Perhaps second only to His activity in creation in general, the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the creation of the Word of God may well be His greatest and most strategic contribution to the created order of angels and humans. The Spirit of God has seen fit to provide us with a written record of key events transpiring from the Genesis creation account to the close of the Revelation in chapter 22. Creation to culmination. And, wonder of wonders, this magnificent member of the Trinity not only was charged with the task of providing the very revelation of deity to humanity, but He, then, deigned to use human instrumentality to bring it to pass. Scripture could have been written by the finger of God, by utilizing angelic being, or any other method that pleased God. Yet, in His gracious and benevolent manner, the Spirit of God opted to use humans to convey the message of God to humans. Only in this way could the Bible contain the human dimension that could appeal to the humans to whom it was addressed.
Peter, the apostle, tells us in 2nd Peter 1 “no prophesy was ever made by an act of human will but men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God.” The word for “moved” in the original Greek conveys the idea of a vessel at sea being carried or borne along over the seas as the wind and their sails carried it. In 2nd Timothy 3, Paul wrote to assure Timothy absolutely nothing else could do the job that needed to be done apart from the Word of God doing it, “This being the case, Timothy, I entreat you to preach the Word. Preach it because it is what it is, and nothing else can do the job it alone can do.” When Paul called the Scriptures “God-breathed”, he uses the Greek word “theopneustos”, which literally means “God-breathed” or “the breath of God”.
While that sounds like a curious expression it really isn’t, and here is why: When we humans speak, we do so by breathing in and out as we talk. Without giving it so much as a thought, we automatically inhale and exhale our breath as we speak, and we cannot speak audibly without doing so. Breath is not only critical for existing but for talking. Our words are all a result of human breath. The Scriptures, Paul reminds Timothy, constitute the very breath of the Almighty. In His word, as His word comes forth, it is God breathing the very words through human instrumentality. This is why the Bible is called “the Word of God”, the words of God, the revelation from God. And such, Paul tells us, is not true of some of the Bible but all Scripture is given by inspiration or the breath of God. What is more, it is what it is, whether man accepts it and believes it or not. And never does it set about to try and prove itself to the satisfaction of human critics. It merely states its origin as being from God and leaves it at that. It does not stoop to answer the petty and petulant objections of any man. Earth’s greatest treasure has been provided to us by the Holy Spirit of God in the Holy Scriptures.
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