Doctrine of the Bible, Part 2, Infallibility and Inerrancy

 In my last post, I began a new series discussing key aspects of a Protestant and Evangelical doctrine of the Bible, specifically the concepts of Revelation and Inspiration. In this post, I will briefly discuss two other important and related aspects of the Bible - Infallibility and Inerrancy. 

Without getting into too much of a technical discussion (of which there is plenty), Scripture's infallibility refers to its inability to fail to accomplish what God intended it to do, while inerrancy refers to the fact that Scripture contains no errors of any kind (theological, scientific, historical, etc...).  This last issue was the flashpoint for one of the late twentieth centuries most intense theological battles. For this reason, more time will be spent on inerrancy than infallibility. It should be noted that the two terms are almost synonymous, but there is enough of a distinction that they will be here treated separately, even as they go hand-in-hand one with each other.

As noted already, scripture's infallibility refers to its inability to fail to do what God has designed it to do. Scripture itself witnesses to this for example when God speaks through the Prophet Isaiah, For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV). This is a great encouragement for the believer, because it means that whenever the Word of God is read, spoken, heard, preached, believed, and even disbelieved, it will never fail to accomplish what God has sent it to do. Yes, even when the Word of God is disbelieved, scorned, mocked, ridiculed, ignored, etc..., it is still doing what God gave it to do. It will be a source of blessing to those who believe and an occasion of judgment to those who do not. 

Inerrancy is slightly different, although related to infallibility. Whereas infallibility refers to the Bible's inability to fail, inerrancy refers to the fact that the Bible has no errors in it. Everything the Bible asserts, denies, reports, and quantifies is true. Inerrancy tells us that the Bible has no errors because it cannot err. 

Does the Bible teach its own inerrancy? Yes, it does:

The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

Psalm 12:6 NKJV

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Psalm 19:7-9 NKJV

Consider the adjectives that the psalmist uses to describe God's Word: perfect, sure, right, pure, true and righteous altogether. And they are such that the human response ought to be conversion to the soul, wisdom to the simple, rejoicing to the heart, enlightening to the eyes, and endurance into eternity. Could a Bible containing errors have such power!?

Another line of evidence is the fact that, as we saw in our last article, Scripture is "God-breathed." Scripture comes from God's own breath. He gave it himself. True, he did so via the agency of human authors. But God himself gave the Bible nevertheless. I find it difficult to believe that God, who never lies (Titus 1:2), could inspire his Word to contain errors. 

I conclude then, that the Bible is without error in all that it reports. This is true even when Scripture reports the deceptions of others. For example, the Bible records the suicide of Saul (1 Samuel 31:1-6). Later, an Amalekite claimed to David that he had killed Saul, an account which David believed and acted upon by executing the Amalekite (2 Samuel 1:1-14). The most likely explanation is that the Amalekite was lying and hoped to curry favor with David by claiming to have gotten rid of David's enemy. But the Amalekite did not count on the integrity of David and paid the price. So then, the Bible records that a falsehood was spoken, but it does not endorse the falsehood. This is entirely in keeping with the doctrine of inerrancy. This inerrancy of the Bible is not restricted only to theological issues, morality, and spirituality either. Every assertion that Scripture makes is true. This goes for its historical accounts and issues that may have some bearing on modern scientific inquiry. 

In summary, the Bible is a perfect Word from God for the human race. It is perfect, pure, sure, right, and true. It cannot fail in fulfilling the purpose for which God gave it. And it does not contain any errors, whether theological, moral, historical, scientific, or otherwise.  Yes, there are issues of text, transmission, and translation. Those are all issues which deserve close attention, and which many faithful men and women have labored to clarify. But believers today can be sure and confident that when they open up the Bible, what they are receiving is God's very voice to humanity generally, and to them personally. Amen. 

Doctrine of the Bible, Part 1: Revelation and Inspiration

For Christians, particularly those of an Evangelical Protestant persuasion, the Bible stands unique and alone as the only rule for faith and practice. As such, it is important to understand why Evangelicals (including a ministry like DTM) have such a high view of the Bible. It is important to understand why the Bible is not just one other piece of ancient literature produced in the ancient world, but that it is the very Word of God himself. In this article, we will briefly survey the conservative Evangelical teaching on the Bible concerning the concepts of "revelation" and "inspiration."

Revelation is simply a revealing. That is the basic meaning of it. When someone tells you something that you did not know before, that is in some sense a revelation. But in theology, the word Revelation means much more than that. It is not just the name of the last book of the Bible (though it is that, too). It is a revealing from the mouth of the eternal God. It is God himself speaking to his special creation about his nature, ways, and will. That is why we will capitalize the "R" in "Revelation" when we are speaking in this way.

Traditionally, theologians have distinguished between two types of God's Revelation - General Revelation and Special Revelation. 

General Revelation is what God has revealed to us in creation and nature. In other words, if you want to know something about God, just look around you! The created universe speaks quite a bit about God,

The heavens declare the glory of God,  and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words,  whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

(Psalm 19:1-4 ESV)

But when it comes to the Bible, that is a different kind of revelation. Theologians call this Special Revelation. While the Bible is not the only kind of special revelation (for example, the coming of Jesus the Son of God in the flesh - the Incarnation - is another kind), it is the most common and available to us today. The Bible is an altogether different kind of special revelation. It is written down by the work of the Holy Spirit to serve as the Church's complete and sufficient rule for faith, conduct, and practice. 

But how did the Bible come down to us? On the one hand, there is much that could be said about how the Bible was copied and transmitted, but that is beyond the scope of this article. The means through which the Bible came to us is something theologians call "Inspiration." The Bible is "inspired" because God "breathed it out" to us. Paul writes about this to Timothy,

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

(2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV)

The Apostle Peter also writes about this work of the Holy Spirit to inspire the Bible:

...no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

(2 Peter 1:20-21 ESV)

The Christian position on the Bible then is that the Bible and the Bible alone was produced by a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit and speaks with the full authority of God himself. No other work of literature can claim this, although some try to claim it for another book or for some other source of authority. But the passage in 2 Timothy reminds us that Scripture makes a person "complete." If that is the case, then what need have I of something else to go alongside the Bible? And because the Bible is inspired as a revelation to the human race from God, then we must hear what it says and obey it. Ultimately, it points us to Jesus Christ, who is the true revelation of the character of God (John 1:18).