The notes below are excerpted from a recent sermon at Immanuel Church on the Written Word of God (a.k.a, the Bible) based off the passage 2 Timothy 3:16a: “All scripture is breathed out by God…” (ESV).
I hope the information will be helpful to you. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions or feedback.
Blessings!
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1. What does “breathed out by God” mean?
“Breathed out by God” means the words of scripture are spoken by God.
John Frame writes: “What Paul says here is that the Scripture is breathed out, not created. What can that mean? Well, to breathe out words is simply to speak them. Paul is saying that the OT words are the speech of God, his personal utterances…The written Word is, of course, expressed on a created medium, whether stone tablets, papyrus, paper, or digital media. But the Word that is written on these media is divine. It is the personal word of God himself. So ‘breathed out by God’ means ‘spoken by God’” (2010, p. 125).
And, as Frame goes on to highlight, what is important to note here is that Paul is saying scripture, as in the written word, is God-breathed. It’s not just that God gave people his Spirit to write scripture but maybe what they wrote down was a little less accurate or precise than the actual, direct Word of God. No, the words written down are his words. Yes, God gave these various writers his Spirit to lead them in the writing (Peter says this, 2 Peter 1:21), and the writing process was varied (sometimes hearing audibly from God, sometimes researching, sometimes speaking by the direction of Spirit and the authority of Jesus), but what was written is God’s words to us.
2. How do we know the Bible is “breathed out by God”?
Is there any evidence that the Bible really is this “breathed out” word of God? Yes. We have three exhibits that argue the Bible really is the Word of God. As with all cases, some evidence will be stronger than others, but altogether the various exhibits make, I think, a strong and reasonable case.
Now, can I today prove to you the Bible is God’s word? No. But can you yourself know the Bible is God’s word? As we will see, yes!
Exhibit A: Internal Evidence. What God creates has a beauty and glory to it. Psalm 19 speaks this way of the cosmos. The Psalmist says the heavens that God created show his glory. In other words, the stuff he makes has his fingerprints on it. And people, when they read the Bible, have often noted it is has a unique glory. C.S. Lewis said, as an expert in English literature (like, before computers, he literally read everything written in English), that it had the ring of truth to it. The London Baptist Confession (1689) puts it this way: “the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, and the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, and many other incomparable excellencies, and entire perfections thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God.” So, there is just something special about it, how 66 books coalesce, how it speaks to our hearts, etc. Now, as the confession goes on to say, this internal evidence is not enough to prove the Bible is the Word of God, but it makes a good argument.
Exhibit B: External Evidence. Historically, these documents were kept and preserved because the message they contained had been confirmed by miraculous signs and wonders. What you think about the possibility of miracles I don’t know, but if you believe in God, he can certainly enter his own creation and supersede the usual laws of nature to confirm his message. So, typically, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, the Words recorded in the Bible were accompanied by miracles, like parting the Red Sea or healing someone. And in the Old Testament the people were instructed to disregard any prophet whose predictions did not come true, so you had the miracle of prediction and perfect fulfillment. So you can see how this would work: Some guy says, “God sent me, and here’s what he says…” But you’re not sure. Then, he proceeds to heal several people right in front of you, so you think, “Okay, I’m starting to think he really is from God. Maybe I should take notes.” Now, is such evidence definitive? No. There are counterfeit miracles and deception, but again, this external evidence contributes to the case. (And by the way, note: the faith God calls us to is typically reasonable like this. He calls us to believe him, but he gives us reasons to believe him.)
Exhibit C: Spiritual Evidence. You may not like this one, but it is actually logically necessary. So what is the spiritual evidence? It is this. We read the Bible, and by the Spirit of God, we just know it is God’s Word. So, the Word of God proves it is the Word of God. Now, is that circular? Yes. But as I said, this is perfectly logical of anything that claims to be the ultimate arbiter of truth. If you say, human reason is the ultimate arbiter of truth, then obviously you must use human reason to prove that. If you say the scientific method is the ultimate arbiter of truth, then obviously you must use the scientific method to prove that. If you used something else, then that other thing would actually be ultimate. This isn’t exactly the same, but here’s an analogy. If I said chocolate pie is the best pie, I cannot prove that by having you eat apple pie. It might provide a helpful comparison, but apple pie cannot establish that chocolate pie is the best. Only the best pie, chocolate pie, can prove it is the best pie. Moreover, Jesus teaches the self-evidence of the divine voice. Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). And then later, Jesus says, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). So, Jesus says these false christs and prophets will be so deceptive that even the elect would be deceived…if that were possible… but, as he implies, that’s not possible. So, God will speak, and his children, who have his Spirit, will know his voice.
Sidenote: By the way, this is an important distinction to note. The people of God (a.k.a., the church) does not decide what the Word of God will be; rather, they recognize what the word of God is. People sometimes think the church got together and decided what would be the word of God. But that was never the heart of the discussion. The heart of the discussion, especially, as the early church was sorting out the New Testament, was to get together the people of God who have the Spirit of God to collectively note what is the Word of God.
3. Is “all” of the Bible really breathed out by God?
Yes. Even the weird bits. Even the boring bits. Even the troubling bits. All of it. Paul says “all” scripture is breathed out by God. At the time, he has all of the Old Testament before him, including Leviticus and Song of Solomon.
