The Bible – Inerrancy
Matthew 4:1-11
Matthew 5:17-18
John 10:31-38
Matthew 22:23-33
Matthew 22:41-46
Inerrancy
IMPORTANCE OF INERRANCY
Inerrancy is very important today as it is the place where attacks on scripture are presently occurring. As a believer sees that the Bible is completely trustworthy and without error in the original, so they will stabilize in their study of the texts. A church will only be biblically strong only if it has a strong stand on inerrancy.
Can one be an evangelical and not accept the doctrine of inerrancy? Yes.
Can one be a Biblicist and not accept the doctrine of inerrancy? No, because the Bible itself states that it is inerrant.
If you believe there is error in the Bible how do you know that the Bible is accurate when it talks about the Lord Jesus Christ or the resurrection.
Some of the things you doubt if you do not take an inerrant view is the fact of Adam, the reality of the fall, your attitude to sin, Jonah as a prophet, Noah and his ark, deny that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, that there are more than a single author to Isaiah. It is therefore critical as to what your attitude to God's Word is.
With the down playing of the Pentateuch there are likely to be the down playing of five lifestyle errors; adultery, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, civil disobedience. Many mainline denominations will not take a stand on these because they are afraid of losing members. As a result they tend to go liberal and eventually have nothing to preach.
If we cannot explain things we should realise we have not got all the facts. The Bible however does teach that it is without error. The challenge for us is to study harder.
LIMIT OF INERRANCY
We limit inerrancy to the original manuscripts. All translations from the original document depend on the skill of the translators as well as their background. God's hand however has protected the Scriptures over the years. There is no doctrinal error or point of confusion within the textural differences we have within the presently discovered old manuscripts. Even with their variations they do not lead to any theological errors or issues.
Have people worried about this before? - Yes, Augustine in the early Church stated that the greatest catastrophe would occur if we believe anything false is found in the sacred books. Thomas Aquinas - nothing false can underlie the literal sense of Scripture. Luther - the Scriptures have never erred. Wesley, if there be any error in the Bible it did not come from the God of truth.
In the last five decades or so it has become a major problem. Big issues are fought at different time in Church History over different doctrines. For the first four centuries Satan's attack was on the person of Christ, during the late middle Ages the doctrine of justification by faith was rediscovered, in the last fifty years the Bible and inerrancy.
THREE POSSIBLE VIEWS
[a] The Bible is infallible but not inerrant. There are historic and scientific errors in the Bible but it is suitable for faith and practice. This is the view of most of the major denominations.
[b] The Lausanne Covenant declares it to be inerrant in all that it affirms. This is a covenant of evangelicals which implies that it may not be true on what it does not affirm directly or specifically.
[c] The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy states that Scripture is without error or fault in all its teachings and in everything that God's word has said. We would subscribe to this teaching.
GOD’S PRESERVATION OF THE BIBLE
In everything that God's Word has said it is God's Word, God has said it, God has preserved it; so although we haven't got the original manuscripts, we know by God's wonderful preservation of so many manuscripts that we have revelation that is accurate, trustworthy and reliable. He has inspired it, He has preserved it, it is without error. We have God speaking through man and speaking without error. God and man worked in such a way from an inspirational viewpoint that it is without error.
Everyone wrestles with the relationship between the Divine and human authors of the Word of God. The Divine must not be so over emphasized as to obliterate the human, nor must it be allowed to be so human as to allow errors. The authorship of the Scriptures requires balance. People today hold both extremes, we need to hold to the middle, balanced view.
The debate over the scriptures is mirrored in the debate over the person of Christ. In the first century the church got involved in the doctrine of Docetism which claimed that the Lord was not really flesh but just a spirit. Also there was another group the Ebionites who stated that he was only a man and not God. He however was both fully man and fully God in one person forever - the hypostatic union.
CONCLUSION
1. Here we have a book in our hand. It is God's Word through the agency of men but it is written in such a way and comes to us inerrant.
