Part 1. The Inspiration of the Bible
We believe that the Bible is God's Word. The Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments, is a divine revelation, the original autographs of which were verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is unique because it is God's revelation recorded in human language. According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 the words of Scripture are "God breathed" or inspired. This implies that God is the source or origin of what is recorded in Scripture. God, through the Holy Spirit, used human authors to write what He revealed in the Bible. They were not mere copyists or transcribers. The Holy Spirit guided and controlled the writers of Scripture, who used their own vocabularies and styles but wrote only what the Holy Spirit intended. This is true only of the original manuscripts, not the copies or translations. Although the original manuscripts have been lost to us, God has preserved the biblical text to a remarkable degree.
The Bible is verbally inspired. This means that the words of the Bible, not just the ideas, were inspired. What is more, this is true of not just some, but all the words of the Bible. As a result, the Bible is free from error in what it says. Moody Bible Institute believes strongly in the factual, verbal, historical inerrancy of the Bible. That is, the Bible, in its original documents, is free from error in what it says about geography, history and science as well as in what it says about God. Its authority extends to all matters about which the Bible speaks. It is the supreme source of our knowledge of God and of the salvation provided through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is our indispensable resource for daily living.
Even though the Bible is God's revelation, it must still be interpreted. Interpretation has to do with our reception and understanding of that which God revealed and recorded.[10] Revelation is a divine act. Interpretation is a human responsibility. Divine inspiration guarantees the truthfulness of God's Word but not the accuracy of our interpretation. The Bible is infallible in all it affirms to be true and therefore absolutely reliable. We, however, may be fallible in our interpretation of the Bible.
By D. L. Moody The Moody Bible Institute
2 Timothy 3:16
2 Timothy 3:17
2 Peter 1:21
1 Corinthians 2:12-13
Matthew 5:18
John 10:35
John 5:39-47
2 Timothy 3:16
2 Timothy 3:17
1 Peter 2:2
John 16:13
Part 2. Inerrancy Was Taught by Jesus
The most compelling evidence supporting the inerrancy of the Bible is the testimony of Jesus Christ. To all Christians, Jesus is God and the final and supreme authority in all things. If this is true, then His opinion on the inerrancy of Scripture must be accepted as truth. Jesus believed and taught that the Hebrew Bible was inerrant, not only in matters of faith and practice, but in its prophetic, historical, geographical, and scientific data. Jesus also predicted the writing of the New Testament under the power of the Holy Spirit, therefore putting a stamp of approval on its inerrancy. The following is a summary of Jesus’ teaching on the Bible’s inerrancy.
Now some people may argue that because Jesus’ teaching on inerrancy is recorded in the Bible, it’s circular reasoning to use the Bible to prove Jesus’ view of inerrancy and then use Jesus to prove the inerrancy of the Bible. However, this is not what we’re doing here. In Chapter 3, we established the historical reliability of the Bible independently of Jesus’ testimony by relying on nonbiblical evidences. So we are not guilty of the fallacy of circular reasoning.
Jesus on the Scriptures
Matthew 4:4
In this and many other passages, Jesus either quotes or refers to the Old Testament (His Bible) to teach religious truth or resolve issues. Jesus considered the Hebrew Old Testament completely authoritative; He never questioned its truthfulness. He taught that whatever the Old Testament pronounced was the last word on the subject at hand, and He used it to rebuke the Jewish leaders when they misapplied Scripture (see Matt. 22:29). For Him to use Scripture in this manner would be meaningless unless He considered it inerrant.
Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39
Jesus knew He was the Son of God and the Messiah. He also knew the Old Testament was a witness to Him. Thus, in His communication with both His disciples and the Jewish people, He referred to Scripture to validate who He was. If Scripture was not accurate and truthful, this would have been a futile exercise. Jesus would have been a hypocrite and worse if He knew that the Old Testament was false and yet tried to use it to validate His claims. Clearly, Jesus believed the Hebrew Scriptures spoke inerrantly of Him.
John 14:26; 16:12–13
In these passages, Jesus certifies the inerrancy of the New Testament by predicting it will be written and that the Holy Spirit will superintend its authorship. By this He confirmed the inerrancy of the soon-to-be-written New Testament just as convincingly as He confirmed the divine authorship of the Old Testament.
