Baptist Theology and Distinctive Doctrines — Unit 1: The Authority of Scripture: Sufficiency and Inerrancy

Key Verse

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain why Baptists place the authority of Scripture first among their beliefs.

2. Define inspiration, sufficiency and inerrancy in plain words and support each from the Bible.

3. Explain the difference between "the Bible alone" as a Baptist principle and the idea that each person may believe anything he likes.

4. State the main objections to inerrancy, including the questions about copyists and difficult passages, and give the Baptist answer.

5. Describe how Baptist confessions treat Scripture and why Baptists use confessions without making them equal to the Bible.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Baptist tradition, for Baptist students. It is conservative. When it says "we," it means Baptists who hold the Bible to be the inspired and fully trustworthy Word of God, who hold that a person is saved by grace through faith, and who govern their churches as free congregations of believers.

Baptists are a large family, and they do not all agree on every point. Where Baptists differ among themselves, this course says so honestly. Where other Christians, or historians, or scholars raise objections to our teaching, we state the objection fairly and then give our answer. Scripture itself says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). A conviction that has been questioned and has stood is stronger than one that was never examined. The history of how Baptists began is taught in Course 1, and we will not repeat it here. This course asks what Baptists believe, and why.

Why Authority Comes First

Every church must answer one question before all others: who has the right to say what is true? Is it the pope, a council, a bishop, a pastor, a tradition, a prophet, or the believer's own feelings? The answer decides everything else. If you answer wrongly, you will build the rest of your church on sand.

Baptists answer that the final authority in matters of faith and practice is the Bible. Jesus Christ is Lord of the church, and He rules His church through His written Word. Almost every other Baptist distinctive in this course comes from this one. We baptize believers by immersion, keep the Lord's Supper as a remembrance, and govern our churches as congregations because we find these things in the New Testament. Without that authority they would only be habits.

Many of you serve among people who respect tradition strongly, or who follow a charismatic leader. The Baptist answer is simple and freeing: every believer may open the Book and hear what God says, and every teaching, including ours, must be tested by it. Like the Bereans, who "searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11), we test every preacher against the written Word.

What Baptists Confess

Baptist confessions agree on this matter. The Second London Confession of 1689, the oldest statement in our list that is still widely read, begins its teaching with the Holy Scriptures. It says that Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of saving knowledge, faith and obedience. The New Hampshire Confession of 1833, which shaped many Baptist churches in the United States and beyond, also begins with Scripture. It teaches that the Bible was written by men divinely inspired, that it is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction, and that it is the standard by which all human opinions should be tried. The Baptist Faith and Message, in its 1925, 1963 and 2000 forms, continues this line, and the 2000 form states that the Bible is totally true and trustworthy.

So when Baptists differ on other matters, such as the questions of salvation we meet in Units 7 to 9, they share one starting point. They bring their arguments to the same Book, and they try to settle them there.

Three Words: Inspiration, Sufficiency, Inerrancy

Three words help us explain what we believe. We will take them one at a time.

Inspiration

The key verse says that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." The Greek word behind this phrase means "God-breathed." Scripture is not simply human writing about God. It comes from God's own mouth, so to speak. Peter explains how this happened: "for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21).

Baptists hold that God worked through the real personalities, vocabularies and circumstances of the human writers. Paul sounds like Paul, and John sounds like John. Yet God so guided them that what they wrote is exactly what He wished written. We call this "verbal" inspiration, which means that the inspiration reaches to the words, not only to the general ideas. Jesus Himself treated the very details of Scripture as binding. He said that not the smallest letter or stroke would pass from the law until all was fulfilled (Matthew 5:18), and He said that "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35).

Sufficiency

Sufficiency means that the Bible contains everything we need to know in order to be saved and to live a life that pleases God. The key verse says that through Scripture the man of God may be "complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." If Scripture can make us complete, nothing needs to be added.