2. In the same way the Lord Jesus Christ is trustworthy as a man, as our Saviour and Lord.
3. The Bible is God's Word through man without error resulting in a sinless product.
INERRANCY AND JESUS CHRIST
The evidence from Scripture itself; In Matthew 4 during His temptation in the wilderness by Satan, the Lord Jesus Christ quoted the authority of Scripture. Satan had questioned the Word of God right from the beginning as shown in Genesis 2 where he intimated that God was being unfair not allowing man to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Satan perverts Scripture and his main attack is against Scripture. [Matthew 4:4 Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:10 Psalm 91:11,12, Matthew 4:4, 7, 10]
Jesus Christ stated and quoted many of the Old Testament characters as real historical people and indicated that he believed that their exploits were factual as well. These characters included such people as Moses, Jonah, Jacob as well as places such as Sodom and Gomorrah.
By not accepting the Word of God as literal the liberals are saying that God is wrong and are implying that they know more than our Lord. If they say He was confused about Moses, Jonah and Isaiah they could also say the same about His claim to be God. John 10 31-38
The Word of God is minutely inspired and authoritatively inspired, you can depend on it. The Lord's attitude to the Scriptures is absolute and we must stand with him if we would claim his name. Matthew 22:41-46
The Promise of Inerrancy – Matthew 5:17-18, John 5:18 and 10:34
John 10:31-38
V 24 – Jesus claims to be God. One is in the neuter, one in unity with God.
V 34 Refers to an obscure Psalm 82:6 concentrating on the word gods.
V 35 It is authoritatively inspired. The people are about to stone him.
Matthew 22:23-33
Sadducees did not believe in resurrection but asked a question on it.
Jesus says they are ignorant v 29 and the question is ridiculous v 30, Exodus 3:6
V 32 of John 10:34. From this the Lord assumed the truth of God’s appearance to Moses, that every word could be trusted and the doctrinal truth involved was sound. The Bible cannot be inaccurate.
SOME APPARENT PROBLEMS
Many ‘Christians’ are errantists; those who believe there are errors in the Bible and there are many Christians who are in-errantists; those who believe there are no errors in the Bible and these opposing groups clash over a number of areas.
One group looks for errors, whereas the other is confident that there are no errors in Gods word.
There are locations with apparent discrepancies, conflicting numbers, differences in parallel passages, and allegedly unscientific statements. We believe that a thorough study of the text and its context will eliminate all supposed problems.
The Word of God is God breathed [inspired]. We would expect it to be totally accurate. We would expect it to be preserved in errantly.
The in-errantist assumes that we have not got all the evidence before us. An example was the critics of the Bible in the 18th century, who said there was no such thing as a Hittite Empire. A few years later archaeologists in the Middle East excavated an area showing that there was a Hittite Empire.
The liberal’s history books had to be revised. The same could be said of Sodom and Gomorrah, for until the discovery of the Amarna tablets there was no extra-biblical reference to these cities. The discovery of the archive in this ancient city turned up references to all the places recorded in the Genesis account of the life of Abraham, proving that the author of the source of Genesis had lived at the time of the events he recorded.
SOME EXAMPLES
[1] Old Testament
[a] The two accounts of Creation - Genesis 1:11-12 Genesis 2:5
[b] Who was Cain’s wife - The fact of Adam and Eve - Matthew 19:39, Luke 3:38, Jude 14 - They had many children – Genesis 5:4 -They came from the hand of God without mutant genes. - The first marriages were between brothers and sisters and were genetically safe at that point.
[c] Laver in 2 Chronicles 4:2 – 5 - Did the Holy Spirit know the value of pi. One cubit is 18 inches Circumference = 30 cubits or 540 inches, Diameter 10 cubits = 180 inches - Formula shows that circumference would be 565 inches - 2 Chronicles 4:5 – hands breadth = 4 inches, inside diameter 180-8 = 172 inches - Revised circumference 540 inches.
