Summer in the Systematics – Bibliology (Part Three): The Inerrancy of the Bible

Transcript

JRS 28
6/18/2023
Summer in the Systematics – Bibliology (Part Three): The Inerrancy of the Bible
Selected Verses
Jesse Randolph

Welcome everybody. Welcome back to Summer in the Systematics. We’re starting lesson three in our summer-long study of Bibliology, the study of the Bible or the Scriptures. So far in our study we’ve covered two topics. We’ve covered the authority of the Bible and we’ve covered the inspiration of the Bible. Tonight, we’re going to move right into a third topic. Our topic for tonight is the inerrancy of the Bible. We’re going to have five major headings. You see five blanks on your worksheets there for tonight’s message. Heading one, I’m going to let you just fill these in right now if you’d like, just to get ahead of it, cause I’m going to move fast. The definition of inerrancy would be blank number one. The views on inerrancy would be number two. The foundations of inerrancy would be number three. The challenges to inerrancy would be number four. The stakes of inerrancy will be number five. I’ll say it again. Number one will be the definitions of inerrancy. Number two will be the views on inerrancy. Number three will be the foundations of inerrancy. Number four will be the challenges to inerrancy, and then five will be the stakes of inerrancy.

We do have a lot of material to cover tonight, and I have developed a very bad habit of running overtime, so we’ll get right into it starting with our first major heading for tonight, the definitions of inerrancy. Now, last week, we covered the inspiration of the Bible. While we looked through and worked through a lot of material in that lesson there were really two key Scriptures which should have stood out to you that would stand out to you as testifying as to what Scripture itself testifies to about the inspiration of the Bible. The first passage that should have stood out to you would be II Timothy 3:16. “All Scripture is inspired by God,” literally breathed out by God, “and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” What this passage, II Timothy 3:16 refers to is the fact of inspiration. That is that the 66 books of the Bible have been “inspired by,” literally again, breathed out by, God. The second passage that should have stood out was this one. II 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.” That refers to the process of inspiration, this passage does, which tells us that the Word of God did not come to us through some human impulse or human ingenuity. Rather, it came from God Himself as God the Spirit moved in the hearts and minds of men to accomplish His design and His purposes.

Now, as we move into tonight’s topic we’re heading into some different, but related waters. Tonight, we’re essentially asking the question what is the result of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration? We really have only three tracks we can go down as we consider that question, what is the result of inspiration. Track one would be to say that the the Bible doesn’t come from God. That is, it is a merely the product of human invention and because humans naturally make errors or commit errors the Bible naturally contains errors. That would be track one. Track number two would be that the Bible, though it comes from God, nevertheless has errors in it. Which would mean that a perfect God has given us an imperfect product. That a God who is truthful and who is truth has given us a less than truthful Word. Or track three, option three would be to say that the Bible, since it comes from God, is totally truthful and error-free. Or, to use the theological term, that it is “inerrant.” That it is “without error.” As we’re going to lay out tonight, we’re going with option three.

But first let’s work through some basic definitions and be warned I have lots of definitions tonight. Lots of quotes tonight and I’ll need to go through this quickly. Again, a reminder that these slides are always available to you by mid-week on the Indian Hills website to pull up and go through at your own pace.

What do we mean when we say that the Bible is “inerrant?” Well, here’s one definition, from a theologian named Floyd Barackman. He says, inerrancy “is that quality of the original Scriptures, or autographs, that describes them as being without error in their recording of facts and in the inspired utterances and writings of God’s spokesmen.” Here are a couple of other definitions for us to consider. Here’s Wayne Grudem, “The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.” Here’s Paul Feinberg, “Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.” As we’ll see a bit later, those last qualifying words there from Feinberg are really important when he includes the words “social, physical, and life sciences” because there are those who will say that the Bible is inerrant only in certain limited respects. For instance, as it relates to salvation but that it’s not inerrant as it relates to things like history and science. But taking each of these definitions, whether from Barackman, or from Grudem, or from Feinberg, and boiling them down to a simple statement, when we say that the Bible is inerrant, when we speak of the inerrancy of Scripture we are simply, saying, that the Bible is “without error.”

Simple enough, right? We can go home; we can call it a night and get a good night’s rest and get ready for VBS tomorrow. Well, you’d think that would be simple enough and this would be a simple matter and sort of an obvious point. But as is true of much of the study of theology with the rise of historical criticism and the rise of a whole class of purely academic theologians who have been steeped in critical methodologies and who make it a practice and a point to rail against fundamental, biblical truth, the waters on this topic, this doctrine of inerrancy, have become a little bit more muddied in our day; as attacks are regularly being made on the whole concept of the Bible being inerrant. One of those attacks was leveled, some years ago, by critics who sought to alter the definition of another term you have to be familiar with. That term is not inerrancy but infallibility. Infallibility.

