Affirming the Infallibility and Inerrancy of Scripture

Any discussion of the nature of sacred Scripture that includes the concern about its inspiration has to tackle, in our day and age, at least, the issues of the infallibility and the inerrancy of Scriptures. We know that throughout church history, the classic and traditional view of the Bible is that having come by way of divine inspiration, the Bible has been recognized by the church in all ages as being infallible and inerrant. [00:00:12]

One of the complaints is that the doctrine of inerrancy is alleged to have been the creation of 17th century protestant orthodoxy, which is sometimes called the Age of Protestant Scholasticism, corresponding to the secular philosophical history's era of the Age of Reason, and that is that the idea of inerrancy has been a rational construct that was foreign not only to the biblical writers themselves, but even to the Magisterial Reformers of the 16th century. [00:01:05]

Critics of inerrancy are quick to point out that Luther never used the term, 'inerrancy', and that's true; all that Luther said was that the Scriptures never err. Now, I don't know what the difference would be between the concept inerrancy and the concept of something's never erring could be, but certainly, the idea was held in common by the Magisterial Reformers. [00:01:45]

Now, we recognize that there are other books on this planet like the 'Book of Mormon', and the 'Koran', and other sacred literature of other world religions that claim to come about by way of divine origin and divine inspiration, and the Bible also makes that claim. Now, I am not one who believes that that claim is true simply because the Bible makes it, because if something is true just because the claim is made, then we would have to grant equal truth to the 'Book of Mormon' and these other books. [00:02:37]

It is significant, however, to the church that the Bible does claim to come to us by divine inspiration, because if it doesn't, then that source that we have for the most important truths of our life is given an exaggerated claim to its own integrity and its own authority, and that would have very serious consequences and repercussions. [00:03:51]

And the word, 'infallible', may be defined as that which cannot fail, is indefectible; it is incapable of making a mistake. And linguistically, the term, 'infallible', is a higher term than the term, 'inerrancy', for this reason: I could write an inerrant grocery list without any claim to divine inspiration. [00:04:31]

One large Christian body in its historic confession makes the claim that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Now, I have seen those who have jettisoned this concept, replace it with another statement that sounds so much similar to this, and that statement goes like this: that the Bible is only infallible when it speaks of faith and practice. [00:05:52]

Now, in the final analysis, the question of the authority of the Bible rests for the church on the question of the authority of Christ. Several years ago, in fact, in the early '70s, Ligonier Ministries sponsored and hosted a conference on the authority of Scripture in Pennsylvania. A book was published out of that conference called God's Inerrant Word, edited by John Warwick Montgomery, the Lutheran scholar. [00:10:02]

There is really not a serious dispute in the theological world about what view Jesus held of the Bible. I would say people like Barth, Brunner, Paul Althaus, even Rudolf Bultmann, Joachim Jeremias, C.H. Dodd, to name but a few of the reputable scholars and higher critical scholars of the 20th century, who agree to a man that the historic human Jesus of Nazareth believed and taught the very high, exalted view of Scripture that was common to first century Judaism. [00:12:53]

But at the same time, these scholars who make that admission turn around and say that Jesus was wrong in His view of Scripture. Now, when you hear that at first blush, you wonder about the arrogance of such a statement from a Christian theologian. You say, "Well, I have a view of Scripture which is the correct one, and I'm going to have to correct Jesus in His teaching to the church about the nature of Scripture." [00:14:38]

And so I would say that if Jesus were wrong about the teaching that He gives to us about such a crucial matter as the authority of the Bible itself, then I can't imagine anybody taking Him seriously about everything else He taught. Now, by Jesus' own pedagogue, He rebuked the Pharisees for straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel and said, "If you cannot believe Me concerning earthly things, how can you believe Me concerning heavenly things?" [00:19:34]

So I think it's significant that we start, not in a circle, assuming the authority of the Bible, but if the Bible teaches us, for example, that Jesus was a good man even, or if the Bible can give us enough just basic reliable historical information that we can say it's basically reliable -- reliable enough to come to the conclusion that Jesus was a prophet, and then we learn that this Jesus, whom we've met by reliable information, tells us that that source of information that we've only deemed to be basically reliable up to this point tells us that it's more than basically reliable, then we have moved not in a circle, but progressively from a basic starting point of historical openness, to criticism, to historical reliability, to historical knowledge of the teaching of Jesus, to the teaching of Jesus, who tells us that that source is not just basically reliable, but absolutely reliable because it is nothing less than the Word of God. [00:21:10]