I. What is being confessed in this article? ⤒🔗

This article confesses why the Bible is the Word of God in the full sense of the word.

1. This Word of God did not come into existence because men wanted it but because the Holy Spirit inspired people to do so, such that they spoke (not of themselves) but of God, as the apostle Peter writes.
2. Out of his special care for us and our salvation God commissioned the prophets and apostles to also write down his Word once it was revealed. As his servants, they only had to do what God wanted. With his own hand he even wrote the law on two tablets of stone. That is why we speak of “holy and divine Scriptures."

II. God’s Word did not come about because people wanted it←⤒🔗

1. With great emphasis the church confesses in this article that the Word of God indeed came about through him and no one else. It did not sprout from a human brain; it is not a human philosophy or contemplation, not even that of an apostle or of an angel from heaven, (Galatians 1:8).
   God has spoken (Hebrews 1:1). It was always he who took the initiative. It certainly was not the case that prophets spoke for themselves. That they themselves did not take the initiative is already clear from the fact that in many cases they were employed by God against their will and did their task grudgingly. Moses protested against his appointment, saying, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent” and “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else" (Exodus 4:10-17). Jeremiah said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth” (Jeremiah 1:6) and later he asked to be allowed to resign because he couldn't handle it anymore (Jeremia 20:7-9). Amos was not a prophet, by his own admission (Amos 7:14-15), yet the LORD took him “from following the flock." And what about Jonah? God even caused wicked men to prophesy, such as Balaam (Numbers 22-24) and Caiaphas (John 11: 50-51). We can also point to the way in which Paul–who was to write a large portion of the NT–became an apostle.
2. There is, however, another clear indication that the prophets did not merely express their own thoughts on the Word of God. According to Peter, they “searched and inquired carefully” into the very meaning of their own prophecies (1 Peter 1:10-12). This is therefore proof as well that those prophecies did not come from their own inventiveness because then they would have understood them completely. See also Daniel 12:8-9.
3. With the false prophets, things are quite different. They are not called by God, and therefore act on their own initiative. They are easily accepted because they generally proclaim what people want to hear. False prophets are pre-eminently children of their own era and know quite well how to respond to the spirit of the times. A textbook example of this is 2 Chronicles 18. King Ahab of Israel is eager to fight against Aram (Syria). All the prophets he consulted say, “Thus says the LORD... The LORD will give it into the hand of the king'2 Chronicles 18:10-11). At the request of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, who is also present, the true prophet Micaiah, who was imprisoned, is consulted. Typical is what the man who fetches Micaiah says to him: “With one accord the prophets have spoken favourably to the king, so let your word be like the word of one of them” (2 Chronicles 18:12). In Jeremiah 28 we encounter the false prophet Hananiah. He brought a message that people loved to hear and prophesied that within two years the LORD would break the hated yoke of Babylon. In doing so he contradicted Jeremiah, who was rejected as a pessimist. See also Ezekiel 13:1-10.
   In these cases such prophets deviate from the Word already spoken,(Galatians 1:9).
4. The Scripture speaks not only of false prophets but even of false apostles. In a letter to his church at Ephesus, Jesus writes about those “who call themselves apostles and are not,” and who have been found out to be false (Revelation 2:2).
   Against the background of all this self-declared prophecy, it is very correct that our article calls the apostles and prophets servants of God. This underscores that they did not say what they thought, but that they spoke in the name of God.

III. God’s Word came about because the Holy Spirit inspired men←⤒🔗

What Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:21, and what this article quotes about this, apply here: “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." ‘Carried’ conveys the image of how ships are moved along by the wind in their sails. It is the same word that we find in the conclusion of Acts 27:15 and 17, where it is used of a ship driven along by the waves. Thus the writers of the Bible were propelled and constrained by the Holy Spirit.

 Another important text is 2 Timothy 3:16, which says that “all Scripture is breathed out by God." Other translations have here “inspired by God” (for example, NASB, NKJV). “Breathed out” conveys the idea that God’s Word is his breath. Scripture is theopneustos  – a Greek compound word indicating that the Word is purely divine. The word ‘inspired’ also contains the Latin word ‘Spiritus, which means both ‘Spirit and ‘breath.’ When it says that the Bible is inspired, it means that it is the Word spoken by God's own Holy Spirit or by his breath.