Matthew 5:17–19
Jesus implied in this text that every letter and word in the Old Testament Law was put there for a purpose. What the Bible claims as truth is truth, and what the Bible says will happen will happen. The only way Jesus could guarantee that everything recorded in the Old Testament will come to pass is if He knew that it was inerrant.
John 10:35
Again, referring to His Bible, Jesus stated that “Scripture cannot be broken,” confirming its reliability and authority. If Scripture is reliable and authoritative, it must be inerrant. A reliable and authoritative Bible would not contain error.
Jesus on the Old Testament as History
The most compelling evidence that Jesus considered the Old Testament to be inerrant was His reference to Old Testament passages in a historical sense. Although the Scriptures use figurative language to illustrate spiritual truths (e.g., John 10:1–6), it is easy to identify those instances as figurative. To use an earlier example, saying that Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8) is an accurate figurative description of Satan’s desire to destroy people, but it is obviously not saying Satan is a real lion that eats people. But Jesus did not refer to Old Testament people and events as allegories or myths. He took them literally and historically and thereby clearly endorsed their inerrancy. The following passages illustrate this.
Matthew 19:3–6 (see Genesis 1:27; 2:24)
In this passage, Jesus authenticates the literal creation of Adam and Eve and confirms their historicity in His teaching on divorce. If Adam and Eve were not real people, Jesus’ instruction would be hollow. The divorce issue was raised by the Pharisees, and Jesus stated His position by referring to the historical event on which His doctrinal stand rests.
Matthew 12:38–41 (see Jonah 1:17)
In Jesus’ mind, Jonah was a real person who really spent three days in the belly of a “great fish” (the Hebrew word used here can be applied to any large creature, including an animal specifically created by God for the purpose it served). It is impossible to draw any other conclusion than that Jesus regarded the experience of Jonah as a historical parallel to His own forthcoming experience between His death and resurrection. If these events in Jesus’ life are factual, so too must Jonah’s experience, or the comparison would be meaningless. A myth cannot be used to validate a fact. The historicity of this event is further reinforced in Matthew 12:41, where Jesus claims that the people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah. They would not have done so if Jonah never lived. Thus Jesus aligned the historical events surrounding His resurrection with the historical events in Nineveh and the historical person of Jonah.
Luke 17:26–30 (see Genesis 6, 19)
Here Jesus refers to Noah, the worldwide flood, Lot, and the city of Sodom—all within an historical framework. Although many people have rejected the Noahic flood as scientifically unacceptable, Jesus obviously accepted it as fact. His prediction of a future historical event (His second coming) rests on the literal occurrence of a past event (the Noahic flood). If the flood was myth, then Jesus’ prediction would be absurd.
John 6:49 (see Exodus 16)
Skeptics scorn the Exodus account of the supernatural feeding of about two million Israelites during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness. But once again, this passage illustrates that Jesus accepted Old Testament history as completely truthful and accurate.
Luke 20:37–38 (see Exodus 3:1–6)
In this passage, Jesus acknowledges the historical reality of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. He also defends the doctrine of the resurrection. But even more controversial, Jesus speaks of these people in connection with the burning bush, a supernatural occurrence rejected by Bible critics. It is irrational to think that Jesus would refer to historical people, an historical event (the resurrection), and another historical event (the burning bush) all in the same sentence if part of what He was talking about was factual and part (e.g., the burning bush) was not. The entire statement would lose its credibility.
THE LITERAL TRUTH
Jesus accepted and taught the inerrancy of Scripture. The authors of the Old and New Testaments believed the same. The early church fathers accepted the Bible as the inerrant Word of God and treated it as such in their sermons and writings. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and countless other theologians and scholars from other disciplines have embraced the inerrancy of Scripture. For two thousand years, the church has accepted the Bible, as originally inspired and recorded, to be free from error in all that it says. God condemns hypocrisy and false testimony on all fronts. It is unthinkable that a sovereign and holy God would allow error to infiltrate the Bible.
Since the Bible is God’s inerrant record of what He wants us to know and do, what it says about moral standards, the human condition, the remedy for sin, the path to salvation and eternal life, the way to a more abundant life here … everything it affirms, we should accept as true. What the Bible says, God says. And when God speaks, we better listen.
