The Doctrine of the Holy Scripture

The immovable foundation on which we build the magnificent and mighty house of theology is the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures. These Holy Scriptures are limited to the Old and New Testament as commonly found in most English translations (ie. ESV, KJV, NIV, etc). If we incorrectly understand the doctrine of relevation concerning the Bible, we will incorrectly read, interpret, and apply all of the Scriptures in our lives. Due to this being a blog, and not a book, I want to discuss four main areas concerning the doctrine of the Word: inspiration, infallibility, inerrancy, and interpretation.

 

1. In defining inspiration, I am speaking of verbal plenary inspiration. Let me break this down. First, verbal inspiration means that God is the divine author of the Bible. He inspired men and women to write the books, paragraphs, and very words of the Bible in the form they were recorded in the original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). He did not dictate (unless indicated in the text), thus the human writer’s personality was not violated in any way. Therefore, when we read the Bible, we are reading the very words of God. As Millard Erickson writes, “Each word is the exact word God wants used at that point.” Second, plenary inspiration means the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are equally inspired. I do not deny there is a range of importance concerning the Scripture. However, as Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Seeing the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture will greatly affect how we interpret and apply it to our contemporary lives.
(Concerning inspiration also see Deuteronomy 18:18, 2 Samuel 23:2, Isaiah 59:21, Acts 4:24-25, 2 Peter 1:20-21)

 

2. Because God is the divine author of the Bible, it is also infallible. When speaking of infallibility, I am stating the Scripture never fails in its testimony or its results because its author is never failing and truthful. It provides all of mankind with the truths needed to receive salvation, live holy lives devoted to God, and teach us about other aspects of our world. Therefore, it covers both faith, conduct (practice), and all other areas that it states truth– including creation, worldwide flood, etc.

 

3. Along the same lines, inerrant signifies the Bible is free from all mistakes or falsehoods in its original manuscripts. Therefore, we can be assured of its trustworthiness. The Bible addresses many issues: biology, nature, sociology, spirituality, etc. However, it does not teach us how to add or subtract or how to fix our cars. In the issues that it addresses, the Bible is without error. This will become very important in discussing modern objections to the Bible concerning issues such as evolution, psychology, and ethics to name a few. The Word of God is never misleading, but is always reliable. We cannot say this about any other book! Affirming inerrancy does not deny that some translations of the original manuscripts can contain errors. So they are only inerrant as far as they faithfully translate and rest upon an orthodox foundation of the originals (of which there are over 5,000 copies).

(Concerning infallibility & inerrancy see 2 Samuel 7:28, Proverbs 30:5, Matthew 24:35, John 17:17, Hebrews 6:18, The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy)

 

4. Based on the first three areas, we now come to interpretation. The Bible is meaningless if we do not interpret and apply it to our lives. Therefore, realizing the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture, the only viable interpreting option to affirm these three truths concerning God's Word is historical grammatical interpretation. The main issue in interpretation is: Who has the right to determine the meaning of a text?  The grammatical interpretation of Scripture holds that the words as the author wrote them down and their structure in sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books, genre, and location in the cannon contains the meaning of the text.  Therefore, the study of the original languages is paramount in interpretation.  We have many faithful English translations, but as the saying goes, there are some things that are lost in translation.  The only way to recover this is to faithfully study or rely on other’s faithful research of the original languages.  Also the historical setting determines what the author meant when he or she wrote it.  The meaning of words has changed over the years. For example, the word “apple” a hundred years ago would be describing a fruit.  Today, it could be describing a fruit or a computer.  Therefore, to correctly interpret Scripture, we must investigate the historical setting of the text to determine what those hearing or reading the text (the first audience) would have understood the writer to be saying.  The meaning of a text cannot mean something that the first audience would not have understood.  I affirm that a text can have many different applications, but can only one meaning.  Therefore, no one has the right to say, “This text means this for me, but means this for you so both of our interpretations are correct.” You and I do not have the ability to determine the meaning; God has already determined it in the grammar and historical setting of the text as He inspired the human writer.  Roy Zuck offers a one sentence summary, “The better we understand the grammar of Scripture and the historical setting in which those sentences were first communicated, the better we can understand the truths God intended to convey to us.”  (As a side note, my philosophy of preaching is best described by John Piper as “expository exultation” because it is most faithful to historical grammatical interpretation.)

 

If you and I perceive the Bible as anything other than inspired, infallible, and inerrant, our resulting interpretation and understanding about all other areas of theology will be wrong (at best) or blaspheming (at worst). Furthermore, denying these truths leaves the entire Bible void of any authority to tell us about God or ourselves. Therefore, we have no source of meaning because the Bible then becomes a book of novel stories written by imaginative men and women. Salvation means nothing. All hope is lost. We are left with nothing. We may have differing views concerning election, church government, and end times. But if we do not agree on the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of the Bible, we are at odds with the Bible’s own testimony about itself, and we will totally abolish any chance at grasping the great truths of God, interpreting them correctly, and applying them to our contemporary lives.

 

The authority of the Bible upon our lives and the lives of all people testifies that disbelieving or disobeying any word of Scripture is disbelieving or disobeying the holy God – its Author. And disbelieving or disobeying a righteous God has grave consequences.

 

Pause and let this sink in.

 

 

[For more study see: Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem (chapters 2-8); 40 Questions about Interpreting the Bible by Robert L. Plummer, A Theology for the Church ed. by Daniel Akin (chapter 3), Basic Bible Interpretation by Roy B. Zuck, Hermeneutics by Virkler & Ayayo, and The Chicago Statement on Inerrancy at this link http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html]