What does it mean that a biblical passage is descriptive rather than prescriptive?

On this enterprise then we behold him going forth, when he was come to years of discretion. He sees an Egyptian maltreating an Israelite. This kindles all his affections on behalf of his brethren. Undoubtedly the affections were there; but this calls them out, and he acts accordingly, looking, it is said, this way and that way — by no means an evidence of singleness of eye. Yet here was just the situation. It was impossible for the Spirit, on the one hand, to blame the love that prompted the hand of Moses; it was impossible, on the other, to vindicate the act. God has just left it, as He always knows how to do — left what was of Himself to tell its own tale, whilst that which was not of Himself is before the spiritual judgment of those who have confidence in Him. And is there anything that more beautifully shows the character of scripture than this? In any other book there would be a kind of apology, if not an elaborate argument, a discourse on the matter, to vindicate God from all participation in what was far from being according to His own holiness.

Nothing shows the difference between God's word and the way in which even men of God may handle, or feel it necessary to handle it, more strikingly than this. God is content to speak of things as they are without a word on His side to explain or account for it, or in anywise to soften matters for man. "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Accordingly the tale is told with all simplicity. The self-same principle applies to hundreds of passages in the Scriptures; and therefore it seemed well to make a few remarks in a more general shape. We must distinguish between the statement of a fact in the Bible and any sanction given to it. This may help our appreciation of the word of God in all such cases. We are bound ever to refuse the thought that the record of facts in scripture implies that they are according to the full mind of God. The truth is that He speaks of good men and bad men; that He mentions not only what was excellent in the good, but such distressing and shameful things as draw out His own chastening it may be for a long while to come. God, in short, states things exactly as they are. He counts on faith in His own people; but they will always reckon that whatever there may be of good is from Him — whatever may be wrong is surely not so. It is an easily settled principle after all, and it accounts for much on which men's minds otherwise are apt to stumble.

We must never overlook the difference between revelation and inspiration. All Scripture is inspired of God, but not every word found therein is a revelation from God. When Solomon wrote, for instance, "There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink..." (Eccles. 2: 24), he was not uttering a revelation from God but rather his own foolishness- inspired to put it on record for our warning.

By no means. It is easy, however, to account for them. The explanation lies in the difference between revelation and inspiration. Not all Scripture is direct revelation from God. Some of it is history in which the sayings of evil men and even of Satan are recorded. Again, a book like Ecclesiastes is largely the record of Solomon's thoughts and reasonings and disillusionments while seeking happiness in the gratification of his natural desires. Yet all is given to us by inspiration of God. We have divinely accurate accounts of what was done or said; and Solomon is led to record his mental struggles with such divine fitness as to be profitable for our warning and correction.

It may be noted that scripture records the sayings of wicked men, and of Satan himself. It need scarcely be said that it is not the sayings but the records of them that are inspired. Paul also, when writing on the question of marriage, makes a distinction between what he wrote as his judgement, and what he wrote as commandments of the Lord. "I speak this by permission," he says; and again, "I give my judgement." 1 Cor. 7:6, 10, 12, 25. He was inspired to record his spiritual judgement and to point out that it was not a command.

We are now, then, in a position to understand what Scripture means by inspiration as a special feature of the sacred writings. And the three different operations of the Spirit of God, all of which each New Testament vessel of inspiration was a subject, are distinctly made known to us. Between a revelation and an inspired writing or oral communication there was a great and important difference. By the former was communicated to a person from God something which he had not previously known; by the latter a person was divinely taught how to express what he had to say, so that it should be really the Word of God. Keeping this in mind, one can readily understand that there might be, as indeed there are, things and sayings recorded by inspiration which in themselves had not the Divine approval. Thus the words of the devil asserting that the authority and glory of all the kingdoms of the habitable earth were at his disposal were not true. But the record of those words in the gospel is an inspired record, the evangelist having written it in words taught him by the Spirit. So, again, the words of the Apostle Paul to Ananias calling him a "whited wall" (Acts 23:3) could not have been pleasing to God, yet they form part of the inspired history of the Acts of the Apostles. And this last instance illustrates a point, viz., that the operation of the Spirit of God by which the Apostles, and the teachers, and the writers communicated the words of God, was not necessarily continuous with them. Of this David at Nob (1 Sam. 21), Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2:11-14), and Paul at Jerusalem, are all proofs. We commonly speak of inspired men; Scripture treats of inspired communications, both oral and written.

