BIBLE-INTERPRETATION-HOLY
SPIRIT
Unless we
read the Word of God, we cannot be instructed by the Spirit, and unless we are
instructed by the Spirit, we cannot become godly and effective servants. To put
it another way, loving the Word, learning from the Word, and living out the
Word are interlocked in God's plan for our spiritual growth.
How to Read a Christian Book, 2001, p. 46. Used by permission of Baker, a division of Baker Book House Company.
If we slight
the reading of the God-breathed Word, the Holy Spirit is handicapped with dull
tools for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in right doing. Why
then should we be surprised that we fall short of godly character, feel
spiritually incompetent in Christian witness, and fail at good works? The loop
of learning takes us back to the basics. If we want the qualities associated
with spiritual maturity, we must be avid readers of the God-breathed Word and
serious students of Scripture.
How to Read a Christian Book, 2001, p. 52. Used by permission of Baker, a division of Baker Book House Company.
God has
ordained that the eye-opening work of His Spirit always be combined with the
mind-informing work of His Word. His aim is that we see the glory of His Son
(and be changed). So He opens our eyes when we are looking at the Son – and not
at soaps or sales. The work of the Spirit and the work of the Word always go
together in God’s way of true spiritual self-revelation. The Spirit’s work is
to show the glory and beauty and value of what the mind sees in the Word.
John Piper
Wonderful Things from Your Word, Sermon, January 11,
1998, www.DesiringGod.org. Used by Permission.
The primary
work of the Holy Spirit in (Bible study) is to abolish the pride and arrogance
that keep us from being open to the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit makes us
teachable because He makes us humble. He causes us to rely wholly on the mercy
of God in Christ for our happiness so that we are not threatened if one of our
views is found to be wrong. The person who knows Himself finite and unworthy,
and who thus rejoices in the mercy of God, has nothing to lose when his ego is threatened.
Biblical Exegesis, p. 13. www.DesiringGod.org.
If our pride
has not been crucified by the Holy Spirit, the Bible will be a wax nose and we
will call it foolish or mold it to fit our own natural desires.
How the Spirit Helps Us Understand, 1
Corinthians 2:14-16, May 20, 1984. www.DesiringGod.org.
Used by Permission.
The work of
the Spirit is not to tell us what the (Bible) means. That we must determine by
a disciplined study of the text. The Spirit inspired these writings and He does
not short-circuit them by whispering in our ear what they mean. When we pray
for His help we do not pray that He will spare us the hard work of rigorous
reading and reflection. What we pray is that He would make us humble enough to
welcome the truth. The work of the Spirit in helping us grasp the meaning of
(the Bible) is not to make study unnecessary but to make us radically open to
receive what our study turns up, instead of twisting the text to justify our
unwillingness to accept it.
How the Spirit Helps Us Understand, 1
Corinthians 2:14-16, May 20, 1984. www.DesiringGod.org.
Used by Permission.
The work of
the Holy Spirit in the process of interpretation is not to add information, but
to give to us the discipline to study and the humility to accept the truth we
find without twisting it.
The Supremacy of God in Preaching, Baker, p. 42.
It may be
thus described: A true sense of the divine excellency
of the things revealed in the Word of God, and a conviction of the truth and
reality of them thence arising... [This spiritual light] reveals no new
doctrine, it suggests no new propositions to the mind, it teaches no new thing
of God, or Christ or another world not taught in the Bible, but only gives a
due apprehension of those things that are taught in the Word of God.
Jonathan
Edwards
Works, Banner of Truth, 1979, 2:12-27. Used by
Permission.
Our desire
is that the Holy Spirit, who is the Divine Revealer and Interpreter of Christ
and His truth, may impart to your hearts a sober, spiritual and sanctifying
receptivity of His Word – abasing self, and exalting Christ! Our intention
is to unfold and illustrate the Lord Jesus Christ in the relation in which He
stands to His people – to unveil His glory, beauty, and fullness – to define
the close bond of union that unites to Him all His people – and to bring you
into a more personal realization of what Christ is to you, and of what you are
to Christ.
Unaccompanied
by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Bible is inactive, inoperative; a mere
dead letter!
Apart from
the Spirit, [the Bible] cannot quicken, nor sanctify, nor comfort. It may be
read constantly, and searched deeply, and known accurately, and understood
partially, and quoted appropriately. Yet, left to its own unassisted power, “it
comes but in word only” (1 Thes. 1:5), producing no hallowing, no abiding, no
saving results.
