Scripture’s Unique Nature as the Inspired Word of God

Editor’s Note: We’re keeping it in the family today! Gavin Ortlund, author of the new book What It Means to Be Protestant, is my dear cousin and I’m thrilled to bring you an excerpt today of his latest work. As Christians, too often we don’t know enough about our roots, or why Holy Scripture is our ultimate written authority, or how to be gracious and kind in discussing theological issues. Gavin gives us a roadmap for discussing our beliefs with understanding, courage, and passion. Enjoy this excerpt! ~ Laurie McClure, Editor of FaithGateway

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Sola Scriptura is the conclusion to a thread of reasoning that begins with a simple question: What is Scripture? Simply put, Scripture claims to be the inspired Word of God. Now, in all Christian traditions, the phrase “the word of God” can be used in different ways. For example, Protestants have historically spoken of sermons or gospel proclamation as the “Word of God.” But when we designate Scripture as the inspired Word of God, we are recognizing the unique ontological nature of Scripture.

In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul calls Scripture theopneustos, often rendered “inspired by God” but literally meaning “breathed out by God” (ESV). As John Stott points out, this does not mean Scripture already exists and then is subsequently breathed into by God. Rather, Scripture itself is that which is breathed out by God:

         “Inspiration” is doubtless a convenient term to use, but “spiration” or even “expiration” would convey the meaning of the Greek adjective more accurately. Scripture . . . originated in God’s mind and was communicated from God’s mouth by God’s breath or Spirit. It is therefore rightly termed “the Word of God,” for God spoke it.1

We might call a sermon “the word of God” in a general sense, but we do not call it “God-breathed.” This is the ontological distinction we seek to convey with the adjective “inspired.” 

The words of Scripture are breathed out by God; the words of a sermon are not. Similarly, the apostle Peter teaches that, though Scripture comes through a human medium, its origin is not human but divine: 

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. — 2 Peter 1:21

In his classic treatment of biblical inspiration and authority, B. B. Warfield comments on the verb used in the phrase “carried along by the Holy Spirit”:

         The term here used is a very specific one. It is not to be confounded with guiding, or directing, or controlling, or even leading in the full sense of that word. It goes beyond all such terms, in assigning the effect produced specifically to the active agent. What is “borne” is taken up by the “bearer,” and conveyed by the “bearer’s” power, not its own, to the “bearer’s goal, not its own.2

Drawing from 2 Peter 1:21, one way to convey the notion of inspiration is to say that the words of Scripture are from God. Or, more colloquially,

Scripture is God’s words. It is divine speech.

Indeed, this is how Scripture speaks of itself. For example, Romans 3:2 refers to the Old Testament ta logia tou Theou, meaning “the oracles of God” (ESV) or “the actual words of God” (NASB) or “very words of God” (NIV).3 Similarly, Jesus will quote Old Testament Scripture as God speaking (for example, Matthew 19:4–5). It is on this basis — Scripture’s nature as the words of God — that we speak of Scripture as infallible. Because the words of Scripture are the very words of God, they are incapable of error. As Jesus said in John 10:35,

Scripture cannot be broken.

When it comes to the nature of Scripture, Protestantism has much agreement with other Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, teaches that “Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”4 In Roman Catholic theology, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition together constitute the Word of God, but in different ways — Sacred Tradition is not inspired by the Holy Spirit in the way Scripture is.5 Similarly, while the magisterium is entrusted with the role of interpreting the deposit of faith contained in both Scripture and Tradition, the charism of infallibility extended to the church in that capacity is distinguished from divine revelation.6 Thus, when a pope speaks ex cathedra, his words are not the words of God. When an ecumenical council delivers a verdict, its words are not the words of God. On the contrary, Roman Catholic theology maintains public divine revelation ceased with the deaths of the apostles: “We now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”7 Similarly, though the Eastern Orthodox Church distinguishes her view of Scripture in many ways from a Protestant one, that Scripture is the inspired Word of God is not a point of difference.8 

Thus, the vast majority of Christians today can agree that Scripture is ontologically unique in its nature. No other rule of faith we have is the inspired Word of God. Nothing else that we possess today constitutes the God-breathed, Spirit-carried, unbreakable oracles of God.

• Sola Scriptura is simply the position that, as the Bible is unique in nature, so it is correspondingly unique in authority.

The alternative positions, such as those of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, separate infallibility from inspiration. Those positions have the burden to show why another rule of faith that is not the inspired Word of God should nonetheless be accepted as equal to Scripture with respect to infallibility. This consideration alone does not establish sola Scriptura, but it makes visible its coherence and underscores the need for alternative proposals to demonstrate the grounds for their elevation of additional rules of faith up into the realm of infallibility.

One can express this concern at a more metaphysical level: God is unique; therefore, His speech is unique. Why should we accept that which isn’t the speech of God to have equal authority to that which is the speech of God? If you want to put something else into the “infallible rule” category alongside the very words of God, you will need a good reason.

1. John R. W. Stott, The Message of 2 Timothy: Guard the Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 101–02.
2. Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1948), 137.
3. For why this phrase is best taken as referring to the Old Testament Scriptures, see Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 182–83.
4. CCC 81.
5. CCC 80–82.
6. CCC 2035.
7. CCC 66. On this point, see Keith A. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura (Moscow, ID: Canon, 2001), 165–66.
8. E.g., see Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (Wellington, New Zealand: Crux Press, 2022). Different Eastern Orthodox theologians construe the precise relationship between Scripture and tradition differently. For a brief overview, see Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 186–87.

Excerpted with permission from What It Means to Be Protestant by Gavin Ortlund, copyright Gavin Ortlund.

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Your Turn

God is unique; therefore, His speech is unique. Why should we accept that which isn’t the speech of God to have equal authority to that which is the speech of God? Scripture is God’s words. It is divine speech. Are you ready to defend it with grace and peace? ~ Devotionals Daily