http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=472
Biblical Inerrancy
When
a person begins reading the Bible, it will not take long until he or
she comes across statements such as “God said...,” “thus says the Lord,”
or these are “the words of the Lord....” These kinds of statements
appear hundreds of times in both the Old and New Testaments. In fact,
the Decalogue itself begins with the phrase, “And God spoke all these
words” (Exodus 20:1). Thirty-three times in the book of Leviticus, we
read the words, “the Lord spoke to Moses” (4:1; 5:14; etc.). In just
Psalm 119 alone, the Scriptures are exalted as the Word of God some 175
times. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul claimed that his message
was not received from man, but “came through the revelation of Jesus
Christ” (Galatians 1:12). Similarly, as he wrote to the church at
Thessalonica, he claimed that what he wrote was “the word of the Lord”
(1 Thessalonians 4:15). Truly, the writers of both the Old and New
Testaments placed great emphasis on the fact that their message was of
divine origin—that they spoke, not by the will of man, but “by the Holy
Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
DEFINING INSPIRATION
Not only does the Bible claim to be inspired, but it also defines and
describes what it means by inspiration. In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul claimed,
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The Greek term
underlying the word “inspiration” (
theopneustos) means
“God-breathed.” Thus, Paul affirmed that Scripture is the product of the
breath of God. God actually breathed out the Scriptures. The Bible is
God’s Word—not man’s. Three verses later (in 2 Timothy 4:2), Paul declared, “Therefore...preach the word.” Why? Because it is
God’s
Word. Just as surely as God’s breath brought the Universe into
existence (Psalm 33:6), so the Bible declares itself to be the result of
God’s out-breathing.
In his second epistle (1:16-21), Peter alluded to the momentous
occasion of the transfiguration of Christ—when God literally spoke from
heaven directly to Peter, James, and John. God had orally boomed forth
His insistence that Jesus is His beloved Son, and that human beings are
commanded to hear Him (Matthew 17:5). Peter then declared: “And so we
have the prophetic word confirmed,...knowing this first, that no
prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” Peter was
saying that the Scriptures provided to us by the prophets are just as
certain and just as authoritative as the voice of God that spoke on the
mount of transfiguration.
The apostle further explained that the Scriptures (the prophetic word)
were not of “any private interpretation,” meaning that they did not
originate on their own, or in the minds of those who wrote them.
Scripture did
not come from “the will of man.” It is not the end
result of human research or human investigation into the nature of
things. Scripture is not the product of its writers’ own thinking. On
the contrary, “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). The word “moved” in the original Greek means
“borne” or “brought.” Peter stated that the Holy Spirit, in essence,
picked up the writers (the prophets) and “brought” them to the goal of
His choosing. Thus, the Scriptures, although written by means of human
instrumentality, were so superintended by God that the resulting words
are His.
This is the same Peter who, while awaiting the coming of the Spirit in
Acts 2 on Pentecost, stood up among fellow disciples and declared, “Men
and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit
spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas,” and then he quoted
from the Psalms (Acts 1:16ff.). Peter believed that the Holy Spirit
governed what David wrote, and the result of that writing is designated
“Scripture.”
This is the same Peter who, in 1 Peter 1:10-12, explained: (1) that the
Old Testament inspired spokesmen did not always understand all the
information given by God through them; (2) it was the Spirit of Christ
that was operating upon them; (3) this same inspired information was
being presented in Peter’s day by the apostles; and (4) the same Holy
Spirit was directing their utterances. That means that inspired men had
their own minds engaged as they produced inspired material, but the
product was God’s, since they did not always grasp the significance of
their productions.
This is the same Peter who, in 2 Peter 3:15-16, referred to “our
beloved brother Paul” as having “written to you.” He then noted: “as
also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are
some things hard to be understood, which untaught and unstable people
twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the
Scriptures.” Notice that Peter made clear that: (1) Paul wrote epistles;
(2) those epistles are classified with “the rest of Scriptures”—so
Paul’s letters are Scripture every bit as much as the Old Testament and
other New Testament writings; and (3) these writings are authoritative
and divine, since Peter said that to twist them is to invite
“destruction”—an obvious reference to God’s disfavor, and the spiritual
harm that results from disobeying God’s words.
