Reformed Theology and the Doctrines of Grace — Unit 2: Scripture: Inspiration, Inerrancy, Sufficiency

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 the Reformed churches place Scripture as the final authority for doctrine, preaching and life.

2. Define inspiration, and describe how God and the human authors both worked in the writing of Scripture.

3. Define inerrancy and infallibility, and explain what inerrancy does and does not claim.

4. Explain the sufficiency of Scripture and the Reformed principle that Scripture is the supreme rule while the confessions are a servant rule.

5. State four objections (alleged errors, human authorship, the need for church tradition, and the claim that Scripture only becomes God's Word in an event) and answer each from the Reformed side.

Why This Unit Comes Second

In Unit 1 we taught that God is sovereign. A student may fairly ask how we know that. The answer is that God has spoken, and His speech is written. Every doctrine in this course stands or falls on what the Bible says. For this reason the Westminster Confession of Faith begins with Scripture, in chapter 1, before it speaks of God. The Belgic Confession speaks of God in its first article, and then in articles 2 to 7 it turns to the way God makes Himself known and to the Scriptures.

This course is written from inside the Reformed tradition, for students who hold the Bible to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God. Others see parts of this doctrine differently. We state their views fairly and then answer them from Scripture.

Inspiration: God-Breathed Scripture

Paul writes that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Timothy 3:16). The Greek word behind "given by inspiration" means "God-breathed." Scripture is not described here as a book that people breathed into by their religious feeling, nor as a book that God later made use of. It comes from the mouth of God. Peter says the same about the prophets: "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).

Notice the two parts of Peter's sentence. The writers were "holy men," real human beings, and they "spoke." But they spoke as they were "moved by the Holy Spirit." Reformed teachers have called this organic inspiration. God did not set aside the personality, vocabulary and history of Isaiah, Luke or Paul. He prepared them, He worked in them, and what they wrote is truly their words and truly His. This is the same pattern we saw in Unit 1. God is the first cause and the writers are secondary causes, and the result is not shared between them. It is wholly from God and wholly from them. The old word for this is concursus.

Two terms are used to describe how far inspiration reaches. Verbal inspiration means that it extends to the words and not only to the general ideas. Plenary means "full": it covers all of Scripture, not just parts of it. Jesus held this view. He said that "the Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35), and in Matthew 5:18 He said that not a letter or a stroke of the law would pass away until all is fulfilled. Paul thanked God that the Thessalonians received his preaching not as the word of men but as it truly is, the word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

The great Princeton theologians Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield set out this doctrine carefully in their 1881 article "Inspiration." They taught that God superintended the writers, who wrote in their own style, and that their words are God's words.

Inerrancy and Infallibility

If Scripture is God-breathed, it cannot teach error, because God does not lie (Titus 1:2) and does not make mistakes. This is what we mean by inerrancy: the Bible, in its original writings, is without error in all that it affirms. Infallibility is a closely related word, meaning that Scripture cannot lead us astray in what it teaches. Some use "infallible" for matters of faith and life and "inerrant" for everything the Bible affirms, including history. The churches that hold to inerrancy say the two cannot be separated, because the Bible's teaching about salvation is bound up with its history. In 1978 evangelical scholars and pastors issued the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy to say this clearly.

Inerrancy is often misunderstood, so it is useful to say what it does not claim.

It applies to the original writings. The Westminster Confession, chapter 1, section 8, says that the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek were immediately inspired by God and, by His care and providence, kept pure in all ages. We do not say that every copy or translation is perfect. Copyists made small slips, and the manuscripts show differences in wording. Students of the text have been able to sort these out with great confidence, and no doctrine of the faith depends on an uncertain reading.

It does not demand modern precision. The Bible speaks in ordinary language. It says that the sun rises, as we do. It may round numbers, report a speech in summary, or arrange events by theme instead of by date. These are normal ways of speaking, not mistakes. A statement is inerrant when it is true in the sense the author intended.