[Illumination
is] the Holy Spirit’s enabling of Christians generally to understand, to recall
to mind, and to apply or grasp the Scriptures they have studied.
Robert Reymond
What About...? P&R, 1977, p. 28-29. Used by Permission.
God must open
the eyes of our understanding before we can truly know and rightly interpret
His truth. His truth is available only to those with a regenerate spirit and in
whom His Spirit dwells, for only the Spirit can illumine Scripture. Just as the
physically blind cannot see the sun, the spiritually blind cannot see the Son.
Both lack proper illumination.
1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 64.
Apart
from the Holy Spirit, the Bible will utterly fail to penetrate and transform
the human heart. With the Spirit of God comes illumination – true understanding
of what has been written. Every believer has the Holy Spirit, the One who
inspired the writers of Scripture, and without His illuminating ministry to us,
the truth of Scripture could not penetrate our hearts and minds.
John MacArthur
Charismatic Chaos, Zondervan, © John MacArthur, 1992, p. 115, www.zondervan.com.
Only the Holy
Spirit can show us spiritual truth. Anyone can hear the facts, study other
people’s teaching, and gain something of an intellectual understanding about
the meaning of Scripture. But apart from the Holy Spirit, the Bible will
utterly fail to penetrate and transform the human heart. With the Spirit of God
comes illumination – true understanding of what has been written. Every
believer has the Holy Spirit, the One who inspired the writers of Scripture,
and without His illuminating ministry to us, the truth of Scripture could not
penetrate our hearts and minds… However, the Holy Spirit’s illuminating
ministry cannot replace conscientious study. They work together. We should keep
in mind that God Himself requires that we be diligent (2 Tim. 2:15). As we
explore Scripture carefully and thoroughly, the Holy Spirit uses whatever tools
we acquire, whatever godly wisdom we expose ourselves to, as the means to
illuminate our hearts.
Charismatic Chaos, Zondervan, © John
MacArthur, 1992, p. 116, www.zondervan.com.
The Bible is
a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid.
When I do not
understand a passage of the Word of God, I lift up my heart to the Lord that He
would, by His Holy Spirit, instruct me. I expect to be taught, although I do
not fix the time and the manner it should be.
George
Muller
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p. 157.
All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with
permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian
bookstores everywhere.
I am
acknowledging that [the Bible] is not an ordinary Book I am about to read but a
supernatural, and, therefore, I need the assistance of its Author.
A Place of Quiet Rest, Moody, 2000, p. 165.
The Word of
God apart from the Spirit of God will be of no use to you. If you cannot
understand a book, do you know the best way to reach its meaning? Write the
author and ask him what he meant. If you have a book to read and you have the
author always accessible, you need not complain that you do not understand it.
The Holy Spirit has come to abide with us forever. Search the Scriptures, but
cry for the Spirit’s light and live under His influence.
C.H. Spurgeon
Spiritual Warfare in a Believer’s Life, Sermon
Matthew 4:4.
If
you do not understand a book by a departed writer you are unable to ask him his
meaning, but the Spirit, who inspired Holy Scripture, lives forever, and He
delights to open the Word to those who seek His instruction.
C.H. Spurgeon
Commenting
and Commentaries, Sheldon and Company, 1876, 58-59.
We must
depend upon the Spirit in our preparations. Is this the fact with us all? Are
you in the habit of working your way into the meaning of texts by the guidance
of the Holy Spirit? Every man that goes to the land of heavenly knowledge must
work his passage thither; but he must work out his passage in the strength of
the Holy Spirit, or he will arrive at some island in the sea of fancy, and
never set his foot upon the sacred shores of the truth. You do not know the
truth, my brother, because you have read "Hodge's Outlines", or
"Fuller's Gospel worthy of all Acceptation"; or "Owen on the
Spirit", or any other classic of our faith. You do not know the truth, my
brother, merely because you accept the Westminster Assembly's Confession, and
have studied it perfectly. No, we know nothing till,
we are taught, of the Holy Ghost, who speaks to the heart rather than to the
ear.
The Holy
Spirit enlightens a person, not by giving an added content of knowledge, but by
mysteriously operating on his heart so that he can see the revelation already
given. The image used in Scripture is of removing a veil (2 Cor.
