Inspiration of the Bible
Back in the 1930's Harry Rimmer had a debate on the authority and Divine inspiration of the Bible. His atheist opponent opened his arguments with the following statement. "Rimmer is going to try to prove the inspiration of the Bible by referring to the Bible itself. In anticipation of this procedure, which is followed by all Christians, I desire to object. The Bible is the book under question and the subject of our investigation. Therefore, you cannot prove the Bible by appealing to the Bible. The argument and evidence must be based upon and derived from external sources. I demand that my opponent shall not refer to the contents of the Bible in seeking to prove its inspiration! The disputed book cannot be appealed to as evidence, as it would thus be testifying in its own behalf."
Rimmer gave the following response: "Our eminent opponent has propounded a unique and peculiar proposition in his opening remarks. He states that we cannot test the Bible by the Bible, as such would be contrary to acceptable procedure. We are at a loss to understand the basis of such alleged reasoning!
Following his own suggested procedure, we can imagine our opponent being thrilled by the discovery of an outcropping of quartz on the hillside of some farm that he had recently purchased. Detecting the yellow glint of what seemed to be a precious metal in that outcropping, our opponent would hasten to the assayer and say, "I have reason to believe that there is gold on my farm." The assayer would, of course, reply, "Bring me a specimen of the rock and I will make an assay and tell you if it has any value."
"At once our shrewd opponent would reply, ¡¥You can¡¦t test a thing by the thing itself! You take a brick out of the wall of this building, assay it and tell me if there is gold on my farm.
Or let us suppose that our opponent had reason to believe that some enemy had put potassium cyanide in his sugar bowl. He would hasten to the chemist and say, ¡¥I believe an attempt has been made to poison me.
Describing the nature of his suspicion, he would be chagrined to have the ignorant chemist say to him, Bring me the sugar bowl and I will analyze its contents and give you a scientific opinion.
At once our opponent would reply, "Oh, no! You can¡¦t prove a thing by the thing itself! You take the salt shaker off your kitchen shelf, analyze its contents and tell me if there is cyanide in my sugar bowl." (ref. "Internal Evidence of Inspiration" by Harry Rimmer, 1938, p. 7-9).
The nature or content of many things can be proved scientifically or statistically by analyzing the object itself. There are many different unique and supernatural aspects of the Bible itself that can be used as internal evidence of its supernatural inspiration by the Sovereign God.
One of the infallible concrete proofs of the Divine inspiration of the Bible is Prophesy. One of the most incredible forms of prophecy is Prophetic Types.
A simple definition of a type is "a shadow, cast by Divine design, of good things to come" (Heb. 10:1). A type can be a person (as Adam: Rom. 5:14); an event (as Abraham offering up Isaac: John 8:56-58; Israel crossing the red sea: I Cor. 10:2, 6, 11); a thing (as the tabernacle: Heb. 9:1-10), an institution (as the Sabbath: Heb. 4:1-10), or a ceremonial (The Aaronic Priesthood: Heb. 9). There is a "similarity" deliberately designed into the OT scriptures that will match up with, and bare witness to, some great NT truths. (Hosea 12:10 KJV; Heb. 7:15)
The fulfillment of the OT type in the NT has come to be called the "antitype" by most bible students. However the Greek word "antitype" is used as a synonym for type in the Greek NT (See Heb. 9:24 and I Pet. 3:21). So we will refer to it simply as the fulfillment of the type. The resemblance between the types and their fulfillment are so many and so striking as to preclude the possibility of coincidence or accident. The only reasonable explanation is that they are a revelation of an omniscient, omnipotent God.
The hundreds of types found throughout the OT and fulfilled in the NT are an infallible proof of the Divine Design of all Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. There is absolutely no natural explanation for such supernatural phenomena!