The Bible unquestionably claims for itself the status of
“inspiration”—having been breathed by the Almighty Himself. That
inspiration entails such superintendence by God that even the words
themselves have come under His divine influence. King David once stated:
“The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue” (2
Samuel 23:2). Observe that David did not say God’s “thoughts” or
“concepts” were on his tongue, but that Jehovah’s
word was on his
tongue. In 1 Corinthians 2, the apostle Paul declared that the things
of God were revealed to men by God’s Spirit. Then, concerning the
divinely inspired messages, he went on to state, “which things we speak,
not in
words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit
teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words” (1
Corinthians 2:13, ASV, emp. added; cf. John 17:8). The words of divine revelation are Spirit-directed words, not words of mere human wisdom. This is
verbal inspiration.
This does not mean that the writers merely took “dictation.” Rather,
the Bible indicates that God adapted His inspiring activity to the
individual temperament, vocabulary, and stylistic idiosyncrasies of each
writer.
BIBLICAL INERRANCY AND ITS ENEMIES
One question that a seemingly growing number of individuals in recent times have asked, is whether or not
every word
of Scripture is “inspired truth?” Infidels, atheists, and skeptics have
long ridiculed the idea of biblical inerrancy. That is, they do not
believe the Bible (whether in its original or current state) to be free
from error or untruths. [NOTE: The word “errant” derives from the Latin infinitive
errare, meaning “to wander,” while the prefix
in
negates the word. Therefore, to purport biblical inerrancy is to affirm
that the Scriptures adhere to the truth, rather than departing, or
“wandering” from it (see Preus, 1984, pp. 91-93; Packer, 1958, p. 95).]
To unbelievers, the Bible simply is another “fallible book written by
imperfect men.” These critics point to countless passages in Scripture
as contradicting either other passages of Scripture or some “known”
historical, geographical, or scientific truth. Unfortunately, with
prominent positions in public schools, universities, businesses, and in
the media, the Bible’s critics have become much more powerful and
influential in recent times. More and more skeptics can be heard
throughout the world on radio, on television, on the Internet, and in
classrooms. In their interesting book,
Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U.S. Beliefs, George Gallup Jr. and D. Michael Lindsay addressed the shift in the attitudes of Americans toward the Bible. They stated:
More Americans are moving toward an interpretation of the Bible as a
book of fables, history, and moral precepts. ...Attempts at
demythologizing the Bible that have been ongoing in the academy for
years seem to be moving more and more from the classroom to the pews....
As recently as 1963, two persons in three viewed the Bible as the
actual word of God, to be taken literally, word for word. Today, only
one person in three still holds to that interpretation (1999, p. 36).
Certainly, for years skeptics have been hard at work in their attempts
to undermine one of the foundational pillars of the Christian’s
faith—the Bible being the inerrant, inspired Word of God. As damaging as
their doctrine is, however, perhaps a more damaging message of biblical
errancy can be heard from a number of people who
claim to be Christians.
Since the rise of liberal “scholarship” in the eighteenth century,
ruthless attacks have been leveled from within Christendom on the
integrity of the Bible. The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the
historicity of the book of Jonah, and even the miracles of Christ are
just a sampling of the Bible topics that liberal scholars have been
attacking relentlessly in the past three centuries. Names such as Karl
Graf, Julius Wellhausen, and Rudolf Bultmann are frequently cited in
scholastic settings where the integrity of the Bible is challenged. In
the late twentieth century, writer George Marsden, in his book titled
Reforming Fundamentalism
(1987), documented how one of the most popular theological seminaries
in America (Fuller Seminary) had dropped its commitment to the inerrancy
of Scripture as early as the 1960s. Sadly, this trend has had a
snowball effect throughout America, so that increasingly, more schools
of theology, even ones of a much more conservative background than
Fuller Theological Seminary, are rejecting the belief that the Bible is
accurate in all that it teaches.
In 2002, the ACU Press published a book titled
God’s Holy Fire,
written by three professors from the Graduate School of Theology at
Abilene Christian University. Taking issue with the usefulness and/or
appropriateness of the term “inerrancy,” Kenneth Cukrowski, Mark
Hamilton, and James Thompson asked if “inerrancy even applies to minor
narrative details?” (p. 40). According to these men, “[I]n numerous
instances in the Bible, one finds apparent inconsistencies in the
narratives” (p. 40). Examples they gave included: (1) the raising of
Jairus’ daughter; (2) Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree; (3) the cleansing
of the temple; and (4) Matthew’s quotation of Jeremiah in 27:9.
Following these alleged internal inconsistencies, they then stated:
“Sometimes the narrative does not correspond to the historical record”
(p. 40). Although Cukrowski, Hamilton, and Thompson admitted that “more
information might actually resolve many of these difficulties” (p. 41),
they later observed: “Because the Bible has come to us through human
beings, our view of the divine origin of Scripture is not a matter of
mathematical certainty, but ultimately an affirmation of faith” (p. 45).
