It is a very common remark that the writers of the four Gospels do not claim inspiration. The latest occurrence of it that has met my eye is in the following extract from an article by Prof. E. H. Johnson, in a recent number of the Independent:

      Furthermore, as one studies all four (Gospels), he notices that there is no claim in any of them to inspiration. The obvious claim is to knowledge; how the Holy Spirit was related to [113] the writing of these four momentous records is a matter of inference, and of inference exclusively. I think the inference good that the promised guidance by the Spirit into knowledge of the truth about Jesus would bring with it inspiration, in the sense of helping to tell what the writer knew. Why the inference is clear to me is not now the point; the point is that this kind of help is not claimed in the Gospels.

      This Professor's conception of inspiration is very different from the one set forth in the Scriptures, or he could not have written the third sentence in this extract, and he forgets that all four of the Gospel writers represent Jesus as promising to the twelve apostles such help from the Holy Spirit that it would not be they that spoke, but the Spirit speaking in them. He forgets that two of these writers were themselves recipients of this promise. Moreover, they all wrote their Gospels after the time for the fulfillment of this promise, and if they were not thus inspired they quote Jesus as making a promise which he never fulfilled. It is absurd to think that they would quote the promise if it had failed of fulfillment, and therefore their assertion under the circumstances is proof that at least Matthew and John had been inspired. In other words, their record of the promise that they should be inspired is, when rightly considered, a claim that they had been.

[SEBC 113-114]