3:15-16)... The truth was there before them all the time, only they were
prevented from seeing it.
Alwyn York
The Holy Spirit's Illumination of Scripture. Used by
Permission from www.mountainretreatorg.net.
The Spirit’s work is to drive home to the heart and conscience what the mind
understands.
Alwyn York
The Holy Spirit's Illumination of Scripture. Used by
Permission from www.mountainretreatorg.net.
The scriptural doctrine of illumination gives no encouragement at all to those
who desire to find a secret higher meaning in Scripture. It is also no
encouragement to those who look to the word of the Spirit to give them a
personal private revelation.
Alwyn York
The Holy Spirit's Illumination of Scripture. Used by
Permission from www.mountainretreatorg.net.
The Spirit
makes it possible for our efforts to expound the Bible to bear fruit, but His
work does not eliminate the need for careful, logical exegesis. In the design
of God, the Spirit and the human mind are meant to work together, each
performing its own proper function.
Alwyn York
The Holy Spirit's Illumination of Scripture. Used by
Permission from www.mountainretreatorg.net.
The doctrine
of the Spirit’s illumination should be an encouragement to ordinary people that
they can read the Bible with profit. Contrary to what the Roman church
claimed at the time of the Reformation, we do not need some external human
authority to present us with a sound interpretation of the Bible. And contrary
to the fears of some people in the church, we do not need to have advanced
degrees in Bible and theology to be able to read and understand God’s
Word. Right understanding of the Bible is not dependent upon what the
world considers great learning. As the Lord Jesus said, the truths of
Scripture are often concealed from the wise and learned and revealed to
babes. With the aid of the Spirit, all of God’s people can understand His
Word.
Alwyn York
The Holy Spirit's Illumination of Scripture. Used by
Permission from www.mountainretreatorg.net.
We may preach with great eloquence, we may have unanswerable arguments, but if
we are preaching to the lost, we must remember that they are people whose minds
have been blinded by the god of this age. Our most eloquent appeals will
make no impact unless a Sovereign God causes His light to dawn upon their
hearts. Our approach in preaching should not be to say merely that we are
offering something beneficial that you our hearer can and should take up at any
time. We have a more disquieting message. We are to tell the lost,
"You are slaves. You are blind. You cannot even understand what
we are saying unless God in His mercy enables you." The Lord must illumine.
Our preaching can succeed only “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1
Cor. 2:4). That must be the starting point for preaching the Lord God will
honor.
Alwyn York
The Holy Spirit's Illumination of Scripture. Used by
Permission from www.mountainretreatorg.net.
The very same
Holy Spirit who led these men to write, longs to lead
us today so we can understand. Without the Holy Spirit, the Bible is like an
ocean which cannot be sounded, heavens which cannot be surveyed, mines which
cannot be explored, and mysteries beyond unraveling. We must – we must – yield to the leadership
of the Holy Spirit.
Who Said That? Moody Press, 1995, p. 69.
The natural
man may have excellent notions in divinity, but God must teach us to know the
mysteries of the Gospel after a spiritual manner. A man may see the figures
upon a dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes unless the sun shines; so we
may read many truths in the Bible, but we cannot know them savingly,
till God by His Spirit shines upon our soul… He not only informs our mind, but
inclines our will.
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 143.
It is not the
work of the Spirit to tell you the meaning of Scripture, and give you the
knowledge of divinity, without your own study and labour,
but to bless that study, and give you knowledge thereby… To reject study on pretence
of the sufficiency of the Spirit, is to reject the
Scripture itself.
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 143.
Before and
after you read the Scripture, pray earnestly that the Spirit who wrote it may
interpret it for you, keep you from unbelief and error, and lead you into the
truth.
A Christian Directory, 1673.
It is not the
work of the Spirit to tell you the meaning of Scripture, and give you the
knowledge of divinity, without your own study and labor, but to bless that
study, and give you knowledge thereby… To reject study on the pretense of the
sufficiency of the Spirit, is to reject the Scripture
itself.
Would the
Holy Spirit, who authored the Scriptures for the purpose of their being our
infallible guide, promote them as a grab-bag of all kinds of meanings?
Jim Elliff
Led by the Spirit, Joshua Press, 1999, p. 31, http://www.solascriptura.ca/shop/store.php?crn=215.