Finally, these men described, not skeptics, but “well-meaning
Christians” who hold to Scripture as being the truthful Word of God in
all
that it says, as those who “in their attempts to provide absolute
certainty,...have created a crisis of faith,” because they are “always
feeling a responsibility to provide an answer for every potential
discrepancy” (p. 44). According to these writers, Christians merely “
assume that God ensured the precise accuracy of the original versions” (p. 42, emp. added).
Perhaps
the most perplexing stance by alleged Bible believers regarding the
inerrancy of Scripture comes from a very popular book often employed by
Christian apologists when defending biblical inerrancy.
Hard Sayings of the Bible
is a compilation of articles by four well-known Bible scholars—Walter
Kaiser, Peter Davids, Manfred Brauch, and F. F. Bruce—who are supposed
to be helping Bible readers find answers to difficult questions without
compromising the biblical text. It is very troubling, therefore, to see
how one of these writers “explained” a passage of Scripture in 1
Corinthians 10. In answering how Paul concluded that 23,000 Israelites
fell in the Old Testament as a result of their sexual immorality (1
Corinthians 10:8), rather than 24,000, which Moses gave in Numbers 25:9
as the number that died in the plague, Peter Davids wrote:
It is possible that Paul, citing the Old Testament from memory as he
wrote to the Corinthians, referred to the incident in Numbers 25:9, but his mind slipped
a chapter later in picking up the number.... We cannot rule out the
possibility that there was some reference to 23 or 23,000 in his local
environment as he was writing, and that caused a slip in his mind.
Paul was not attempting to instruct people on Old Testament history, and certainly not on the details of Old Testament history.
Thus, here we have a case in which Paul apparently makes a slip of the mind
for some reason (unless he has special revelation he does not inform us
about), but the mental error does not affect the teaching. How often
have we heard preachers with written Bibles before them make similar
errors of details that in no way affected their message? If we notice it
(and few usually do), we (hopefully) simply smile and focus on the real
point being made. As noted above, Paul probably did not have a written
Bible to check (although at times he apparently had access to scrolls of
the Old Testament), but in the full swing of dictation he cited an example from memory and got a detail wrong (pp. 598-599, parenthetical comments in orig., emp. added).
Supposedly, Paul just made a mistake. He messed up, just like when a
preacher today mistakenly misquotes a passage of Scripture. According to
the repetitive testimony of Davids, Paul merely had “a slip of the
mind” (thereby experiencing what some today might call a “senior
moment”), and our reaction (as well as the skeptics’) should be to
“simply smile and focus on the real point being made.”
Unbelievable! Walter Kaiser, Peter Davids, Manfred Brauch, and F.F.
Bruce pen an 800-page book in an attempt to answer numerous alleged
Bible contradictions and to defend the integrity of the Bible, and yet
Davids has the audacity to suggest that the apostle Paul “cited an
example from memory and got a detail wrong.” Why in the world did Davids
spend so much time (and space) answering various questions that
skeptics frequently raise, and then conclude that the man who penned
almost half of the New Testament books made mistakes in his writings?!
He has concluded exactly what the infidels teach—Bible writers made
mistakes! Furthermore, if Paul made one mistake in his writings, he
easily could have blundered elsewhere. And if Paul made mistakes in
other writings, how can we say that Peter, John, Isaiah, and others did
not “slip up” occasionally? In fact, why not just explain
all alleged discrepancies as the result of a momentary slip of the writer’s mind?
The fact is, if Paul, or any of these men, made mistakes in their
writings, then they were not inspired by God (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2
Peter 1:20-21), because God does not make mistakes (cf. Titus 1:2; Psalm
139:1-6). And if the Scriptures were not “given by inspiration of God,”
then the Bible is not from God. And if the Bible is not from God, then
the skeptic is right.
But the skeptic is not right! The passage
in 1 Corinthians 10:8 can be explained logically without assuming Paul’s
writings are inaccurate. The answer lies in the fact that Paul stated
that 23,000 fell “
in one day,” while in Numbers 25:9 (the probable “sister” passage to 1 Corinthians 10:8), Moses wrote that the
total number
of those who died in the plague was 24,000. Moses never indicated how
long it took for the 24,000 to die, but only stated that this was the
number “who died in the plague.” Thus, the record in 1 Corinthians
simply supplies us with more knowledge about exactly what occurred in
Numbers 25—23,000 of the 24,000 who died in the plague died “
in one day.”