See, historically, and with supporting Scripture to back it up the church has always taught that the Bible is not only inerrant, that is, it is without error; but that the Bible is infallible. Meaning, that it contains no errors or mistakes. Not only that, but it’s also incapable of containing errors or making errors or mistakes. Here’s a solid traditional definition of infallibility from E.J. Young. He says, “By the term infallible as applied to the Bible, we mean simply that the Scripture possesses an indefectible authority. It can never fail in its judgments and statements. All that it teaches is unimpeachable, absolute authority, and cannot be contravened, contradicted, or gainsaid. Scripture is unfailing, incapable of proving false, erroneous or mistaken. Though heaven and earth should pass away, its words of truth will stand forever.” Of course, what he’s saying here picks up on what the Lord Jesus Christ Himself said in Matthew 5:18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” Or here in John 10:35, “the Scripture cannot be broken.” Now here’s a shorter traditional definition of infallibility. The old definition of infallibility from David Dockery. He says, infallibility means “that the Bible is incapable of error and cannot deceive or mislead.” So again, traditionally, the doctrine of biblical “inerrancy” would emphasize the fact that there are no errors in Scripture. While the doctrine of “infallibility” would emphasize that Scripture is incapable of making errors or mistakes. Now both doctrines, inerrancy and infallibility are rooted in the inspiration of the Bible, the fact that the Bible is God-breathed. What that means is that both of these doctrines trace back to the nature and character of God Himself, the One who breathed out the Bible. Both doctrines are rooted in the recognition that if Scripture is God breathed, which it is, then what God has breathed out must necessarily be free from error. It must necessarily be inerrant. It must necessarily also be incapable of making any error, that is, it must be infallible.

This is really critical for us to grasp. That the inerrancy and the infallibility of Scripture traces back to the Bible’s own claim to be God-breathed. These doctrines trace back to whether or not we believe and affirm the inspiration of Scripture. These doctrines ultimately trace back to the character of God, and whether He can be trusted as it relates to what He has revealed and said in His Word. J.I. Packer picks this up. He says, “What Scripture says is to be received as the infallible Word of the infallible God, and to assert biblical inerrancy and infallibility is just to confess faith in number one the divine origin of the Bible and number two the truthfulness and trustworthiness of God.” Here’s Norm Geisler. He says, “It has been said that a table must have at least three legs to stand. Take away any of the three legs and it will surely topple. In much the same way, the Christian faith stands on three legs. These three legs are the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture. Take away one and, like the table, the divine authority of the Christian faith will surely topple.”

I’ve given you the traditional definitions of inerrancy and infallibility but what I now need to share with you is that not everyone out there in the broadly evangelical world has always accepted the definitions that I’ve just laid out for you. We’ll get into some of the other views on inerrancy in just a second. But I’d like us to next spend some time now exploring some of the long and winding journeys that the term “infallibility” has taken over the past many decades. I’m going to turn it over to John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue who summarize what happened with that term “infallibility” starting in about the 1960s. They say, “Historically, the term infallibility has been used to refer to the same general quality as inerrancy. Infallibility means ‘unable to mislead or fail,’ and when applied to Scripture it means that the biblical text—when interpreted correctly—will never mislead its reader. However, beginning in the 1960s, certain theologians began using the term infallibility in a new way. Convinced that the Bible did contain factual errors, yet eager to maintain their influence within evangelical circles, these scholars deliberately avoided the use of the term inerrancy and instead employed the term infallibility.”
“Moreover, when using the term infallibility, these scholars intended something different. Rather than maintaining the traditional definition, these scholars limited its extent, instead affirming that the Bible is ‘unable to mislead or fail’ only in terms of its teachings about faith and practice. They believed that where Scripture treated matters of history and science it could mislead the reader when read according to its original intent.” “On the one hand, the shift created significant confusion in the church. This new movement of scholars continued to use the term infallibility to describe Scripture but at the same time asserted things about the historical details of Scripture which did not coincide with the term’s traditional definition. On the other hand, this shift in terminology forced other evangelical scholars to focus significant attention on the issue of inerrancy and to respond with a careful analysis of Scripture’s own self witness concerning its absolute inerrancy. This new focus led to the creation of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy being one of its fruits.”

So “infallibility” in summary, meant one thing leading up to the 1960s, more like what I quoted earlier. Then it was hijacked and repurposed by those who sought to oppose and undermine the whole notion of biblical inerrancy. That then led to the calling of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy which then led to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. We’ll look at some of the excerpts from that statement a little bit later. But first, what I want to do now is move on from infallibility and back to inerrancy. We now want to take a look at some of the different positions on inerrancy which have been articulated over the years.

That’s our second point for tonight, the positions on inerrancy. Now, as we did with the doctrine of inspiration where we touched upon a few of the different views of inspiration that have been offered by academics and theologians over the years before landing on the biblical perspective of plenary verbal inspiration, tonight we’re going to start with some of the aberrant views of inerrancy before we land on the biblical position. Here’s the first aberrant view of inerrancy that we need to be familiar with. Naive inerrancy. This view of inerrancy is anchored directly to the dictation theory of inspiration that we looked at last Sunday night. In other words, this view assumes the truth of the dictation theory of inspiration, and you might remember that’s the theory that says the human authors of Scripture were like these mindless stenographers whose perspectives and personalities and styles were totally irrelevant to the whole process of inspiration. Instead, what that view would say is that the human authors mechanically took down, like secretaries, whatever it was that God was revealing to them. What the dictation view of inspiration produces is this view, the naive view of inerrancy. It’s called that because of the supposed naivete of anyone who thinks that the human authors of Scripture had anything to do with the process of inspiration and proponents of this view, would be like men like John R. Rice. What they’re not interested in are any debates over whether the Scriptures contain errors because, to them, the Scriptures were so mechanically dictated through a process dominated by God but having no human involvement with the human element being completely missing and irrelevant, they concede there are no errors in the Scriptures. So, they land in the same place we would, but they disregard the process that the Scriptures reveal. That’s naïve inerrancy.

