06 Inerrancy and the Will of Man
Inerrancy and the Will of Man No verse comes closer to telling us how God used human authors to produce the errorless Bible than 2 Peter 1:21 : “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved [borne, King James Version] by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” Here we are told that God the Holy Spirit carried human authors along to speak (in writing) God’s message.
What was conveyed to us? The prophecy of Scripture. It is likely a reference to all of the Old Testament, not merely the parts that predicted something ahead of time. By extension we may also understand it to include the New Testament as well. All of the Bible was conveyed to us by the Spirit’s working.
How was the Bible conveyed? The Spirit bore men along. What does that mean? Perhaps we can best understand “bearing” by referring to another use of the same word in Acts 27:15 and Acts 27:17. Just before the ship that was taking Paul to Rome was wrecked on the island of Malta, it ran into a terrible storm. The experienced sailors could not guide the ship because the wind was so strong. They finally had to let the wind take the ship wherever it blew. The ship’s being driven, directed, carried about by the wind, is described in these verses by using the same word as in 2 Peter 1:21 that describes the Spirit’s driving, directing, carrying the human authors of the Bible as He wished. The word is a strong one, indicating complete superintending by the Spirit of all that the human authors wrote. Nevertheless, just as the sailors were active on the ship-though the wind, not the sailors, was directing the ship-so the human authors were active in writing as the Spirit directed. But the human authors’ wills did not direct or carry the Scripture. The text is clear: prophecy was never borne by the will of man (this is the same verb as in the latter part of the verse). The Spirit carried the Word, not the will of man. Man’s will, including his will to make mistakes, did not bring the Scripture; rather, the Holy Spirit, who is perfect and who bore the human writers along, brought us the Scriptures. They wrote under the operation of the Spirit; therefore, those things they wrote were His, directed by His will, not theirs. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 16:13). Some people affirm the truthfulness of God and yet deny the truthfulness of the Bible. They say that God is true and that anything that comes from God must also be true. But, they continue, the reason that the Bible is not true in every detail is simply that God had to involve men in producing the Bible, and whenever men are involved the possibility of error creeps in. Be they ever so few, errors are nevertheless there because sinful men were used in the production of the Scriptures.
Logical as that may sound, it does not affirm 2 Peter 1:21. The human wills of the authors were not the originators or the carriers of God’s message. That does not mean that the authors were totally passive (as the dictation idea of inspiration asserts), but it does mean that whatever the Spirit was and did in inspiration, their human wills were not and did not do. And the Spirit was the source and the guiding force; the authors’ wills were not. The repetition of the same verb in both parts of the verse is significant (“no prophecy was borne ever by man’s will but men were borne by the Spirit,” author’s trans.). The conclusion is obvious: God did not permit the will of sinful man to divert, misdirect, or erroneously record His message.