Sadly, Peter Davids totally dismisses the numerous places where Paul
claims his writings are from God. When Paul wrote to the churches of
Galatia, he told them that his teachings came to him “through revelation
of Jesus Christ” (1:12). In his first letter to the Thessalonian
Christians, he claimed the words he wrote were “by the word of the Lord”
(4:15). To the church at Ephesus, Paul wrote that God’s message was
“revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets” (3:5). And in
the same epistle where Davids claims that Paul “made a slip of the
mind,” Paul said, “the things which I write to you are the commandments
of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37). Paul did not invent facts about Old
Testament stories. Neither did he have to rely on his own fallible
memory to recall particular numbers or names. His writings were inspired
Scripture (2 Peter 3:16). The Holy Spirit revealed the Truth to him—
all
of it (cf. John 14:26; John 16:13). Just like the writers of the Old
Testament, Paul was fully inspired by the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Samuel
23:2; Acts 1:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21; 3:15-16; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).
WHAT WAS THE VIEW OF JESUS AND THE
BIBLE WRITERS TOWARD SCRIPTURE?
What liberal theologians do not tell their readers is that the Bible
itself provides compelling evidence about the nature of its inspiration.
Perhaps of most significance is the fact that neither Jesus nor any
Bible writer
ever called into question a single passage of
Scripture. Jesus and the writers of Scripture believed in the
truthfulness and historical reliability of even the most disputed parts
of the Old Testament. Notice a few examples.
While speaking to the Pharisees in the region of Judea beyond the
Jordan, Jesus confirmed His belief in the real existence of an original
couple created during the Creation week (Matthew 19:4; cf. Genesis
2:24).
In writing to the church at Corinth, Paul affirmed his belief in Adam
as the first human (1 Corinthians 15:45). Then, in his first letter to
Timothy, he attested to the fact that Eve was created after Adam (2:13;
cf. Genesis 2:7,21-25).
Paul regarded the serpent’s deception of Eve as a historical event (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:13-14; cf. Genesis 3).
Both Jesus and the apostle Peter believed that Noah was a real person,
and that the global Flood was a historical event (Matthew 24:37-39; 2
Peter 2:5; 3:6; cf. Genesis 6-8).
Jesus and Peter also affirmed their belief in the historicity of Lot,
and in the destruction of Sodom (Luke 17:28-32; 2 Peter 2:6-7; cf.
Genesis 19).
Paul attested to the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea, and affirmed
his belief in their drinking water from a rock (1 Corinthians 10:1-4;
cf. Hebrews 11:29; cf. Exodus 14), while Jesus confirmed His belief in
the miraculous healing of the Israelites who fixed their eyes on the
bronze snake set up by Moses in the desert (John 3:14; cf. Numbers
21:4-9).
Finally, unlike many people today, including some of those who
claim
to believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, Jesus regarded the
account of Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of a great fish
as a historical event (Matthew 12:39-40).
Numerous other examples such as these exist, and demonstrate the
trustworthiness of Scripture. The Old Testament writers who came after
Moses expressed
total trust in the Pentateuch, as well as in each others’ writings. Furthermore, Jesus and the New Testament writers
always viewed statements by each other and the Old Testament writers as being truthful, regardless of the subject matter.
Although today it is not at all unusual for one religious writer to
take issue with another, even when they share the same religious views
or are members of the same religious group,
Bible writers never criticized each others’ writings—even
when one might have expected them to do so. For example, Paul rebuked
Peter publicly for his unacceptable dissimulation (Galatians 2:11ff.).
Yet Peter never avenged himself by denigrating Paul’s writings. In fact,
as observed earlier, Peter stated that Paul’s writings were as
authoritative as “the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15-16). Additionally,
in defending the right of elders to receive remuneration from the
church treasury for their work, Paul quoted Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke
10:7, and classified both as “Scripture” (1 Timothy 5:18). It is clear
that the Bible writers
always considered each others’ works to be
truthful. How can anyone who claims to be a Christian hold to the
viewpoint that the Scriptures contain errors? Jesus and the Bible
writers
always acknowledged that God ensured the precise accuracy
of the original versions (cf. Cukrowski, et al., 2002, p. 42). Why
should we do any differently?
INERRANCY TO A “T”
Jesus endorsed the entirety of the Old Testament at least a dozen
times, using such designations as: the Scriptures (John 5:39); the Law
(John 10:34); the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17); the Law, the
Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44); or Moses and the Prophets (Luke
16:29). In addition, the Son of God quoted, cited from, or alluded to
incidents in at least eighteen different Old Testament books. But to
what degree did Christ believe in inspiration? The following references
document beyond doubt that the Lord affirmed
verbal inspiration down to the very letters of Scripture. In Matthew 5:17-18, Christ exclaimed:
Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not
come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven
and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from
the law till all is fulfilled.
