Did you ever hear someone say that the Holy Spirit spoke to me and has given me a word for you? Or has someone ever said after listening to a pastor preach a sermon that his message was clearly inspired by God. We have often heard that the Bible comes from the inspiration of God. But just what does the term inspiration mean? Let’s first see what inspiration is not.
First, inspiration is not some high level of human achievement. It is not geniuses penning the words of Scripture. Because men don’t write book that condemn themselves and provide salvation outside of their own efforts mere men wouldn’t and couldn’t write the Bible. In fact men are busy exalting themselves and extoling their virtues. This is clearly contrary to the teachings of Scripture for we read in (Romans 3:10-12): “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’” Man, by himself isn’t smart enough to write the Scripture. Peter tells us: “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (II Peter 1:21).
Second, inspiration is not the writers of the Bible being given general themes by God and then using their own thoughts and words to pen Scriptures. Paul clearly said that God didn’t just give him thoughts which he put into his own words for we read in (I Corinthians 2:13): “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches…” Paul is telling us that the words he used were words from the Holy Spirit.
And third, inspiration is not mechanical dictation. In one of the great mysteries of the Bible we see that even though men wrote the Bible it was actually God who used man’s personality, environment, life, and emotions in such a way that man was moved by God to pen the words He wanted it written down. Thus, we can say that Paul wrote Romans and that God wrote Romans and be right on both counts.
But what then is inspiration? John MacArthur gives us an excellent definition: “Listen, inspiration is God’s revelation communicated to us through writers who used their own minds and own words. Yet, God had so arranged their lives, their thoughts, and their vocabularies, that the words they chose from their own minds were the very words that God had determined they would use from eternity past.”1 That means that God’s revelation – the Holy Bible is infallible – which means it is absolutely authoritative and perfect. It means it is inerrant – there are no mistakes in the original manuscripts. Yes, scribes copied the Scriptures but the small errors they sometimes made have no impact on any major doctrines in our Bible. It means that the Bible is complete – no more new revelation is being added. It finally means it is sufficient – everything we need to live a rich, full, joyous, and rewarding life can be found by reading and following the Bible.
Now that we know what inspiration is and is not how does it compare to illumination? Well illumination like inspiration are both works of the Holy Spirit. Illumination is simply the Holy Spirit shining a bright spotlight on our minds and revealing to us what the words of the Scripture mean. Illumination gives us insights and clarity to what has already been written and makes the Bible come alive to us. Since Christians are new creatures in Christ they now have a new capacity to understand the Bible because they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them.
To sum up we can define inspiration as the Holy Spirit taking God’s revelation and using human writers to write the Old and New Testament. While illumination is the Holy Spirit taking God’s revelation and using it to help us understand and follow the Scriptures. Both are acts of the Holy Spirit and while inspiration is no longer being given, we can get fresh illumination every day as we read and mediate on God’s Word. And remember that fresh manna for today is only a Scripture verse away!
1 John MacArthur, Jr., Is the Bible Reliable? (Panorama City, CA: Word of Grace Communications, 1982), p. 48.