Is the Bible real?
The question behind "is the Bible real" is really a question about where the book came from — and this verse answers it by tracing every part of Scripture back to the breath of God. Everything else the verse promises, from teaching to correction, rests on that one claim.
The Claim The Book Makes
Scripture does not present itself as a record of good ideas about God. Commentators point out that the inspiration reaches the writings themselves:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHow important it is to hold fast the great truth that the Bible is the Word of God, and therefore "God-breathed." All apostasy starts with the denial of this fact. The Scriptures are the permanent expression of the mind and will of God. It is not merely that the truth is given in them by inspiration, but they are inspired. They are the expression of His own thoughts. They are our only authority.
That claim is not a side issue in the verse. It is the reason the rest of the sentence can be true at all:
F. B. HoleThis being so the Holy Spirit seized the occasion to assure us of the inspiration of all Scripture. Its profitableness for various uses all depends upon this fact. Who can teach or reprove or correct or instruct in what is right, in any perfect and absolute sense, but God? The reason why Scripture can do these things is that it is "inspired of God" or "God-breathed."
Down To The Words
Some translations shift the sentence to read "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable," which turns the verse into a comment on which parts qualify. Writers in this collection reject that reading, and the reason is pastoral as well as grammatical:
F. B. HoleIndeed, the Scripture in Timothy looks foolish as translated by the Revisers, since they turn it into a statement of the perfectly self-evident truth that every God-breathed writing is good. That Timothy well knew; the assurance he needed in view of the apostle's departure was that "ALL Scripture is God-breathed."
The same point is pressed down to the level of vocabulary, and it explains why readers sense a depth in the text that ordinary writing does not have:
F. B. HoleThe holy men of old wrote, "not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches" (1 Cor. 2:13), and so there was a fulness about their very words which was divine. We are conscious of that fulness as we read our Bibles, even though ours are only a translation from the original. All theological systems, all creeds are human; Scripture has come from God. We do well to pin our faith to it, and not to them.
Marks Anyone Can Examine
Two features of the book are offered as evidence open to any reader. The first is the way it holds together despite how it was produced:
A. J. PollockThe unity of Scripture is one of the most conclusive marks of its inspiration. To find a collection of sixty-six pamphlets, written by some forty authors, several of them unknown, and to find the whole marked by one controlling mind, distinctly raises the Bible as a book into a category of its own.
The second is prediction — statements made long before the events, which cannot be quietly adjusted afterwards:
A. J. PollockVery much can be said to prove the inspiration of the Bible. One unassailable proof is prophecy. There are over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ, and these have been strikingly fulfilled. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that the prophecies could be made to fit the fulfilment; or the fulfilment the prophecies.
The Proof You Feel
Arguments can be weighed at arm's length. Commentators insist there is another kind of knowing, one that comes from being read by the book rather than reading it:
J. N. DarbyBut it is by its acting on his heart and conscience, and revealing God to him, that he knows it. I know what a knife is when it cuts me, and honey when I taste its sweetness. It is not a matter of proof.
This also explains a reaction the Bible provokes in people who have barely read it:
VariousThen again it does what no word of man can ever do in the same way — it speaks to the conscience. Men address their words to the intellect, the emotions, or the imagination. God speaks right home to the conscience. He deals with the foundation questions of man's sin, and God's righteousness, and so unconverted men hate the Book because they love not its Author.
Real Means Useful
If the book is from God, then no part of it is filler, and the four uses named in the verse follow in order:
Leslie M. GrantSince all Scripture is from God, it is all profitable, even genealogies and names of cities, etc. If my interpretation of it does not give spiritual profit, then my interpretation of it is not right. First it is profitable for teaching, or doctrine, for this is the basis of all true practice. Secondly, for reproof or conviction… Thirdly, for correction: reproof without this would be pointless… Fourthly, for instruction in righteousness.
Summary
- Breathed. The verse locates the Bible's origin in God Himself, and every claim about its usefulness stands or falls with that.
- All. The assurance is not that some inspired portions are good, but that the whole of Scripture is God-breathed — which is why it, and not human systems, is the authority.
- Marked. Forty writers across centuries produce one design, and hundreds of predictions about Christ land on target: evidence set out for anyone to examine.
- Tasted. Certainty comes when the Word acts on the conscience — known as a knife is known by its cut and honey by its sweetness, not by argument alone.
- Finished. Teaching, conviction, correction, then instruction in righteousness: the God-breathed book takes a person all the way to being equipped for every good work.