Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Statement Of Faith

Inerrancy Part 1

Intro: In a book by George Marsden titled 'Reforming Fundamentalism' I found a survey of student beliefs at one of the largest Evangelical seminaries in the US. The poll found that 85% of the students 'do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.

     This book also  lists the results of another poll of 10,000 US pastors. They were asked whether they believed that the Scriptures are the inspired and inerrant Word of God in faith, history and secular matters:
95% of Episcopalians, 87 % of Methodists, 82% of Presbyterians, 77% of Lutherans and 67% of American Baptists
said NO.

     The Barna Research Group reported in 1996 that among American Christian adults only 58% believe that the Bible is 'totally accurate in all it's teachings'.

     Do you  want to know where this departure from orthodox theology is coming from? I visited the web pages of just a few of the denominational headquarters in the US. I looked at their statement of faith in regard to Scripture. Here is what I found.

CBA  'We believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired Word of God, inerrant in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation, and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.'

PCUSA  'The same Spirit who inspired the prophets and apostles rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture.'

Nazarenes 'That the Old and New Testament Scriptures, given by plenary inspiration, contain all the truth necessary to faith and Christian living.',

United Methodists 'United Methodists share with other Christians the conviction that Scripture is the primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine. Through Scripture the living Christ meets us in the experience of redeeming grace.'

Free Methodists 'The Free Methodist Church recognizes the Bible as the rule for all matters of faith and life.',

Brethren 'So we acknowledge in Holy Scripture the true witness to God's Word and the sure guide to Christian faith and conduct.',

United Church of Christ has no mention of Scripture at all in their statement of faith.

Roman Catholic "The Bible does not contain all the teaching of the Christian religion, nor does it formulate all the duties of its members." (The Faith of Millions, pp. 153-154). "Can you learn to save your soul just by reading the Bible? No...because the Bible does not have everything God taught." (A Catechism for Adults, Q. 1, p. 52).

     The controversy over Biblical inerrancy is a modern concern. The early church fathers accepted the inerrancy of the Scriptures and believed these doctrines were self evident in Scripture.

Clement of Rome '30-96AD wrote 'The Holy Scriptures which are given through the Holy Spirit..nothing iniquitos or falsely is written'

St. Augustine '354-430AD wrote 'None of these canonical authors has erred in any respect of writing'

Westminster Confession of Faith 1647 includes a reference to the Bible's infallible truth'

The Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingly all held to the inerrancy of Scripture.

 All these great spiritual men believed the doctrine of inerrancy will determine fundamentally how Christians approach Scripture and the Christian life.

Conservative
     For we who consider ourselves to be  conservatives, Biblical inerrancy is a foundational doctrine. Unless the entire Bible is considered to be the authoritative Word of God, our religious beliefs crumble and fall apart.

     If the Bible contains errors then we conservative Christians would feel that we have no firm ground on which to base any of our teaching in the church; whether in doctrine, morality or practical Christian living.  Scripture must be inerrant or it is devoid of any authority.

     The challenge to the conservative Christian is to teach and live the whole counsel of God (all of Scripture), because it has complete authority in their life.

Liberal
     For those who would consider themselves to be liberal Christians, the Bible is not inerrant. To them the books of the Bible were written by men and later edited by other men.
 The human author, according to Liberal Christianity had limited scientific knowledge,
 They promoted their own specific belief system,
 They attributed statements to God that are considered immoral by today's standards,
 They incorporated teachings from surrounding pagan cultures and
 They freely disagreed with other Biblical authors.
 The challenge of the liberal Christian is to separate the true ideas and statements made by God the Father and Jesus, God the
    Son, from the personal statements made by the human authors. Thereby discerning what is and is not authoritative.

 The liberal view opens a Pandora's Box of subjectivity. It is this liberal understanding of the inerrancy of the Bible that has allowed many churches:

 To promote, condone and accept the homosexuality of its members and pastors.

 To ordain women to usurp their Biblical position and serve as pastors in churches.

 To rationalize away the killing of unborn children.

 To teach that God is only a God of love and not a God of Justice and wrath. Therefore there is no longer the teaching of a literal place called Hell or the effects and punishment for sin in the liberal churches because many believe that all men/women will one day go to heaven because God is love.

 To liberal Christians inerrancy is a word which only divides people so it ought not be used.

     But inerrancy means that the Bible, in its entirety,  is completely true and that it was given by God through the Holy Spirit so that it is without error.

     You see, inerrancy is important and needs to be discussed because when it comes right down to it, the discussion in the Christian church concerning inerrancy is really a matter of the authority of Scripture. Liberal Christians don't want an external, absolute source of authority. Why, because they will be called to show the proof of their salvation, their discipleship of Christ by humbly and completely obeying Scripture in all that it teaches.

