One of the criticisms often leveled at the bible is that, since it was written by humans, it must (like all things humans produce) contain errors. John Frame responds to this well in The Doctrine of the Word of God:
It would be wrong to say that the media of revelation [that is, the way God reveals truth, such as, by writing] somehow detract from the power, authority, and divine presence of the revelation. The media are inseparable from the revelation. If they are defective, there is no way for us to reclaim an uncorrupted version of God’s truth. If we are to accept God’s revelation, we must accept what we hear and see through his media.
So we must never regard the media as barriers to God’s communication. God is never prevented by the limitations of creation, or the finitude of people, from saying what he wants to say to them. Rather, the media are God’s chosen instruments for bringing his absolute power, authority, and presence to the attention of finite hearers.
This is the fundamental answer to the question whether the “humanity” of revelation detracts from its divine character. It is often pointed out that God’s revelation through prophets, apostles, and biblical writers is human as well as divine. But human beings do make mistakes. So, the argument goes, we should expect mistakes in the revelation, not because of God, but because of the human instruments.
But note:
- Human beings do not necessarily err. Even unregenerate people sometimes speak the truth. So we should not think it impossible that God could reveal himself through human agents, keeping them from error, without violating their humanity.
- If humanity necessarily entails error, then all of God’s revelation in Scripture, every sentence, is erroneous, for all of it comes through human mediation. Nobody has ever argued such an extreme position.
- Christ was full human, but he did not speak error.
His next two points refer to other arguments in the book. His sixth point is especially important to ponder:
In general, the humanity of God’s word is not a liability, but a perfection. God’s intent in revelation is to communicate with people. To do that, he must speak their language so that they may understand it. This language, therefore, must be a fully human language. Scripture shows that God has indeed succeeded in putting his word into human words, words that human prophets, apostles, and biblical writers utter as their own. For that, he deserves praise, not suspicion.