My Icon of St. Clement of Rome purchased at Kiev Perchersk Lavra
But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
– John 14:26
But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you.
– John 16:13
From these two statements we can see that our Lord is telling the disciples that the Holy Spirit will teach them the truth. What exactly would the Holy Ghost give the Church? St. Paul gives us a hint in his second epistle to Timothy.
We read:
All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.
– 2 Timothy 3:16-17
The words inspired of God that the Douay-Rheims translation is using here can also translate as God breathed or God spirited. The most obvious conclusion is that the Holy Spirit is inspiring the Scripture. In the case of St. Paul, the Scripture that he’s talking about is the Old Testament since most of the New Testament would not have been written at this point.
The best explanation is that the Christians immediately understood the New Testament to be equally as inspired as the Old Testament. What is promised by Jesus Christ in John is exactly what happened in the Old Testament according to St. Paul.
When we look to the apostolic fathers, we see a man named St. Clement of Rome. He was the bishop of Rome and he wrote an epistle to the Church of Corinth. In chapter 45 of his epistle we read:
Ye are fond of contention, brethren, and full of zeal about things which do not pertain to salvation. Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit.
This testifies that St. Clement knew perfectly well that the Scripture was inspired of the Holy Spirit. However, when he said Scripture, was he talking about the Old Testament only? We see in chapter 47 of the epistle later that this includes the New Testament as well. He writes:
Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached? Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he wrote to you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because even then parties had been formed among you.
This shows that from the earliest of times, the Church believed that both testaments were inspired by the Holy Spirit. What Jesus said about the Paraclete teaching them the truth is a fulfillment in the Scriptures that we cherish today. This epistle by St. Clement was written in about 100 AD which is only about a decade after the last New Testament document was written. It’s amazing that we have this kind of evidence. This shows that Christians have always believed that Scripture is inspired by the Paraclete. Sorry liberals.
No liberals or Muslims will be convinced by this, of course ; the Gospel writers are always wrong especially St. John, and there are in fact a few isolated ancient heretics who held unusual interpretations about the Paraclete.
Hi Jonathan,
I think you’re correct that it won’t convince them. But what does that tell you? There is evidence of a continuity of belief from the earliest Christians. Liberals and Muslims can have all of the theories in the world but we actually have the evidence.
God bless,
Allan
Another very important feature of St.Clement’s letter is that it is the earliest known patristic attestation of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy: “Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. Observe that nothing of an unjust or counterfeit character is written in them” (First Epistle to the Corinthians 9:243). As you know, this doctrine is quite vilified by liberals because it precludes the opportunity to view the Bible as a human book with some Divine bits sprinkled here and there (but definitely not everywhere).
May God help us all.
Hi OrangeHunter,
You are most correct. It’s amazing in itself because it may even be the first patristic writing. I certainly believe that it is. The possible exception is the didache, though I date the didache to the second century myself. Belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture has been with the Church from the earliest age and quotes that both of us had provided prove it without a doubt.
Something that’s interesting is that I linked to this article on Twitter. Paul Williams confronted me and we went back and forth. Of the post, he said: “Parts of it were historically incorrect”. I challenged him to elaborate. No response so far.
Well, Williams is of the ilk of Yahya Snow and Faiz Jokeboy, asking him to elaborate in a meaningful way is asking too much of him.
As I first learnt from J. Warner Wallace (the Cold Case Christianity guy), Paul himself attests to the New Testament being authoritative Scripture:
For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” – 1 Timothy 5:18
Paul above places equal divine authority on Deuteronomy 25:4 (the ox) and Luke 10:7 (the worker), including the latter as Scripture (Greek graphe = writing). Which would make sense if Luke’s gospel was already circulating to the churches at this early date.
This fits perfectly with the theory that Acts was a written defense statement meant for Paul’s trial in Rome – Paul is still alive at the end of Acts, and Luke’s gospel was written before Acts, ergo Luke’s gospel already existed when Paul was still alive.
Along those same lines:
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” – 1 Cor 11:23-24
The phrase ‘do this in remembrance of me’ is found only in Luke’s account of the last supper, again attesting to the idea that Luke’s gospel was already widespread while Paul was alive. Kudos to having different details in the gospel accounts!