     All of this, I believe, is the work of Satan himself, who was the first one to rebel against the inerrancy of God's Word.

Read: Gen. 3:1

     Satan told Eve that what God said was not true so she didn't have to listen to it. Therefore it had no authority over her. And Satan is still telling those who will listen the same thing today. Because there is no other way of knowing about Christ and His authority to save except by the Bible.  If the Bible is subject to error, then conceivably one of those errors could be about Christ, His supernatural origin, His deity, His teachings, His death or resurrection.

Trans: It is my desire, today and next Sunday, to examine the truth of the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. Because that is where we are in studying our Statement of Faith. But more importantly because I want you to be assured that your hope and faith is in a God who is true and who has communicated to us through His Holy Word that which is true and authoritative.

I. Inerrancy: Establishing the Principal
     First I want to establish the principal of the inerrancy of Scripture by using the clear logic of Scripture. I want to show that Biblical inerrancy is directly related to the very nature of God Himself. I will attempt to do this by the logical reasoning of what Scripture reveals about the nature of God and His Word.

 It is my belief that
     since God is omniscient and omnipotent,
     since He is by nature honest and truthful,
     since He is the divine author of the Bible,
     that the Bible, His Word to us, in its entirety must be w/o error and completely trustworthy or it would contradict God's nature.

John 3:33  'He who has received His witness has set his seal to this, that God is true.'
Romans 3:4 'May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar'
Titus 1:2  in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago'
Exodus 34:6 ' Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and
    gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth'
Psalm 31:5 ' Into Thy hand I commit my spirit; Thou hast ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth.'
Psalm 40:11 'Thou, O Lord, wilt not withhold Thy compassion from me; Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth will continually
    preserve me.'
Psalm 117:2 ' For His lovingkindness is great toward us, And the truth of the Lord is everlasting. Praise the Lord!'
John 14:6 'Jesus *said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.'
Revelation 15:3 Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Thy ways,
    Thou King of the nations.'
Revelation 19:11 'And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True'
John 16:13  But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth'
1 John 5:7 'And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.'

        We see in these texts that God the Father is truth, God the Son, is truth and God the Holy Spirit is truth. All that is the triunity of the Godhead is truth and is incapable of error or falsehood. These texts teach and affirm that God in His very nature is truth and that there is no falsehood in Him.

 Premise #1  God is truth

     The word of God is holy, complete, able to save and is eternally true. These texts teach and affirm that the Word of God is true, will always be true and that it has been communicated to us w/o error.
Premise #2 God's Word is truth

2 Timothy 3:16 'All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in
    righteousness.'

2 Peter 1:20-21 'But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no
    prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.'

         The Bible is the product of the divine breath of God. It was penned by men who were deeply yielded to the Holy Spirit and were providentially prepared and led by the Holy Spirit to write the very words God wanted written.
Premise #3 The Bible is God's Word

     'Inerrancy is not a biblical term'. That is what I heard from the head of the Science Dept. at Messiah College, a Christian school, when I asked him why there wasn't an inerrancy phrase in their Statement of Faith.  He said the word is not found in the Bible. So they don't use it (they don't believe it either, I found out later).

     While it is true that the word inerrancy is not found in the Bible, we have precedence for holding to the doctrine anyway.
Did you know that the word Trinity, is not found in Scripture either? Yet, it is still a doctrine taught clearly in Scripture. It is a doctrine conservative and many liberal Christians would hold to. Even though the word is not found in Scripture. So that argument for the word not being found in Scripture doesn't hold water.

     So, I believe Biblical inerrancy is to be held and followed as a doctrine of the church as well. Because it was proven from our logical reasoning from Scripture to be true.

Conclusion
     How will all this help you? Believe me, there will come a day, perhaps it has already come, when your beliefs in the truthfulness of the Bible will be questioned. What will you say? How will you respond? Well, you can use the texts I have just given you and show by logic that the Bible is w/o error.
     Also consider that since God is omniscient, all knowing, He could not have been ignorant of any error in the Bible.
Being truth, as we have already proven from Scripture, God would not desire to intentionally mislead mankind with false or untrue statements in Scripture. Therefor, it is in keeping with God's holy and true nature that His Word would be communicated to us, even through the pen of human authors w/o error.

Trans: Next week we will define inerrancy and closely examine the method of inerrancy.
 We will look at what we mean in our Statement of Faith by 'original autographs'.
 We will answer the question 'is there one inspired, inerrant version of the Bible today?
 And we will examine how God worked to provide us with an accurate copy of the original texts of the Bible.
 We will end next week with 2 practical applications to the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy.