Preface
The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the
Christian church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their
discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God's written Word. To
stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master.
Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is
essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.
The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of
Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning
against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the
witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that
submission to the claims of God's own Word which marks true Christian
faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face
of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow
Christians and misunderstandings of this doctrine in the world at large.
This Statement consists of three parts: a Summary
Statement, Articles of Affirmation and Denial, and an accompanying
Exposition. It has been prepared in the course of a three-day
consultation in Chicago. Those who have signed the Summary Statement and
the Articles wish to affirm their own conviction as to the inerrancy of
Scripture and to encourage and challenge one another and all Christians
to growing appreciation and understanding of this doctrine. We
acknowledge the limitations of a document prepared in a brief, intensive
conference and do not propose that this Statement be given creedal
weight. Yet we rejoice in the deepening of our own convictions through
our discussions together, and we pray that the Statement we have signed
may be used to the glory of our God toward a new reformation of the
Church in its faith, life, and mission.
We offer this Statement in a spirit, not of contention,
but of humility and love, which we purpose by God's grace to maintain
in any future dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly
acknowledge that many who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display
the consequences of this denial in the rest of their belief and
behavior, and we are conscious that we who confess this doctrine often
deny it in life by failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our
traditions and habits, into true subjection to the divine Word.
We invite response to this statement from any who see
reason to amend its affirmations about Scripture by the light of
Scripture itself, under whose infallible authority we stand as we speak.
We claim no personal infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any
help which enables us to strengthen this testimony to God's Word we
shall be grateful.
— The Draft CommitteeA Short Statement
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both
authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to
understand its meaning.
4. 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.
5. 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.
Articles of Affirmation and Denial
Article I.
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.
Article II.
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 III.
WE AFFIRM that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.
WE DENY that the Bible is merely
a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or
depends on the responses of men for its validity.
Article IV.
WE AFFIRM that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.
WE DENY that human language is
so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a
vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of
human culture and language through sin has thwarted God's work of
inspiration.
Article V.
WE AFFIRM that God's revelation within the Holy Scriptures was progressive.
WE DENY that later revelation,
which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it.
We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the
completion of the New Testament writings.
Article VI.
WE AFFIRM that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.
WE DENY that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.
Article VII.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration was
the work in which God by His Spirit, through human writers, gave us His
Word. The origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine inspiration
remains largely a mystery to us.
WE DENY that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to heightened states of consciousness of any kind.
Article VIII.
WE AFFIRM that God in His work
of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary
styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared.
WE DENY that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.
Article IX.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration,
though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy
utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to
speak and write.
WE DENY that the finitude or
fallenness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced
distortion or falsehood into God's Word.
Article X.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration,
strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture,
which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available
manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and
translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they
faithfully represent the original.
WE DENY that any essential
element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the
autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of
Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
Article XI.
WE AFFIRM that Scripture, having
been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from
misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the matters it addresses.
WE DENY that it is possible for
the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its
assertions. Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished, but not
separated.
Article XII.
WE AFFIRM that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.
WE DENY that Biblical
infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or
redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and
science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history
may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation
and the flood.
Article XIII.
WE AFFIRM the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.
WE DENY that it is proper to
evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are
alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated
by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision,
irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of
nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round
numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of
material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.
Article XIV.
WE AFFIRM the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.
WE DENY that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible.
Article XV.
WE AFFIRM that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration.
WE DENY that Jesus' teaching
about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation or to any
natural limitation of His humanity.
Article XVI.
WE AFFIRM that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church's faith throughout its history.
WE DENY that inerrancy is a
doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary
position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.
Article XVII.
WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written Word.
WE DENY that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.
Article XVIII.
WE AFFIRM that the text of
Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking
account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to
interpret Scripture.
WE DENY the legitimacy of any
treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to
relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or
rejecting its claims to authorship.
Article XIX.
WE AFFIRM that a confession of
the full authority, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital
to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We further
affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the
image of Christ.
WE DENY that such confession is
necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be
rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the
Church.
Exposition
Our understanding of the doctrine of inerrancy must be
set in the context of the broader teachings of the Scripture concerning
itself. This exposition gives an account of the outline of doctrine from
which our summary statement and articles are drawn.