[2] Old and New Testaments
[a] The Time between the Exodus and the Dedication of the Temple - 1 Kings 6:1 – 480 years of Acts 13:18-21 – 573 years
[b] The number of people killed - Numbers 25:9 [24,000] and 1 Corinthians 10:8 [23, 000]
[3] New Testament
[a] To take a staff or not – Matthew 10:9-10 [ktaomai], Mark 6:8 , Luke 9:3 [airo]
[b] Zechariah or Jeremiah Matthew 27:9, 10 and Zechariah 11:12-13
[c] Death of Judas and the Field of Blood – Acts 1:18 and Matthew 27:5
By close examination these apparent anomalies are not anomalies at all
DOCTRINES
BIBLE: INERRANCY
1. The Scriptures are quoted as the absolute standard of truth. (Daniel 10:21, John 10:35)
2. The source of the Scriptures is God; there is no imperfection or error permissible with God. (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 1 John 1:5, James 1:17)
3. The Scriptures therefore becomes the final authority in the resolution of disputes. (Romans 4:3, 11:2, Galatians 4:30)
4. The Scriptures are seen as authoritative. (Matthew 26:31, Mark 14:27, Luke 4:8, Acts 23:5 Romans 11:8)
5. The person who does not know the Scriptures is in error. (Mark 12:24)
6. The Lord believed the Scriptures:-
a) He implied there was only one Isaiah. (Isaiah 61:1, 2, Luke 4:16-21, Isaiah 53:1, and Isaiah 6:1-4, 9-10, John 12:38-41)
b) Jonah was a prophet not a myth. (Matthew 12:39, Luke 11:29)
c) Daniel was a prophet not an historian. (Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14)
d) Adam and Eve were created. (Matthew 19:8)
7. The Bible is called God's Word (Mark 7:13, Luke 5:1, 11:28, John 10:35, Acts 6:7, 12:24, Romans 10:17)
Matthew 4:1-11
Matthew 5:17-18
John 10:31-38
Matthew 22:23-33
Matthew 22:41-46
Inerrancy
IMPORTANCE OF INERRANCY
Inerrancy is very important today as it is the place where attacks on scripture are presently occurring. As a believer sees that the Bible is completely trustworthy and without error in the original, so they will stabilize in their study of the texts. A church will only be biblically strong only if it has a strong stand on inerrancy.
Can one be an evangelical and not accept the doctrine of inerrancy? Yes.
Can one be a Biblicist and not accept the doctrine of inerrancy? No, because the Bible itself states that it is inerrant.
If you believe there is error in the Bible how do you know that the Bible is accurate when it talks about the Lord Jesus Christ or the resurrection.
Some of the things you doubt if you do not take an inerrant view is the fact of Adam, the reality of the fall, your attitude to sin, Jonah as a prophet, Noah and his ark, deny that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, that there are more than a single author to Isaiah. It is therefore critical as to what your attitude to God's Word is.
With the down playing of the Pentateuch there are likely to be the down playing of five lifestyle errors; adultery, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, civil disobedience. Many mainline denominations will not take a stand on these because they are afraid of losing members. As a result they tend to go liberal and eventually have nothing to preach.
If we cannot explain things we should realise we have not got all the facts. The Bible however does teach that it is without error. The challenge for us is to study harder.
LIMIT OF INERRANCY
We limit inerrancy to the original manuscripts. All translations from the original document depend on the skill of the translators as well as their background. God's hand however has protected the Scriptures over the years. There is no doctrinal error or point of confusion within the textural differences we have within the presently discovered old manuscripts. Even with their variations they do not lead to any theological errors or issues.
Have people worried about this before? - Yes, Augustine in the early Church stated that the greatest catastrophe would occur if we believe anything false is found in the sacred books. Thomas Aquinas - nothing false can underlie the literal sense of Scripture. Luther - the Scriptures have never erred. Wesley, if there be any error in the Bible it did not come from the God of truth.