Critical Inerrancy. This view takes the position that the Bible is completely true in all it affirms but only to the degree of precision intended by the writer. It’s called this, this “critical” inerrancy view because it allows for the cautious use of various types of critical methodologies in interpreting the Scriptures. Various critical grids like historical criticism. Or form criticism or literary criticism to come to a right understanding of what the author meant in a text. Proponents of this view would be men like Millard Erickson and Carl Henry and D.A. Carson.

Limited Inerrancy. This view maintains that the Bible is inerrant in matters of salvation and faith and maybe some ethics and practice but what this view would hold is that the biblical authors were not protected from misstatements in areas such as science or history. So, they would say faith and practice, sure, that can be inerrant. Science and history, not so much. Proponents of this view would be men like Clark H. Pinnock, Craig Blomberg, and William Lane Craig.

Functional Inerrancy. This view contends that the Bible inerrantly accomplishes its purpose, but it does not equate inerrancy with the factuality of what’s recorded on the pages of Scripture. The purpose of the Bible, this view would say, is to reveal God and to bring people into fellowship with Him. To the extent that the Bible does that, it is inerrant in doing that. But it’s not inerrant in all the details surrounding what God has revealed on its pages. Functional inerrancy was held by men like G.C. Berkouwer, Jack Rogers, and Donald McKim.

Now there are many other views, aberrant views of inerrancy. These are just a few that are being highlighted to just sort of set the stage. Some of these overlap in various ways and are distinct in various ways but as we’re going to see in our next couple of quotes here from some theologians, these views that we’ve just gone through, they share a common core. On the one hand, these views, I would contend, share an irreverence for the God who has revealed Himself in the pages of Scripture, to be true, to be truthful and to be truth-speaking. There’s also I think with this issue that underlying each of the aberrant views of inerrancy, that there’s this desire ultimately to please man. There’s a fear of being left out of the theological academy. There’s a fear of being left out of the academic guilds and discussions if they were to dare to affirm that the truth of the Scriptures is in their entirety and in whole, in every respect, down to every jot and tittle. There’s fear that the moment you claim and hold yourself out to be a bible-thumping fundamentalist that holds to every single jot and tittle of the Scriptures, you’ll no longer get those invitations to the Evangelical Theological Society and such.

Another couple of quotes I’m going to share with you that bolster what I just mentioned. One is Robert Lightner, here. He says, “I am convinced that there is one basic reason underlying all other reasons for the rejection of the inerrancy of the Bible among self-confessed evangelicals. That reason is related to the attempt to accommodate the Bible to science, falsely so-called, and modern unbelieving scholarship. This rejection is evidence of the tendency to succumb to the worship of intellectualism and thereby to fail to take God at His Word.” He says, “This does not mean that those who hold such a view of Scripture are not sincere. Many of them have no doubt embraced their view in answer to honest inquiry. But the fact remains that underlying the initial rejection there was the attempt to embrace a less objectionable view of the Bible, one that would be more harmonious with the naturalist world view.” and he’s exactly right. With these lesser views of inerrancy there’s always this underlying desire to be embraced, to be published, to be “on the right side of history.” That leads to certain of these theological scholars going off the rails on the topic of inerrancy, and they ultimately reject the perfection of Scripture.

Here’s another quote from J.I. Packer on this point. He says, “When you encounter a present-day view of Holy Scripture, you encounter more than a view of Scripture. What you meet is a total view of God and the world, that is, a total theology, which is both an ontology, declaring what there is, and an epistemology, stating how we know what there is. This is necessarily so, for a theology is a seamless robe, a circle within which everything links up with everything else through its common grounding in God. Every view of Scripture proves on analysis to be bound up with an overall view of God and man.”

OK, so those are some of the aberrant views of inerrancy that have been put forth or promoted. So, where would we as a church land on this topic of inerrancy. I think you know the answer. We land on the view of total inerrancy or absolute inerrancy. In fact, this is what you’ll see listed as point number one when you click on the “What We Believe” tab on the Indian Hills website. Look what you see there. It says, “We believe the Scriptures—both the Old and New Testaments—to be the verbally inspired Word of God, written by men in God’s control, inerrant and infallible in the original manuscripts and the final authority in faith and life. We accept the literal, grammatical-historical system of interpretation, of the Scriptures, and accept the historical record of the Bible as accurate and adequate.” We affirm that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible, in the older sense of that term, Word of God. We affirm that all 66 books that we now hold in our hands are the result of divine inspiration. We affirm that, through inspiration, what was produced in the original autographs, the manuscripts, were divinely authoritative, are divinely authoritative and entirely factual accounts completely accurate in all that they record.

