“Holy Scripture is not an arid story or ancient chronicle but the ever-living, eternally youthful Word, which God, now and always, issues to His people. It is the eternally ongoing speech of God to us.
It does not just serve to give us historical information; it does not even have the intent to furnish us a historical story by the standard of reliability demanded in other realms of knowledge.
Holy Scripture is tendentious: whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope [Rom. 15:4].
Scripture was written by the Holy Spirit that it might serve Him in guiding the church, in the perfecting of the saints, in building up the body of Christ.
In it God daily comes to His people.
In it He speaks to His people, not from afar but from nearby.
In it He reveals himself, from day to day, to believers in the fullness of His truth and grace.
Through it He works His miracles of compassion and faithfulness. Scripture is the ongoing rapport between heaven and earth, between Christ and His church, between God and His children.
It does not just tie us to the past; it binds us to the living Lord in the heavens.
It is the living voice of God, the letter of the omnipotent God to His creature.
God once created the world by the word, and by that word He also upholds it [Heb. 1:2, 3].
But He also re-creates it by the word and prepares it to be His dwelling. Divine inspiration, accordingly, is a permanent attribute of Holy Scripture.
It was not only ‘God-breathed’ at the time it was written; it is ‘God-breathing.’
‘It was divinely inspired, not merely while it was written, God breathing through the writers; but also, whilst it is being read, God breathing through the Scripture, and the Scripture breathing Him [He being their very breath].’ (Bengel)
Having come forth from revelation, it is kept alive by divine inspiration and made efficacious.
It is the Holy Spirit who maintains both prophecy and miracle, Scripture and church, joining them together, thus preparing the parousia.
Some day when being and consciousness are completely renewed, revelation will end and Scripture will no longer be necessary.
Divine inspiration (θεοπνευστια) will then be the portion of all God’s children. They will all be taught by the Lord and serve Him in His temple. Prophecy and miracle have then become ‘nature,’ for God dwells among His people.”
–Herman Bavinck, Ed. John Bolt and trans. John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 384-385.
