Where Did The Bible Come From?

Where Did The Bible Come From? 

The Divine Source of the Bible 

(2 Tim. 3:16)

The Bible is important because God has revealed Himself and His will for us in it. Scripture informs us of its grand origin—it was “given by inspiration of God.” Thus it is not merely a human book, but more precisely a divine book. It is the greatest miracle in the world today!

A.     The Declaration of the Divine Source of the Bible.

1.  The Bible Clearly Claims It Came From God.

                                                                     i.            Notice the Origin of the Old Testament.

a.       The Old Testament came from God (2 Tim 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21).

b.       The Scriptures are God-breathed.  These are the most important verses in the Bible on the subject of inspiration. They teach that the Scriptures are “breathed out by God,” or “God-breathed.” Sometimes God told the Bible writers the exact words to say (see Jer. 1:9), but more often He used their minds, vocabularies, and experiences to produce His own perfect dependable, faithful Word (1 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:20, 21).

                                                                   ii.            Notice the Origin of the New Testament.

a.       Paul claimed divine inspiration for the NT Scriptures (1 Cor. 2:9-13).

b.       Peter refers to Paul’s letters as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16), and Paul called Luke’s gospel Scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18, where he quotes the words of Luke 10:7.

c.       1 Thess. 2:13—“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”

                                                                  iii.            God is the Source of the Entire Bible.

a.       The entire Bible is inspired meaning it came to us from God.

b.       God’s words were given through men superintended by the Holy Spirit in a miraculous way so that their writings are without error. He communicated His word to men and led them to write it down for permanent preservation. What they wrote was the very word of God, inspired and infallible. Inspiration applies to the autographs of Scripture, not the human writers; there were no inspired Scripture writers, only inspired Scripture. God is so identified with His Word that when Scripture speaks, God speaks (Rom. 9:17; Gal. 3:8).

2.  The Bible Gives Evidence It Came from God.

                                                                     i.            By its tremendous unity throughout in spite of the forty different writers, from different backgrounds, and times writing independent of each other.

                                                                   ii.            By its consistent and continuous emphasis on God, Christ, and redemption, godliness throughout in spite of the fact it was written over the course of 1, 500 years.

                                                                  iii.            This unity and consistency points to One Author of Scripture—the Holy Spirit.

B.     The Denotation of the Divine Source of the Bible.

1.  The Bible is Revelation (1 Cor. 2:9-11).

                                                                     i.            To know the mind of God, there must be some revelation from Him. The word "revelation" simply means a revealing, and in theology is applied to God's revealing of Himself to mankind.

                                                                   ii.            Without revelation, we would not know anything about God -or even that there is a God. Thus we begin with the premise that God desires to make Himself known to man, and has in fact revealed Himself at various times and in different ways (Deut. 29:29)

                                                                  iii.            Hebrews 1:1-2, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, [2] Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

2.  The Bible Came by Inspiration (1 Cor. 2:12, 13).

                                                                     i.          Inspiration deals with God giving us the Bible and overseeing the process of recording His revelation without error.  Having revealed Himself to man, God then had this revelation recorded in written form.

                                                                   ii.            Inspiration refers to God as the Author of the Bible.

a.       He inspired the very words of Scripture (Jer. 1:9; Matt. 24:35; 1 Cor 2:13).

b.       The entire body of Scripture is equally inspired—“all” (2 Tim. 3:16).

c.       The Scriptures are the product of divine and human cooperation—this is known as confluent inspiration (Acts 4:25; 13:35; Isa. 8:1). While it is true that the individual literary styles of the writers were not destroyed, it is also true that the very words they used were words given to them by the Holy Spirit. This is why we can detect different styles from the different Bible penmen!

d.       The Scriptures are free of error in their teaching (Ps. 119:160; Jn. 17:17).

                                                                  iii.            Since the Bible is given to mankind by inspiration of God then it is not merely the writings of men but they find their source in Jehovah. The reliability of the Scriptures rest in the Power, Sovereignty, and Wisdom of an All Mighty God, and not human strength or frailty! See 2 Peter 1:20, 21.

                                                                 iv.            Since God inspired the Bible it must be true from beginning to end (Ps. 119:160).

a.       The Bible is Understood through Illumination (1 Cor. 2:14-3:4).

b.       Greater illumination and spiritual discernment will come with obedience, discipline study, faith, and maturity in the Word (Matt. 13:12; Mark 4:24, 25; Heb. 5:11-14). There is no short cut to an in dept Biblical perspective.

c.       God does not communicate to us through occult practices and methods (Lev. 19:26, 31).

d.       Pursue the wisdom that comes from God; it is far superior to demonic and worldly wisdom (Dan. 1:16-21; 2:10, 19-23, 28-30).

Beloved, when you read the Word of God, you are reading a miracle Book to be sure! Knowing these truths about the Bible, how then should we respond to it? We must take Paul’s counsel to Timothy to heart, “continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured.”(2 Tim. 3:14) At a time in which our society is rejecting the Bible more and more, let us as Believers in Christ Jesus cling to its message and truths, explore all the wonder of a relationship with God, and stand ever firmly on "thus saith the LORD!"