Also important here are 1 Thessalonians 2:13 and Galatians 1:8-9, which prove that the apostle was absolutely convinced that he was speaking the Word of God.

According to Hebrews 1:1, “God spoke to our fathers in many ways”: very directly in paradise (Genesis 1:28); by an oracle as he did to Balaam (Numbers 24:3); by dreams, as he did to Joseph the son of Jacob; by visions to Daniel; by appearances to Abraham.

IV. God’s Word was preserved because he commanded to commit it to writing←⤒🔗

1. The article makes a clear distinction between the Word of God as it was first spoken and as written afterwards. Striking again is the emphasis with which it is confessed that also the actual writing down was not the work of men but of God himself. The spoken words were not recorded because people thought they were worth preserving. At least that's not the real reason. Now it is true that a man like Luke writes in the foreword of his first book, “It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write down an orderly account” of all that Jesus did (Acts 1:3). And Paul wrote his epistles because he could not reach the people in any other way.
   However, the deeper and proper reason for God’s Word to be written down is another– namely, the special care that God has “for us and our salvation." He wants us to be saved, and so he has made sure that his saving Gospel would reach us intact. A spoken word is more easily corrupted and lost than a written one. And God wanted his Word to reach us without any corruption.
2.  At the same time it is said that this writing happened infallibly and that God guided the authors in remembering what had been spoken and what had happened. It came to be written down on paper (or whatever material they used), exactly as God wanted, and as much as he wanted.
   As far as the latter is concerned, not everything that was spoken has been put down in writing. In general, the prophets will have said much more than what we now have in their books. This is expressly stated of the words and actions of Jesus in John 21:25. But that does not mean that what we have in the Bible only represents the words of God insofar as the Bible authors remembered them or insofar as they thought them worthwhile to record. It was God's faithful care that nothing was left to chance or to the arbitrariness of people.
3. Even though this article calls the authors ‘servants’ of God, this does not mean that everything was dictated to them literally, word-for-word. This did actually happen in the case of, for example, the seven letters of Revelation 2 and 3. However, for the most part, God did not use the human authors of the Bible as his clerks. This is why we say that the inspiration did not happen mechanically. For God did not ignore or turn off their talent for research and writing. Therefore we say: the inspiration happened organically. For example, Luke himself made careful preparations in order to be able to write his book about Jesus, whom he had never seen(Luke 1:3-4)!
   In the meantime, we continue to hold fast the confession that what these people wrote is fully the Word of God.
4. The article calls special attention to the fact that God “wrote with his own finger the two tables of the law." Calvin makes some wonderful remarks about this. He calls this a clear example of God's special care for his people. After all, God first declared the law through his own speaking. But he was not satisfied with that. For he knows how weak we are and how short of memory when it comes to holding on to the truth. That God spoke from the mountain should have been enough. After all, you are able to count the law on your fingers and, moreover, the parents had to teach the law to their children. And yet God still wrote it down. This is how God in his care provided his Word, which is the solid basis of our faith.          

V.  God’s Word in the flood of criticism←⤒🔗

1.  The doctrine of inspiration was not yet a contentious issue in the struggle against Rome in the sixteenth century. No matter how differently the Scriptures were interpreted, for both parties it was officially the Word of God. The Anabaptists, however, thought otherwise. They scorned the written Word and called it a dead letter. They raved about the inner word that God would speak directly to man and in man, according to them.
   In his struggle against these Anabaptists, de Brès refers to Jeremiah 36:6 and 8. It says that Baruch wrote down the words that Jeremiah had spoken. The Anabaptists would say that they were only dead letters. But de Brès quite rightly points out that those words are called there “the words of the LORD." It is this conviction that we encounter in this article, which reverently speaks of “holy and divine Scriptures." Therefore, according to Calvin, we owe the same reverence to Scriptures as we owe God himself.
2. Unfortunately, since the sixteenth century people have increasingly come to deny the inspiration of God’s Word. We even need to conclude that the vast majority of theologians have abandoned this confession. With all the differences among them, their story boils down to this: Even though God spoke clearly to the Biblical writers (although even this is doubted or denied by many), they were still only imperfectly able to write down what they understood of it as children of their own time. They had their contemporary conception of God and of his work. They easily turned to the use of myths, because it was considered very common at the time. The core of their story is true, but the form in which they conveyed their message–the packaging–is now mostly outdated. To give an example: Liberal theologians claim that the key message of Genesis 1 and 2 is only that God made the world, but not how he did this. The author made it into a fascinating story, without everything having to take place exactly as we read about it. For instance, when we read how God formed man from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), the gist of it is that God made man, but the story does not exclude the fact that man came into being in the way of evolution. That God made man out of dust would only be part of the ‘packaging’ of the message. All of this comes down to the fact that we cannot say with our hand on the Bible: God said so and therefore it is true.
3. We freely admit that the authors wrote as people of their time, of their own culture. For none other than God himself conformed to their time- and culture-determined understanding. As a result, the Scriptures have become a truly Israelite book. If God would have revealed himself to the Koreans or to the Frisians instead of to Israel, a very different Bible would have been the result. But all this does not alter the fact that this book, which clearly bears the marks of a certain time and culture, is above all the eternal Word of God, written by people who were moved by his Spirit.