Now earlier I mentioned the Chicago Statement. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which was published in 1978. While that statement is lengthy and I would suggest to you in your own time, take the time to read it. It can be pulled up, for free, as a PDF on various websites. This statement contains five summary statements which are worth going through tonight. These statements that we’re going to go through here represent well the view of “total” inerrancy that we would hold and affirm.

One, God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.

Two, Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.

Three, the Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning. That’s the doctrine of illumination which we’ll cover in a later lesson.

Four, being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.

Five, the authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

Alright, we’ve worked through some definitions of inerrancy. We’ve looked at some of these perspectives on inerrancy. In doing so we’ve now just looked at these various quotes from theologians and now, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

Next, we need to consider what the Scripture itself teaches about its own inerrancy. That’s our third heading here, the Foundations of inerrancy. See, inerrancy isn’t rooted in what Wayne Grudem thinks or what Paul Feinberg thinks, or John MacArthur thinks. Inerrancy is rooted, instead in who God is. What Christ testified to and what the Holy Spirit-inspired Scriptures themselves testify to.

We’ll take these one by one starting with the character of God. Let’s start with the nature and the character of God. We need to just get back to basics to understand the God who stands behind the Scriptures as He certifies what they stand for and what they are. First, God exists. Believe it or not, “In the beginning, God,” Genesis 1:1, getting back to basics. I told you it’s basic. God is true. “He who sent Me is true,” says Jesus in John 7:28. God speaks truth. Romans 3:4, “let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.” God never lies. Titus 1:2, “God, who cannot lie.” Or Hebrews 6:18 “It is impossible for God to lie.” God doesn’t lie intentionally because He is good and righteous and true. God doesn’t lie unintentionally because He is omniscient. It’s that God, the all-wise, all-good, all-knowing God who is true and who never lies who produced the Scriptures. “All Scripture is inspired by God.”

We also know that the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, is truth. He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” As God the Son, our Lord bears witness to the truth. John 8:14 “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going.” As God the Son, Jesus has always spoken the truth. John 8:40, “You are seeking to kill Me,” He says to the Pharisees, “a man who has told you the truth.” Well, as the Truth and as this consistent source of truth the Lord Jesus Christ never so much as hinted in the records we have of His sayings in the Scriptures that the Scriptures were anything but completely and totally true. That is, that the Scriptures are inerrant. In fact, whenever He did speak on the subject, our Lord spoke clearly about the veracity and the truthfulness and the completeness of Scripture. We go back to Matthew 5:18 where He says, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” We go back to John 10:35, “the Scripture cannot be broken.”

Then there’s the matter of the Holy Spirit’s affirmation of the inerrancy of Scripture. For starters, we begin with knowing and remembering that the Holy Spirit is “the spirit of truth.” “But when He,” John 16:13, “the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” We also know that it was the Holy Spirit who enabled the human authors of Scripture to write what they wrote without omission and without error. II Peter 1:21, we’ve already looked at this, “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.” So, the biblical conception of inerrancy, is ultimately rooted in the Triune God. All three Persons of the Godhead are true. All three Persons of the Godhead are perfect sources of truth, Father, Son, and Spirit. The biblical conception of inerrancy is rooted ultimately, as we’ve seen earlier, in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, the topic we studied last Sunday evening.

Now last on this subject of foundations of inerrancy would be what the Scriptures themselves teach about inerrancy. Yes, a biblical conception of inerrancy is rooted in the person and character of all three Persons of the Triune Godhead as being true. But a biblical conception of inerrancy is also rooted in the self-witness of Scripture. That is, what the Scriptures themselves have to say about their inerrancy. There is a mountain of evidence for this effect. From the Scriptures themselves we see that God’s Word is truth. John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Or Psalm 119:160 “The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.” We see from the Scriptures that God’s Word is perfect. “The law of the LORD is perfect,” Psalm 19:7. We see that God’s Word is pure. Psalm 12:6, “The words of the LORD are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.” We see that God’s Word, Scripture, cannot be broken. We’ve seen that a few times now, “the Scripture cannot be broken.”

So that’s a bit about the foundations of inerrancy. That is, the biblical foundations of inerrancy. Scripture’s self-witness to its own inerrancy. Before we move on, I want to make one more point on this topic, and it’s this. The doctrine of inerrancy is not based on scientific evidence, or outside empirical information or data. Rather, as we’ve seen the doctrine of inerrancy is rooted in the reality of divine inspiration. It is rooted in the nature and character of the triune God. It is rooted in the Scripture’s own witness to its inerrancy. Now, the doctrine of inerrancy is certainly supported, after the fact, historically and empirically and scientifically, but it’s not built upon history and built upon science and built upon empirical data. For more on what I mean by that we go back to MacArthur and Mayhue. They say, “It is not possible nor necessary to establish inerrancy based on scientific data. This is due to the fact that some things described in Scripture are simply not reproducible for scrutiny today. Moreover, scientific arguments commonly cited as proof against Scripture’s inerrancy are themselves filled with error. Not only are the fields of science themselves undergoing constant modification, but scientific ‘facts’ are never objective interpretations. As Paul stated, the unbeliever reads everything around him,” look at this phrase, “through truth-suppressing spectacles,” Romans 1:18. In the end, the only sure standard of truth is God’s verbal revelation, and the clear, propositional testimony it provides to its own inerrancy is sufficient justification of the affirmation of this doctrine.” That’s completely right and with that, we move on.

