2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Here is a proof of the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The most convincing of all the proofs and arguments for the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ regarded them and treated them as such. He Himself submitted to their authority. When assaulted by Satan, three times He replied, “It is written,” and it is particularly to be noted that the point of each reply lay in a single word—“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”
THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): He citeth Scripture…This weapon Christ used all along with success, and therefore it is well called, “the Sword of the Spirit,” Ephesians 6:17―because the Spirit is the Author of it: Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
ROBERT HALDANE (1764-1842): The uniform language of Jesus Christ, and His Apostles, respecting the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures, proves that, without exception, they are “the Word of God.” On what principle but that of verbal inspiration of Scripture, can we explain our Lord’s words, John 10:35, “The Scripture cannot be broken”?
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): Therefore you have Moses and the prophets, when they came to deliver their errand, their message to the people, still saying, “Hear the Word of the Lord,” “Thus saith the Lord,” and the like. So when Ezekiel was sent to the house of Israel, in their state of religion, thus was he bid to say unto them, “Thus saith the Lord God,” Ezekiel 2:4; 3:11. This is the honour and majesty, then, that God hath put upon His written Word, and thus He hath done even of purpose, that we might make them the rule and directory of our fear, and that we might stand in awe of, and tremble at them.
HUGH LATIMER (1483-1555): The Author of Holy Scripture is the Mighty One, the Everlasting―God Himself!
A. W. PINK: This was the position taken by our Lord Himself…At the beginning of His public ministry, when He went to Nazareth where most of his thirty years had been lived, He performed to no wonderful miracle, but entered the synagogue, read from the prophet Isaiah and said, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears,” Luke 4:21.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): I maintain fully that the Old Testament is of equal authority with the New, and that they stand or fall together. You cannot separate them, any more than you can separate the warp and woof in a piece of woven cloth. The writers of the New Testament continually quote the words of the Old Testament as of equal authority with their own, and never give the slightest hint that these quotations are not to be regarded as the Word of God.
ROBERT HALDANE: The Apostle Peter classes all the Epistles of Paul, which he ascribes to the wisdom given to him, with “the other scriptures,” 2 Peter 3:15,16, thereby declaring them to be of the same authority, and showing that the writings both of the Old and New Testament, were designated the “Scriptures.”
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): By the Scriptures, I understand the law and the prophets, and those books which have in all ages been accounted canonical, and which made up that volume commonly called the Bible. These are emphatically styled the Scriptures, and, in one place, the “Scriptures of truth,” as though no other books deserved the name of true writings, or Scriptures, in comparison of them.
ROBERT HALDANE: The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are not only genuine and authentic, but also inspired writings. The claim of inspiration which they advance, is a claim of infallibility and of perfection. It is also a claim of absolute authority, which demands unlimited submission. It is a claim which, if set up for any other book, might, with the utmost ease, be shown to be unfounded.
E. W. BULLINGER (1837-1913): The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, and therefore its Divine authorship and authority, lies at the root and foundation of true Christianity.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): This is a principle which distinguishes our religion from all others, that we know that God hath spoken to us, and are fully convinced that the prophets did not speak at their own suggestion, but that, being organs of the Holy Spirit, they only uttered what they had been commissioned from heaven to declare.
A. W. PINK: Upon the foundation of the Divine inspiration of the Bible stands or falls the entire edifice of Christian truth—if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Surrender the dogma of verbal inspiration and you are left like a rudderless ship on a stormy sea—at the mercy of every wind that blows. Deny that the Bible is, without any qualification, the very Word of God, and you are left without any ultimate standard of measurement and without any supreme authority.
J. C. RYLE: If Christians have no Divine book to turn to as the warrant of their doctrine and practise, they have no solid ground for present peace or hope, and no right to claim the attention of mankind. They are building on a quicksand, and their faith is vain.
ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): We must, therefore, either admit these writings to be the Word of God, or consider them as mere imposture.
JOHN BUNYAN: Ungodly men undervalue the Scriptures, and give no credit to them…because they do not believe they are the Word of God, but rather suppose them to be the inventions of men, written by some politicians, on purpose to make poor ignorant people to submit to some religion and government.
J. C. RYLE: When you read the Bible, you are not reading the unaided, self-taught composition of erring men like yourselves, but thoughts and words which were suggested by the eternal God. The men who were employed to indite the Scripture “spake not of themselves.” They “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”—He that holds a Bible in his hand should remember that he holds not the word of man, but of God. He holds a volume which not only contains, but is God’s Word.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): This is no common book. It is not the sayings of the sages of Greece; here are not the utterances of philosophers of past ages. If these words were written by man, we might reject them; but oh, let me think the solemn thought—that this book is God’s handwriting, that these words are God’s―Oh, tremble, tremble, lest any of you despise it; mark its authority, for it is the Word of God…Today it is still the self-same mighty Word of God that it was in the hands of our Lord Jesus.
ROBERT HALDANE: By often referring to the “Scriptures,” which He declared “cannot be broken,” the Lord Jesus Christ has given His full attestation to the whole of them as the unadulterated Word of God…He told the Jews that they made the Word of God of none effect through their traditions, Mark 7:13. By calling them “the Word of God,” He indicated that these Scriptures proceeded from God Himself.
HENRY CLAY FISH (1820-1877): The Lord hath spoken, is enough. This cuts short all debate, and hushes to silence every objection. The Word of the Lord is infallible, and so it becomes a foundation for the most certain truths.
MILES COVERDALE (1488-1568): Whosoever believeth not the Scripture, believeth not Christ; and whosoever refuseth it, refuseth God also.
C. H. SPURGEON: “Thus saith the Lord” is the end of discussion to Christian minds; and even the ungodly cannot resist Scripture without resisting the Spirit who wrote it…Believe in the inspiration of Scripture, and believe it in the most intense sense. You will not believe in a truer and fuller inspiration than really exists.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): What! it may be said in reply, do you mean to say that every sentence, from the opening lines of Genesis to the close of Revelation, is divinely inspired? Yes; that is precisely the ground we take. We claim for every line between the covers of the volume a Divine origin.
J. C. RYLE: Stand firm on the grand old text, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”
