‘How Did We Get Our Bible?’ explains the revelation, inspiration, and canonization
- Revelation is God disclosing His will to human authors so His message is made known to the human mind.
- Inspiration is the Holy Spirit safeguarding the message so what is spoken and written is truly God-breathed.
- Canonization is the recognizing and collecting of authoritative writings that circulated among God’s people into the Bible we have today.
How did we get the Bible? This is a loaded question and could be approached from a variety of perspectives, but I’d like to simplify the conversation by understanding it through three concepts. We believe that we received the Bible through revelation, inspiration, and canonization.
When we use the word revelation, we are describing the process by which God disclosed his will to a human vessel. In other words, God’s will is made known to a human mind.
When that person speaks forth the Word of God and documents that Word, it is safeguarded by a process we call inspiration. Inspiration ensures that what is spoken comes from God—it is God-breathed. Revelation unfolds or discloses the will of God to the human vessel, and inspiration safeguards that message so that it truly originates from him.
“Revelation unfolds or discloses the will of God to the human vessel, and inspiration safeguards that message so that it truly originates from him.”
We then have a process called canonization, in which the documents are brought together and collected, giving us what we have today as the Bible. To summarize, revelation is the disclosure of God’s will to the human mind, inspiration is the safeguarding of that message so that it is sourced by God, and canonization is the process by which those documented writings are gathered into one collection.
Second Peter 1:20 and following says that holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The human vessel is viewed as a passive instrument guided by the Holy Spirit. These holy men spoke as they were prompted by the Spirit, which means that the words they spoke came from him. Therefore, we recognize that the processes of revelation and inspiration cannot be separated from the work of the Holy Spirit.
When we speak about canonization—the collection of these documents—it is important to understand that the word canon simply means a standard or rule of faith. The canonization process was fundamentally a process of recognition. It was not that a committee of people gathered and selected whichever books they preferred. Rather, certain books circulated as authoritative among the community of God’s people, and these books were recognized as possessing divine authority.
“Certain books circulated as authoritative among the community of God’s people, and these books were recognized as possessing divine authority.”
Because these writings were recognized as authoritative, they were canonized and brought together into a collection. The canonization process, therefore, was one of recognition rather than invention. We thank God for his providential hand in ensuring that we have his Word, given through revelation, inspiration, and canonization.
I want to remind you that when we speak about something being inspired, we simply mean that it is sourced by God or comes from God. When we speak about Scripture—the Old and New Testaments—we see the Bible as an inspired book. It comes through the revelation and inspiration prompted by the Holy Spirit.
This is Question #3 in Orpheus J. Heyward’s God’s Word: The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture.