Now, you may be with me so far. You’re tracking and you agree that the Scriptures teach plainly on their face that the word of God is inerrant. But you’re like me and you’ve heard many different objections and arguments that have been leveled against the the truth, the inerrancy of the Bible. We’re going to spend some time now addressing some of the objections, the challenges that are asserted against inerrancy.

That’s our fourth heading, the Challenges to Inerrancy. As you can imagine, there have been over the years several different types of challenges raised against the veracity and the inerrancy of the Scriptures. The human heart wants what it wants and so for centuries now humans have engaged in various different tactics and engaged in various different challenges as a way to undermine the authority and the inerrancy of this book.

We’re going to look at just a few of those tactics and a few of those challenges this evening. One group of challenges has to do with the so-called “contradictions” in the Bible. Now there have been written, just massive books, huge encyclopedic books on this topic of the so-called “contradictions” in the Scriptures. We just don’t have the time to go through all of them here tonight, but I will highlight a few of them just to give you sort of a flavor for some of the “contradictions” that have been identified so that we can understand what’s actually happening in those so-called “contradictions” and have an answer for the hope that’s within us. Let’s start with Cain’s wife. Here’s an objection that’s sometimes asserted, a challenge that’s sometimes raised. We know from Scripture specifically in Genesis 4 that Cain murders his brother Abel. But then we also see that after that incident many different people are born. The question that’s raised and it’s really posed as an objection, a challenge to the truthfulness, the inerrancy of Scripture is, where in the world did Cain get his wife? How did that happen? The assumption or the accusation there is that this must be an error. Well, Genesis 5:4 teaches that Adam and Eve had other sons and other daughters in addition to Cain, and Abel and Seth. So, there was this one original family back in these days and the simple answer to the challenge the critics who want to attack the inerrancy of Scripture is, well then that means that the first marriages that would have happened in those early years would have been between a brother and sister, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. That’s the answer. In those early days relations between a brother and a sister would not have been as harmful because there weren’t by that point in history the number of genetic mutations and potential deformities that we would see in an incestuous relationship today with all the history that’s happened in between. The point is that though the human heart was already sick by this point the gene pool was still more relatively pure. It’s not that what I’m saying is that this is normative or that it’s promoting that as a normative practice. It’s just the answer to the question where Cain got his wife. So, it’s not a contradiction at all. It’s a tough answer, a tough pill to swallow but there’s an answer.

Here’s another one. The plague of Numbers 25:9. According to Numbers 25:9 there was a plague that came upon the sons of Israel after they were caught red-handed worshiping Baal of Peor. It says there in Numbers 25:9 that 24,000 people were killed as a result of this plague. But then you get to Paul in I Corinthians 10:8 and he says that there were 23,000 deaths. So, 24,000 mentioned in Numbers 25:9. 23,000 mentioned by Paul in I Corinthians 10:8. Uh oh! What are we supposed to do with that? Well let’s look at the text. Numbers 25:9 says those who died by the plague were 24,000. Paul here in I Corinthians 10:8 says, “Nor let us act immorally as some of them did,” speaking of this same incident, “and 23,000 fell in one day.” What’s the answer? What’s the solution? Well, it says 23,000 in one place, and 24,000 in another place. Are we cornered? Are we caught? No! Numbers 25, the first passage we looked at, says nothing about whether over which days those people were killed. Paul limits it to one day. He’s saying 23,000 were killed in that one day. Moses in Numbers 25 does not limit it to one day so very conceivably and it’s a rational, reasonable response is that more people were killed in successive or preceding days, that number totaling 24,000. Paul captures the 23,000 on the one day. Moses gets the other 1000 in succeeding days.

Then there’s this matter. Who caused David to number Israel? This is the sinful census that David conducted. Now according to one account in II Samuel 24:1, it was the Lord who caused David to number Israel. It says, “Now again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and it,” that’s referring to the Lord’s anger, “incited David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah’.” But in this account, in I Chronicles 21:1, it says “Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.” That’s stated as being another contradiction. But the response would be, could not the Lord and Satan have been involved in some way in this same event? We see this recorded in other instances. We see this for instance in Paul’s thorn in the flesh in II Corinthians 12:7, where it says, “for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me,” that’s by God, “a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!” Or think of the first two chapters of the book of Job where it indicates that God allowed Satan to afflict Job but to only go so far in bringing affliction upon him. So why couldn’t it be that both God and Satan were in distinct ways, at work in David’s taking the census of the Israelites? That doesn’t have to mean that God was somehow colluding with Satan. It certainly doesn’t mean that He’s partnering with evil. But it just means that they were working in distinct ways in the same event. We have to remember what Martin Luther said. That “even the devil is God’s devil.”