This does not mean the Bible tells us everything. It does not teach us how to repair a motor or treat a fever. It means that on the matters of salvation, doctrine, church life and holy living, God has said enough. The Bible itself warns against adding to it. Moses told Israel not to add to the word or take from it (Deuteronomy 4:2), and the last chapter of Revelation gives a solemn warning against adding to or taking away from that book (Revelation 22:18-19). Jude urges believers to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). The faith was delivered once. It does not need delivering again.

Inerrancy

Inerrancy means that the Bible, in its original writing, is without error in all that it affirms. It follows from the character of God. The Bible says God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). If God is the author of Scripture, and God does not lie, then what He has written is true. Jesus prayed, "Your word is truth" (John 17:17). Many Baptists also use the word "infallible," meaning that Scripture will never lead us astray. Others prefer "inerrant," because it says plainly that the Bible contains no mistakes. Most conservative Baptists use both words together.

In the 1970s many evangelical scholars, including Baptists, joined in a long statement on this subject, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978). It was written to say carefully what inerrancy does and does not mean, and we use its main points below.

What Inerrancy Does Not Mean

Careless teachers sometimes make inerrancy look foolish by claiming too much. A good pastor knows the limits.

First, inerrancy does not mean that every translation is perfect. The inerrancy belongs to the original writings. A translation, such as the Reina-Valera or the New King James Version, is a faithful rendering of those writings, and it is God's Word to the degree that it is faithful.

Second, inerrancy does not mean that every sentence is meant literally. The Bible contains history, poetry, parable, proverb, prophecy and letters. When Jesus says, "I am the door" (John 10:9), He is not made of wood. When the psalmist says that God covers us with His feathers (Psalm 91:4), the picture is a figure of speech. Inerrancy means that what the writer intends to teach, in the form he chooses, is true.

Third, inerrancy allows ordinary human language. The Bible speaks of the sun rising, as we still do, and it often rounds numbers. These are not mistakes.

Fourth, inerrancy does not make us the final interpreters. A teacher can be wrong about what Scripture says. The Bible is without error. Our understanding of it is not.

Objections and Baptist Answers

A pastor must be ready for honest questions. We state them as their holders would.

Objection 1: We do not have the original manuscripts, so inerrancy is meaningless.

It is true that we do not have the writings in the hands of Moses, Paul or John. We have thousands of copies. Careful scholars compare them, and the copies are very close to one another. The differences that remain are mostly small matters of spelling or word order, and no teaching of the faith depends on a doubtful reading. Our answer. We have the Bible in a form that is reliable enough to teach every doctrine we hold. The doctrine of inerrancy tells us what God gave. The work of textual study helps us recover it, and we welcome that work.

Objection 2: The Bible contains contradictions, for example in the Gospels and in the numbers of Kings and Chronicles.

Critics point to passages where accounts differ, such as the number of angels at the tomb, or details of the same event in different Gospels. Our answer. A difference is not always a contradiction. Different witnesses to the same event select different details, and each can be true. Reports of the same event from several sides often seem at first to disagree and later turn out to fit together. Where a hard passage remains, the Baptist pastor does not hide it. He says, "I do not yet see how these fit together, but I have found Scripture to be reliable every time it has been fully understood, so I will keep studying." Jesus and the apostles trusted Scripture, and we follow them.

Objection 3: Inerrancy is a modern idea invented by American fundamentalists.

Some historians say that the word "inerrancy" and its careful definition arose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our answer. The word is newer, because it was needed when attacks on the Bible became sharper. The belief is old. The church fathers wrote of Scripture's truthfulness, the Reformers defended it, and the 1689 Baptist Confession called Scripture infallible. A doctrine is not new because a new word was used to guard it, any more than the word "Trinity," which does not appear in the Bible, is a new teaching. The Conservative Resurgence among Southern Baptists, told in Course 1, was in large part a return to this plain view.

Objection 4: Some Baptists prefer to say the Bible is "trustworthy" or "authoritative" but avoid "inerrant."

