"God's own standard of truth"

Inspiration involved the direct work of the Spirit in the mind of the writer, so guiding his thoughts that what he wrote expressed the communication of God to his people. Hence, God is the primary author of Scripture.

If Scripture is truly the word of God, then it reflects the attributes of God, such as his omniscience, truthfulness, and immutability. Consequently, Scripture is infallible, inerrant, and noncontradictory, measured not by some ancient or modern standard, but by God's own standard of truth, which is his perfect knowledge of what actually is, was, and shall be in himself and in his creation.

If Scripture is truly the word of God, then it originated in the mind of God. The conceptual world of Scripture, accordingly, is the mind of God. His word is tailored to, but does not originate in, the culture of the biblical writers. To communicate his word effectively, God simplified his message, expressed it in human language, and engaged the historical and natural circumstances of his people. This involved accomodation to the human condition, such as describing phenomena according to appearance and speaking of himself anthropomorphically. It even involved using words that had erroneous etymological meanings and that had referents about which erroneous ideas were commonly held, yet such use did not entail the endorsing of those concomitant errors.

If Scripture is truly the word of God, then the meaning of the text is God's intended meaning, his full understanding of the text as originally inspired.

- James W. Scott, Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 2009