If the Bible is the Word of God, then there must be certain effects which are unique to the Bible; these effects would not be made in any other literature, at least not to the extent that they are found here. The first of these is ‘‘revelation”. By revelation is meant God’s showing himself by word and act to his people. This self-revelation took place primarily in history: in the lives of the patriarchs, in the saving events of the Exodus, in the history of Israel, the people of God, and, finally and most fully, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
All of this divine self-revelation could have taken place without the need of anyone’s describing it in written form. But there are two principal reasons why God did, in fact, will to have this self-revelation recorded through the spiritual gift of inspiration. The first is that the history in which God revealed himself had to be correctly interpreted. It is obvious, for example, that the Egyptians and the Hebrew people would have interpreted the events of the Exodus differently. The biblical authors, through inspiration, recorded an interpretation of the Exodus event which we believe to contain a true understanding of God. The Bible, therefore, can be described as an inspired interpretation of God’s revelation of himself in the history of Israel and in the life and destiny of his Son.
But a proper interpretation could have been given, as it in fact was, by a number of people without the necessity of writing it down in books. Moses, the prophets, priests and wise men, Jesus, the preachers and teachers of the early Church - all of these used the spoken word to interpret God’s self-revelation. But it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for this oral interpretation to have been safely and surely preserved for future generations unless it was put down in written form. This, then, is the second major reason for the Bible, the record of revelation. Because the oral tradition was put down in written words, we who live in an age far distant from that time of God’s self-revelation are assured that we have a true picture of God. We meet him in the words of the Bible as he revealed himself then and as we cannot meet him in any other book.