VI. God’s Word and so-called [higher] biblical criticism←⤒🔗

1. Textual criticism and Biblical criticism are not the same thing. Biblical criticism indicates that people elevate themselves critically above Scripture and delete and change what does not suit them. Textual criticism, however, is the science that takes pains to reconstruct the original text of the Bible. The fact is that we cannot say of any Bible book that has been found that it was written by any prophet or apostle in his own hand. Those very first (original) copies are long gone. We no longer have the original letters of Paul or books of Moses. However, these have been copied accurately. God has taken care of this. But it is understandable that at times small mistakes were made when transcribing the text – just as there are minor printing errors in almost every book today. Some letters were very similar and could easily be confused during copying. Sometimes someone wrote a word in the margin as a comment or statement; but then when someone went to transcribe this copy, he included such a remark in the text itself. By comparing as many manuscripts as possible, one tries to find out about these kinds of inaccuracies. But these are minor differences.
2. Augustine was therefore correct when he declared: “I have such great respect for the Bible that I am convinced that no author made a mistake when he wrote it. And if there are certain things in the manuscripts that seem contrary to the truth, I am of the opinion that either an error has crept into the manuscript, or that the translation is less correct, or that perhaps I do not understand it.” It was Guido de Brès himself who quoted this saying from Augustine with approval.

Points to discuss←↰⤒🔗

1. Discuss whether inspiration implies that the authors of the four gospel books have written the words of Jesus verbatim. Compare, for example, Matthew 6:9-13 with Luke 11:2-4. Are they all equally reliable?
2. What is the difference between being ‘carried along’ by the Spirit (inspiration) and the indwelling of the Spirit in all believers (illumination = enlightenment)?
3. Evaluate the following reasoning:
   a. “The Bible came into being through the work of the Spirit in men (2 Peter 2:21).”
   b. “This Spirit also works in us today: He shows us the way (John 16:13), and we are led by him (Romans 8:14).”
   c. “Conclusion: Under the guidance of the Spirit we can/may “adapt the Bible to our time” and            where necessary, we can disagree on certain points with authors such as Paul.”
   Use also your answer given for #2 above. Show that we are dealing here with Anabaptist reasoning, (see section V, point 1).
4.  What is the importance of the discovery of manuscripts of Bible books or parts of them, such as in 1947, by the Dead Sea? Refer to what was said about textual criticism in Section VI.
5. In 1 Corinthians 7:12 and 25, does Paul just give his personal opinion? See the conclusion of verse 40.
6. Is it really all that bad if we don’t take the story of creation literally, considering it took place in the distant past? Isn't this what we do with the story of the future in the book of Revelation? Why should we take Revelation figuratively, and not Genesis 1 and 2?
7. What does the Scripture say about myths? See 2 Peter 1:16.
8. Explain the difference between the following statements:
   a. The Bible is God’s Word.
   b God’s Word is in the Bible.
   Evaluate both expressions.
9. People suggest a conversation (dialogue) with Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, and Jews. Show how this is a consequence of the separation of content and packaging, because of the assumption that completely different packaging can still contain the same content or core substance.
10. Note the difference in translation with respect to 2 Timothy 3:16 in various translations (for example, ESV/NIV versus NASB/NKJV/NLT). Which translation is preferable?