Adapted from “The Holy Scriptures: God’s Word, Written in Human Words,” an updated version of Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, trans. Henry Zylstra (Eerdmans, 1956), chapter 7.
If the Bible is God’s Word, spoken by his Spirit, where does that leave the people who actually wrote it? Were Moses, Isaiah, Luke and Paul simply taking dictation? Did the Spirit switch off their minds and use their hands like a pen?
It’s easy to see why some people think so. Scripture tells us plainly that God, by his Spirit, is the real speaker of his Word, and that he used the prophets and apostles as his agents to give it expression. But we would be misunderstanding Scripture entirely if we drew the conclusion that those prophets and apostles were mere passive agents, inactive in mind and will, serving the Holy Spirit as a sort of speaking-tube. Or, to put it in today’s terms, as a microphone.
God Honours His Own Work
Why can’t that be right? For two reasons.
First, God always honours his own work. He never deals with his rational creatures as though they were not rational. He made human beings with minds and wills, and he doesn’t bypass those minds and wills when he uses people for his purposes.
Second, Holy Scripture itself plainly contradicts any mechanical idea of inspiration. Yes, the prophets were moved, or driven, by the Holy Spirit. But notice how Peter puts it: they themselves also spoke (2 Peter 1:21). The Spirit moved them, and they spoke.
So we don’t have to choose between God’s activity and theirs. Both are true at the same time. The Holy Spirit was really at work, and the writers were really at work, minds engaged and wills involved.
That’s why the words they put in writing are again and again referred to as their words.1Matt. 22:43, 45; John 1:23; 5:46; Rom. 10:20; and the like. Scripture doesn’t hide the human authors behind the divine one. It names them and credits them.
What’s more, in several places we read that these writers were prepared for their task beforehand, set apart and equipped for it (Jer. 1:5; Acts 7:22; and Gal. 1:15). God didn’t grab random passers-by and use their voices. He shaped people over the course of their lives for the work he had for them.
The writers’ own activity is not suppressed by the moving of the Spirit but is lifted up, energised and purged.
Wide Awake, Not Switched Off
So what was actually happening when they wrote? Just as they were when they received the word, the prophets and apostles remained fully self-conscious when they wrote down the revelation. The moving of the Spirit didn’t push their own activity aside. Instead it lifted it up, energised it and purified it.
You can see this all over the Bible. The writers did the kind of things any careful author does:
They made diligent investigations. Luke tells us he did exactly that (Luke 1:3).
They remembered and reflected on revelation they had received at an earlier time.2John 14:26 and 1 John 1:1-3.
They used historical sources.3Num. 21:14; Josh. 10:13, and the like.
Some of them, like the psalmists, found the material for their songs in their own experience.
None of this was in tension with the moving of the Spirit. The same Spirit who moved them worked through their research, their memory, their sources and their experience, lifting up and purifying all of it.
In other words, the Spirit’s work didn’t make the writers less human. It made them more fully themselves in the service of God’s Word.
The Fingerprints of Every Author
This is why, as you read your Bible, you keep bumping into real people. In every one of the writings that make up the Bible, the writer’s personal disposition comes through. So does the particular quality of his character, his personal development and education, and his own language and style. All of these come to expression in each and every one of the many writers.
Studying the Scriptures, then, doesn’t only teach us the one Word of God. It also introduces us to the different people who wrote it.
Think of the difference between the books of Kings and Chronicles, between Isaiah and Jeremiah, between Matthew and Luke, between John and Peter and Paul! Each one sounds like himself. Each one tells the story in his own way. And yet it is the same Spirit speaking through them all.
Why It Matters
This is good news for every reader of Scripture. We don’t have to choose between a Bible that is fully God’s Word and a Bible written by real people. The Spirit moved the writers, and the writers spoke. God was the speaker, and the prophets and apostles were his agents, with their minds awake, their wills engaged and their personalities on full display.
So the next time you notice Paul’s passion, Luke’s careful research or a psalmist’s personal struggle, don’t treat it as a distraction from God’s voice. It’s one of the ways God has chosen to speak.