This is true. Some Baptists, in moderate and other circles, fear that the word brings in a hard intellectual test, or they think it draws attention away from Christ. Our answer. Jesus Himself held a high view of Scripture. If the Bible may be wrong in what it affirms, we must decide for ourselves which parts to trust, and then our own judgment, not God's Word, becomes the final authority. Inerrancy simply protects the principle that the Bible is over us.

Objection 5: The Catholic and Orthodox churches say that Scripture and tradition together are the authority.

They teach that the church formed the Bible and so the church must interpret it. Our answer. The church did recognize the books of the New Testament, but it did not make them authoritative. They carried authority from the beginning, as God's apostolic witness. Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of His day because they set aside the commandment of God for their tradition (Mark 7:8-13). Baptists honor the great early creeds and the teaching of the fathers where they agree with the Bible. But they test them by it.

"The Bible Alone" Is Not "Me Alone"

Baptists sometimes misunderstand their own principle. Historic Baptists taught that the Bible alone is the final authority. They did not teach that each believer's private opinion is final, or that church history has nothing to teach us. The older writers sometimes spoke of "sola Scriptura," Scripture alone as the highest authority, but not the only voice we hear.

Baptists therefore use confessions of faith. A confession is a written statement of what a group believes the Bible teaches. We adopt it to teach our people, to guard against error and to show other Christians where we stand. Baptists have always said that a confession is below the Bible. It may be corrected by the Bible, and the Bible may not be corrected by it. Baptists also read Scripture together. The pastor teaches, the church studies, and the Spirit gives understanding to the whole body. This is why Ephesians 4:11-12 speaks of teachers who equip the saints.

The Baptist principle protects us from two dangers. On one side is the danger of a tradition or a church authority that stands over the Bible. On the other is the danger of a private "revelation" that stands over the Bible. In both cases the Word is silenced.

Scripture and New Revelations

In many majority-world churches a visiting speaker says, "God told me," and what he reports differs from Scripture. Baptists hold different views about spiritual gifts, and this course will not settle that debate. But Baptist confessions agree that nothing claiming to come from God may contradict the written Word or be added to it as new doctrine (Galatians 1:8). If it agrees with the Bible, it needs no new authority. If it disagrees, it should be refused.

Pastoral Application

A pastor in a growing Baptist church in a Mexican town is visited by a young deacon. The deacon has watched a video from an online teacher who says that the Bible is full of mistakes written by men and that only the "spirit behind it" is true. He asks the pastor, "Pastor, can we really trust what we preach on Sunday?"

The pastor does four things. First, he thanks the young man for asking, and does not rebuke him. Second, he asks what exact mistakes the video claimed to find. Often the claims are old and have careful answers. Third, he opens 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and John 10:35 with him, to show how Jesus and the apostles treated Scripture. Fourth, he is honest about hard passages. He promises to study the examples with the deacon, in the church's Bible class, rather than pretend that no difficult passage exists. Finally, he reminds him that the Bible has changed many lives in their own town.

Summary

Baptists put the authority of Scripture first because Christ rules His church through His written Word, and every other Baptist distinctive rests on it. Inspiration means that Scripture is God-breathed. Sufficiency means that it contains all we need for salvation and godly living and needs no additions. Inerrancy means that the original writings are without error in all that they affirm. Inerrancy does not demand a perfect translation, wooden literalism, or an infallible interpreter. The common objections concern copyists, difficult passages, the age of the word "inerrancy," the preference of some Baptists for other words, and the claims of tradition. Each has an answer from Scripture and from honest scholarship. Baptist confessions, from 1689 to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, place the Bible above themselves, and Baptists use them to teach, not to replace the Word.

Further Reading

• James Leo Garrett Jr., Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study (2009).

• E. Y. Mullins, The Axioms of Religion (1908), a public-domain classic.

• John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology (1857), a public-domain classic.

• Herschel H. Hobbs, The Baptist Faith and Message (1971).

• The Second London Confession (1689) and the New Hampshire Confession (1833), both public domain.

• The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Southern Baptist Convention.

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