Systematic Theology: Lesson 5 - Inerrancy and Authority

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INERRANCY AND AUTHORITY
Bibliology- Lesson 5

If we define Christian theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible, we must be sure of the trustworthiness of Scripture. 

 “The trustworthiness of the Scriptures lies at the foundation of trust in the Christian system of doctrine, and is therefore fundamental to the Christian hope and life.”[1] 

 In the last lesson, we learned that the Bible claims that it is the revelation that was breathed out by God (inspiration) that is sufficient for life and godliness. We also learned that the Bible is clear (perspicuity), yet must be illumined to us by God. Once illumined to its truth, the Scripture animates a person. Finally, we learned that the Bible endures forever (eternality).

 If all of this is true, then it follows that the Bible is both inerrant and authoritative. “There is no such thing as inspiration which does not carry with it the correlation of infallibility.”[2]

 We need to be able to know for sure that what the Bible says about itself is true. Does the Bible contain any error? Or, is it INERRANT?


I.The Testimony of the Scripture to Itself

A.          God is true, therefore His Word is truth (John 17:17). The Bible reveals God as eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and absolute truth. “The doctrine of Scripture is inherently located within the doctrine of God.[3]

B.          God elevated Scripture to the same level as His name. (Psa 138:2). “So closely related are the character of God and the character of his word that Scripture can even speak of God’s word as the object of our praise and worship (Psa 56:4, 10; 119:120, 161-62; Isa 66:5).”[4]

C.          The Bible says God cannot lie (Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29; 2 Tim 2:13; Heb 6:18; Jas 1:13, 17).

D.          The Bible claims to be inerrant (Deut 4:2; 6:1-2, 6-9; Psa 12:6; 19:7; 119:42, 96, 140, 142, 151, 160, 172; 2 Tim 3:16; Heb 4:12-13; 2 Pet 1:21).

E.          Jesus claims the Bible is true (Matt 5:17-19; 22:23-32; Luke 16:17, 29-31; 18:31; 24:25, 44; John 10:33-36; 17:17).

      1. Jesus treated OT narratives as factual (Matt 8:11; 11:21-24; 12:3, 40-42; 19:4-6; 23:25, 35; 24:37-38; Mark 12:26-27;  Luke 4:25-27; 11:50-51; 17:29-32; 24:44; John 3:14; 6:32, 49, 58; 7:19; 8:56; 12:38-41).
      2. Jesus used the OT as a court of appeal (Matt 22:29; 23:23). “Have you not read?” (Matt 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31; Mark 12:10, 26; Luke 6:3). He appeals to even the smallest detail (Matt 22:32).
      3. Jesus used the OT as a guide to ethics (Matt 19:18-19; 22:37-40; 7:12).
      4. Jesus did not accommodate Himself to the false notions of His time. For instance, He was ‘not slow to denounce pharisaic traditionalism’ (Matt 23; Luke 11).  
      5. Jesus ascribed absolute Divine authority to the OT (Matt 5:18; Mark 7:6-13; Luke 16:17, 29-31; John 10:35).
      6. In His temptation and death, Jesus relied on the absolute Divine authority of the OT (Matt 4:4; Luke 4:4; Psa 22:1 with Matt 27:46 and Mark 15:34; Psa 31:5 with Luke 23:46).
      7. Jesus authenticated the entire OT (Luke 24:25-47).
      8. Jesus claimed the OT was inspired by God (Matt 22:43; Mark 12:36).
      9. Jesus recognized the inerrancy of the OT by stressing its fulfilled prophecies as ‘musts’ (Matt 26:54; 27:9; Mark 14:49; Luke 21:22; 22:37, 44; Acts 1:16-19).


F.          Jesus claims His teaching is true (Matt 5:18; 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33). 

      1. “Truly I say to you” (31 times in Matthew, 13 times in Mark, and 6 times in Luke).
      2. “Truly, truly, I say to you” (25 times in John).
      3. His words carry the same authority as Scripture (Matt 5; 11:25-27; 28:18).