Dan Story, Defending Your Faith
Part 3. The Battle Over Inerrancy
Not much was written on the subject until the 1970’s and 1980’s when neo-orthodox and neo-evangelical theologians attacked the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. They claimed that the inerrancy of the Bible was the product of the “old” deductive method and, hence, invalid in the eyes of all those who use the inductive method. Orthodox evangelicals responded by either defending deductive reasoning or by developing new terminology.
The issue of inerrancy forced many evangelical scholars to rethink their naive adoption of the inductive scientific method in theology. After all, since God cannot be weighed or measured in a laboratory, theology was not really an empirical science per se. We must face the truth that Christian theology did not come from “below,” i.e., human experience, but from “above,” i.e., special revelation.
The Deductive Method
In distinction to Aristotle’s inductive method, adopted by Aquinas for use in Christian theology, we will be using the analytic, a priori, deductive method which moves:
1. from the whole to the parts,
2. from the universal to the particular,
3. from the infinite to the finite,
4. from truth to human experience,
5. from the cause to the effects,
6. from God to the evidences.
Most evangelical Christians have heard the principle, “Do not interpret the Bible according to experience, but experience according to the Bible.” This principle is the very heart and soul of a priori deductive reasoning. Instead of beginning with human experience as the measure of all things including God, we should begin with God as the measure of all things including human experience.
The epistemological method followed in this book is analytic because we will begin with the Trinity as the “given” of special revelation and then deduce various theoretical implications from it.
What do we mean by the word “given?” The “given” is the “first principle,” “founding principle,” “opening presupposition,” or “starting axiom” which forms the basis of a system and from which the details of the system are deduced.
Obviously, you have to begin somewhere with something. That “something” is what is called in theology the “given.” If the implications or deductions of that “given” are demonstrated to be true, then the “given” must be true as well.
In geometry the “given” concepts are called axioms. Geometry begins with certain concepts which are unproved, but from which the rest of geometry is deduced. Theology also has its axioms or beginning principles. This is why we do not hesitate to begin with the doctrine of the Trinity as our a priori axiom.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a priori because it does not originate from human experience, but from special revelation. Indeed, any concept of God which has its Origin in human experience should more properly be labeled anthropology or psychology, than theology.
Our method is deductive in that the premises and conclusions are so related that, if one is true, then the other is necessarily and conclusively true. A deductive argument is either valid or invalid while an inductive argument is merely probable or improbable.
Robert A. Morey, The Trinity: Evidence and Issues
Part 4. Can I trust the Bible
Some of the terms used in the debate about the authority and inerrancy of the Bible are technical ones. Some show up in the Chicago Statement, but they are not difficult to come to understand. They can be mastered (and the doctrine of inerrancy more fully understood) by a little reading and study. This commentary on the Chicago Statement attempts to provide such material in reference to the Nineteen Articles of Affirmation and Denial, which form the heart of the document. The full text of the statement appears as an appendix.
ARTICLE I: Authority
We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God. We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the church, tradition, or any other human source.
The initial article of the Chicago Statement is designed to establish the degree of authority that is to be attributed to the Bible. This article, as well as Article II, makes the statement clearly a Protestant one. Though the Roman Catholic Church consistently and historically has maintained a high view of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, there remains the unresolved problem of the uniqueness and sufficiency of biblical authority for the church.
Rome has placed the traditions of the church alongside Scripture as a supplement to Scripture and, consequently, a source of special revelation beyond the scope of Scripture.
The Roman Catholic Church has asserted continuously that since the church established the extent and scope of the New Testament and Old Testament canon, there is a certain sense in which the authority of the Bible is subordinate to and dependent on the church’s approval. These issues of the relationship of church and canon and of the question of multiple sources of special revelation are particularly in view in Articles I and II.
In early drafts of Article I, the extent of the canon was spelled out to include the sixty-six canonical books that are found and embraced within the context of most Protestant-sanctioned editions of the Bible. In discussions among the participants at the summit and because of requests to the Draft Committee, there was considerable sentiment for striking the words “sixty-six canonical books” from the early drafts. This was due to some variance within Christendom as to the exact number of books that are to be recognized within the canon. For example, the Ethiopic Church has included more books in the canon than sixty-six. The final draft affirms simply that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God. For the vast majority of Protestants, the designation “Holy Scripture” has clear reference to the sixty-six canonical books, but it leaves room for those who differ on the canon question to participate in the confession of the nature of Scripture. The specific question of the number of books contained in that canon is left open in this statement.