It respects the kind of writing. Poetry, parable, history, law and prophecy each have their own manner. Reading Psalms as if they were a legal contract, or Revelation as if it were a news report, is poor interpretation, not a defense of inerrancy.

The Canon

How do we know which books belong in Scripture? Some have said the church's decision gave the books their authority. The Reformed answer, given in the Belgic Confession, articles 4 to 6, and the Westminster Confession, chapter 1, is that the church received the books because they are the Word of God, not that the church made them so. Sheep know their shepherd's voice (John 10:27). The Belgic Confession lists the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments and says the books we call apocryphal may be read for instruction so far as they agree with the canonical books, but they have no power to confirm any point of faith. The Westminster Confession, chapter 1, section 3, goes further and says the Apocrypha, not being inspired, have no authority in the church.

Authority and the Witness of the Spirit

Why do we believe the Bible? The confessions give two answers that work together. First, the Bible's own character: its heavenly teaching, the unity of its parts, and above all its message of salvation. Second, and more basic, the inward work of the Holy Spirit. Calvin taught this in the Institutes, Book I, chapter 7. The Belgic Confession, article 5, says we receive these books as holy and canonical, not so much because the church receives them, but especially because the Holy Spirit witnesses in our hearts that they are from God. The Westminster Confession, chapter 1, section 5, says the same. This witness does not give new revelation. It opens our eyes to see what is already in the text. As Paul says, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, "nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). We will see why in Unit 3.

Sufficiency and the Principle of Scripture Alone

The Westminster Confession, chapter 1, section 6, teaches that the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His glory, man's salvation, faith and life is either set down in Scripture or may be deduced from it by good and necessary consequence. Nothing is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or by traditions of men. This is the sufficiency of Scripture. Paul says the Scriptures make "the man of God" "complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:17). The psalmist says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path" (Psalm 119:105).

Sufficiency does not mean that the Bible tells us everything, such as how to repair a car. It means that it gives all we need to know God, be saved, and live to please Him. It does not mean that we ignore the church's teachers. The Reformed churches value the creeds and confessions, but they hold them as a subordinate standard. The Westminster Confession, chapter 31, section 3, says plainly that all synods and councils since the apostles' time may err and are not to be the rule of faith. Scripture is the rule that rules; the confession is a rule that is ruled. Course 3 will treat this in the unit "Why Confessions?"

The same chapter, section 7, teaches the clarity of Scripture: not everything in it is equally plain, but what we must know for salvation is clear enough that the unlearned as well as the learned can understand it. And section 9 teaches the rule that Scripture interprets Scripture. When a passage is unclear, we turn to the clearer ones.

A Historians' Debate: Was Inerrancy a Princeton Invention?

Some historians argue that inerrancy was a nineteenth-century idea. The best-known statement of this view is The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible (1979) by Jack Rogers and Donald McKim. They argued that the older Reformed tradition, from Augustine through Calvin, affirmed Scripture's authority for salvation and its truth, but did not insist on freedom from error in all matters. They held that Princeton's Hodge and Warfield, influenced by the scientific and philosophical thinking of their day, hardened the doctrine into something new.

John Woodbridge answered in Biblical Authority (1982) that the older writers were more consistent than that account allows. We find the answer persuasive for reasons that any pastor can check. The Belgic Confession and the Westminster Confession call Scripture the Word of God, and the older teachers saw no way for God's Word to contain error. Calvin does teach that God accommodates Himself to our weakness, speaking in ways we can grasp, and this is a helpful insight. But accommodation means that God speaks in human language, not that He speaks falsely. Princeton defended what earlier generations had assumed.

Objections and Answers

Objection 1: The Bible has errors and contradictions. Critics point to differences between Gospel accounts, to numbers that do not match, and to difficult passages. Some scholars, following the methods of higher criticism, hold that the books grew out of human traditions and contain mistakes.

