Does the Bible Really Teach
it is the Inerrant Word of God
In the last decade, the topic of biblical inerrancy has
divided the evangelical camp between those who are "strict inerrantists" and
those who are "limited inerrantists." The former believe "that when all
facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will
be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with
doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences."1
The latter group accepts that there are errors in certain areas the Bible
touches outside doctrine and morality, e.g., in science, history, etc. The problem with
this last view is that it undermines trust in Scripture in general. Thus, if Scripture
contains errors in those areas we can test on the basis of historical,
archaeological and scientific fact, on what logical basis can we assume it doesn’t
contain errors in those areas we cannot test such as theology and ethics (the
nature of God, salvation, morality, etc.)?
So what does the Bible itself teach? Theologian Clark Pinnock observes,
"In every defense of biblical inerrancy it is maintained that the notion is
scriptural, that is, a concept taught by Jesus and the apostles…[but] we are forced
to ask whether it is really scriptural or simply an inference drawn by godly minds."2 Of course, the answer to this question should be decided by every
Christian on the basis of Scripture alone. God, not man, is the most competent authority
on His own revelation.
I. The Old Testament: (Note God’s description of His
Word—NASB):
Eternal:
"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the
word of our God stands forever" (Isa. 40:8); "Forever, O Lord, Thy word is
settled in heaven" (Ps. 119:89).
Perfect and Trustworthy:
"Every word of God is tested; He is a
shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He reprove you, and
you be proved a liar" (Prov. 30:5, 6); "The words of the Lord are pure words; as
silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times" (Ps. 12:6).
True: "…the word of truth...Thy law is truth...all Thy
commandments are truth... the sum of Thy word is truth and every one of Thy righteous
ordinances is everlasting" (Ps. 119:43, 142, 151, 160).
Holy and Righteous: "For He remembered His holy word with Abraham
His servant" (Ps. 105:42); "My eyes fail with longing for Thy salvation and Thy
righteous word" (Ps. 119:123); "Thy word is very pure, therefore Thy servant
loves it" (Ps. 119:140)
Good: "...I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken..."
(Jer. 33:14).
Vital (and Verbal): "‘And as for Me, this is My covenant with
them,’ says the Lord. ‘My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have
put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your
offspring’ says the Lord, ‘from now and forever’" (Isa. 59:21).
II. The Gospels (Note Jesus’ view of God’s Word.)
Eternal: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words
shall not pass away" (Matt. 24:35).
Trustworthy: "…the Scripture cannot be broken…" (John
10:35); "For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me
has given Me commandment, what to say and what to speak,…therefore the things I
speak, I speak just as the Father has told me" (John 12:49–50); "But it is
easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to
fail" (Luke 16:17).
True: "Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth." (John
17:17).
Holy: "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me" (John
7:16, cf. 12:49–50).
Vital (and Verbal):
"But he answered and said, ‘It is written, Man
shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of
God’" (Matt. 4:4).
III. The Rest of the New Testament (Note the apostles’ view of God’s
Word)
Eternal: "But the Word of the Lord abides forever and
this is the word which was preached to you" (1 Pet. 1:25).
Inspired: "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction for training in righteousness, that the man of God
may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16–17, cf., 2 Pet. 3:2,
15–16); "…no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved
by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Pet. 1:20–21).
Living and Imperishable: "for the word of God is living and
active… " (Heb. 4:12, cf. Acts 7:38); "For you have been born again not of
seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word
of God" (1 Pet. 1:23).
True: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman
who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth" (2 Tim.
2:15).
Not Human: "And for this reason we also constantly thank God that
when you received from us the word of God’s message, you accepted it not as the word
of men, but for what it really is, the word of God which also performs its work in you who
believe" (1 Thess. 2:13); "…he who rejects this [instruction] is not
rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you" (1 Thess. 4:8). Holy:
"…from childhood you have known the sacred writings…" (2 Tim. 3:15).
