Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 138:549 (Jan 1981)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Anonymous

BSac 138:549 (Jan 81) p. 68

Periodical Reviews

“The Sword of the Spirit: The Meaning of Inspiration,” Donald Bloesch, Themelios, May 1980, pp. 14-19.

“‘…This Treasure in Earthen Vessels,’“ Clark H. Pinnock, Sojourners, October 1980, pp. 16-19.

These articles are written by men who do not accept the inerrancy of the Bible and who directly argue against it. Pinnock would still like to affirm inerrancy, for he writes, “I have always felt that, while inerrancy is not a necessary term, when applied to the whole Bible it does express a firm confidence in the truthfulness of Scripture” (p. 18). However, he recognizes that “it becomes necessary to qualify the term to avoid false conclusions” (p. 18) and those qualifications in effect deny the meaning of the word.

Bloesch’s article is actually confusing. What he is really discussing is the use of the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit in affecting and transforming the lives of men. This is the convicting work and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in which the Spirit uses the Scriptures; it is not, as Bloesch calls it in his title, “the meaning of inspiration.” Inspiration is the Spirit’s work in producing the Scriptures, the Word of God; illumination is the Spirit’s work and applying the Scriptures to individuals. To confuse the two ministries of the Spirit is misleading.

Bloesch acknowledges that theopneustos in 2 Timothy 3:16 properly means “breathed out by God” (p. 14), but he fails to come to grips with the reality that every Scripture is therefore God’s breath and God’s message, partaking of God’s infinite perfections. To Bloesch the Scriptures are only “a trustworthy witness to his revelation in the events of biblical history culminating in Jesus Christ” (p. 14). Much of the Bible, of course, is a record of God’s revelatory words and deeds; but by the process of dual authorship called inspiration, the Bible, both in its

BSac 138:549 (Jan 81) p. 69

totality and in each of its individual parts, is constituted God’s revelation, His verbally and plenarily inspired message to men. The phrase “witness to his revelation” used by Bloesch has a Barthian ring to it.

To return to Pinnock, he places his emphasis on what he calls “the human weakness of the Bible” (p. 18). His use of 2 Corinthians 4:7 is an illustration of taking a verse out of its context and misusing it. By “human weakness” he really means mistakes and errors. Pinnock insists that biblical inerrantists in effect “claim more for the Bible than the Bible evidently claims for it...