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Inspiration is that influence of the Spirit of God upon the minds of the Scripture writers which made their writings the record of a progressive divine revelation, sufficient, when taken together and interpreted by the same Spirit who inspired them, to lead every honest inquirer to Christ and to salvation.

Notice the significance of each part of this definition: 1. Inspiration is an influence of the Spirit of God. It is not a merely naturalistic phenomenon or psychological vagary, but is rather the effect of the inworking of the personal divine Spirit. 2. Yet inspiration is an influence upon the mind, and not upon the body. God secures his end by awakening man's rational powers, and not by an external or mechanical communication. 3. The writings of inspired men are the record of a revelation. They are not themselves the revelation. 4. The revelation and the record are both progressive. Neither one is complete at the beginning. 5. The Scripture writings must be taken together. Each part must be viewed in connection with what precedes and with what follows. 6. The same Holy Spirit who made the original revelations must interpret to us the record of them, if we are to come to the knowledge of the truth. 7. So used and so interpreted, these writings are sufficient, both in quantity and in quality, for their religious purpose. 8. That purpose is, not to furnish us with a model history or with the facts of science, but to lead us to Christ and to salvation.

(a) Inspiration is therefore to be defined, not by its method, but by its result. It is a general term including all those kinds and degrees of the Holy Spirit's influence which were brought to bear upon the minds of the Scripture writers, in order to secure the putting into permanent and written form of the truth best adapted to man's moral and religious needs.

(b) Inspiration may often include revelation, or the direct communication from God of truth to which man could not attain by his unaided powers. It may include illumination, or the quickening of man's cognitive powers to understand truth already revealed. Inspiration, however, does not necessarily and always include either revelation or illumination. It is simply the divine influence which secures a transmission of needed truth to the future, and, according to the nature of the truth to be transmitted, it may be only an inspiration of superintendence, or it may be also and at the same time an inspiration of illumination or revelation.

(c) It is not denied, but affirmed, that inspiration may qualify for oral utterance of truth, or for wise leadership and daring deeds. Men may be inspired to render external service to God's kingdom, as in the cases of Bezalel and Samson; even though this service is rendered unwillingly or unconsciously, as in the cases of Balaam and Cyrus. All human intelligence, indeed, is due to the inbreathing of that same Spirit who created man at the beginning. We are now concerned with inspiration, however, only as it pertains to the authorship of Scripture.

Gen. 2:7—“And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”; Ex. 31:2, 3—“I have called by name Bezalel … and I have filled him with the Spirit of God … in all manner of workmanship”; Judges 13:24, 25—“called his name Samson: and the child grew, and Jehovah blessed him. And the Spirit of Jehovah began to move him”; Num. 23:5—“And Jehovah put a word in Balaam's mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou speak”; 2 Chron. 36:22—“Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus”; Is. 44:28—“that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd”; 45:5—“I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me”; Job 32:8—“there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” These passages show the true meaning of 2 Tim. 3:16—“Every scripture inspired of God.” The word θεόπνευστος is to be understood as alluding, not to the flute-player's breathing into his instrument, but to God's original inbreathing of life. The flute is passive, but man's soul is active. The flute gives out only what it receives, but the inspired man under the divine influence is a conscious and free originator of thought and expression. Although the inspiration of which we are to treat is simply the inspiration of the Scripture writings, we can best understand this narrower use of the term by remembering that all real knowledge has in it a divine element, and that we are possessed of complete consciousness only as we live, move, and have our being in God. Since Christ, the divine Logos or Reason, is “the light which lighteth every man” (John 1:9), a special influence of “the spirit of Christ which was in them” (1 Pet. 1:11) rationally accounts for the fact that “men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).

It may help our understanding of terms above employed if we adduce instances of

(1) Inspiration without revelation, as in Luke or Acts, Luke 1:1–3;

(2) Inspiration including revelation, as in the Apocalypse, Rev. 1:1, 11;

(3) Inspiration without illumination, as in the prophets, 1 Pet. 1:11;

(4) Inspiration including illumination, as in the case of Paul, 1 Cor. 2:12;

(5) Revelation without inspiration, as in God's words from Sinai, Ex. 20:1, 22;

(6) Illumination without inspiration, as in modern preachers, Eph. 2:20.