G.          The apostles viewed the Old Testament as authoritative and true (Rom 15:4; 2 Tim 3:16; 1 Pet 1:10-12; 2 Pet 1:19-21). 

      1. They referenced persons, places, and events in the OT as real and historical (Matt 12:42; Mark 2:25-26; Luke 11:31-32; John 3:14; Heb 7:2; 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:16).
      2. They repeatedly appealed to the OT to support their beliefs and conduct (Acts 15:16; 23:5; Rom 1:17; 3:10; 4:3-7; 9:7-17; 10:5; Gal 3:10; 4:30; 1 Cor 9:9; 10:26; 15; 2 Cor 6:17).
      3. They believed the OT was an organic whole with God as its divine author (Matt 19:5; Heb 1:5; 3:7; 4:3-5; 5:6-7; 7:21; 8:5-8; 10:16, 30; 12:26; 13:5).

H.          The apostles viewed their own writings as inerrant (Luke 1:1-4; John 21:24; 1 Cor 1:10-4:1; 2 Cor 10:13; Gal 1-2; 3 John 12).




II.The Fulfillment of the Prophecies

Hundreds of prophecies were literally and totally fulfilled. The skeptic has no answer to this except to try to change the dates of the books (Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Daniel have undergone this skeptical revision perhaps the most). The Gospel accounts are always under fire, because Jesus’ words were so prophetic. The only rationalistic (anti-supernatural) answer is that these things were written after the fact.




III.The Consistency of the Scriptures

Though the Bible was written across the span of more than 1500 years (1450 BC-90AD) by more than 40 authors from different times and cultures, in 3 languages and in many geographical locations, it has a total consistency of theology and teaching from beginning to end. If you follow large fictional franchises (Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.), you know that no matter the attention to detail, consistency is impossible! There are many holes in the plotlines. There are many later ideas that contradict previous canon.




  1. The Witness of the Manuscripts

 

A.          Textual Criticism has verified that the Bible we hold in our hands is an accurate duplication of the originals. How do we know what the originals said if we have never seen them? Men and women throughout the centuries have dedicated themselves to the study of the manuscripts. While textual variants do exist, there are none that compromise the message of Scripture. 

B.          The Scriptures are the best preserved and best attested documents of antiquity.

      1. “Tacitus (AD 56-120) was perhaps the greatest Roman historian, but we have only three manuscripts of parts of his work, with the oldest dating to the ninth century, and yet modern historians tend to believe what he wrote.”[5] 
      2. “The oldest manuscript of Julius Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars (58-50 BC), Bellum Gallicum, is MS Amsterdam 73, dated in the later ninth century AD, almost a thousand years after the actual military campaign.”[6]
      3. We have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament (or portions of it), all from differing periods of time, with the earliest portion appearing by 150 AD.[7] This will be discussed in depth next class, but for now, let it suffice to say that no other ancient work comes anywhere close to this.


V.The Inability of the Attackers

A.          No one has been able to prove that the Bible asserts any error.


B.          No one has been able to prove that the Bible contains any internal contradictions. “Critics of the Bible love to point out that there are many problems and contradictions in the Bible. What these critics misunderstand is that defenders of inerrancy do not deny these apparent problem passages in Scripture, but they do believe–since God is the divine author and Scripture therefore is a unitary whole–that while there may be Bible difficulties or apparent contradictions, ‘when all the facts are known’ and when Scripture is ‘properly interpreted,’ it is ‘wholly true.’”[8]


VI.The Witness of History and Archaeology

A.          Biblical writers often suffered and died for what they wrote (Jer 2:30; Matt 23:31, 37; Luke 6:23; Acts 7:52).