Vital (and Verbal):
"I testify to everyone who hears the words of
the prophecy of this book; if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which
are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which
are written in this book" (Rev. 22 :18–19); "Now we have received, not the
spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely
given to us by God,…in words…taught by the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:12–13);
"…they have been entrusted with the very words (Gk: logia) of God"
(Rom. 3:2 NIV).
Although a great deal could be said about each of the above Scriptures (and
there are scores of others), let us simply ask some questions. What did God mean when He
called His word "perfect," "true," "righteous,"
"good," "trustworthy," and "pure?" Is "perfection"
really imperfection? or truth really error? or good really something not good? or the
trustworthy the doubtful? or the pure impure? Is it proper to call errant writings
"holy"? How is inspiration divine if it merely guarantees the presence of
truth and error? If God’s Word is eternal, is it possible for the church to be
content with a certain amount of eternal error? Young observes,
God has revealed to us His Word.
What are we to think of Him if this Word is glutted with little annoying
inaccuracies?…He, of course, tells us that His Word is pure. If there are mistakes in
that Word, however, we know better; it is not pure….If the autographa of Scripture
are marred by flecks of mistake, God simply has not told us the truth concerning His Word.
To assume that He could breathe forth a Word that contained mistakes is to say, in effect,
that God Himself can make mistakes. We must maintain that the original of Scripture is
infallible for the simple reason that it came to us directly from God Himself.3
Charles Spurgeon wrote of the rudeness of those who question
God’s Word when he stated, "This is the book untainted by any error, but is
pure, unalloyed, perfect truth. Why? Because God wrote it. Ah! charge God with error if
you please; tell Him that His book is not what it ought to be…."4
Christians are to accept the teachings of Jesus because He is their Lord. But
Jesus Himself never expressed doubts about Scripture—at any time in any manner. To
the contrary, He accepted Scripture as God’s inerrant word (John 17:17). Indeed, the
strength of the case for a strict view of inerrancy can only be properly understood by a
detailed study of Jesus’ absolute trust in and use of Scripture.5 For us, this alone is proof of scriptural inerrancy. Jesus
unequivocally maintained that "the Scripture cannot be broken" (John
10:35) and that "Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a
pen, will by any means disappear from the Law…." (Matt. 5:18) and that
"It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a
pen to drop out of the Law" (Luke 16:17). He emphasized, "Thy word is
truth" (John 17:17).
The weight of these verses is impressive when we consider what they teach in
more detail. In Matthew 5:17–19, e.g.,
The [KJV] "jot" is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the
[KJV] "tittle" is the minute horn or projection that distinguishes consonants of
similar form from one another. It would be impossible to think of any expression that
would bespeak the thought of the meticulous more adequately than precisely this one used
here by our Lord.7
In John 10:34, e.g.,
…when he says the Scripture
cannot be broken, he is surely using the word "Scripture" in its most
comprehensive denotation as including all that the Jews of the day recognized as
Scripture, to wit, all the canonical books of the Old Testament. It is of the Old
Testament without any reservation or exception that he says, it "cannot be
broken."…He affirms the unbreakableness of the Scripture in its entirety and
leaves no room for any such supposition as that of degrees of inspiration and fallibility.
Scripture is inviolable. Nothing less than this is the testimony of our Lord.8
If it is easier for heaven and earth (i.e. the universe) to
pass from existence than for the "least stroke of a pen" to be lost, can we
possibly believe Jesus thought there were errors in Scripture?
Dr. Montgomery comments on another statement by Jesus in Matthew 4:4.
"Christ tells us simply, quoting the God of the Old Testament, that ‘Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God.’ One must therefore operate with every word and consider every word as
significant. Had God ‘intended’ otherwise, the text would (by definition) be
different from what it is!"9 And if Jesus said,
"Thy word is truth," how can Christians think it contains errors?
In other words, Jesus Himself believed every word of Scripture was important and
given God’s righteous character, by definition inerrant.
Montgomery also observes, "the weight of Christ’s testimony to
Scripture is so much more powerful than any alleged contradiction or error in the text or
any combination of them, that the latter must be adjusted to the former, not the
reverse."10
If Jesus is God, what God says is by definition true and therefore His
unqualified endorsement of the full inerrancy of Scripture proves the validity of the
inerrancy position. Finally, the character of God Himself proves the inerrancy of
Scripture:
1. Sovereign: A sovereign God is able to preserve
the process of inspiration from error.
2. Righteousness: A righteous God is unable to
inspire error.
3. Just: A just God could not be untruthful in
asserting His word is inerrant. He would be unjust if He bore witness to errant Scripture
as "holy and true."
4. Love: A loving God would adequately provide for
the spiritual health and safety of His people by inspiring an inerrant Word.
5. Eternal: An eternal God has had forever to
determine the canon and means of inspiration (e.g., verbal, plenary) for His word.
6. Omniscient: An omniscient God knows every
contingency that might arise to inhibit inerrancy.
7. Omnipotent: An omnipotent God can effectively
respond to every contingency and also preserve the transmission of His Word.
8. Omnipresent: An omnipresent God can initially
reveal and inspire His word and later illuminate it.
9. Immutable: An immutable God could never change
His word.
10. Veracity: A truthful God would not lie when He
testifies about the inerrancy of His word.
11. Merciful: A merciful God would not be unmerciful in
inspiring both truth and error and then have His people vainly attempt to find the parts
that are true. He would not leave His people to subjectivism and uncertainty about His
word.
12. Personal: A personal God can inspire verbally, with
words, to insure effective communication.
We may close by citing Dr.
Feinberg:
I have never been able to
understand how one can be justified in claiming absolute authority for the
Scriptures and at the same time deny their inerrancy. This seems to be the height of
epistemological nonsense and confusion. Let me try to illustrate the point. Suppose that I
have an Amtrak railroad schedule. In describing its use to you, I tell you that it is
filled with numerous errors but that it is absolutely authoritative and
trustworthy. I think you would be extremely dubious. At least the schedule would have one
thing going for it; it declares itself to be subject to change without notice.11
But Scripture constantly assumes its own immutability and
inerrancy. Indeed, "The grass withers, the flower fades. But the word of our God
stands forever" (Isaiah 40:8). Thus, the rejection of inerrancy by some evangelicals
is both regrettable and surprising, to say the least.
Footnotes:
1. Paul D.
Feinberg, "The Meaning of Inerrancy" in Norman L. Geisler (ed.), Inerrancy (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980), p. 294.
2. Clark Pinnock in Jack Rogers (ed.), Biblical Authority
(Waco, TX: Word, 1978), p. 63.
3. Edward J. Young, Thy Word is Truth (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 86-87.
4. Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishers, 1977), p. 67.
5. See, e.g., Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and
Authority of the Bible (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948); John
Wenham, Christ and the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), chs.
1–2, 5 and his chapter in Geisler (ed.) Inerrancy, pp. 3–38; Pierre Ch.
Marcel "Our Lord’s use of Scripture" in Carl F. H. Henry (ed.) Revelation
and the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1969), pp. 119–134 and Rene Pache, The
Inspiration and Authority of Scripture (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966), ch. 18.
6. John Wenham "Christ’s View of Scripture"
in Geisler (ed.), Inerrancy, pp. 14-15.
7. John Murray in N.B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley (eds.), The
Infallible Word: A Symposium (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1967, Third Rev.
Edition), p. 22.
8. Ibid., pp. 26–27.
9. John W. Montgomery, "Biblical Inerrancy: What is at
Stake?" in John W. Montgomery (ed.), God’s Inerrant Word (Minneapolis,
MN: Bethany, 1974), p. 31.
10. Ibid., p. 38.
11. Feinberg in Geisler (ed.), Inerrancy, p. 285 a
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