If the question be asked whether or not inspiration affected the
words, it must be answered in the affirmative. It is hardly possible
that inspiration could insure the correct transmission of thought
without in some way affecting the words. Yet it affected the words
not directly and immediately by dictating them in the ears of the
writers, but mediately, through working on their minds and producing
there such vivid and clear ideas of thoughts and facts that the
writers could find words fitted to their purpose.
We must conclude, therefore, that while from the divine side the
Holy Spirit gave through men clearly and faithfully that which
He wished to communicate, from the human side that communication
came forth in language such as men themselves would naturally have
chosen.
This may seem to some to be an impossibility, and they would allege
that if the words were affected by inspiration at all, there must
have been dictation. But the must is a _non sequitur._ It
is admitted that God works His purposes in the world through the
ordinary actions of men, while yet no violence is done to their
freedom. It is admitted, also, that God, through the gracious
operations of His Holy Spirit, works in the hearts of His people
so as to develop in each of them the new man, while yet the
individuality of each is preserved; and the type of piety is just
as distinct in each Christian as the style is in each of the sacred
writers. These cases are so nearly parallel as to suggest that all
denials of the possibility of inspiration without the destruction
of the individual characteristics are as unphilosophical as they
are unwarranted.
We may therefore safely say that in a very real sense the words
as well as the thoughts have been given, whether mediately or
immediately, under the influence of the divine Spirit. We claim
that the Bible is in deed and in truth the very Word of God; that
it is the Word of God in the language of men; truly divine, and at
the same time truly human; that it is the revelation of God to His
creatures; that infallible guidance was given to those who wrote
it, so as to preserve them from error in the statement of facts;
that what the writers of the Scriptures say or write under this
guidance is as truly said and written by God as if their instrumentality
were not used at all; that the ideas expressed therein are the
very ideas the Holy Ghost intended to convey; that God is in the
fullest sense responsible for every word. This is what the Bible
claims for itself.