Creation, Revelation and Inspiration
The Triune God, who formed all things by his creative
utterances and governs all things by His Word of decree, made mankind in
His own image for a life of communion with Himself, on the model of the
eternal fellowship of loving communication within the Godhead. As God's
image-bearer, man was to hear God's Word addressed to him and to
respond in the joy of adoring obedience. Over and above God's
self-disclosure in the created order and the sequence of events within
it, human beings from Adam on have received verbal messages from Him,
either directly, as stated in Scripture, or indirectly in the form of
part or all of Scripture itself.
When Adam fell, the Creator did not abandon mankind to
final judgment but promised salvation and began to reveal Himself as
Redeemer in a sequence of historical events centering on Abraham's
family and culminating in the life, death, resurrection, present
heavenly ministry, and promised return of Jesus Christ. Within this
frame God has from time to time spoken specific words of judgment and
mercy, promise and command, to sinful human beings so drawing them into a
covenant relation of mutual commitment between Him and them in which He
blesses them with gifts of grace and they bless Him in responsive
adoration. Moses, whom God used as mediator to carry His words to His
people at the time of the Exodus, stands at the head of a long line of
prophets in whose mouths and writings God put His words for delivery to
Israel. God's purpose in this succession of messages was to maintain His
covenant by causing His people to know His Name—that is, His nature—and
His will both of precept and purpose in the present and for the future.
This line of prophetic spokesmen from God came to completion in Jesus
Christ, God's incarnate Word, who was Himself a prophet—more than a
prophet, but not less—and in the apostles and prophets of the first
Christian generation. When God's final and climactic message, His word
to the world concerning Jesus Christ, had been spoken and elucidated by
those in the apostolic circle, the sequence of revealed messages ceased.
Henceforth the Church was to live and know God by what He had already
said, and said for all time.
At Sinai God wrote the terms of His covenant on tables
of stone, as His enduring witness and for lasting accessibility, and
throughout the period of prophetic and apostolic revelation He prompted
men to write the messages given to and through them, along with
celebratory records of His dealings with His people, plus moral
reflections on covenant life and forms of praise and prayer for covenant
mercy. The theological reality of inspiration in the producing of
Biblical documents corresponds to that of spoken prophecies: although
the human writers' personalities were expressed in what they wrote, the
words were divinely constituted. Thus, what Scripture says, God says;
its authority is His authority, for He is its ultimate Author, having
given it through the minds and words of chosen and prepared men who in
freedom and faithfulness "spoke from God as they were carried along by
the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:21). Holy Scripture must be acknowledged as
the Word of God by virtue of its divine origin.
Authority: Christ and the Bible
Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is the Word made
flesh, our Prophet, Priest, and King, is the ultimate Mediator of God's
communication to man, as He is of all God's gifts of grace. The
revelation He gave was more than verbal; He revealed the Father by His
presence and His deeds as well. Yet His words were crucially important;
for He was God, He spoke from the Father, and His words will judge all
men at the last day.
As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus Christ is the central
theme of Scripture. The Old Testament looked ahead to Him; the New
Testament looks back to His first coming and on to His second. Canonical
Scripture is the divinely inspired and therefore normative witness to
Christ. No hermeneutic, therefore, of which the historical Christ is not
the focal point is acceptable. Holy Scripture must be treated as what
it essentially is—the witness of the Father to the Incarnate Son.
It appears that the Old Testament canon had been fixed
by the time of Jesus. The New Testament canon is likewise now closed
inasmuch as no new apostolic witness to the historical Christ can now be
borne. No new revelation (as distinct from Spirit-given understanding
of existing revelation) will be given until Christ comes again. The
canon was created in principle by divine inspiration. The Church's part
was to discern the canon which God had created, not to devise one of its
own.
The word canon, signifying a rule or standard,
is a pointer to authority, which means the right to rule and control.
Authority in Christianity belongs to God in His revelation, which means,
on the one hand, Jesus Christ, the living Word, and, on the other hand,
Holy Scripture, the written Word. But the authority of Christ and that
of Scripture are one. As our Prophet, Christ testified that Scripture
cannot be broken. As our Priest and King, He devoted His earthly life to
fulfilling the law and the prophets, even dying in obedience to the
words of Messianic prophecy. Thus, as He saw Scripture attesting Him and
His authority, so by His own submission to Scripture He attested its
authority. As He bowed to His Father's instruction given in His Bible
(our Old Testament), so He requires His disciples to do—not, however, in
isolation but in conjunction with the apostolic witness to Himself
which He undertook to inspire by His gift of the Holy Spirit. So
Christians show themselves faithful servants of their Lord by bowing to
the divine instruction given in the prophetic and apostolic writings
which together make up our Bible.