In the last five decades or so it has become a major problem. Big issues are fought at different time in Church History over different doctrines. For the first four centuries Satan's attack was on the person of Christ, during the late middle Ages the doctrine of justification by faith was rediscovered, in the last fifty years the Bible and inerrancy.
THREE POSSIBLE VIEWS
[a] The Bible is infallible but not inerrant. There are historic and scientific errors in the Bible but it is suitable for faith and practice. This is the view of most of the major denominations.
[b] The Lausanne Covenant declares it to be inerrant in all that it affirms. This is a covenant of evangelicals which implies that it may not be true on what it does not affirm directly or specifically.
[c] The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy states that Scripture is without error or fault in all its teachings and in everything that God's word has said. We would subscribe to this teaching.
GOD’S PRESERVATION OF THE BIBLE
In everything that God's Word has said it is God's Word, God has said it, God has preserved it; so although we haven't got the original manuscripts, we know by God's wonderful preservation of so many manuscripts that we have revelation that is accurate, trustworthy and reliable. He has inspired it, He has preserved it, it is without error. We have God speaking through man and speaking without error. God and man worked in such a way from an inspirational viewpoint that it is without error.
Everyone wrestles with the relationship between the Divine and human authors of the Word of God. The Divine must not be so over emphasized as to obliterate the human, nor must it be allowed to be so human as to allow errors. The authorship of the Scriptures requires balance. People today hold both extremes, we need to hold to the middle, balanced view.
The debate over the scriptures is mirrored in the debate over the person of Christ. In the first century the church got involved in the doctrine of Docetism which claimed that the Lord was not really flesh but just a spirit. Also there was another group the Ebionites who stated that he was only a man and not God. He however was both fully man and fully God in one person forever - the hypostatic union.
CONCLUSION
1. Here we have a book in our hand. It is God's Word through the agency of men but it is written in such a way and comes to us inerrant.
2. In the same way the Lord Jesus Christ is trustworthy as a man, as our Saviour and Lord.
3. The Bible is God's Word through man without error resulting in a sinless product.
INERRANCY AND JESUS CHRIST
The evidence from Scripture itself; In Matthew 4 during His temptation in the wilderness by Satan, the Lord Jesus Christ quoted the authority of Scripture. Satan had questioned the Word of God right from the beginning as shown in Genesis 2 where he intimated that God was being unfair not allowing man to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Satan perverts Scripture and his main attack is against Scripture. [Matthew 4:4 Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:10 Psalm 91:11,12, Matthew 4:4, 7, 10]
Jesus Christ stated and quoted many of the Old Testament characters as real historical people and indicated that he believed that their exploits were factual as well. These characters included such people as Moses, Jonah, Jacob as well as places such as Sodom and Gomorrah.
By not accepting the Word of God as literal the liberals are saying that God is wrong and are implying that they know more than our Lord. If they say He was confused about Moses, Jonah and Isaiah they could also say the same about His claim to be God. John 10 31-38
The Word of God is minutely inspired and authoritatively inspired, you can depend on it. The Lord's attitude to the Scriptures is absolute and we must stand with him if we would claim his name. Matthew 22:41-46
The Promise of Inerrancy – Matthew 5:17-18, John 5:18 and 10:34
John 10:31-38
V 24 – Jesus claims to be God. One is in the neuter, one in unity with God.
V 34 Refers to an obscure Psalm 82:6 concentrating on the word gods.
V 35 It is authoritatively inspired. The people are about to stone him.
Matthew 22:23-33
Sadducees did not believe in resurrection but asked a question on it.
Jesus says they are ignorant v 29 and the question is ridiculous v 30, Exodus 3:6
V 32 of John 10:34. From this the Lord assumed the truth of God’s appearance to Moses, that every word could be trusted and the doctrinal truth involved was sound. The Bible cannot be inaccurate.