The question of the scope of the canon, or the list of books that make up our Bible, may confuse many people, particularly those who are accustomed to a number of books clearly defined by their particular church confessions. Some have argued that if one questions a particular book’s canonicity, the implication is that one does not believe in a divinely inspired Bible. Perhaps the clearest illustration of this in history comes from the life of Martin Luther, who, at one point in his ministry, had strong reservations about including the book of James in the New Testament canon. Though it is abundantly clear that Luther believed in an inspired Bible, he had questions about whether a particular book should be included in that inspired Bible. Several scholars have tried to use Luther’s questioning of the book of James to deny that he believed in inspiration. It is very important to see the difference between the question of the scope of the canon and the question of the inspiration of the books that are recognized as included in the canon. In other words, the nature of Scripture and the extent of Scripture are different questions that must not be confused.
A key word in the affirmation section of Article I is received. The initial draft mentioned that the Scriptures are to be received by the church. The phrase “by the church” was deleted because it is clear that the Word of God in Holy Scripture is to be received not only by the church but by everyone. The word received has historical significance. In the church councils that considered the canon question, the Latin word recipimus (“we receive”) was used; the councils were saying “we receive” various books to be included in the canon. By that usage of the word receive, the church made clear that it was not declaring certain books to be authoritative by its own authority, but that it was simply acknowledging the Word of God to be the Word of God. By using the word receive, the church fathers displayed their willingness to submit to what they regarded to be already the Word of God. Consequently, any notion that the church creates the Bible or is superior to the Bible is denied by those who spelled out the canon.
If any ambiguity about the relationship of Scripture to the church remains in the affirmation, it is removed in the subsequent denial: The Scriptures receive their authority from God, not from the church or from any other human source.
ARTICLE II: Scripture and Tradition
We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the church is subordinate to that of Scripture. We deny that church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.
Article II of the Chicago Statement reinforces Article I and goes into more detail concerning the matters it addresses. Article II has in view the classical Protestant principle of sola Scriptura, which speaks of the unique authority of the Bible to bind the consciences of men. The affirmation of Article II speaks of the Scriptures as “the supreme written norm.” At the summit, there was lengthy discussion concerning the word supreme; alternative words, such as ultimate and only, were suggested and subsequently eliminated from the text. The question had to do with the fact that other written documents are important to the life of the church. For example, church creeds and confessions form the basis of subscription and unity of faith in many different Christian denominations and communities. Such creeds and confessions have a kind of normative authority within a given Christian body and have the effect of binding consciences within that particular context. However, it is a classic tenet of Protestants to recognize that all such creeds and confessions are fallible and cannot fully and finally bind the conscience of an individual believer. Only the Word of God has the kind of authority that can bind the consciences of men forever. So while the articles acknowledge that there are other written norms recognized by different bodies of Christians, insofar as they are true, those written norms are derived from and are subordinate to the supreme written norm that is Holy Scripture.
The denial clearly spells out that no church creed, council, or declaration has authority greater than or equal to that of the Bible. Again, any idea that tradition or church officers have authority equal to Scripture is repudiated by this statement. The question of a Christian’s obedience to authority structures apart from Scripture was a matter of great discussion with regard to this article. For example, the Bible itself exhorts us to obey the civil magistrates. We are certainly willing to subject ourselves to our own church confessions and to the authority structures of our ecclesiastical bodies. But the thrust of this article is to indicate that whatever lesser authorities may exist, they never carry the authority of God Himself. There is a sense in which all authority in this world is derived from and dependent on the authority of God. God and God alone has intrinsic authority. That intrinsic authority is given to the Bible, since it is God’s Word.
Various Christian bodies have defined the extent of civil authority and ecclesiastical authority in different ways. For example, in Reformed churches, the authority of the church is viewed as ministerial and declarative rather than ultimate and intrinsic. God and God alone has the absolute right to bind the consciences of men. Our consciences are justly bound to lesser authorities only when they are in conformity to the Word of God.
R. C. Sproul, Can I Trust the Bible?