The “jot” (
yod) was the smallest Hebrew letter, and the “tittle”
was the tiny stroke on certain Hebrew letters. It is equivalent to
saying that even the dotting of “i”s and crossing of “t”s will stand.
When Jesus employed these specific terms as examples, He affirmed the
minutest accuracy for the Old Testament.
In John 10:34-35, Jesus involved Himself in an interchange with some
Jews who accused Him of blasphemy. He repelled the charge by quoting
Psalm 82:6, referring to the passage as “law.” Jesus could refer to a
psalm as “law” in the sense that the psalms are part of Scripture. Jesus
was thus ascribing legal authority to the entire corpus of Scripture.
He did the same thing in John 15:25. Likewise, the apostle Paul quoted
from Psalms, Isaiah, and Genesis, and referred to each as “the Law” (1
Corinthians 14:21; Romans 3:19; Galatians 4:21). After Jesus quoted from
the psalm and referred to it as “law,” He added, “and the Scripture
cannot be broken.” What an incredible declaration! Notice that Christ
equated “law” with “Scripture”—using the terms as synonyms. When He
declared that “law,” or “Scripture,” “cannot be broken,” He was making
the point that
it is impossible for Scripture to be annulled, for its authority to be denied, or its truth to be withstood (see Warfield, 1970, pp. 138-140). “It cannot be emptied of its force by being shown to be erroneous” (Morris, 1995, p. 468).
Jesus quoted a relatively obscure passage of the Old Testament, and
declared it to be authoritative, because “the Scripture cannot be
broken.” His Jewish listeners understood this fact. If they were of the
mindset that many liberals are today, they might have brushed this
passage aside, saying that the psalmist made a mistake, or that this
section of Scripture contained errors. They might have responded by
asking Jesus, “How do you know this portion of Scripture is true, if
others are not true?” Notice, however, that this was not their response.
Both Jesus and His audience understood that the psalm from which He
quoted was true—
because it is a part of Scripture! Truly, Jesus considered every part of Scripture, even its most “casual” phrases, to be the authoritative Word of God.
Once, when Jesus challenged the Pharisees to clarify the identity of
the Messiah (Matthew 22:41-45), He focused on David’s use of the single
term “Lord” in Psalm 110:1. He questioned the Pharisees, saying, “If
David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” (Matthew 22:45). Jesus’
whole point depended on verbal inspiration.
After Jesus’ resurrection, Luke recorded how Jesus appeared to two men
on the road to Emmaus who were saddened and somewhat perplexed by the
recent crucifixion of the One Whom they were hoping “was going to redeem
Israel” (Luke 24:21). With their eyes being restrained “so that they
did not know Him” (24:16), they rehearsed to Jesus what had transpired
over the past few days regarding His death, His burial, and the empty
tomb. The text indicates that Jesus then rebuked these two men, saying,
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in
all that the
prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things
and to enter into His glory?” (24:25-26, emp. added). Notice that Jesus
did not chastise them for being slow to believe in
some of what the prophets spoke, but for neglecting to believe in
all
that they said about the Christ. For this reason, Jesus began “at Moses
and all the Prophets,” and “expounded to them in all the Scriptures the
things concerning Himself ” (24:27).
No wonder Jesus would rebuke His religious challengers with such
phrases as: “Have you not read even this Scripture?” (Mark 12:10; cf.
Matthew 21:42); “You do err, not knowing the Scriptures” (Matthew
22:29); “if you had known what this means” (Matthew 12:7); or “Go and
learn what this means” (Mark 9:13). The underlying thought in such
statements is that
God’s truth is found in Scripture, and if you are ignorant of the Scriptures, you are susceptible to error.
PRECISE PROOF THAT
INSPIRATION IMPLIES INERRANCY
In the midst of His discussion with the Sadducees concerning their
denial of the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23-33), Jesus
referred to Exodus 3:6 wherein God said to Moses: “I am the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Jehovah spoke
these words, Abraham had been dead almost 400 years, yet the Lord still
stated, “I
am the God of Abraham.” As Jesus correctly pointed
out to the Sadducees, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the
living” (Matthew 22:32). Thus, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must have been
living. But the only way they could be living was if their spirits
continued to survive the death of their bodies. That kind of conscious
existence implies a future resurrection of the body—the very point
Christ was pressing. Of interest, however, is the fact that His entire
argument rested on the
tense of the verb! [NOTE: The claim that Jesus made arguments based even on the
tense
of verbs is true. Nevertheless, such a statement needs clarification.
