The Believer’s Certainty of the Doctrine of Inspiration (Part 1)

The Content of 2 Timothy 3:16

In 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul establishes the Scriptures’ own claim to divine authority and relevance to sound belief and behavior. Paul warns Timothy not to be deceived by false teachers and impostors, but instead to continue in what he has learned, having been fully “convinced” of Scripture’s truthfulness and authority (2 Tim 3:15).¹

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, [throughly] furnished unto all good works (2 Tim 3:16–17).

The Meaning of “All Scripture”

“All Scripture” (πᾶσα γραφὴ) refers to the whole of Scripture. The context and language both indicate that the Scriptures in their entirety are profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction, thereby equipping the man of God for every good work.

“Scripture” (γραφὴ) has several important connotations in the interpretation of 2 Timothy 3:16. Most importantly, graphe refers to “the sacred writings” of the Old Testament and all future New Testament writings. The New Testament writers use this term over fifty times “exclusively with a sacred meaning of Holy Scripture.”² For instance, when Paul writes, “the Scripture says” (Rom 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2), he regards this expression as God speaking; and the present tense of the verb indicates the continual relevance of Scripture’s authority.³

The apostles considered the other NT authors of Scripture as equally authoritative as the words of Christ and the OT. For example, in 1 Timothy 5:18 Paul initially quotes Deuteronomy 25:4, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.” Paul continues by quoting the Lord’s words as recorded by Luke, “for the labourer is worthy of his hire” (1 Tim 5:18 cf. Luke 10:7). Both “Scriptures” are joined together with a simple conjunction in 1 Timothy 5:18 and are given equal authority. This example indicates that Luke’s Gospel was already available to Paul in written form and that it was regarded as sacred Scripture. Furthermore, the apostle Peter corroborates the inspiration of the NT when he mentions that false teachers purposely distorted Paul’s letters as they did “the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Pet 3:15–16).

Equally important, the term “Scripture” indicates that the “writing,” not the “writer,” was the object of inspiration. True, the sacred writers were the “organs of God for the infallible communication of His mind and will.”⁴ They spoke as they were “moved” (φερόμενοι — “being borne or carried along”) by the Holy Spirit (v. 21 cf. Acts 27:15, 17). Pheromenoi is a present passive participle indicating that the original authors of Scripture were miraculously and continuously acted upon by God as they wrote.

The Meaning of “Theopneustos”

The English word “inspiration” comes from the Latin inspiro, which means to breathe in. Paul, however, asserts that all Scripture is “breathed out” by God (θεόπνευστος). This unusual word occurs only once in the NT. It is a compound of “God” (θεός) and “breathe” (πνεύω). The lexical definition of pneo means to “breathe out.”⁵ Various Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias describe theopnuestos as “spiration,” “spiring,” or “breath,” indicating a divine product of the creative-breath of God.⁶ God “spirated” the Scriptures. He did not “in-spire” an existing text but rather “ex-spired” or “breathed-out” the text.

There are a number of ways in which we see our breath. Our glasses fog up when we breathe on them. On a cold day, our warm breath will condense in mid-air. Breathe on a cold pane of glass and it will immediately become cloudy with the condense moisture fogging the surface. In all these situations our breath takes form. What could not be seen now becomes visible. Likewise, the invisible Word of God systematically condensed on the scrolls of prophets and apostles, as God “ex-spired” His truth on the pages of Scripture. Scripture is a direct production of God’s immediate power, not something previously existing and then infused with the divine influence. Scripture is called theopneustos because it is the product of divine “spiration” — the creation of the Holy Spirit.

In summary, inspiration is the activity by which that portion intended by God of His special revelation⁷ was put into written form by the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit, who worked confluently through the thought processes, literary styles, and personalities of certain divinely chosen men so that the product of their special labors in its entirety is the very Word of God, including both the ideas and the specific vocabulary — complete, infallible, and inerrant in the original manuscripts.

Mike Harding is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Troy, Troy, Michigan.

1. Ralph Earle, “2 Timothy,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 11:409. [↩]
2. Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd ed. revised and augmented by F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 165 (hereafter cited as BAGD). [↩]
3. Warfield, Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, p. 348. Also, see pp. 299–318 for additional evidence of the interchange between “God” and “Scripture.” [↩]
4. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 1:154. [↩]
5. BAGD, pp. 685–86; Warfield, “Inspiration and Authority of the Bible,” p. 284. [↩]
6. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, s.v. “Inspiration,” by C. F. Henry, ed. Walter A. Elwell, p. 145; Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1 vol. edition, s.v. “qeo,pneustoj,” by E. Schweizer, pp. 894–95; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, s.v. “Inspiration,” by B. B. Warfield, 3:1474. [↩]
7. All Scripture is special revelation. All special revelation, however, has not been inscripturated (2 Cor 12:1-4; Deut 29:29; John 21:25 cf. Exod 5:2 and 6:1; Rev 10:1–4; Dan 12:4, 9). [↩]