We concluded our preceding article with the question and our answer to it: What is organic inspiration? God and man did not write the Bible. Although we speak of the Primary Author and the secondary authors of the Bible, the Primary Author of the Scriptures is the Holy Spirit. God wrote the Bible. Only, He wrote the Bible through men. Organic inspiration means that these several human writers are God’s organs of inspiration. In the Divine scheme and plan of the Scriptures, each writer occupies his own place, determined by the Lord, and he is led, by the Spirit of God and unerringly, to write the word of the Lord. 

In this organic inspiration we behold a wonderful phenomenon. From Moses to the apostle John covers a period of some sixteen hundred years. Throughout this period all these various writers wrote as unaware of each other. Nevertheless, although unaware of one another, and, of course, without consulting with each other, they all contributed to the Bible, and their various writings constitute a beautiful whole and unity, never in conflict with each other, in perfect harmony with each other, through the one Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Organic inspiration means that each writer has his divinely assigned place in this organism of the Word of God. Each writer was prepared from infancy on. This is an essential feature of organic inspiration. David was a shepherd and could therefore write the shepherd’s psalm, Ps. 23. The Lord prepared him for this particular position in life, appointed him to be such a shepherd exactly in order that he should write the twenty-third psalm. David was a king placed by the Lord upon the throne of Israel, could therefore be the object of intense hatred by the world of darkness all around him, and was thereby placed by God in the position to write his Messianic psalms. David’s sore trials and afflictions serve the divinely pre-determined purpose of being a symbol and picture of the trials and afflictions of the Christ, and it is therefore the Lord Who prepared David for his place in the canon of the Holy Scriptures. Peter warns the church and people of God that they must always be on the alert, lest, thinking they can stand, they should fall. And the Lord had surely placed him in the position to be able to write this. He had imagined himself able to stand, had boasted of himself that, even though all the rest of the disciples would forsake and desert the Lord, he would never deny Him but fight for Him even into death. But this apostle had denied his Lord thrice, and this in spite of the fact that the Lord had predicted that he would do exactly that. Indeed, Peter was in the position to warn the church and people of God to take heed and be watchful unto prayer lest, thinking they can stand, they should fall. Then, this idea of organic inspiration is also beautifully set forth in connection with the apostle Paul. This apostle writes in II Cor. 4:17-18: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” In this passage the apostle speaks of our affliction as “light” and “but for a moment.” One must ask the question: does not Paul minimize the affliction of the people of God? Shall we accuse or reproach the apostle for speaking lightly of the persecutions and sufferings of the church of the Lord? Is it really true that the sufferings of God’s people are light and “but for a moment?” The Bible does not speak lightly of these sufferings, does it? However, these sufferings of the people of God are light and but for a moment, not in themselves, but as viewed in the light of eternity and when compared with the glory that shall follow. But, we referred to this text to establish the truth of organic inspiration. And, if we imagine that the apostle speaks as he does of the sufferings of the people of God because he is personally not acquainted with these sufferings, how mistaken we are! This apostle suffered more than any other apostle. In II Cor. 11:23-30 he speaks of the sufferings which had been his lot. In these verses we read: “Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often; in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? If I must need glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.” Paul suffered all these things in order that he should write the words of II Cor. 4:17-18. None must be able to accuse the apostle of writing as he does because he is not personally acquainted with the sufferings of the people of God. This is organic inspiration. The writers are not mere stenographers, human machines, but living organs of the Lord. Only, they are the organs of the Lord. God wrote His Word, not with men, but through men. He led and guided them infallibly, left nothing to their own ingenuity. The Bible is, from beginning to end, the inspired Word of God.