Hebrew actually has no past, present, or future tense. Rather, an action
is regarded as being either complete or incomplete, and so verbs occur
in the Hebrew as perfect or imperfect. No verb occurs in the God’s
statement in Exodus 3:6. Consequently, tense is implied rather than
expressed. In this case, the Hebrew grammar would allow any tense of the
verb “to be.” Jesus, however, clarified the ambiguity inherent in the
passage by affirming specifically what God had in mind, which is why
Matthew preserved Jesus’ use of the Greek
present tense (
ego eimi).]
Similarly, on another occasion while being tested by a group of Jews
regarding whether or not He actually had seen their “father” Abraham,
Jesus responded by saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham
was, I
am” (John 8:58, emp. added). Just as in the case where God wanted Moses to impress upon Egypt His eternal nature, calling Himself
“I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14), Christ sought to impress upon the first-century Jews His eternality. Jesus is not a “was” or a “will be”—He
is...“from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2). Once again, He based His entire argument on the
tense of the verb.
The same kind of reliance on a single word was expressed by Paul (as he
referred to Genesis 22:18) in Galatians 3:16: “Now to Abraham and his
Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of
many, but as of one, ‘And to your
Seed,’ who is Christ” (emp. added). The force of his argument rested on the number of the noun (singular, as opposed to plural).
In light of the fact that Jesus and the Bible writers viewed the words
of Scripture as being inspired (and thus truthful), even down to the
very tense of a verb and number of a noun, so should all Christians.
Truly, as the psalmist of long ago wrote: “The
sum of thy word is truth; and
every one of thy righteous ordinances endureth for ever” (Psalm 119:160, ASV, emp. added). Or, as the passage is translated in the NKJV: “The
entirety of Your word is truth.” It is
all true, and it is
all from God. It is accurate in all its parts. The
whole
of the Bible is of divine origin, and therefore is reliable and
trustworthy. Yes, God used human beings to write the Bible, and in so
doing, allowed them to leave their imprint upon it (e.g., type of
language used, fears expressed, prayers offered, interests, educational
influences, etc.). But, they wrote without making any of the usual
mistakes that human writers are prone to make under normal
circumstances. God made certain that the words produced by the human
writers He inspired were free from the errors and mistakes
characteristic of uninspired writers. In reality, hundreds of Bible
passages encourage God’s people to trust the Scriptures completely, but
no text encourages any doubt of, or even slight mistrust in, Scripture.
To rely on the inerrancy of every historical detail affirmed in
Scripture is to follow the teaching and practice of the biblical authors
themselves.
WHEN THE SCRIPTURES SPEAK, GOD SPEAKS
Time and time again, Jesus and the Bible writers affirmed that
God is the author of Scripture.
Notice in Matthew 19:4-6 how Jesus assigned the words of Genesis 2:24
to God as the Author. He asked the Pharisees who came testing him, “Have
you not read that
He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and
said,
‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined
to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?’ ” (emp. added).
Interestingly, in Genesis 2:24, no indication is provided that God was
the speaker. Rather, the words are simply a narrational comment written
by the human author Moses. By Jesus attributing the actual words to God,
He made it clear that
all of Scripture is authored by God (cf. 2
Timothy 3:16). When writing to the Christians in Corinth, Paul treated
the matter in the same way (1 Corinthians 6:16).
On numerous occasions in Scripture, God is said to say certain things
that are, in their original setting, merely the words of Scripture. For
example, Hebrews 3:7 reads, “Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit
says...,” and then Psalm 95:7 is quoted. In Acts 4:25, God is said to
have spoken by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of David the words of
Psalm 2:1. In Acts 13:34, God is represented as having stated the words
of Isaiah 55:3 and Psalm 16:10. In each of these cases, the words
attributed to God are not specifically His words in their original
setting, but merely the words of Scripture itself. The writers of the
New Testament sometimes referred to the Scriptures as if they were God
(cf. Romans 9:17; Galatians 3:8), and they sometimes referred to God as
if He were Scripture. The Bible thus presents itself as the very words
of God.
In Hebrews 1:5-13, the writer quoted from Psalm 2:7, 2 Samuel 7:14,
Deuteronomy 32:43, Psalm 104:4, Psalm 45:6-7, Psalm 102:25-27, and Psalm
110:1. The Hebrews writer attributed each of these passages to God as
the speaker. Yet in their original setting in the Old Testament,
sometimes God is the speaker, while sometimes He is not, and is, in
fact, being spoken to or spoken about. Why would the writer of Hebrews
indiscriminately assign all of these passages to God? Because they all
have in common the fact that they are the words of Scripture and, as
such, are the words of God. Thus, every word of the Bible is the Word of
God! And, as Jesus prayed on the night of His betrayal, God’s “word is
truth” (John 17: 17).
