The argument may be brought to a focus thus:
1.—Christ rose from the
dead: therefore, whatever view of the Old Testament Scriptures was entertained
by him and the apostles must be correct.
2.—The view which
Christ entertained and always expressed was that the Old Testament was of
divine authority, and “could not be broken.”
3.—The same view was
held by the apostles, and illustrated by them in all the uses they put the Old
Testament to, and the allusions they made to it.
4.—The ground of this
view was their conviction that these Scriptures were God-inspired—a conviction
which they declared in terms without qualification.
5.—The inspired
character of the Old Testament Scriptures is evident from their non-human style
of composition, and from the nature of the topics which they select for
presentation, whether in history, contemplation, or prophecy.
6.—This divine
inspiration was a necessity for the objects divinely proposed in the writing of
the Scriptures (whether in its historical, preceptive, or prophetic
departments). A reliable exhibition of any of these elements would not have
been possible without it.
7.—That the analogy of
God’s whole work with Israel requires that the writing of the Scriptures should
be His own work.
8.—That they are, in
fact, owned by Him as such.
9.—That His authorship
of them is not interfered with by the fact that human writers were employed in
their literary fabrication.—His Spirit controlling and supervising their
performance in a manner that secured the exhibition of His mind, and His mind
alone, whether in the utterance of a prophecy or the quotation of a
blasphemer’s document.
10.—That there are no
insuperable difficulties in the way of this attested and inevitable view.
Apparent discrepancies are mostly susceptible of explanation: and where they
are not, it is for want of the knowledge of some element of the case that would
supply the solution. (Robert Roberts, "In What Way Did
Inspiration Act?," The Christadelphian 21, no. 246 [December 1,
1884]:549)
Further Reading: