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It follows from the doctrine of inerrancy that the Bible
contains the same authority as if God Himself was audibly
speaking the words to us. John Calvin stated that
“Since the Holy Scriptures is the only record by which God
has been pleased to reveal His truths, the full authority
which they ought to possess with the faithful is not
properly and fully recognized by the believer unless they
(the Scriptures) are believed to have come from heaven as
directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them”.
Think of the person that you most admire in your life.
If he or she was in the room speaking to you, would you
flippantly disregard, or even mock what was being said?
Now, how much less would we do this if Almighty God was
audibly speaking, yet many do this very thing with His Word,
his love letter of revelation to us. The writer of
Hebrew tells of God’s means of revelation.
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the
prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these
last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed
heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact
representation of his being, sustaining all things by his
powerful word. After he had provided purification for
sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven
(Heb 1:1-3).
Thus, our infinite and loving God, having used other means
of self-revelation, now speaks to us by His Son through the
instrument of the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is not
merely a historical record of God dealing with mankind, but
it is active and breathing as it continues to speak to us
today. For the word of God is living and active.
Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to
dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the
thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Heb 4:12).
Jesus constantly upheld the inerrancy of the Scriptures (Mt
5:18, Mt 24:35, Jn 10:35, Jn 17:17 etc). He also
appealed to Scripture as the authority on settling doctrinal
disputes, telling the religious leaders “You are in error
because you do not know the Scriptures” (Mt 22:29).
When tempted by Satan in the desert, He rejected him each
time with “It is written…”. We find this same
high regard for the Scriptures among the Apostles and Church
fathers.
Since God is a spiritual being (Jn 4:24), and all spirits by
their nature are hidden, then God, the infinite spiritual
Being must take the first step to reveal Himself. We
can know God only to the extent that He voluntarily
discloses Himself to us since no one knows the thoughts
of God except the Spirit of God (1Cor 2:11).
Therefore, if God’s instrument of revelation, the Bible, is
not inerrant (see What
does Inerrancy Mean?), then we have no true or accurate
revelation from God, so we can have no reliable knowledge of
Him. We are left with only human reasoning and
philosophy, which offers no objective means of verifying
truth. Our only other alternative is to seek Him
within the creation, which results in a pantheistic rather
than a theist view of God. We thus begin to see the
importance of the doctrine of Bible inerrancy, and some of
the consequences if we deny it.
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We’ve seen the absolute critical nature of the role that
inerrant Scripture plays in our receiving of God’s
self-revelation. Scripture is the method by which Lord
Jesus Christ reveals God the Father to us, and the
instrument by which our Triune God exercises authority over
us. The scriptures are also the means by which God,
through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, reveals Himself
and His redemptive plan through the ages. Thus,
Scripture becomes our primary source of Christian theology
and doctrine. It then follows, that if the Bible is
not inerrant, the foundation of our theology collapses,
leaving us with only faulty human reasoning and philosophy.
We’ll explore a few statements which highlight the
importance of the doctrine of inerrancy to our theology and
beliefs.
We’ve already mentioned that Scripture is the primary source
of Christian theology, and that the Biblical authors
constantly appealed to Scripture to confirm their teachings.
While Jesus sometimes used miracles to substantiate his
authority, he repeatedly appealed to the Scriptures in
matters of dispute. Even when he appeared to deviate
from the letter of the OT law, He qualified this by stating
that He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Mt
5:17). He then immediately added that not the least
stroke of a pen would disappear from the Law until
completely fulfilled (Mt 5:18). Thus, the
reliability and certainty of our teachings is based upon the
inerrancy of the Word of God. As someone once
said, “If there is but one error in the Bible, there might
as well be thousands”. We can be confident however,
that Scripture can’t be broken (Jn 10:35).
Next, we can assert that any authority of our theology
and teachings is a result of (and subjective to) the
authority of the Holy Scriptures, whose authority is not
intrinsic, but derives from its source, the living God.
Our teachings, when consistent with Scripture, are not mere
opinions of man, but truths to be proclaimed in the Spirit
and power of God (1Cor 2:1-4). Our theology is only as
reliable as its source, so an errant source would inevitably
lead to false teachings.
Indeed, we could even say that the authority of Jesus Christ
is contingent upon the reliability of the Bible. Not
only did He believe, expound and obey the Scriptures, he
also claimed to fulfill them. If the Bible is not
true, not only would we be unsure of the historical Jesus,
we could no longer rely on His teachings. He would
either be mistaken or a liar. Fortunately, despite
constant attacks from the critics, the Holy Scriptures
remain inerrant, authoritive and trustworthy.
Before we leave the subject of the authority of Scripture,
we should point out the various positions of the Church.
The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) places the authority of
Church traditions on the same level as the Holy Scriptures.
There are disagreements within the RCC regarding the Bible
and the Church being two sources of inerrant revelation.
Some believe that revelation originates in scriptures and
the Church merely reiterates these truths, that is, there
are two locations of revelation but only one origin.
The more fundamentalist Catholic theologians maintain that
inerrant truth originates from both the Scriptures and the
traditions. This is not to say that the RCC minimized
the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. On the
contrary, Scripture was held in the highest regard, however
human traditions were also considered as possessing the same
authority. By contrast, the Reformed and Protestant
church generally holds to the doctrinal principle of Sola
Scriptura (Latin “by Scripture alone”), which asserts
that the Scriptures are self-authenticating,
self-interpreting and self-sufficient to be the final
authority for Christian doctrine. This principle has
been widely interpreted by others that the church rejects
all truths except for those contained in Scripture.
Sola Scriptura does not discard interpretation,
traditions, history, reason or other sources of truth in
matters of faith and practice, but proclaims that only the
Bible is the final authority over all other sources and
methods of revelation.
The Holy Scriptures is the standard that we employ in
discerning between truth and falsehood, orthodoxy and
heresy. We’ve already mentioned that Jesus
repeatedly appealed to the Scriptures in matters of dispute
over doctrine and practice (Mt 22:29, for example). We
see the same attitude from Paul, who wrote All Scripture
is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof,
for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the
man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work
(2Tim 3:16-17) and, referring to the OT, For whatever
was written in earlier times was written for our
instruction, so that through perseverance and the
encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rom
15:4). Likewise, the Church has appealed to the
Bible throughout history as the norm of truth. Only in
recent centuries, beginning with the Enlightenment, has man
relied on his own faulty rationality and experiences in a
vain attempt to determine truth.
From our selfish point of view, perhaps the most devastating
effect of an errant Bible is that our redemption, our
salvation itself, would be in danger. A certain
amount of proper knowledge is a pre-requisite of salvation
(2Tim 3:15, Rom 10:13-14, Mt 13:18-19). If not for a
reliable Word of God, the idea of the Cross, of someone
dying for another would seem foolish to us. We would
then be unable to trust in the Christ’s act for our
redemption. Similarly, all other doctrines would be
in jeopardy, including the Church itself, having been
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone" (Eph 2:20).
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