GOD CANNOT LIE
From beginning to end, the Bible reveals that the infinite, eternal
Being Who created everything and everyone that exists in the Universe
(other than Himself), is truthful. His “Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6),
His “words are true” (2 Samuel 7:28), His “law is truth” (Psalm 119:14),
His “commandments are truth” (Psalm 119:151), His “judgments...are
true” (Psalm 19:9), and His “works are truth” (Daniel 4:37). He
literally embodies truth. When the Son of God was on Earth, He claimed
to be truth (John 14:6). There is nothing false about God. When Paul
wrote to Titus, he described God as the One “who cannot lie” (1:2).
Similarly, the writer of Hebrews declared that “it is impossible for God
to lie” (6:18).
If God is perfect, and if the Bible is the Word of God (which it claims
to be, as the previous sections demonstrate), then it follows that, in
its original form as it initially came from God, the Bible must be
perfect. The Scriptures cannot err if they are “borne” of God. Try as
one might, logically, one cannot have it both ways. The Bible is either
from God (and thus flawless in its original autographs), or it contains
mistakes, and therefore did not come from the God of truth. There is no
middle ground.
Some argue: “But the Bible was written down by humans. And ‘to err is
human.’ Thus, the Bible could not have been perfect from the beginning.”
Consider the fallacy of such reasoning. If a person concludes that all
humans err—regardless of the circumstances—then Jesus must have sinned.
(1) Jesus was a human being (Galatians 4:4). (2) Human beings sin
(Isaiah 53:6). (3) Therefore, Jesus sinned. But most any Bible student
knows that Jesus did
not sin. The New Testament declares that He
was “pure” and “righteous” (1 John 3:3; 2:1), and “committed no sin, nor
was deceit found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). He was “a lamb without
blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19), “Who knew no sin” (2
Corinthians 5:21). Since we know that Jesus did not sin, something must
be wrong with the above argument. But what is it?
The mistake is to assume that Jesus is like any other human. Sure, mere human beings sin. But, Jesus was not a mere
human being. He was a perfect human being. Indeed, Jesus was not only
human, but He was also God. Likewise, the Bible is not a mere human
book. It is also the Word of God. Like Jesus, it is both divine and
human. And just as Jesus was human but did not sin, even so the Bible is
a human book but does not err. Both God’s living Word (Christ) and His
written Word (Scripture) are human but do not err. They are divine and
cannot err. There can no more be an error in God’s written Word than
there was a sin in God’s living Word. God cannot err, period (Geisler
and Howe, 1992, pp. 14-15, emp. in orig.).
Admittedly, it is normal to make blunders. (In fact, this very article
is likely to have one or more mistakes in it.) But, the conditions under
which the Bible writers wrote was anything but normal. They were
moved and
guided into all truth by God’s Spirit (John 16:13; 2 Peter 1:21).
THE RATIONALITY OF INERRANCY
Sadly, it is not uncommon to hear liberal theologians, and those who
are sympathetic with them, suggest that the “spiritual” parts of
Scripture are inspired, but that the portions dealing with matters of
history, geography, astronomy, medicine, and the like, are not. This
concept, known as the doctrine of “partial inspiration,” is faulty for
at least three reasons. First, there are no statements in Scripture that
lead a person to believe this manner of interpreting the Bible is
acceptable. Conversely, as already indicated, both Jesus and the Bible
writers
always worked from the premise that God’s Word is
entirely true (Psalm 119:160), not partially true.
Second, were it true that only the “spiritual” sections of the Bible
are inerrant, everyone who reads the text would have the personal
responsibility of wading through the biblical documents to decide
exactly which matters are “spiritual” (thus, inspired) and which are not
(thus, uninspired). Such an interpretation of Scripture, however, makes
a mockery of biblical authority.
The Bible can be authoritative if, and only if, it is truly and
verifiably the Word of God. That his word has been passed through men
does not negate its authority so long as he has so controlled them as to
guard them from all error. If his control over the biblical writers was
not total, we can never be sure where the writer was accurate (thus
believable) and where he was mistaken (thus worthy of rejection). In
such a case, the Bible would be authoritative only when we declared it
to be so. Then the circle has come full, and man is authoritative over
the Bible rather than submitting to its direction (Shelly, 1990, p. 152,
parenthetical items in orig.).