But, and this is a big BUT, that does not mean all of scripture applies equally or in the same ways. That all scripture is breathed out by God means everything we are reading is exactly the communication God wants us to know. But he wants us to know this communication for different reasons.
Sometimes we are to know to do. As the introduction to Proverbs says or Psalm 119 says or Jesus at the end of the Sermon of the Mount says, the Words of God in the Bible are for our good, that we might do them. So, we are told to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, and strength. And that was communicated and written down that we might do it.
Sometimes we are to know to avoid. Speaking of a very dark episode in the Bible when many Israelites were killed because of their evil, Paul says, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction…” (1 Corinthians 10:11). So that portion of the Bible was spoken to us and preserved that we might be warned.
Sometimes we are to know to know. Here, in 2 Timothy 3:15, Paul says knowing scripture helps us know salvation. And it’s important to note that Jesus and Paul and Peter, at times, clarify that certain elements of the Old Testament are no longer in effect as “to dos” but now become “to knows.” For example, the Old Testament laws have many purification rules about food, but Jesus declares all foods clean, which Peter and Paul later echo as well. In this case, when we read about these “weird” purification rules, they really are breathed out by God, but now they apply differently. Once, they told God’s people what to do, but now they help explain salvation and how holy God is and why Christ had to cleanse us. So now they are “to-knows.”
So to say that all the bible is Breathed by God out does not mean you need to do everything you see in the Bible. Shoot, some passages in the Bible are quotes from satan, so obviously you’re not meant to do all these things you read, but that all scripture is breathed out by God means every single word in the Bible is exactly what God wanted communicated to you. And thus, as I quoted last week, John Frame says the “word of God [in the Bible] should be treasured as if God were speaking it with his own lips” (2010, p. 67). So whether it’s weird stuff or not, we should remember that all of it is exactly what God wants us to know.
4. How do we know we have “all” the scriptures?
If all of scripture is God breathed, and we are expected to trust and obey it, then we really want to make sure we haven’t wrongfully added or subtracted anything. So how do we know we have it all?
We know we have all the Old Testament because… the Old Testament was written by prophets authorized by God and affirmed by Jesus.
- The Old Testament was written by God-authorized prophets. So these are not just random writings that seemed to be worth keeping. They were written by people who were authorized by God to write. And as mentioned before, they were often confirmed by signs and wonders.
- And then we have a cheat code on this one: Jesus affirms the Old Testament. The Old Testament we have was in place by the time of Jesus (Grudem, 2020), and no where does Jesus contest its contents. Instead, he quotes or alludes to most all of it, and his disciples do the same. One tally has Jesus and his followers citing the Old Testament as authoritative, divine scripture 295 times (Grudem, 2020). But, as a point of contrast, no where is there found such a quote from the apocrypha.
We know we have all the New Testament because… the New Testament was written by apostles authorized by Jesus and affirmed by the Spirit through the church.
- They were authorized by Jesus. Jesus says the apostles will be his witnesses (John 20:21, Matthew 28:19), and they will be helped by the Spirit, “[8] But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). He says the Spirit will help them remember, understand, and teach: “[25] These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. [26] But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:25–26).
- And Peter gives witness to how the apostolic writings were being viewed as scripture, saying, “[15] And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, [16] as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15–16). So, Paul’s letter is put alongside “other Scriptures,” showing us how the early church was thinking about the apostolic writings.
- And the church, by the Spirit, confirmed the voice of the Lord (cf. the Bereans, Acts 17:11). Did this take some time? Yes. But not because they could not decide but just as a function of geography, time, and finitude. In a pre-globalized, pre-internet world, it took time to figure out who had what writings by whom.
So, “all scripture,” New and Old Testaments, is “breathed out by God.”
Onto application…
5. What then should we do with the Bible?
Submit to the Speaker. We see that the Bible is the written Word of God. But just because the Bible is the written Word of God does not mean these words will automatically overcome your will. People can and do resist the Word of God, and they have for millennia. They ignore. They stop their ears. So you will need to do something at the heart level. At the heart level, you will need at least enough humility to listen to God. The Bible is very difficult at times; you will not understand everything, so you will need to bow your heart to God and trust him.
Preach the Word. Paul charges Timothy to “preach the word; be ready…” (2 Timothy 4:2). If God has given you a teaching ministry, take it seriously; be ready! And in some ways, we all have a teaching ministry (cf. Colossians 3:16). Some of you have more formal roles; teach like you are speaking the oracles of God. Some of you have opportunities to counsel; admonish!
Continue in the Bible. Paul tells Timothy to “continue in what you have learned,” which in this case includes the scriptures (2 Timothy 3:14). Hang in the scriptures. I know it can be difficult. But there is something in them for you.
Conclusion
So, as Paul says, the Bible is the word of God written down.
Can I answer your every question about the Bible today or ever? Probably not. But my hope is just that you would be encouraged by this discussion to pick up the Bible and read it. Tolle lege!
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Bibliography
Frame, J. M. (2010). The Doctrine of the Word of God. P&R Publishing.
Grudem, W. A. (2020). Systematic Theology, Second Edition: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Second edition). Zondervan Academic.
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