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

Inerrancy Part 2

Intro: Christian Life magazine invited J. Laurence Kulp, Karl Turekian and Donald R. Carr of Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory and Russell Mixter and Howard Claasen of Wheaton College to discuss 'the Origin of the Universe'.
Understand that the men from Wheaton are professing evangelical Christians. In the conclusion to their study they collectively stated:

 A simple calculation shows that about 5 billion years ago all matter was in one spot. An explosion' occurred at that time and the fragments have been flying apart since to give us an expanding universe...How did the creative act take place? All the elements of the universe must have been created within a half hour. There were none of the sparkling stars of today at that time, only a gigantic dark ball of gas at low pressure...Some 500 million years after the universe was started the earth came into being.

 An increasing number of evangelical Christian scientists and theologians can now be said to take that position. It is significant that just 18 months after this article appeared in Christian Life Magazine, one of the  contributors from the Lamont Geological Observatory admitted that the 'big bang' theory could not explain the origin of most of the elements in the universe.

EXP: You may be thinking this is interesting but what has this to do with biblical inerrancy?

 Open your Bibles to Gen. 1.

 God was pretty specific about how life came to be on the earth, wasn't He? He said He created all things. To hold to any other idea of how the universe was created, like those men from Lamont Geological Observatory and Wheaton College, would mean that you didn't believe what God said and I just read in Gen. 1 is true.

 If Gen. 1 is not true then the Bible is not inerrant, or w/o error. If that is true in one area, it means it is possible that it is mistaken in other areas as well, maybe even in how one gets saved. And the Bible looses all its authority as our absolute rule for faith and practice.

 Many Christians are easily persuaded to believe the popular scientific theory of the day. And I say of the day because the theories keep changing and all some Christians end up doing is trying, unsuccessfully to harmonize the truth of Scripture with the current  theories of science.  And in the end they are often embarrassed when the position they held in science is changed once again. And they have to shuffle to come up with some new explanation for creation since they have already said they don't believe the Genesis account.

 I am reminded of  Matt. 22:29 'You are mistaken not understanding the Scriptures or the power of God' The time has come for Christians to stand firm on the Word of God alone as the ultimate authority in all that it has to say. Science changes but the Word of God never changes. It is the product of the breath of our infinite and unchanging God.

Trans: So, let's get to it. Let's first define inerrancy.

II. Inerrancy: Describing the Method
    A. Definition
 Webster: 'exemption from error: infallibility, the concept of the verbal inerrancy of the Scriptures.' I find it interesting that Webster in his definition recognizes the connection between inerrancy and the Bible.

Elwell 'Evangelical Dictionary of Theology': Inerrancy is the view that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in the original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all that it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social, physical or life sciences.'

 Unfortunately we do not have any of the original autographs of Scripture and thus the debate. So, where do we go to defend biblical inerrancy? We go to God's Word, the Bible.

Turn to Deut.18:20-22

 Israel is given the criteria for distinguishing God's message from false prophecies. One mark of a divine message that is from God is total and absolute truthfulness.

Read: Deut. 18:20-22

 Do you see what I see? That is inerrancy. Since God is unchanging, His requirements for OT prophets or NT apostles would be the same. If we hold that the Bible is inspired and given to us by God Himself, (remember 2 Tim 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:20-21) then it must be absolutely and totally truthful in all that it says.

 But, how is it that evangelicals on both sides of the inerrancy debate can claim the Bible is wholly true and yet one side believes that there can be minor mistakes of history or science while the other side denies that there are any mistakes whatsoever?

 How can evangelicals on both sides of the inerrancy debate claim the Bible is inerrant yet one side say that Paul was speaking for himself and was wrong when he spoke about wives being  subject to their husbands and the other side say Paul was speaking for God and was correct?

 That is what the church is arguing over today...And not just the liberal churches.

 With this in mind I think it is important that you know the different positions held on Biblical inerrancy so that you can fight the good fight of faithfulness to God's Word..all of His Word.

    B. Types/Degree
 This information is taken from Millard Erickson's book 'Christian Theology'. An excellent book on Christian doctrine.

 1. Absolute inerrancy: holds that the Bible includes rather detailed treatment of matters both scientific and historical and they are fully true. The idea is that the human authors wanted to give a great deal of info about scientific and historical data. So where there are apparent contradictions in Scripture, they must be explained away.  This is the extreme position. It holds that everything, exactly as it is said, is absolutely true.

