The theological term for how God influenced the writers of Scripture to reveal his messages.
How Did God Communicate with the Writers of Scripture?
The Bible itself tells us that it is an inspired text. It says, “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). This means every word of the Bible comes from God. The words of the Bible came from God but were written by men. Peter confirmed this when he said that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation. For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20–21).
“Men spoke from God.” This is the key to understanding how the Bible was written. Thousands of years ago, God chose certain people—such as Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel—to receive his words and write them down. These writings became the Old Testament. Nearly 2,000 years ago, God chose others—such as Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul—to share his message of salvation through Jesus Christ. These writings became the New Testament.
God gave his words in many different ways. Some writers of the Old Testament got direct messages from God. Moses received the Ten Commandments carved in stone on Mount Sinai. When David wrote his psalms to God, he predicted events that would occur in Jesus’s life. Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah were told exactly what to say. So, when they prophesied, it was God’s word, not their own. This is why many Old Testament prophets often said, “Thus says the Lord.” (This statement appears over 2,000 times in the Old Testament). Other prophets, like Ezekiel and Daniel, received visions and dreams. They wrote down exactly what they saw, even if they did not understand it. Writers like Samuel and Ezra were directed by God to record events in Israel's history.
What Did Jesus Teach about the Old Testament?
Four hundred years after the last book of the Old Testament (Malachi) was written, God’s Son, Jesus Christ, came to earth. He taught that the Old Testament writings were authored by God (see Matthew 5:17–19; Luke 16:17; John 10:35). He also pointed to certain passages in the Old Testament as predictions of certain events in his life (see Luke 24:27, 44). The New Testament writers also affirmed that the Old Testament was divinely inspired. It was the apostle Paul who wrote, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” Quite specifically, he said this about the Old Testament. Peter said that the Old Testament prophets were motivated by the Holy Spirit to speak from God.
How Were the New Testament Writers Inspired by God?
The New Testament is also God-breathed. Before Jesus returned to God, he told the disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit to remind them of everything Jesus said and guide them to truth (see John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13–15). The Holy Spirit helped the authors of the Gospels remember Jesus’ exact words, and the Holy Spirit guided the other authors of the New Testament.
However, inspiration for writing the Gospels didn’t only begin when the authors began writing. Inspiration began with the disciples' encounters with Jesus Christ. Their experiences with Jesus changed them and helped them remember everything about him.
John spoke about this at the beginning of his gospel when he declared, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory” (John 1:14). This refers to the apostles who lived with Jesus for over three years and saw his glory. In his first letter, John speaks of this experience, saying, “We have seen it and testified to it” (1 John 1:1–2).
The verbs in both the gospel and the letter are in the perfect tense, which refers to a past action with an ongoing effect. John never forgot the encounters he had with Jesus. They lived with him, stayed with him, and he inspired their writing. Matthew, John, and Peter (through Mark) wrote their gospels based on their own experiences. Luke was not an eyewitness but based his gospel on the accounts of eyewitnesses (see Luke 1:1–4).
The inspiration of the rest of the New Testament also came from encounters with the living Christ. Paul claims that his inspiration and call came from his encounter with the risen Christ (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:8–10). Peter says the same thing (see 1 Peter 5:1; 2 Peter 1:16–18), as does John (1 John 1:1–4). James and Jude, Jesus' brothers, became believers after they saw the risen Christ (for James—see 1 Corinthians 15:7; for Jude—see Acts 1:14).
So, they also were inspired by their encounters with the living Christ. So, all the writers of the New Testament (with the possible exception of the author of Hebrews, who is unknown) knew the living Christ. This is what made it possible for them to write Scripture. No other authors, no matter how good their writings were, could write Scripture.
The writers of the New Testament letters were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Paul indicated that the New Testament apostles were not writing “in words taught us by human wisdom” but “in words taught by the Spirit” (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–13). What they wrote was Spirit-taught. For example, when John wrote about Jesus giving eternal life, the Holy Spirit helped him express this truth in many different ways:
“a fount of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:14)
“the bread of life” (John 6:48)
“the light of life” (John 8:12)
“the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25)
and more (John 14:6)
When Paul wrote about Christ's divine nature, he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to use such phrasing as:
“in whom [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3)
“for in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9)
“the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8)
How Did God and People Work Together to Write Scripture?
The writers used their own words and styles to express the meaning given by the Holy Spirit. So, the Scriptures are a result of divine and human cooperation. The Scriptures were not mechanically inspired—God did not exclude the human experience to perfectly communicate the divine word. Rather, the Scriptures were inspired by God and then written by humans. The Bible, therefore, is both fully divine and fully human.