Our answer. We take the difficulties seriously and do not hide from them. But many apparent contradictions disappear when we ask what the author meant to say. Two accounts of one event may differ because each writer chose different details, and different is not the same as contradictory. Where a real puzzle remains, we recall that we have the copies and not the originals, and that our knowledge of ancient customs and languages is limited. More basic, we trust Jesus. He treated Scripture as the word of God that cannot be broken. A student who trusts Christ will not abandon His view of the Bible because of an unsolved puzzle.

Objection 2: Because humans wrote it, it must be imperfect. Human beings are fallible, so human writings contain error.

Our answer. This assumes that God cannot use human beings without their flaws entering the result. But Scripture says the Holy Spirit "moved" the writers (2 Peter 1:21), and the Lord who made Moses' mouth can govern what he writes (Exodus 4:11). We believe the same God who rules all things by providence also governed the writing of His Word.

Objection 3: Scripture alone is not enough; we need church tradition. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Scripture and sacred tradition together form one deposit of the faith, and that the church's teaching office interprets both.

Our answer. We value the early church's teaching and learn from it. But the Lord Jesus rebuked those who set aside the commandment of God for their tradition (Mark 7:8-9). The Bereans are praised because they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether Paul's teaching was so (Acts 17:11). If tradition is a second source of doctrine, who tests it? Only Scripture can do this. The sufficiency of Scripture is not a rejection of the church. It is the refusal to let any human voice stand beside God's.

Objection 4: Scripture is a witness to the Word of God and becomes the Word when God speaks through it. This is the view associated with the twentieth-century Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who loved Scripture and worked hard to bring the church back to it. In his view the Bible is human testimony to Christ, and it becomes God's Word in the event of encounter, but it is not in itself a series of divine statements.

Our answer. We honor Barth's focus on Christ, but we cannot accept this account. Jesus and the apostles treated what is written as God speaking: "It is written" settled every question. Paul calls the written Scriptures themselves "God-breathed." The Westminster Confession, chapter 1, section 10, calls the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture the supreme judge of all controversies. If the Bible is God's Word only in the moment of hearing, then the church has no fixed standard by which to test claims about what God is saying.

Pastoral Application

A young man from your church returns from his first year at a university. A professor told his class that the Bible is full of contradictions and was edited by many hands over centuries. He says to you, "I don't know what to believe now."

First, thank him for telling you. Many students carry such doubts in silence.

Second, ask which contradictions the professor named. Often the claim is general. Write down the specific passages and promise to study them together.

Third, show him how to read: ask what the author intended, and compare Scripture with Scripture. Work through one example slowly.

Fourth, lead him back to Christ, who trusted the Scriptures. Open John 10:35 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17 with him. Make clear that faith in the Bible is not blind. It rests on the witness of the Spirit and on the trustworthiness of the Lord Jesus.

Fifth, invite him to bring more questions. A faith that is allowed to ask will grow.

Summary

The Reformed churches begin with Scripture as the final authority. Scripture is God-breathed. God and the human writers both worked, so the words are truly the writers' and truly God's. This is verbal and plenary inspiration. Inerrancy means that the original writings are without error in all they affirm, understood according to their kind of writing. The church recognizes the canon and does not create it, and the Holy Spirit's witness in the heart assures us of Scripture's divine origin. Scripture is sufficient for faith and life, and confessions are a servant standard under it. Historians debate whether inerrancy was invented at Princeton, but the confessions and older teachers speak of Scripture as the Word of God without error. We answered four objections: alleged errors, human authorship, the need for tradition, and the view that Scripture only becomes God's Word in an event.

Further Reading

• Belgic Confession (1561), articles 2 to 7.

• Westminster Confession of Faith (1646-47), chapter 1; chapter 31, section 3.

• Second Helvetic Confession (1566), chapter 1, "Of the Holy Scripture."

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, chapters 6 to 9 (Beveridge translation, 1845).

• Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield, "Inspiration" (1881).

• Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1872-73), the volume on theology proper and Scripture.

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