James Boyd states that what makes the Bible different from other books is that, in their speaking and writing, the biblical authors were moved upon by God. They wrote as people, but they were people moved by the Holy Spirit. The result is the revelation of God to man. Now, this teaching again answers the important, and current, question: How is it that fallen men—fallible men, sinful men—with their own prejudices, with their own point of view, lived in a certain culture, were surely impacted by that—how are they to write an infallible Bible? Well, the answer is that even their personal characteristics, the context in which they lived, even their limitations, were employed by God as the Holy Spirit moved them, revealing to them God—God’s Word. They were used exactly as God wanted them to be used.
Now, Benjamin Warfield, a hundred years ago, used an example I think is very helpful. It is the example of a great cathedral with stained-glass windows. The sun shines; the light goes through the stained glass to bathe the interior with all the beautiful hues of those stained-glass windows. Now, critics view that as an example of why what we have through these men could not be the Word of God. They—Warfield puts it this way—any word of God that is passed through the mind and soul of a man must come out discolored by the personality through which it is given, and just to that degree, it ceases to be the pure Word of God. And so they say,
Well, yeah, the light of the sun is shining, but we don’t see that—we see it as it’s gone through the stained-glass window. We don’t have access to the true light, the true revelation of God.But the critics, Warfield said, forget something—namely, that the cathedral had a builder. There was someone who designed every pane of those glasses and put them in there precisely as they were intended. Here is what Warfield says: What if the colors of the stained glass window had been designed by the architect for the express purpose of giving to the light that floods the cathedral precisely the tone and quality it receives from them?You see, yes, it is a word of God from men—but those were men created by God. Their lives were governed by God. They were providentially controlled all their lives. All those circumstances were circumstances God gave them. But then he regenerated them by the Holy Spirit. He changed their minds. He gave them his own word. He superintended the process. They wrote exactly the message in exactly the form that God intended.1
Richard D. Phillips
13 C'est pourquoi nous rendons continuellement grâces à Dieu de ce qu'en recevant la parole de Dieu, que nous vous avons fait entendre, vous l'avez reçue, non comme la parole des hommes, mais, ainsi qu'elle l'est véritablement, comme la parole de Dieu, qui agit en vous qui croyez.