Then we get to the New Testament. There are many other supposed “contradictions” that are raised in the New Testament by the critics. Take a staff? Mark records that Jesus allowed His disciples to take a staff for their journey. It says, “He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff.” But then Matthew records it this way. Jesus saying, “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff.” So, it seems like one is saying get a staff and one is saying don’t get a staff. But these aren’t at all impossible to reconcile. Putting the accounts together, what we see revealed here is the Lord is permitting disciples to take staffs along that they already had, that’s what we see in Mark. But they were not to buy a new staff for their journey as we see in Matthew. They are not contradictory. They are presenting different windows or different insights as any one of us, if we were eyewitnesses, would present.

Healing of the blind at Jericho. There are some different details between the gospel accounts which have been interpreted by the critics to be irresolvable. We have in Matthew 20:29-34 that the Lord healed two blind men, that’s Matthew 20:29-34. But in other accounts Mark 10:46-52 and Luke 18:35-43 only one blind man is mentioned. That man being Bartimaeus. Now, if the account in Mark and Luke been very specific and clear saying there’s only one blind man present in this episode then we’d have a contradiction because Matthew says there were two blind men there. But that’s not what we see in Mark and in Luke. Rather what we see is one man being highlighted. One man being emphasized in the discussion. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t a second blind man there.

Or how about the death of Judas. In Acts 1:18 it says of Judas’ death here that he was “falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.” But then Matthew 27:5 says he “went away and hanged himself.” Contradiction? No. Both descriptions can be true. Judas did hang himself, as it says in Matthew 27:5 but as Luke records in Acts 1:18, apparently something happened in that whole episode caused Judas’ body to fall and then break open. It’s all we’ve got.

So, these are just a few examples of supposed contradictions and errors in the Scriptures. Supposed contradictions and errors which, it is said, refute the whole notion of the Bible being inerrant. But, as we’ve seen, these supposed contradictions, these supposed errors are just that. They are supposed. They aren’t actual contradictions. They aren’t errors. It really takes a certain worldview and a certain set of presuppositions. Really a set of worldviews and presuppositions that are bent on undermining the inerrancy of Scripture to simply assume that these are falsehoods and contradictions. But ultimately, though, there are worldviews and presuppositions on both sides. I operate from the presupposition, I assume many of you do too, that the Bible is inerrant, because God says it’s inerrant. Whereas those who come from this other side who say that the Bible contains errors, they are doing so because they refuse to take God at His Word. See presuppositions exist on both sides of the inerrancy debate. I appreciate what Charles Ryrie says on this subject of presuppositions and inerrancy. He says, “If one comes to the Bible expecting or allowing for error, he can make a case for an errant Bible. But if he comes expecting the Bible to be inerrant, he can find plausible solutions.” Meaning to the supposed contradictions. I also appreciate what Lightner here says. He says, “Does a belief in the total inerrancy of the Bible mean there are no difficulties in the Bible? No, indeed it does not. We must distinguish between a difficulty and a contradiction, however.” That’s what we just went through. “There are difficulties and seeming contradictions. But since the Bible claims to be from God who cannot lie, we believe Him and seek to solve those difficulties. Because we cannot solve every problem in the Bible does not mean there is no solution to those problems. More and more of the problems in Scripture are being solved all the time. There are no new problems which contemporary critics have discovered. And what is more, valid solutions were offered long ago for the existing problems. When we come upon a problem or apparent contradiction in the Bible to which we do not have a satisfactory solution we wait in faith, believing what God has told us about His Word.” Indeed.

Alright, let’s keep working through some more of the challenges that have been raised against biblical inerrancy. Here’s another one. This is the argument that those like us who champion inerrancy are elevating a secondary matter to a matter of primary importance. But inerrancy is not a secondary matter. It is a matter of primary importance. Why? Well, as we’ve already seen this evening it goes back to the very person and nature and character of God, the One who has given us His Word. Here’s Lightner again. He says, “God cannot lie. To reject what He has said about His Word is to accuse Him of falsehood. How can an errant Bible be God’s revelation? How can it be God-breathed? How can it be authoritative and therefore trustworthy? No, God does not lead man astray. To reject a totally inerrant Scripture is to cast aspersions on the very character of God.” This is not a secondary matter at all. This is primary.

Here’s another challenge that’s been raised by those who reject biblical inerrancy. They’ll accuse us who do hold to inerrancy as worshiping the Bible. They’ll say we are not worshiping the God. Instead, we worship a book. We are guilty of bibliolatry which is like any other form of idolatry. I know I’m quoting a lot of Lightner tonight, but he’s so good on this topic so I’m going to quote him again. He says, “Bible believers do not worship the Bible. But they do worship the God of the Bible. They believe that what He said about the Bible is just as true as what He said about His Son. He can be trusted! Lovers of the Book also cling to what God’s Son, the Savior, said about the Bible. They believe Him, too. In fact, these people think it highly inconsistent and well-nigh inexplicable that anyone should say he accepts the Savior for all He claimed to be but not what He said about the Scriptures.”