 2. Full Inerancy: also holds that the Bible is completely true. But the Bible does not primarily aim to give scientific and historic data, such data and statements it does make are fully true. There is no difference between this and the absolute position except in the area of the scientific and historical.Here Full inerancy holds the references to science and history are phenomenal. That is, they are reported the way they appear to the eye of the human author. They are not necessarily exact rather, they are popular descriptions, often involving general references or approximations. (sun rise and sun set, rounding off numbers in battles) Yet what they teach is essentially correct in the way that they teach it.

 3. Limited Inerrancy: Also considers the Bible to be inerrant and infallible in its references to salvation. But   revelation and inspiration did not raise the human authors above their ordinary knowledge. So, the bible contains what we would call errors in the areas of science and history. Since the bible does not claim to teach science or history, the purposes the bible was written still make it inerrant and true.This means that the passages which relate to our salvation alone are inerrant.

 4. Innerancy of Purpose: holds that the Bible inerrantly accomplishes its purpose. The purpose of the Bile is to bring people into personal fellowship with Christ, not to communicate truths. Truth is not factual but the means to an end, the end being fellowship with Christ.I think this position is pretty clear. As long as someone gets saved, it really doesn't matter what was written.

 5. Inerrancy is irrelevant: holds that inerrancy is a negative term that only works to divide the church. It also holds that since inerrancy is not a biblical term, it should not be used at all in reference to the Bible. The idea is we should not get stuck spending so much time proving the Bible is true, just get on with your relationship with God, that is what's important. Of course the problem with this view is what kind of relationship with God would we have if we can't trust what He tells us.

 Absolute, full, limited, purpose. I have said many times, that it is essential to define  terms when speaking to someone about matters of theology.  Can you see why that is true? All, except the last position, would say that the Bible is inerrant, but they are not all saying the same thing.

Trans: Well, the Bible is inerrant in the original autographs, is what most statements of faith will say. What does it means by original autographs and if we no longer have them is inerrancy even relevant?..Good questions, lets look.

    C. Original Autographs
 The original autographs are the actual papyrus, the paper-like material, the human authors used to write the Bible. Of course, we don't have any of them. So, some would claim that inerrancy is irrelevant even if it is an important doctrine. This argument forgets the divine origin of Scripture as told to us in 2 Peter 1:20-21 which we have already examined.

Read: 2 Peter 1:20-21

 You see, it makes a great deal of difference whether the Bible was right and true from the start but may have been slightly miscopied and whether it was wrong and false from the beginning. Do you agree?So it is important to establish that the original was inerrant so that we can work back from what we have. The purpose is to see how close ,what we have, is to the original.

 But doesn't copy mistakes negate the importance and relevance of the inerrancy of the originals? It would if the way it was handed down to us from the original autographs was so corrupted that it was beyond recognition. But, praise God, that is not the case. The evidence from careful study of the variations in the old texts is that we do have not a single variation which affects any doctrine of Scripture. I will speak more about this next week.

 The Bible, being handed down through the ages, with such accuracy and care, leaves no room for the denial of the authority of Scripture  so be assured the message of the inerrant original autographs has not been lost.

Trans: The Bible is inerrant in the original autographs. But what about the versions you and I use?

   D. Versions
 There is a strong movement within the evangelical church to make the KJV the standard Bible. To say that it alone is the only inspired copy of the original. But is that really true? No. Because a perfect translation of the Bible is not available. The words in one language do not always have the same meaning or idea in another. While there is beauty in the words of the KJV there are faults as well.No Bible translation is free from bias. Essentially all versions/translations are the product of translators who come from varied theological backgrounds. Who have their own preunderstanding of Scripture based on what they have learned and is the grid through which the translation is made. Being human, they produce versions of the Bible that tend to match their own belief systems...for example

 Reformed Theology has the Geneva Bible, Dispensational Theology has the Scofield Bible, Pentecostals and Charismatics have the Spirit Filled Bible, and those with a Jewish background have the Messianic Bible.

 Some versions are word for word translations of the Greek and Hebrew, such as the NASB. But it does not read as smoothly as other versions.

 There are Bibles that are not word for word translations but are what is called a dynamic equivalent. They take phrases and translate them instead of each word. This makes the reading more smooth but at times the translation is not as accurate. The NIV would fit here.

 And there are Bibles that don't do either but paraphrase the perceived intent of the passage in modern language. The living Bible is an example. Very easy to read but not very accurate to the original languages.

 My personal preference is for a word for word translation from the original languages. You can use what is best for you.

Trans: How was is possible for any copies of copies of copies of copies to agree as closely as they do with the original autographs? What are two practical applications to the doctrine of inerrancy? Come back next week and find out.