B.          We could reconstruct the entire New Testament from quotations of the early church fathers.


C.          Archaeology has verified much of the biblical witness. There has been a pattern of scholars concluding that since no evidence of something exists, then it didn’t happen. Soon after, they are proven wrong. For instance, scholars dismissed the possibility that Pilate was a real person, because there was no record of him in the archaeological record. However, the “Pilate Stone” was discovered in 1961, verifying his existence and title.[9]

 

The definition of inerrancy - “The words of the Bible in their historical, grammatical, literary, and moral settings in the original autographs of the Bible are wholly true in what they affirm, in every respect, whether these words concern doctrine, morality, history, or any of the sciences.[10]

  

Misunderstanding and caricature of inerrancy necessitate the following:[11]


  1. Inerrancy does not demand strict adherence to the rules of grammar.
  2. Inerrancy does not exclude the use either of figures of speech or of a given literary genre. 
  3. Inerrancy does not demand historical or semantic precision.
  4. Inerrancy does not demand the technical language of modern science.
  5. Inerrancy does not require verbal exactness in the citation of the Old Testament by the New.
  6. Inerrancy does not demand the logia Jesu (the sayings of Jesus) contain the ipsissima verba (the exact words) of Jesus, only the ipsissima vox (the exact voice).
  7. Inerrancy does not guarantee the exhaustive comprehensiveness of any single account or of combined accounts where those are involved.
  8. Inerrancy does not demand the infallibility or inerrancy of the uninspired sources used by biblical writers.

 “Scripture is termed infallible and inerrant to express the conviction that all its teaching is the utterance of God ‘who cannot lie’, whose word, once spoken, abides forever, and that therefore it may be trusted implicitly.”[12]

 “The infallibility and inerrancy of biblical teaching does not, however, guarantee the infallibility and inerrancy of any interpretation, or interpreter, of that teaching; nor does the recognition of its qualities as the Word of God in any way prejudge the issue as to what Scripture does, in fact, assert. This can be determined only by careful Bible study. We must allow Scripture itself to define for us the scope and limits of its teaching.”[13]

 

Many over the last decades have abandoned inerrancy and yet still called themselves Christians. These all end up embracing some or all of the following.

  

Theological Dangers of Denying Biblical Inerrancy[14]

  1. May result in denying the historical reality of Genesis 1-11.

a.           The 6-day creation.

b.           The historical existence of Adam.

c.           The entrance of sin and death.

d.           The Flood.

e.           The Tower of Babel.[15]

  1. May result in denying the existence of monotheistic Israel as presented in Exodus-2 Kings. This is a higher critical view that sees Deuteronomy as written after the exile (or during Josiah’s reign at the earliest).[16] 
  2. May result in denying the facts of the experiences of the prophet Jonah.
  3. May result in explaining away the miracles of the Old and New testaments.
  4. May result in denying that Moses wrote the Pentateuch or that Paul wrote some of his epistles or that John wrote 1-3 John, etc.
  5. May result in believing Isaiah was written by two or more people.
  6. May result in embracing liberation theology with its redefinition of sin (societal rather than individual) and salvation (as political and temporal rather than spiritual and eternal).

 Moral Dangers of Denying Biblical Inerrancy

  1. May result in a loose view of adultery.
  2. May result in a loose view of gender and sexuality.
  3. May result in a loose view of divorce and remarriage.
  4. May result in a cultural reinterpretation of some of the teachings of the Bible (e.g., teaching on women, teaching on civil obedience).
  5. May result in a tendency to view the Bible through a modern psychological grid.
  6. May result in a loose view of human dignity.
  7. May result in a perverted view of justice.

 

This leads us to Biblical Authority.

 “The authority of Scripture means that all the words in Scripture are God’s words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.”[17]

 “It is hard to imagine the New Testament churches submitting themselves to the authority of the apostolic writings and the apostles’ associates (Acts 15:22; Col 4:16) if these letters were not trustworthy, true, and reliable…Authority has everything to do with inerrancy.”[18]

 

  1. Jesus rebuked His disciples for not believing the OT Scripture (Luke 24:25).
  2. His words carry the same authority as Scripture (Matt 5; 11:25-27; 28:18). 
  3. Believers are to keep and obey the disciples’ words (John 15:20). 
  4. Believers are to remember the commandment of the Lord (2 Pet 3:2). 
  5. Disobeying Paul’s words makes one liable to church discipline (1 Cor 14:38; 2 Cor 13:2-3; 2 Thess 3:14).
  6. Those who do not acknowledge God’s authority in Scripture are condemned (Jer 8:8-9; Mark 7:1-13).
  7. Obeying God’s authority in Scripture is commended (Neh 8:5-6; Rev 3:8).

 

Because God is the Author of Scripture, breathing it out, every word is true, and every word must be obeyed.

 

 

What We Do and Do Not Mean About Authority:

  1. “It is not derived authority bestowed by humans; rather it is the original authority of God.
  2. It does not change with the times, the culture, the nation, or the ethnic background; rather, it is the unalterable authority of God.
  3. It is not one authority among many possible spiritual authorities; rather, it is the exclusive spiritual authority of God.
  4. It is not an authority that can be successfully challenged or rightfully overthrown; rather, it is the permanent authority of God.
  5. It is not a relativistic or subordinate authority; rather, it is the ultimate authority of God.
  6. It is not merely a suggestive authority; rather, it is the obligatory authority of God.
  7. It is not a benign authority in its outcome; rather, it is the consequential authority of God."[19]

 Therefore, our obligation to Scripture is:[20]

  1. To receive it (1 Thess 2:13)
  2. To pray for understanding (Psa 119:18)
  3. To feed upon it (Deut 8:3; Job 23:12; Psa 19:10; Jer 15:16; Matt 4:4; 1 Cor 3:2; 1 Pet 2:2).
  4. To obey it (Num 14:22-24)
  5. To honor it (Neh 8:5-6)
  6. To study it (Ezra 7:10)
  7. To preach/teach it (Matt 4;23; 2 Tim 4:2)
  8. To compel obedience (Acts 18:24-28)
  9. To disciple others (2 Tim 2:2)

10.  To tremble before it (Isa 66:2).

 If the Scriptures are the inerrant and authoritative Word of God, then we need to know what writings belong in Scripture and which ones do not. That will be our final topic in bibliology: CANONICITY and PRESERVATION.

 


[1]  B. B. Warfield, “The Inspiration of the Bible,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 1894, https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/warfield/warfield_inspirationbible.html#fn01.

[2]  Young, Thy Word is Truth, 108. Infallible takes inerrancy one step further: The Scriptures CANNOT err.

[3] Barrett, Sola Scriptura, 271.

[4]  Ibid., 274.

[5]  Mounce, Why I Trust the Bible, 57.

[6]  Ibid.

[7]  McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 39-40.

[8]  Barrett, Sola Scriptura, 265.

[9] Bryan Windle, “Pontius Pilate: An Archaeological Biography,” Bible Archaeology Report, October 11, 2019, https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/10/11/pontius-pilate-an-archaeological-biography/.

[10]  Mook, Unpublished Class Notes, 84. Emphasis mine.

[11]  Feinberg, Meaning of Inerrancy, 299-302.

[12]  Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word of God, 95.

[13]  Ibid., 96 (emphasis mine).

[14]  This section and the next are adapted from Ryrie, Basic Theology, 78.

[15] Notice that just about every topic of the Bible has its start in these chapters. How do we explain sin if there was no literal Adam? We lose the starting point of so many doctrines if these chapters are cut off. Also, when these chapters are denied, the question becomes, “Where does the Bible actually start being true?”

[16] They assume so, because of presuppositions that monotheism evolved in Israel. They assume Israel’s worship of many gods later was turned into the worship of Yahweh in order to unite unrelated tribes. The Torah was then written, they say, to give Israel a common history. Also, they assume anti-supernaturalism, therefore they have to say that the prophecies in the Torah (especially the prophecy of the exile in Deuteronomy) must have been written after the return from exile in order to explain what had happened.

 

[17]  Grudem, Systematic Theology, 73.

[18]  Barrett, Sola Scriptura, 285.

[19]  MacArthur and Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, 107.

[20]  Adapted from MacArthur and Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, 135-138.

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