When reading this, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ
When reading this, you will understand that it is the finger of God that is behind the books that made the scriptures. Why?
No single human being is responsible for the Bible. No committee met to oversee it.
The 66 books of the scriptures were not preplanned. Paul was writing to people at a time, not having a grand plan to have a book in a collection called the scriptures.
That is why the words of the Bible are unique. Man had one thing in mind at the time of writing, but the divine, ageless, timeless mind oversaw things from the beginning to the end, with Christ in mind.
Looking back, we realize it, and it becomes obvious that this is the work of the Lord, and we consider it amazing (Psalm 118:23).
So the people started saying the words were the words of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:16, Acts 28:25–27, Hebrews 10:15–17, Hebrews 3:7–11). “Holy” because He is God; “Spirit” because of the mysterious weaving together of different parts/peoples/places/personalities of writers over centuries.
Peter wrote:
Above all, you do well if you recognize this: No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
And Paul:
Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
The scriptures have a distinct quality. Specifically, they reflect the writer's personality. If a human were to come up with the idea of scriptures (holy writ), they might try to remove personality, so the writing would feel stiff rather than fluid and regimented, based on how they imagine God to be. The originator would be aiming for an idea of perfection.
The point I am making is that the scriptures, the 66 books of the Bible, are distinct; they feel different.
They seem to have no given order to them; they seem like glorious disorder. Meanwhile, the books written to mimic scriptures are tedious; they are largely stripped of human elements. In a way, trying so hard to be scriptures.
Someone might say, "But the scriptures are full of contradictions.” Really? But are we going to overlook the overwhelming coherence and get bogged down with small issues that might be put to the limits of human perception?
The ones pretending to be other gospels, apart from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in my estimation, strip Jesus of much of his humanity because they have an agenda, they are trying so hard to be accepted as scriptures.
Apocalyptic writing in earlier times sought to offer a view of the unseen world, with a sprinkling of in-your-nose moral lessons. They do not pass the smell test.
I know a lot of ink has been spilled trying to show why these cannot be scriptures, leaning heavily on the consensus of the respected people of old, with the argument that we do not see many quotations from them by the New Testament writers. But, at the risk of sounding super spiritual, there is also something of the witness of the Holy Spirit that we do not see with those works.
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who predicted the grace that would come to you searched and investigated carefully. They probed into what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he testified beforehand about the sufferings appointed for Christ and his subsequent glory. They were shown that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things now announced to you through those who proclaimed the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things angels long to catch a glimpse of.
We have the consensus of those who have gone ahead of us, but their witness can be scattered, and you can have strong arguments on opposite sides.
And while we want to be objective in our evaluation of what is scripture or not, when we strip it down to the bare bones, what we come to is the subjective witness of the Holy Spirit, which, as I have mentioned before, people like the writer of the book of Hebrews and Peter did not shy away from asserting.
“Subjective” because we cannot see Him to tell us directly.
“Subjective” because people want better proof, but the true proof is the witness of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the chosen ones, the witness that made a certain church receive the words of Paul not as the words of man but as the very words of God.
And so we too constantly thank God that when you received God’s message that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God’s message, which is at work among you who believe.
Peter saw it as a grand story of salvation (1 Peter 1:10-12). Only the Holy Spirit could have woven together a multi-generational story of salvation cutting across different writers across millennia. Only God can do that. Only the One who knows the end from the beginning and calls things that are not as though they were (Romans 4:17).
Everybook is the story of Salvation:
Genesis starts with darkness, then light: Cosmic-level storytelling, with John alluding to this in his writing (John 1:1-3). And ultimately pointing to the new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). Also see Revelation’s end.
Exodus starts with bondage, then freedom: National-level storytelling dovetails into the story of repeated failing under the old covenant. It points to the new, holy nation that Peter mentioned in his writing (1 Peter 2:9) and to the new covenant in Jesus’ blood (Luke 22:20).
Paul wrote about the glorious freedom of the sons of God (being members of the household of God, Ephesians 2:19), and he said we are still awaiting the cosmic level transformation.
The cosmic chaos predates the nation of Israel falling apart. Now the holy nation is predating the cosmic restoration.
For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the coming glory that will be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly but because of God who subjected it—in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
You can see that Paul was writing scriptures without any grand thought about writing scriptures. That is what makes it amazing. That is what makes it clearly the work of God.