02.01 - Inspiration and Revelation Distinguished

PART II (1) Inspiration and Revelation Distinguished

BOTH Inspiration and Revelation have regard to the divine action in communicating to man a knowledge of God and of the way and plan of salvation, and of declaring that knowledge to the race. Both terms are applied to Scripture as the record of the divine will and purpose for man; but as divine acts the} are distinct from Scripture, and could have taken place without being recorded at all. Indeed, much that God has revealed of Himself, of His ways and works, never has been written; while some things recorded in the Scriptures are not by the revelation of God.

So, though these divine acts are concerned with the Scriptures as the record of God’s will and purpose to men, yet, as divine acts, they are distinct from Scripture, and prior to it, and in the order of thought distinct from each other.

They differ in nature and object. Revelation is a divine act of self-manifestation, or a divine communication of truth to man. Inspiration concerns the reception, apprehension, and declaration of that truth to others. The one is objective in its operation, the other subjective. Chalmers spoke of them respectively as the “ influx and the efflux,” or, the “ ingress and the egress of truth.” The one denotes how divine truth was communicated to the mind of man by God, the other the way in which the mind of man cognised that truth and declared it to others, either by speech or writing, or both. Revelation is the informing of the mind by the knowledge of God and of His truth. Inspiration is the actuating and energising of the human agent by the Holy Spirit in imparting that knowledge to others. Dr. Pope not only regards them as distinct in nature and purpose, but also as distinct in their source. In his “Compendium of Christian Theology “he speaks of “ the Son in the unity of the Father and the Spirit as Revealer; and of the Spirit in the unity of the Father and the Son as the Inspirer.” The Son is the living Eternal Word, in whom the external idea of all truth existed before it was made known; while the Holy Spirit signified the meaning of the truth to the minds of the sacred writers, who “ spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost.” Revelation is identified with God as Lord and Son, inspiration with God the Holy Spirit. This distinction is, how ever, by no means universal in the Scriptures. Paul speaks of God the Father as revealing things unto him, as also the Son and the Holy Spirit. While revelation and inspiration, as divine acts, are distinct in themselves and separate in their source and purpose, in the order of thought these are united in the individual and the result. God communicates His will to Prophet or Apostle, who at the same time are inspired to utter or write it. Scripture is therefore the product of both revelation and inspiration.

There has been a tendency to regard inspiration and revelation as synonymous and interchangeable terms when speaking of the Scriptures: a practice which has led to much loose thinking and speaking on this subject. The Conference, in fixing the subject of this lecture, would seem to have regarded the terms as distinct, and requiring separate treatment. \Ve have, therefore, to distinguish between the two as between objective and subjective; as between the truth and the agents who spoke and wrote the truth; as between the subject-matter communicated to the mind of the agent, and the agent’s conscious recognition and declaration of that truth to others. And though in the discussion of this subject we may not be able sharply to maintain this distinction when we speak of the “ inspiration of the Scriptures “ and no great violence will be clone cither to revelation or inspiration by regarding the Scriptures as both revealed and inspired yet the distinction is important, and will help to discriminate between the divine and human factors in Scripture, as also between revelation and its record.