2 Timothy 3:16 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

All scripture is given by inspiration of God,— The scriptures with which Timothy had been acquainted from his infancy were evidently those of the Old Testament; for none of the books of the New Testament were then committed to writing. The same thing seems plainly to be intended here byall scripture, which, in the preceding verse, is called the sacred scripture, and which St. Paul asserts to be divinelyinspired. The Old Testament revelations were not final, but preparatory to the New Testament; and therefore the scriptures of the Old Testament are here represented as able to make Timothy wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. There is, however, no reason to confine St. Paul's assertion, that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, to the Old Testament. If in the Mosaic dispensation the written rule was given by inspiration of God, where the church was conducted in every step at first by divine oracular responses, and afterwards by a long series and continued succession of prophets; and all this under an extraordinary administration of Providence, such as might well seem to supersede the necessity of scriptural inspiration; how confidently may we conclude that the same divine goodness would give the infallible guide of an inspired scripture to the Christian church, where the miraculous influence of the Holy Spirit is supposed to have ceased with the apostolic ages? Nor can it be said, that what St. Paul predicates of scripture, must be confined to the law, and what is prefatory to it, since the largeness of his term, all scripture, extends to the whole canon of the Old Testament, as then received by the two churches. The canonical books of the Old Testament therefore being inspired, the reason of things directs us to expect the same quality in the New, if there were not a thousand unanswerable arguments besides. And as in the Old, among several occasional writings, there was the fundamental record, or the great charter of the Pentateuch; and in the volumes of the prophets, the oracular predictions of the future states of the church, to the first coming of the Messiah, and so indeed more obscurely to the second coming; so in the New, there is, besides the occasional Epistles, the authentic record or great charter of the Gospel-covenant; and in the Revelations of St. John, the same divine predictions continued, and more fully predicted, to the second coming of the Saviour of the world. We may therefore venture to say, that the general proposition which affirms that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, necessarily includes the scriptures in question; what it predicates of all scripture, taking in the New as well as the Old; as well that which was to be written, as that which was already collected into a canon. For the term scripture, as the context leads us to understand it, is general, and means a religious rule, perfect in its direction for the conduct of human life in belief and practice, it being under this idea that St. Paul recommends the scripture to Timothy. The assertion therefore is universal, and amounts to this, "That divine inspiration is an essential quality of every scripture, which constitutes the law or rule of a religion coming from God." On the whole then we conclude, that all the scriptures of the New Testament were given by the inspiration of God; and accordingly these scriptures are fitted for doctrine, as laying down the most fundamental doctrines and rules of religion, and every necessary truth; for reproof or conviction, as guarding us from all pernicious errors, and shewing us the turpitude of vice; for correction, as affording the strongest arguments under the grace of God for amendment; and for instruction in righteousness, as not only recommending holiness of heart and life in general, but likewise exciting us to a continual progress in holy and virtuous habits.