Series 3, Lecture 12: A Theological Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text — The Doctrine of Immediate Inspiration and a Standard Sacred Text, part 3

Tonight 8/15 at 7:30 we will hold the twelfth lecture of series three on “A Theological Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text –The Doctrine of Immediate Inspiration and a Standard Sacred Text , part 3.”

The Apologetic Aspect of Inspiration

            The formulation of the doctrine of inspiration is in large part been an apologetic record of the doctrine’s historic defense. The adjectives immediate, verbal, plenary, now codified in Protestant Orthodoxy, and later the adjective derivative, aid the Church in specifically defining inspiration and enabling the Church to give both a didactic and apologetic response. Christianity is wholly dependent on the inspired Word. If there is no inspiration, there is no Christianity.[1] Three factors prove the necessity of the Scripture: the preservation of the word; its vindication; and its propagation.[2] In explanation of these necessities, Turretin writes,

It was necessary for a written word to be given to the church that a canon of true religious faith might be constant and unmoved; that it might easily be preserved pure and entire against the weakness of memory, the depravity of men and the shortness of life; that it might be more certainly defended against the frauds and corruptions of Satan; that it might more conveniently not only be sent to the absent and widely separated, but also be transmitted to posterity.[3]

Richard Allestree (1622-1681)

Richard Allestree in 1678 wrote The Lively Oracles Given to us or The Christian’s Birth-right and Duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture.[4] His structured insights into the Doctrine of Inspiration are included here for the edification of the reader. He writes,

And for this, God (whose care is equal for all successions of men) hath graciously provided, by causing Holy Scriptures to be written, by which he hath derived on every succeeding age the illumination of the former.[5]

Allestree considers the consistency of the illumination of the Scripture a matter of trans-generational succession because it is written and preserved. He goes on to say,

And for that purpose, endowed the writers not only with that moral fidelity requisite to the truth of history, but with a divine Spirit, proportionable to the great design of fixing an immutable rule of faith and manners.[6]

The active, creative instrumentality of the Spirit assured fidelity in historical matters, a point lost in contemporary theological formulas of inerrancy, including “fixing an immutable rule” in matters of faith and practice. An immutable rule depends wholly on an immutable word. Allestree notes the congruence between writers of Scripture were first those who communicated the gospel orally and their written message. “And to give us fuller security therein,” Allestree comments,

he has chosen no other penmen of the New Testament, than those who were first oral promulgators of our Christian religion, so they have left to us the very same doctrine they taught the Primitive Christians. He that acknowledges them divinely inspired in what they preached, cannot doubt them to be so in what they wrote.[7]

Considering the inspired text from the preparation of the penmen, Allestree notes that God used to preach the good news in the early church were also those chosen to write the inspired text. From the penmen’s perspective, what the Spirit gave them to write was in large part already known and articulated, (Luke 1:1-4). The Holy Spirit as the active, creative agent worked through holy men, men who had already proven themselves to be witnesses of Jesus Christ.

A connection is made between the Apostolic authority and the inspired word that is currently read. Allestree continues,

So that we may enjoy virtually and effectively what wish of the devout Father, who desired to be Saint Paul’s auditor, for that hears any of the Epistles read, is as really spoken to by Saint Paul, as those who were within the sound of his voice: Thus God who in times past spake at sundry times, and in diverse manners to the prophets, and in the latter days by his son, Heb. 1:1-2, continues still to speak to us by these inspired writers, and what Christ once said to his disciples in relation to their preaching, is no less true of their writings: He that despiseth you, despiseth me, Luke 10:16.[8]

Here Allestree demonstrates his understanding the continuity between “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” (2 Peter 1:21), and that these same holy men were the penmen of the inspired word. ^[9] The Apostolic message, (though not all the penmen were Apostles) is the content of the inspired written word. That is, when we read the inspired written Word, it is to hear the voice of the Apostle, as if sitting under his preaching. Allestree concludes with a note again reinforcing God as the Author of the inspired word. Cognizant of the constant attack upon Scripture, he writes,

All the contempt that is any time flung on these sacred Writings, rebounds higher, and finally devolves on the first Author of those doctrines, whereof these are the registers and transcripts.[10]

All attempts made to discredit the inspired word “finally devolves” or is finally handed over to the Holy Spirit, the Author of the sacred Writings, the written inspired word being the Holy Spirits “registers and transcripts.” Use of the word “transcript” tends toward the understanding of the Holy Spirit dictating the inspired word. The following is a polemic against Enlightenment theological erosion and a call to return to pre-critical Theological categories by looking at two principal passages on the Doctrine of Inspiration — 2 Timothy 3:15-17 and 2 Peter 1:19-21.

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[1] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1992), 57. On “The Necessity of Scripture” Turretin writes, “Hence the divine ordination being established, it made necessary to the church, so that it pertains not only to the well-being (bene esse) of the church, but also to its very existence (esse). Without it the church could not now stanv. So, God was indeed not bound to the Scriptures, but he has bound us to them.”

[2] Turretin, Institutes, 58.

[3] Turretin, Institutes, 58. See Willet, Romans, 1611, 479: “We are then only in matters of faith to have recourse unto the Scriptures, not unto written traditions, whether the papists would send us, for they are uncertain, mutable, variable, and therefore can be no rule of faith.” 

[4] Richard Allestree (1619-1681) (also Allestry) was a royalist divine and provost of Eton College, son of Robert Allestree, and a descendant of an ancient Derbyshire family. He was born at Uppington in Shropshire and educated at Coventry, and later at Christ Church, Oxford, under Richard Busby. He entered as a commoner in 1636, was made student shortly afterwards, and earned the degree of B.A. in 1640 and of M.A. in 1643. At the Restoration he became canon of Christ Church, as a Doctor of Divinity and city lecturer at Oxford. In 1663 he was made chaplain to the king and regius professor of divinity. Allestree died on the 28th of January 1681, and was buried in the chapel at Eton College, where there is a Latin inscription to his memory. His lectures, with which he was dissatisfied, were not published. Allestree was a man of extensive learning, of moderate views and a fine preacher.

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[5] Richard Allestree, The Lively Oracles Given to us or The Christian’s Birth-right and Duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture. By the Author of the Whole Duty of Man (At the Theater in Oxford, 1678), 4.

[6] Allestree, The Lively Oracles,4.

[7] Allestree, The Lively Oracles,4.

[8] Allestree, The Lively Oracles,5.

[9] See John Trapp, A Commentary Upon the Books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs: Wherein the Text is explained, some controversies are discussed, and many remarkable matters hinted, that had by former interpreters been permitted. Besides sundry other Texts of Scripture (which occasionally occur) are fully opened, and the whole so intermixed with pertinent histories, as will yield both pleasure and profit to the judicious reader (London: Printed by T.R. and E.M. for John Bellamie, and are to be sold as his shop at the three golden Lions in the Corn-hil near the R. Exchange, 1650), 174 Trapp, referring to Solomon writes,“He was the Penman, God the Author.”

[10] Allestree, The Lively Oracles, 5.

Don’t miss this important study of the Immediate inspiration for Christian theology, ecclesiology, and personal edification,