2 Kings 4:27-31 - Homiletics

Limits to inspiration.

Many men seem to suppose that the prophetical inspiration, the Divine afflatus , whatever it was, which God vouchsafed in times past to his prophets, apostles, and evangelists, was absolutely unlimited—a sort of omniscience, at any rate omniscience on all those subjects on which they spoke or wrote. But Scripture lends no sanction to this supposition. "Let her alone," says Elisha to Gehazi; "for her soul is vexed within her: and the Lord hath hid it from me , and hath not told me " ( 2 Kings 4:27 ). Ignorance of the future would also seem to underlie the instructions given to Gehazi in 2 Kings 4:29 . And there are, in point of fact, limitations to every prophet's knowledge even with respect to the things concerning which he writes or speaks. "Now, behold," says St. Paul, "I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there" ( Acts 20:22 ). And again, "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful" ( 1 Corinthians 7:25 ). The apostles spoke much of the coming of Christ to judgment, but "of that day and of that hour knoweth no man" ( Matthew 24:36 ). Prophetic knowledge was always partial, limited. To Isaiah the return from Babylon, the establishment of Christ's kingdom upon earth, and the final triumph of Christianity, were blended together into a single vision of glory from which the chronological idea was absent. Ezekiel probably did not know whether the temple which he described (40.- 44.) was to be spiritual or material. Zechariah knew that a day would come when there would be "a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness;" but the nature of the fountain was, apparently, not revealed to him. The prophets always " saw through a glass darkly," "knew in part" and prophesied in part; had not even a full knowledge of the meaning of their own words. We must therefore not look in the inspired writings for an exactness and accuracy and completeness to which they make no pretence; we must not claim infallibility for the obiter dicta of apostles or evangelists; we must not be surprised at occasional slips of memory, as the quotation of "Jeremy" for "Zachary" ( Matthew 27:9 ), or at little discrepancies, as the various readings of the title on the cross, or at other similar imperfections. The Divine element in Scripture does not exclude the presence also of a human element; and the human element cannot but show traces of human weakness, human ignorance, human frailty. The trifling errors that a microscopic criticism points out in the sacred volume no more interfere with its illuminating power, than do the spots seen by astronomers on its surface interfere with the light of the sun, or slight flaws with the magnificence and splendor of a unique diamond. The Bible is God's Word, the most precious treasure that man possesses, even although it be true that "we have this treasure in earthen vessels" ( 2 Corinthians 4:7 ).