Here’s another challenge which has been leveled against the doctrine of inerrancy. They’ll say that inerrancy is not taught in the Bible. It’s not taught directly in the Bible because the word “inerrancy” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible. They’ll say it’s at best a logical deduction not a true biblical teaching. The immediate response and admittedly this is pretty simple to respond this way would be to say that just like the word inerrancy doesn’t appear in Scripture neither does the word what? Trinity. Right? Do we believe and uphold and affirm the Triunity of God? Absolutely we do! Well how do we do so? Well, we do so by pointing to two separate lines of scriptural evidence which converge and reveal God to be triune. First, we point to those clear statements of Scripture speaking to God being one. Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” Then second, we point to those other Scriptures that make clear statements that there’s this other Person, Jesus who also is God. Then there’s this other Person, the Holy Spirit who also is God and from that we have the trinity.

Well, as we do with the Trinity, we can do something similar with inerrancy. As we lay out these two different tracks of biblical revelation. First, is that line of evidence in which scriptures testifies to its truth. Like this, Psalm 19:7-9, “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts 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; they are righteous altogether.” “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”

This second line of evidence as we establish inerrancy through the scriptures. The Scripture testifies that God is a God of truth, who cannot lie. Like John 3:3, “God is true.” Or Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie.” He’s truthful, He’s honest, He’s dependable. God the Son is the truth. We saw this already. He is “the way, and the truth, and the life.” God the Spirit, the divine agent in inspiration, is the truth. I John 5:6, “It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” In sum, the Scriptures testify that they are the truth. A claim that is certified and backed up by the fact that they come from a God who is the truth and the Bible that we believe is directly proportionate to the kind of God we believe in a God of truth.

Here’s another challenge which sometimes is asserted against the doctrine of inerrancy which is that it is a relatively recent teaching. There will be people who will say that inerrancy was not a subject covered in ancient church history or by the church fathers and it is just not supported in the historical records. Well, that argument is pretty easily refutable. I mean, we’ve already seen this evening that the doctrine of inerrancy is supported by the Scriptures themselves. That’s taking us quite a bit back in history. But even then, after our Lord’s ascension this topic did come up with some regularity in church history and we could rightly and fairly say that the witness of church history is that inerrancy was historically the position of the church. Here’s Augustine writing in the fourth century. He says, “Most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books. If you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement, there will not be left a single sentence of those books, which, if appearing to anyone difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away as a statement, in which intentionally, the author declared what was not true.” That’s a very long way of saying the Bible is inerrant. Here’s Aquinas, much shorter in his statement. “Nothing false can underlie the literal sense of Scripture.” Now Aquinas was pre-Medieval, but Medieval history and Medieval church history tells the same story. Here's a quote from Anthony and Richard Hanson, Medieval church historians. They say, “The Christian Fathers and the medieval tradition continued this belief,” they’re speaking of inerrancy, “and the Reformation did nothing to weaken it. On the contrary, since for many reformed theologians the authority of the Bible took the place which the Pope held in the medieval scheme of things, the inerrancy of the Bible became more firmly maintained and explicitly defined among some reformed theologians than it had even been before.” As the Hanson brothers indicate here, after the Medieval period came the Reformation. The two most prominent reformers were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Look at what they have to say about inerrancy. “The Scriptures have never erred,” Martin Luther and then John Calvin, “We owe to the Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God, because it has proceeded from Him alone.” Then we move into the 1700s, and the period of the Great Awakening, and men like John Wesley who say, “Nay, if there by any mistakes in the Bible there may well be a thousand. If there is one falsehood in that Book it did not come from the God of truth.” All of this shows that inerrancy is not some new development. Rather, inerrancy has been widely and historically taught and when it wasn’t taught it was assumed to go back to the earliest days of church history. In fact, there are even some non-inerrantists, people who would disagree with me, who acknowledge that the witness of church history is on the side of inerrancy.

There’s a man named Kirsopp Lake. He was a professor of New Testament at the University of Chicago, and he was not an inerrantist by any stretch of the imagination. He says, “It is a mistake often made by educated persons who happen to have but little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that fundamentalism,” that’s us, “is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind; it is the partial and uneducated survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. How many were there, for instance, in Christian churches in the eighteenth century who doubted the infallible inspiration of all Scripture? A few, perhaps, but very few. No, the fundamentalist may be wrong; I think that he is,” says Lake, “But it is we,” meaning the academics, the liberals, “who have departed from the tradition, not he, and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who tries to argue with a fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and the corpus theologicum of the Church is on the fundamentalist side.” So even the non-inerrantists acknowledge that the historic position of the Church has been inerrancy.

The stakes in inerrancy and by that one, the stakes in inerrancy I mean this. If we were to deny the inerrancy of Scripture, if we were to cave into the liberals on the question of the inerrancy of the Bible, if we were to let the camel poke its nose in the tent to let the Trojan horse in, the results would be catastrophic.