Other definitions are those of Park: “Inspiration is such an influence over the writers of the Bible that all their teachings which have a religious character are trustworthy”; of Wilkinson: “Inspiration is help from God to keep the report of divine revelation free from error. Help to whom? No matter to whom, so the result is secured. The final result, viz.: the record or report of revelation, this must be free from error. Inspiration may affect one or all of the agents employed”; of Hovey: “Inspiration was an influence of the Spirit of God on those powers of men which are concerned in the reception, retention and expression of religious truth—an influence so pervading and powerful that the teaching of inspired men was according to the mind of God. Their teaching did not in any instance embrace all truth in respect to God, or man, or the way of life; but it comprised just so much of the truth on any particular subject as could be received in faith by the inspired teacher and made useful to those whom he addressed. In this sense the teaching of the original documents composing our Bible may be pronounced free from error”; of G. B. Foster: “Revelation is the action of God in the soul of his child, resulting in divine self-expression there: Inspiration is the action of God in the soul of his child, resulting in apprehension and appropriation of the divine expression. Revelation has logical but not chronological priority”; of Horton, Inspiration and the Bible, 10–13—“We mean by Inspiration exactly those qualities or characteristics which are the marks or notes of the Bible. … We call our Bible inspired; by which we mean that by reading and studying it we find our way to God, we find his will for us, and we find how we can conform ourselves to his will.”

Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, 496, while nobly setting forth the naturalness of revelation, has misconceived the relation of inspiration to revelation by giving priority to the former: “The idea of a written revelation may be said to be logically involved in the notion of a living God. Speech is natural to spirit; and if God is by nature spirit, it will be to him a matter of nature to reveal himself. But if he speaks to man, it will be through men; and those who hear best will be most possessed of God. This possession is termed ‘inspiration.’ God inspires, man reveals: revelation is the mode or form—word, character, or institution—in which man embodies what he has received. The terms, though not equivalent, are co-extensive, the one denoting the process on its inner side, the other on its outer.” This statement, although approved by Sanday, Inspiration, 124, 125, seems to us almost precisely to reverse the right meaning of the words. We prefer the view of Evans, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 54—“God has first revealed himself, and then has inspired men to interpret, record and apply this revelation. In redemption, inspiration is the formal factor, as revelation is the material factor. The men are inspired, as Prof. Stowe said. The thoughts are inspired, as Prof. Briggs said. The words are inspired, as Prof. Hodge said. The warp and woof of the Bible is πνεῦμα: ‘the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit’ (John 6:63). Its fringes run off, as was inevitable, into the secular, the material, the psychic.” Phillips Brooks, Life, 2:351—“If the true revelation of God is in Christ, the Bible is not properly a revelation, but the history of a revelation. This is not only a fact but a necessity, for a person cannot be revealed in a book, but must find revelation, if at all, in a person. The centre and core of the Bible must therefore be the gospels, as the story of Jesus.”

Some, like Priestley, have held that the gospels are authentic but not inspired. We therefore add to the proof of the genuineness and credibility of Scripture, the proof of its inspiration. Chadwick, Old and New Unitarianism, 11—“Priestley's belief in supernatural revelation was intense. He had an absolute distrust of reason as qualified to furnish an adequate knowledge of religious things, and at the same time a perfect confidence in reason as qualified to prove that negative and to determine the contents of the revelation.” We might claim the historical truth of the gospels, even if we did not call them inspired. Gore, in Lux Mundi, 341—“Christianity brings with it a doctrine of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, but is not based upon it.” Warfield and Hodge, Inspiration, 8—“While the inspiration of the Scriptures is true, and being true is fundamental to the adequate interpretation of Scripture, it nevertheless is not, in the first instance, a principle fundamental to the truth of the Christian religion.”

On the idea of Revelation, see Ladd, in Journ. Christ. Philos., Jan. 1883:156–178; on Inspiration, ibid., Apr. 1883:225–248. See Henderson on Inspiration (2nd ed.), 58, 205, 249, 303, 310. For other works on the general subject of Inspiration, see Lee, Bannerman, Jamieson, Macnaught; Garbett, God's Word Written; Aids to Faith, essay on Inspiration. Also, Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:205; Westcott, Introd. to Study of the Gospels, 27–65; Bib. Sac., 1:97; 4:154; 12:217; 15:29, 314; 25:192–198; Dr. Barrows, in Bib. Sac., 1867:593; 1872:428; Farrar, Science in Theology, 208; Hodge and Warfield, in Presb. Rev., Apr. 1881:225–261; Manly, The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration; Watts, Inspiration; Mead, Supernatural Revelation, 350; Whiton, Gloria Patri, 136; Hastings, Bible Dict., 1:296–299; Sanday, Bampton Lectures on Inspiration.