hand?  Or, why do we not have 1 Corinthians, written by the hand of Paul? 

Why do we not?  I have a human judgment concerning that.  Let me read to you out of 2 Kings 18, verse 4:

King Hezekiah removed the high places and brake the images and cut the groves, and brake in the pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for the children of Israel did worship it and burn incense to it. 

If we had the gospel of Matthew, written by Matthew, or the book of Romans, written by Paul, I would think the same thing that happened to this brazen serpent, raised on a pole by Moses in the midst of the camp, and was worshiped by Israel for 700 years.  I would say the same things would come to pass, if we had those autographs. 

Let me give you another instance of that in the Bible.  In 1 Kings 18 and verse 8, When Elijah is on top of Mount Carmel, praying to God for an affirmation of his ministry, then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.  God burned it all.  Could you imagine, had that altar of Elijah remained, what they had done in worshiping the brazen serpent of Moses, they would have done worshiping the altar of Elijah. 

So, the worship of the scrolls, instead of the message that those scrolls would bring to our hearts.  God destroyed them.  God did not preserve them. They are in our hands in the words of translation and in the keeping of the scribes. 

Now, in a translation—and, this is the English translation of those sacred scrolls written by the prophets and the apostles.   Always, in a translation, there is an approximately equal meaning, word for word, it is approximate because many words in a language find no equivalent meaning in the words of another language.  There is no such thing as this language and this language being equivalent word for word.  There is just no such thing.  Versions are an attempt to translate this language into this language.

Now, the King James Version of 1611, of which I hold in my hand: It is an attempt to translate the Hebrew word in the Old Testament and the Greek word in the New Testament.  In 1611, 47 scholars were appointed by King James, the King of England.  And, they met in six groups in three universities: In Oxford, in Cambridge and in Westminster.  And, each group was entrusted with a part of those ancient manuscripts.  And, then, they compared and compiled a whole.     They created an incomparable work.  There is nothing like it in the earth, for some reasons.  One: they lived in the day of Shakespearean language.

It is the most beautiful, it is the most expressive, it is the most meaningful that mankind has ever devised.  Shakespearean English is incomparable. 

Now, good Dr. Merrill: Here is another human judgment.  I think the King James Version of the Bible is more beautiful then practically all of the Hebrew and the Greek.  There are some exceptions to that.  But, I am just avowing to you that there is nothing in human speech as beautiful as Shakespearean English.  And, this was translated when Shakespearean English was at its very zenith.

And, a second thing about this translation: It was translated when the Reformation was bringing to the human heart sola scriptura, not the edicts of Rome, but the Word of God—the authority of the Word of God.  And, those men and those Christian leaders back there in 1611 were given, beyond any way that we could know, because they were in the heart of the great Reformation—they were exalting and magnifying the authority of the Word of God. 

All right.  Another observation: The character and the nobility of the translation was beyond anything that the world has ever known.  The men who translated it, in their address to the king after their work was done, express their sublime dedication. 

Most of you have never taken time to read this address to King James on the part of those translators.  Get you a Bible, the King James Version of the Bible, and read it.  It is amazing: the devotion and the consecration of those men as they gave themselves to this King James translation of the Word of the Lord.

Let me give you an example that I ran into about a day ago.  There was a Hollander that wanted to learn English.  He was an infidel.  He was an unbeliever.  So, in order to learn English, he got a parallel Bible.  Here was English—the King James Version.  And, here was the same version expressed in Dutch.

And, he was marvelously converted.  He became a glorious Christian, learning English by the Dutch translation of the King James Version of the Bible. 

Do you know what I think of the King James Version of the Bible?  An enemy accosted one of Julius Caesar’s guards and laughed at his short sword, whereupon the guard thrust him through with it.  That would be a pretty good avowal of the strength and power of that sword that the enemy laughed at.

The Word of God is like that.  It has a thrust in it.  It has an authority in it.  There is nothing like it in human speech. 

Now, I want to make another avowal; and that is this: God did something when the Lord allowed the autographs of the Bible to be destroyed—and, we do not have them—God did something that was wonderful.  The original manuscripts are lost, that is true.  But, we can be assured that we possess what those men wrote, what those original manuscripts avow. 

We know that through the multiplicity of the copies.  If a scribe makes an error, you know, copying the Bible, copying the Bible, hundreds and hundreds of years before typing, you know, typesetting, printing, the scribe wrote them.  If the scribe made an error, it is easily seen by comparing the copies.  Here’s a copy. Here’s a copy.  Here’s a copy.  And, you can easily see where the scribe made an error by comparing those multitudinous copies. 

God did something remarkable here—unbelievable here.  Now, you listen to this.  There is one manuscript of the annals of Tacitus.  There is one manuscript of the Greek anthology.  There are very few, and those of a very late date, of Sophocles, Thucydides, Euripides, Virgil, and Cicero.

But, there are thousands of early manuscripts of the Holy Scripture.

There are 4,105 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.  There are between 15,000 and 30,000 ancient Latin versions of the Holy Bible.  And, there are more then 1,000 other versions of the Holy Word. 

With complete assurance, you can open your Bible and read the infallible Word of God.  All you need to do is to compare those thousands and thousands and thousands of manuscripts to know what that original manuscript said.  God did that so that we could read the Holy Bible with wonderful and marvelous assurance. 

Well, did you like that?  Sweet people, I would rather study things like this than to eat.  I just love to learn and study things about God and God’s Word and God’s will for us.  It is fascinating to me.  These are things I don’t preach on Sunday.  I prepare a textual or an expository sermon on Sunday.  But, in my study, I come across a thousand interesting things.  And, I wouldn’t take time to preach them on Sunday.  But, they are fascinating to me, like this study, and so meaningful to my heart.  And, I just love to prepare and to bring them on Wednesday night.  And, when you get bored with them, you just come to me and say, “Pastor, now, enough is enough.  Let’s do something else.”

The Lord be good to us all, as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our wonderful Savior.  Now, we are going to sing us a song.