When it comes to the Bible, one must be able to answer the question, “Is the Bible the complete revelation of God, or are there verbal revelations from God outside of and subsequent to God’s revelation of His will in the Bible?” The Bible clearly teaches that it is the complete revelation of God.
“All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16). No part of Scripture was ever the result “of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20-21). The Bible clearly teaches the verbal inspiration of all Scripture, for the Holy Spirit “revealed” the very “words” to be recorded (1 Cor. 2:10-13). In recording the “words” revealed by God to man, there is an emphasis throughout the New Testament that God was providing His complete revelation for man to know His entire will for them. On the night before His death, Jesus told the apostles that the Holy Spirit would come when He left, and look at this affirmation: “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). Read that carefully. When the Holy Spirit came, into how much truth would He guide the apostles? When the Holy Spirit was done guiding the apostles, how much truth would He have given?
Put together the passages already studied. The Holy Spirit “moved” the writers of Scripture to “reveal” the “words” of God (and not man), and in that verbal “inspiration” process, He guided them into “all truth.” When the Holy Spirit completed His work with these men, there would be no more truth to reveal. The revelation of God would be complete.
This is emphasized again in the verse right after affirming that “All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God,” which gives us the purpose of God breathing out all Scripture—“that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17). By furnishing completely, the Scripture gives to man everything that he needs to serve God. There is not anything missing or to be revealed later, else man really was not thoroughly equipped.
The God-directed Jude wrote that “the faith” (i.e., the gospel system, Gal. 1:11+23) “was once for all delivered” (Jude 3). Just as the blood of Jesus was offered “once for all” (Heb. 7:27), never to be amended, Scripture has been “once for all time” delivered to man by inspired writers, never to be amended. It is the complete revelation of God!
Having the full revelation of God in the Bible, we must never “add to” or “take away” from any part of it (Rev. 22:18-19). We must “live by every word” that God has given to us (Matt. 4:4), for we have “every word” He is going to give to us!
-David Sproule
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