The Miracle of Inspiration Series
Part Three
The Problem with “Gisters”
3.1 “Gisters Defined.” The “gisters” ignore the miraculous nature of revelation. They think that men wrote the Bible and, at times, got the facts wrong, or they failed to recall the exact words of Jesus and so substituted their own words. Such teaching denies the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the production of Scripture.
3.2 Corrupt Meanings. Furthermore, “gisters” cloak themselves with the vocabulary of orthodox Christianity by using terms like “inspiration” and “inerrancy.” “Gisters” try to redefine “inerrancy” and “inspiration” so that they may believe that “truth” in the Bible means the Gospel writers may not have reported the actual words of Jesus, even when they claimed they did.
3.3 Faulty Memories? While “gisters” agree that the Holy Spirit moved men to write, they claim that He did not necessarily overcome their faulty memories. Instead, according to the “gisters,” the Holy Spirit deemed it best to add words or change words from those actually spoken by Jesus. In their minds, it would be o.k. to pretend and write that Jesus actually said those make-believe words. Such reasoning reduces the meaning of “inspiration” and “inerrancy” to nothing more than poppycock. Furthermore, it attacks the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, and righteousness of God the Father, for the “gisters” would try to strip them of every shred of veracity.
3.4 Liars. The “gisters” lie when they affirm the “verbal inspiration” of the Bible, but deny the miraculous nature of inspiration. They allegedly affirm the words in the original autographs of Scripture are inspired, but deny that those words are necessarily the actual words of Jesus. For them, verbal inspiration has no relationship to the what words Jesus actually spoke, but rather verbal inspiration means we only have the “gist” of what Jesus said. The “gisters” allegedly affirm the truth of the Bible, but then allege that the Bible actually contains many lies about what Jesus said. To accept the testimony of the “gisters” as true means that you must reject the Bible as true in every word. Let God and His word be found true, and every man a liar (Romans 3:4).
No one seriously argues that Jesus communicated only the “gist” of the Father’s words to Him, but rather Jesus spoke the very words of life (John 6:68) or judgment (John 5:25-29). Because of the gravity of the consequences of hearing and rejecting the Father’s words spoken by Jesus, and transmitted in the New Testament by the miraculous ministry of the Holy Spirit, you can understand why God never intended to communicate only the “gist” of Gospel of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, since the Father and the Son had deliberately decided how the message would be proclaimed (as prophesied centuries before Christ appeared (Matthew 13:14-17)), as well as its substance, no one should be surprised that both the Holy Spirit and the Son provided not the “gist” of the Father’s message, but both the form and content of divine words of life or judgment.
The Missionary. Once I heard a story about missionary, serving for about thirty years in Brazil. He believed that John displayed a wonderful imagination in writing the Book of Revelation. While that missionary gave his life in the service of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he did not comprehend the doctrine of inspiration. If he did, then he would have known that inspiration guided the writing of Revelation, and not human imagination. Everyone holding to “gist” theology makes an even greater error than that missionary. “Gisters” deny the miraculous nature of inspiration, and the scope of the Fathers’ commandment regarding the content and substance of the words of Jesus Christ.