If Christians abandon the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, then having a
standard of truth by which all humans are to live their lives would be
impossible. Like the son who obeys his father insofar as he agrees with
the father’s rules, a Christian would have his own standard of authority
because the Bible would be authoritative only when he judged it to be a
reliable guide. Simply put, Scripture cannot be demonstrated to be
divinely authoritative if the Bible (again, in its original autographs)
contained factual errors.
Finally, if a Christian believes that the Bible is fallible, then one
is forced to accept the inevitable conclusion that, on some occasions,
God “breathed” truth, while on others He “breathed” error (cf. 2 Timothy
3:16). If
all of Scripture is indicated as being from God—even
narrational comments and statements from unbelievers—then an attack upon
the trustworthiness of
any passage is an attack upon Almighty God.
If
God can inspire a man to write theological and doctrinal truth, He
simultaneously can inspire the same man to write with historical and
scientific precision. If the Bible is not reliable and trustworthy
in its allusion to “peripheral” matters, how can it be relied upon to be
truthful and accurate in more central matters? Is an omnipotent God
incapable of preserving human writers from making false statements in
their recording of His words? It will not do to point out that the Bible
was not intended to be a textbook of science or history. If, in the
process of pressing His spiritual agenda, God alluded to geography,
cosmology, or medicine, God did not lie. Nor would He allow an inspired
person to speak falsely.
The question must be asked: If God cannot handle correctly “trivial”
matters (such as geographical directions, or the name of an individual),
why would anyone think that they could trust Him with something as
critically important as the safety of their eternal soul, and expect Him
to handle it in a more appropriate fashion? Or, looking at this matter
from another angle, consider the question Jesus asked Nicodemus: “If I
have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you
believe if I tell you heavenly things” (John 3:12)? Implied in this
statement is the fact that had Jesus told Nicodemus earthly things, they
would have been true. The same reasoning follows with the Bible.
Because it is God’s Word, it would be correct in whatever matters it
addresses. Furthermore, if the Bible is not truthful in physical
matters, then it cannot be trusted when it addresses spiritual matters.
Truly, the concept of partial inspiration impugns the integrity and
nature of God, conflicts with the evidences for inspiration, and should
be rejected as heresy.
People rightly believe that an actual discrepancy within the Bible
would discredit the authenticity of Scripture, for the simple reason
that those people have been created by God to function rationally! They
recognize that, by definition, truth must be consistent with itself. The
very nature of truth is such that it contains no contradictions or
errors. If God is capable of communicating His truth to human beings, it
is both unthinkable and logically implausible that He could not or
would not do so with complete consistency and certainty. Infallibility
without inerrancy cannot be sustained without logical contradiction.
How sad that the attempt to compromise the integrity of the sacred text
is altogether unnecessary, in view of the fact that no charge of
discrepancy against the Bible has ever been sustained. Plausible
explanations exist if the individual will study and apply himself to an
honest, thorough evaluation of the available evidence. God has provided
sufficient evidence to allow an honest person to arrive at the truth and
to know His will (John 6:45; 7:17; 8:32). Those who are willing to
compromise, and who back away from a devotion to verbal inspiration and
inerrancy of Scripture, demonstrate
a lack of faith in both God and His Word.
REFERENCES
Cukrowski, Kenneth L., Mark W. Hamilton, and James W. Thompson (2002),
God’s Holy Fire (Abilene, TX: ACU Press).
Gallup, George Jr. and Michael Lindsay (1999),
Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U.S. Beliefs (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing).
Geisler, Norman and Thomas Howe (1992),
When Critics Ask (Wheaton, IL: Victor).
Kaiser, Walter C. Jr., Peter H. Davids, F.F. Bruce, and Manfred T. Brauch (1996),
Hard Sayings of the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).
Marsden, George (1987),
Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Morris, Leon (1995),
The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), revised edition.
Packer, J.I. (1958),
“Fundamentalism” and the Word of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Preus, Robert (1984), “Notes on the Inerrancy of Scripture,”
Evangelicals and Inerrancy, ed. Ronald Youngblood (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson).
Shelly, Rubel (1990),
Prepare to Answer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Warfield, Benjamin (1970 reprint),
The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian & Reformed).
Essentially,
this question was asked by the ancient Hebrew prophet Habakkuk. When he
complained to God regarding the corruption of his nation and inquired
how long God would tolerate it, God informed him that He was bringing
the Chaldeans against the nation to punish them. But this divine
response perplexed the prophet, causing him to make a second inquiry:
“Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue
when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?” (1:3). In
other words, yes, Israel deserved punishment, but why inflict that
punishment using a nation even more wicked than Israel—a polytheistic,
pagan nation? God’s answer was that, in His own good time, He would
ultimately deal with the more wicked nation as well.