By authenticating each other's authority, Christ and
Scripture coalesce into a single fount of authority. The
Biblically-interpreted Christ and the Christ-centered,
Christ-proclaiming Bible are from this standpoint one. As from the fact
of inspiration we infer that what Scripture says, God says, so from the
revealed relation between Jesus Christ and Scripture we may equally
declare that what Scripture says, Christ says.
Infallibility, Inerrancy, Interpretation
Holy Scripture, as the inspired Word of God witnessing authoritatively to Jesus Christ, may properly be called infallible and inerrant. These negative terms have a special value, for they explicitly safeguard crucial positive truths.
lnfallible signifies the quality of neither
misleading nor being misled and so safeguards in categorical terms the
truth that Holy Scripture is a sure, safe, and reliable rule and guide
in all matters.
Similarly, inerrant signifies the quality of
being free from all falsehood or mistake and so safeguards the truth
that Holy Scripture is entirely true and trustworthy in all its
assertions.
We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be
interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in
determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we
must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a
human production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and
conventions of His penman's milieu, a milieu that God controls in His
sovereign providence; it is misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.
So history must be treated as history, poetry as
poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization
and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between
literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed:
since, for instance, non-chronological narration and imprecise citation
were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those
days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in
Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not
expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture
is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern
standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that
measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.
The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by the
appearance in it of irregularities of grammar or spelling, phenomenal
descriptions of nature, reports of false statements (e.g., the
lies of Satan), or seeming discrepancies between one passage and
another. It is not right to set the so-called "phenomena" of Scripture
against the teaching of Scripture about itself. Apparent inconsistencies
should not be ignored. Solution of them, where this can be convincingly
achieved, will encourage our faith, and where for the present no
convincing solution is at hand we shall significantly honor God by
trusting His assurance that His Word is true, despite these appearances,
and by maintaining our confidence that one day they will be seen to
have been illusions.
Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single
divine mind, interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy
of Scripture and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical
passage by another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of
the imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer's mind.
Although Holy Scripture is nowhere culture-bound in the
sense that its teaching lacks universal validity, it is sometimes
culturally conditioned by the customs and conventional views of a
particular period, so that the application of its principles today calls
for a different sort of action.
Skepticism and Criticism
Since the Renaissance, and more particularly since the
Enlightenment, world-views have been developed which involve skepticism
about basic Christian tenets. Such are the agnosticism which denies that
God is knowable, the rationalism which denies that He is
incomprehensible, the idealism which denies that He is transcendent, and
the existentialism which denies rationality in His relationships with
us. When these un- and anti-biblical principles seep into men's
theologies at [a] presuppositional level, as today they frequently do,
faithful interpretation of Holy Scripture becomes impossible.
Transmission and Translation
Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission
of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text
of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of
textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept
into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this
science, however, is that the Hebrew and Greek text appear to be
amazingly well preserved, so that we are amply justified in affirming,
with the Westminster Confession, a singular providence of God in this
matter and in declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way
jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely
error-free.
Similarly, no translation is or can be perfect, and all translations are an additional step away from the autographa.
Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English-speaking
Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a
host of excellent translations and have no cause for hesitating to
conclude that the true Word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in
view of the frequent repetition in Scripture of the main matters with
which it deals and also of the Holy Spirit's constant witness to and
through the Word, no serious translation of Holy Scripture will so
destroy its meaning as to render it unable to make its reader "wise for
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15).
Inerrancy and Authority
In our affirmation of the authority of Scripture as
involving its total truth, we are consciously standing with Christ and
His apostles, indeed with the whole Bible and with the main stream of
Church history from the first days until very recently. We are concerned
at the casual, inadvertent, and seemingly thoughtless way in which a
belief of such far-reaching importance has been given up by so many in
our day.
We are conscious too that great and grave confusion
results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose
authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step
is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has
authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands
of one's critical reasonings and in principle reducible still further
once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now
has authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen
and if for the time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held,
persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical
identity while methodologically they have moved away from the
evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will
find it hard not to move further.
We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified. Amen and Amen.
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