This is very important, because there is a kind of hazy idea that seeing they are found in the Bible the speeches of different people are also inspired. The Book is inspired to begin with; but we have to judge of the utterances, say of king Saul, or even of David, whether what they said was so or not, for it is not that everything which they said in their daily life was inspired. It might be more or less true; it might be sometimes really and absolutely true; but that is all a question of searching and comparing scripture with scripture. Then it comes direct from God or from a prophet, or from an apostle — the inspired writing — all that is absolutely the word of God. But not so where we have a historic scene — whether it is in Samuel, Kings or Chronicles, or whether it is in the Book of Job, where we have actual conversations given us by the Spirit of God — it would be quite a mistake to imagine that, because God gives us the speeches, therefore the speeches represent His mind.

It will be useful therefore to remind our readers that in this book we have quoted not only the words of Satan, but also many words of men, some of them true enough, as other scriptures show, but others much open to question. None of these men who spoke were inspired in their utterances, though we have an inspired account of what they said, so that the picture presented is perfectly true. We must never overlook the difference between revelation and inspiration. All Scripture is inspired of God, but not every word found therein is a revelation from God. When Solomon wrote, for instance, "There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink …" (Eccles. 2:24), he was not uttering a revelation from God but rather his own foolishness — inspired to put it on record for our warning.

But then, says the objector, what becomes of your theory of verbal inspiration? The mistake is in confounding infallible inspiration with the contents of what is revealed. To illustrate, a man might be a perfectly accurate reporter, able to take down every word of an address. It would be a great mistake to confound his report of the address with the contents of the address. The report might be a faithful representation of what was said, but what was said might be far from true. So the blessed Spirit of God has given us an inspired report of what Satan and these others have said; but what a mistake to confound this accuracy with an endorsement of what was said.

Mr. Newman's first moral objection is to the song of Deborah, Judges 5:24; and his objection is, that "the prophetess Deborah, in an inspired psalm, pronounces Jael to be blessed above women, and glorifies her act by an elaborate description of its atrocities." (Phases, p. 113.) But who told Mr. N. that Deborah's song was "an inspired psalm?" That the writer of the Judges was inspired to give it to us, I do not doubt; but that is entirely a different matter. I believe in the fullest way in the inspiration of scripture; but this does not mean, that all that it contains was inspired in the mouths of those who uttered it. We have Satan's words, wicked men's words, human accounts of divers facts, recorded by inspiration, but not themselves inspired. A revelation should give (it is what it means) the perfect presentation of the Divine mind on the subject of which it treats, to one spiritually capable of understanding it. But in doing this — as to man, as to Israel — it must give me a true real picture of what man, what Israel, is; and this it does, not merely by a dogmatic statement, but by a large historical development of what man has done, what he has felt, what he has been in various circumstances, under various advantages, and in various stages of progress through the revelations already afforded him. If the Bible had merely given us God's judgment, we never should have had the same testimony to conscience as we have, by its affording us man's actual history under the various dispensations of God towards him. But to do this, I must have him as he was, his feelings expressed as they were in him; whether without God, or under the influence of piety, yet ill-informed in God's mind; or animated as to his heart by God's Spirit, yet the result a mixed one, and taking the forms of thought and feeling, which were and must have been such as his state of moral education would have produced. Otherwise it would not have been the true and needed account of man (consequently, not a divine one).

The temptation which is second in Matthew, Luke gives as the third. Why is this? Surely we ought not to read Scripture as if such differences were not intended to suggest inquiry. We have to take care that we do not misinterpret Scripture; but Scripture is meant to be understood. I say of these different orders in which the temptations are put, both are right, both are inspired of God. If they were both intended to report the temptation exactly as it took place, it is clear they are not right; but God had a much higher object. God wrote for our instruction, and God has been pleased, in the different Gospels, to put the facts in the way that is most instructive. Matthew simply gives the temptation historically, as it took place. Therefore in Matthew we have notes of time: "Then the devil taketh Him up," etc. In Luke there is no such thought; it is simply, "And the devil," etc. This word at once prepares us for it. It is clear there were these different temptations, but Luke puts them so as not to tell us the order in which they occurred.