SOME APPARENT PROBLEMS
Many ‘Christians’ are errantists; those who believe there are errors in the Bible and there are many Christians who are in-errantists; those who believe there are no errors in the Bible and these opposing groups clash over a number of areas.
One group looks for errors, whereas the other is confident that there are no errors in Gods word.
There are locations with apparent discrepancies, conflicting numbers, differences in parallel passages, and allegedly unscientific statements. We believe that a thorough study of the text and its context will eliminate all supposed problems.
The Word of God is God breathed [inspired]. We would expect it to be totally accurate. We would expect it to be preserved in errantly.
The in-errantist assumes that we have not got all the evidence before us. An example was the critics of the Bible in the 18th century, who said there was no such thing as a Hittite Empire. A few years later archaeologists in the Middle East excavated an area showing that there was a Hittite Empire.
The liberal’s history books had to be revised. The same could be said of Sodom and Gomorrah, for until the discovery of the Amarna tablets there was no extra-biblical reference to these cities. The discovery of the archive in this ancient city turned up references to all the places recorded in the Genesis account of the life of Abraham, proving that the author of the source of Genesis had lived at the time of the events he recorded.
SOME EXAMPLES
[1] Old Testament
[a] The two accounts of Creation - Genesis 1:11-12 Genesis 2:5
[b] Who was Cain’s wife - The fact of Adam and Eve - Matthew 19:39, Luke 3:38, Jude 14 - They had many children – Genesis 5:4 -They came from the hand of God without mutant genes. - The first marriages were between brothers and sisters and were genetically safe at that point.
[c] Laver in 2 Chronicles 4:2 – 5 - Did the Holy Spirit know the value of pi. One cubit is 18 inches Circumference = 30 cubits or 540 inches, Diameter 10 cubits = 180 inches - Formula shows that circumference would be 565 inches - 2 Chronicles 4:5 – hands breadth = 4 inches, inside diameter 180-8 = 172 inches - Revised circumference 540 inches.
[2] Old and New Testaments
[a] The Time between the Exodus and the Dedication of the Temple - 1 Kings 6:1 – 480 years of Acts 13:18-21 – 573 years
[b] The number of people killed - Numbers 25:9 [24,000] and 1 Corinthians 10:8 [23, 000]
[3] New Testament
[a] To take a staff or not – Matthew 10:9-10 [ktaomai], Mark 6:8 , Luke 9:3 [airo]
[b] Zechariah or Jeremiah Matthew 27:9, 10 and Zechariah 11:12-13
[c] Death of Judas and the Field of Blood – Acts 1:18 and Matthew 27:5
By close examination these apparent anomalies are not anomalies at all
DOCTRINES
BIBLE: INERRANCY
1. The Scriptures are quoted as the absolute standard of truth. (Daniel 10:21, John 10:35)
2. The source of the Scriptures is God; there is no imperfection or error permissible with God. (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 1 John 1:5, James 1:17)
3. The Scriptures therefore becomes the final authority in the resolution of disputes. (Romans 4:3, 11:2, Galatians 4:30)
4. The Scriptures are seen as authoritative. (Matthew 26:31, Mark 14:27, Luke 4:8, Acts 23:5 Romans 11:8)
5. The person who does not know the Scriptures is in error. (Mark 12:24)
6. The Lord believed the Scriptures:-
a) He implied there was only one Isaiah. (Isaiah 61:1, 2, Luke 4:16-21, Isaiah 53:1, and Isaiah 6:1-4, 9-10, John 12:38-41)
b) Jonah was a prophet not a myth. (Matthew 12:39, Luke 11:29)
c) Daniel was a prophet not an historian. (Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14)
d) Adam and Eve were created. (Matthew 19:8)
7. The Bible is called God's Word (Mark 7:13, Luke 5:1, 11:28, John 10:35, Acts 6:7, 12:24, Romans 10:17)
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