How do we know that the New Testament writings were supposed to be understood as being inspired of God? Did the early church accept writings into their canon of Scripture that were not claiming to be the word of God? These are questions that people can wrestle with. Questions are not bad as long as we are being honest and humble in our search for answers. So how do we formulate this doctrine of the inspiration of the New Testament? I will take us through three parts of understanding the New Testament claim to divine inspiration:
- Defining what inspiration means theologically.
- Looking at what the New Testament claims and demonstrates about its own inspiration.
- Demonstrating that the earliest Christians (1st and 2nd century C.E.) affirmed divine inspiration of the New Testament.
When we say that scripture is inspired we don’t mean that in the sense that it is rousing or exciting (though it is that too). In 2nd Timothy 3:16, Paul says that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (ESV). The Greek word θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) literally means “God breathed.” In other words, the authors were directed by God while writing, like riding along on His breath. This doesn’t mean that they had an inspiring “ah-ha” moment from God, then wrote down everything the best they could. It means that the Spirit was guiding them throughout the writing process, while they were completely aware of their own thoughts in the process. Of course, nthis only applies to the original manuscripts, not translations! Translations are trustworthy because they attempt to closely reflect the original writing, but are never said to be “God-breathed” – only the original writings.
This inspiration is a verbal plenary inspiration, meaning all wording and phrasing of the New Testament is all from God, without exception. But, at the same time being truly from the human author. The word of God in the original writings was not dictated by God, but God (the Spirit) used each human author’s experiences, personality, word choices, intention, etc. to say what He wanted. While the words are truly from the human authors, they are also truly from God, meaning they have authority and trustworthiness. We see this in 1st Peter 1:21, where Peter says “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (ESV). Their own personalities and thoughts were used by God to reveal His truth.
Thus from 2 Timothy and 1 Peter we begin to see our definition of verbal plenary inspiration taking form, while also seeing two of the direct claims the New Testament is making about itself. But the concept of inspiration is seen in other various ways in the New Testament. Jesus himself proclaimed the coming inspiration of the New Testament authors (Jn 14:26, 16:13-14). In 2nd Peter 3:16, Peter places Paul’s writings on the same level as the Old Testament, indicating that he believed Paul’s writings were scripture, divinely from God and carrying the authority and trueness of God’s words. In 1st Corinthians 2:13, Paul further affirms that the teachings of himself and the other apostles find their ultimate origin in God: “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual” (ESV).
We can also see inspiration implied through the way the authors speak with what they believe to be divine authority, not of authority of themselves (1 Thess. 4:2, 15; 2 Thess. 3:6, 12). In other words, they are writing in such a way that we can see they believed what they were saying comes from God. In 1 Corinthians 14:37, Paul indicates that accepting and keeping his teachings reveals that a person is being obedient to God. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul quotes Luke 10 referring to it as scripture.
Thus we can see that divine inspiration is self-attested in the New Testament, both explicitly and implicitly, with the writings pointing to the inspiration of each other.
Looking to the foreground of the New Testament at the writings of the earliest Christians that we can find outside of the Bible, we see that the New Testament books were regarded as authoritative, inspired scriptures from God. They were sighted as authoritative and placed alongside the Old Testament scriptures. If we look to the writings of 1st and 2nd Clement (circa 96 C.E.), Matthew 9:1 is called Scripture, both Matthew and Luke are used authoritatively to teach about Jesus and the Father, and various other New Testament books are referenced, such as 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, and Romans.
In addition, The Letter to the Philippians written by Polycarp of Smyrna (a disciple of the Apostle John) makes clear use of 1 Peter, 1 Corinthians, and Ephesians, with likely and possible references to 1st and 2nd Timothy, 1 John, Romans, Galatians, and Philippians. [1]
The New Testament and the earliest Christian writings affirm the belief that the writings of the New Testament are not only brought about by human thought, but are of divine origin, inspired by God. This can be seen in their own self affirmation, the way they assume divine authority in their claims, the way they affirm the authority and origin of each other, and in the status they received alongside the Old Testament in the writings of the earliest Christian writings.
[1] HOLMES, Michael W. The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations. Thirded. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007, p. 273
Robert A. Scarbro 
I was just talking about this with your Dad this morning. Great information and timing for me.