I mean, think about it. If the Bible contains errors on so-called “lesser” matters, however few or however many, how can any of us be sure, like, really sure that the Bible is accurate on what we deem to be “more significant” matters? How can we be sure that our understanding of Christ is correct? How can we be sure that we have an accurate historical record of our Lord’s death and and burial and resurrection? If we were to allow for the possibility of any errors, how much would those errors and understandings, affect our theology, our Christology? Our Soteriology, our doctrine of salvation? Our Eschatology, our understanding of end times and what happens at the end? How drastically would that re-direct us and turn us away from true Christian faith? Ryrie is right when he says, “Any error opens the Bible to suspicion on other points that might not be so ‘minor.’ If inerrancy falls, other doctrines will fall too.” A denial of inerrancy could lead to any of the following. It could lead to the denial of there being a historical Adam, like William Lane Craig now contends. That Adam was really kind of a mytho-historical figure. Denial of inerrancy could lead to a denial of the fall of Adam. Or a denial of the experiences of the prophet Jonah. Or a denial of the accounts of the various miracles performed in the Old Testament. Or a denial of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Or a denial of the seriousness of adultery or homosexuality. Or the very limited grounds on which divorce, and remarriage are permissible. I raise those ones because Jesus affirmed each of those truths in the Scriptures. If someone were to reject inerrancy, they would be putting themselves in the very kind of bizarre awkward position of rejecting what Jesus openly affirmed and disbelieving what Jesus open about His beliefs in.

I appreciate what Ed Hindson says on this subject. He says “No one defended the inerrancy of the Scriptures more than Jesus. He quoted biblical passages in responding to his disciples, his critics, and the devil himself. He referred to almost every controversial story in the Old Testament including Noah, Jonah, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and Daniel. He emphasized technical details of interpretation and dared to claim the entire Old Testament message was all about Him. We are ultimately left with one of two choices: poor dumb Jesus or poor dumb scholars. I’ll stick with Jesus every time.” Amen.

Inerrancy, in other words, is a crucial issue. It’s a foundational issue and the stakes are incredibly high. Especially in a day and a time like ours, in our truth-suppressing culture, in our truth-starved culture. I’m going to wind down our time this evening with sort of a string of quotes here from a number of different theologians on this important matter of the of inerrancy. This will be how we close. Some high point quotes here.

First, we have Arnold Fruchtenbaum. He says, “If the doctrine of inerrancy is not true, then the Scriptures become an untrustworthy document. To claim that it is inerrant in areas of faith and practice but errant in other areas is simply a self-contained contradiction. Furthermore, it is now the interpreter who determines what in the Bible is true and what is not and therefore it all becomes subjective, and the Scriptures become just another ‘holy book’ but not a reliable document. Inerrancy provides the believer an objective standard that enables him to determine truth from error in all subjects the Bible addresses.”

Or Randall Price says, “If Scripture is not totally inerrant with reference to the things of this world, it has no authority to command men in the world of men and has no claim above any other religious texts produced by mankind.”

Norm Geisler, he says, “Inerrancy is foundational to all other essential Christian doctrines. It is granted that some other doctrines (like the atoning death and bodily resurrection of Christ) are more essential to salvation. However, all soteriological (salvation-related) doctrines derive their divine authority from the divinely authoritative Word of God. So, the doctrine of the divine authority and inerrancy of Scripture is the fundamental of all fundamentals; and if the fundamental of fundamentals is not fundamental, then what is fundamental? It is fundamentally nothing!”

Then John Munro says, “If I did not believe in the inerrancy of Holy Scripture I would resign as a preacher and teacher of the Bible which is the Word of God written. I can authoritatively say, ‘Thus says the Lord’ when I preach the Bible as it comes from a God who cannot lie. ‘Let him who has my word speak my word in truth’” quoting Jeremiah 23. “To question the inerrancy of Scripture inevitably leads to weak and confusing preaching with disastrous consequences! ”

David Farnell, my Greek professor, says, “The importance of inerrancy generates from the very perfections of the character of God himself who cannot lie. To say that his Word errs or is imperfect is to blaspheme God himself who is the Author of his Word.”

Last one. This is going to be a series of four slides here from Robert Wilkin. We have four options here as we leave tonight, as we think about inerrancy. “Option 1: The Bible is God’s Word and is absolutely true in every detail.” File that one away, okay? “Option 2: God never errs and neither does his Word.” “Option 3: God’s Word is 100 percent true from Genesis to Revelation.” Which one are you going to pick? “Option 4: Man’s ability to find fault with God and his Word is about to run out.” Pick them all. They are all true.

Let’s give our last word tonight to the Lord Himself. Again, John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Let’s pray.

God, thank you for the chance we’ve had tonight to get into the Word, to study Your word and to be reminded of what we hold and what is in Your word. What we hold in our hands, what we see on our screens, however we take in the Word is the inerrant word of You God. Thank you that You are a God who is a God of truth. A God who is true and a God who is truly revealed Yourself to mankind through the Word. Thank you that we can have access to Your thoughts in a sense. That we can understand creation. We can understand our plight. We can understand salvation and redemption. We can understand what will happen, what future glory looks like and will be like. God thank you that Your word is sure and true, it never changes. Psalm 119:89 says” it’s forever fixed in the heavens.” God what amazing truths and what an amazing God You are, an amazing God that we have the privilege of serving. God, I pray that You would send us into this week with VBS and every other activity we have going on in our homes and in our workplaces with a resolved and renewed confidence. Not only in what the Word is and what the Word says, but Who it points to, Jesus Christ. I pray that we will go about this week as faithful ambassadors for Him, for the Lord, and bring much glory to Him in the process. It’s in the name of Christ we pray. Amen.