The Spirit
breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight.
I believe
that the Holy Spirit is indispensable for an interpreter’s reaching a correct
interpretation of the text. The Spirit must work in the interpreter’s heart so
that he or she welcomes (1 Cor. 2:14) the biblical message that one’s
egotistic, sinful heart otherwise hates with a vengeance.
The Unity of the Bible, Zondervan, 1992, p.
111.
No man has a
right to say, as some are in the habit of saying, “The Spirit tells me that
such or such is the meaning of a passage.” How is he assured that it is the
Holy Spirit, and not a spirit of delusion, except from the evidence that the
interpretation is the legitimate meaning of the words?
While
Scripture uses public language and possesses a meaning that is accessible on
one level by application of linguistic and grammatical tools, the deeper
existential appropriation of that meaning by the individual, in a way that
involves trust in God and true belief in the personal reality and significance
of doctrines that are nonsensical to the limited human mind, such as the
Trinity or the Incarnation, is only available to the mind enlightened by the
Holy Spirit.
Theologian of the Word, Tabletalk,
Oct. 2004, p. 15, Used by Permission (Trueman makes
this point regarding the theology of John Owen, Works, vol. 4, p. 85).
The simple
and external demonstration of the Word of God ought, indeed, to suffice fully
for the production of faith, did not our blindness and
perversity interfere. But such is the propensity of our minds to vanity that
they can never adhere to the truth of God, and such is their dullness that they
are always blind even to his light. Hence, without the illumination of the Holy
Spirit the Word has no effect.
John
Calvin
Institutes III.2.xxxiii.
The Bible
cannot be understood simply by study or talent; you must count only on the
influence of the Holy Spirit.
The only authoritative interpreter of a book is its
author!
Sam
Storms
Special Revelation II, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
We do not
understand and then obey: that is instruction. We obey by faith, and then we
understand: that is illumination.
Warren Wiersbe
Live
Like a King, Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI.
1995, p. 131. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.
In general,
He guides and directs His people, affording them, in answer to prayer, the
light of His Holy Spirit, which enables them to understand and to love the
Scriptures.
John Newton
Letters of John Newton.
O let us never forget; that the wonderful things contained in the
divine law can neither be discovered nor relished by the “natural man,” whose powers of perception and
enjoyment are limited in their range to the objects of time and sense. It is
the divine Spirit alone who can lighten the darkness of our sinful state, and
who can enable us to perceive the glory, the harmony, and moral loveliness
which everywhere shine forth in the pages of revealed truth.
John
Morison
1829.
I argue that
the primary reason we misinterpret the Bible is not because the Holy Spirit has
failed to do His work, but because we have failed to do ours.
Taken from: Essential Truths of the Christian
Faith by R. C. Sproul, Copyright © 1992 (Sproul), p. xix, Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
It is as
impossible to understand the Scriptures without the Spirit’s help as it is to
read a sundial without the sun.
Derek Prime and Alistair Begg
On Being a Pastor, Moody Press, 2004, p. 78.
All study of
the Scriptures is fruitless without divine illumination. “There must be Spirit
in me as there is Spirit in the Scriptures, before I can see anything,”
remarked the sixteenth-century Puritan Richard Sibbes.
On Being a Pastor, Moody Press, 2004, p. 121.
As it is difficult to convey an idea of color to the blind,
or of music to the deaf, so it is difficult to describe to a natural man the
peculiar perceptions of one whose eyes have been opened by the Spirit. And
the difficulty is not diminished but increased by the fact, that he has a kind
of knowledge which is common to him with the true believer, and which is too
apt to be mistaken for that which the Gospel requires. Perhaps the nearest
approach that we can make to an explanation may be by asking you to conceive of
a man who sees, but has no sense of beauty, or of a man who hears, but has no
sense of harmony; just such is the case of a natural man, who sees the truth
without perceiving its spiritual excellence, and on whose ear the sound of the
Gospel falls without awakening music in his soul. Saving knowledge is not
a knowledge of the dead letter or outward form of the Gospel, but a knowledge
of the truth in “the light, and lustre, and glory of
it;” “gustful knowledge” (Thomas Halyburton),
which has in it a relish of the truth as excellent: “O taste and see that the
Lord is good.”
James
Buchanan
Office and Work, 1842.