On the heels of the truthfulness and authority of Scripture comes its inerrancy. The three are closely intertwined, and especially connected are truthfulness and inerrancy. When we say Scripture is true, we positively affirm that it is correct in every area, in every way. When we call it inerrant, we deny that anything in it is incorrect or in error.
Previously, I’ve connected truthfulness with authority, and I will later connect inerrancy to the reliability of Scripture, but there aren’t clear borders between any of these truths. They overlap to form a comprehensive understanding of what Scripture is.
Really, most doctrines about the Bible are closely related because they are successive to the doctrine of inspiration. They depend on that doctrine, and flow directly out of them. If the Bible is inspired by God, then it will be true, consistent with His nature as One who is true. It must carry the weight of His own authority, since the words are His. It will be inerrant, because God knows no error. And the list could go on. We quickly get into a tangled mess when we begin to make God’s Word something He is not. It is from Him, so it is consistent with His character.
Inerrancy is sometimes viewed as a minor theological point, disconnected from everyday life, but much more is at stake then we think. Kevin DeYoung, in his book Taking God at His Word, says, “Defending the doctrine of inerrancy may seem like a fool’s errand to some and a divisive shibboleth to others, but, in truth, the doctrine is at the heart of our faith. To deny, disregard, edit, alter, reject, or rule out anything in God’s word is to commit the sin of unbelief.”1 We must hold to the entire accuracy, purity, and truth of God’s Word, else we doubt the purity and truthfulness of God Himself.
A Definition of Inerrancy
Defining biblical inerrancy can be difficult. One the one hand, an honest reading of the Bible does yield some things that appear to be inconsistent or errant. We find inconsistent numbering, different accounts of similar events that seem to contradict each other, quotations in the New Testament that don’t match the Old Testament, and other similar things. A definition that ignores these occurrences will have difficulty holding up to the facts of the text. On the other hand, if we allow that the text is truly wrong in any of these cases, we say that God was wrong too. Our definition must affirm the total accuracy of the Bible while providing reasonable explanations for the things that may, to our minds, seem inconsistent with inerrancy.
Of the eight definitions I studied, I believe Charles Ryrie’s is the clearest. “The Bible is inerrant in that it tells the truth, and it does so without error in all parts and with all its words.”2 Most concise definitions still require a good deal of explanation, which is why the writers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy follow their definition with nineteen articles and a good deal of additional clarification. That said, the precision necessary for a full-fledged definition shouldn’t drive us away from the central truth: the Bible is true.
There are some who divide inerrancy from infallibility. Inerrancy defines the fact that God’s Word is perfect—without error. Infallibility means that the Bible will not lead us astray. Some scholars teach that Scripture faithfully leads us to God, but they don’t hold to the accuracy of the text in other non-spiritual matters. That is, they say the Bible is inerrant spiritually but not scientifically and historically. This, I believe, is an unnecessary division and only leads away from faithfulness to Scripture and the God who penned it.
Support for Biblical Inerrancy
The three strongest supports for biblical inerrancy are: the church’s historic acceptance of inerrancy, the Scripture’s consistent teaching about itself, and God’s own character.
On the first, we must go back to the founder of the church—Christ. Surprisingly, a search for Christ’s teaching on inerrancy doesn’t yield much. Does this mean our assumptions are incorrect? No, for two reasons. First, the rest of Scripture (which is every bit as much His word as the words He spoke while He lived on the earth) gives plenty of support for the doctrine. Second, His silence on the issue actually confirms how universally the Jews accepted the inerrancy of the Word. Had there been any doubts about the purity of Scripture, Jesus would most certainly have addressed them. Rather, He assumed inerrancy in His commitment to the Word as the authority on every subject. He relied absolutely on His Bible, even in the most minute details. Jesus affirmed the accounts of Creation, the Flood, and Jonah’s three-day stay in the fish’s belly, all issues popularly disputed today. “Though an argument from silence is generally not the strongest argument, in this case the silence is deafening. If Jesus knew of error (even minor factual discrepancies) in the text, it is hard to imagine why he nowhere addressed this subject, especially with his disciples, that he might prepare them for such doctrinal difficulty.”3
As we move forward through history, we find very little disagreement among church members as to whether or not the Bible should be accepted as without error. Really, the Enlightenment period was the first that the doctrine was contested (ca. AD 1650-1815).4 But even since then, the church has consistently held to the inerrancy of Scripture. “Prior to the higher-critical assaults on the doctrine of Scripture in the nineteenth century, the fact of inspiration necessarily led to the affirmation that the written words of the God who is truth were entirely truthful and without error in the original autographs [manuscripts].”5 Those who attempt to explain away inerrancy have the weight of history pressing against them. We do well to heed that weight ourselves as we form our own convictions about the Word of God. The historic church has found little reason to doubt the purity of Scripture; we should do the same.
The second reason for us to accept biblical inerrancy is the Bible’s own testimony about itself.6 The Old Testament writers frequently proclaim the purity of God’s Word (2 Sam. 22:31; Ps. 12:6, 18:30, 119:140; Prov. 30:5). Particularly of note is Psalm 12:6: “The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” Every word that comes from God—scriptural or otherwise—is pure. If all His words are pure, surely the written words recorded in Scripture are. His words are without flaw, without error.
Limiting this purity to only the spiritual matters of the Bible is clearly against the plain sense of this text. David says they are as silver which has been purified seven times. Not once, not two or three times, but seven! The repeated purification surely points to the entire purity of God’s word, and David specifically uses the number seven, signifying perfection. No error, deceit, or untruth remains; God’s word is perfectly pure.
Third, we believe the Bible is inerrant because it is from God, and He is true. The Bible, being from God, must be consistent with His character. A perfect God will not produce an errant Word. Rather, since God is perfect, pure, and true, His Word is the same. “Scripture did not come from the will of man; it came from God. And if it is God’s word then it must all be true, for in him there can be no error or deceit.”7
While apologetics are important, faith rules the day. Our confidence in biblical inerrancy must not be in well-constructed logic, but in God Himself. We believe that the Bible is perfect because God Himself is. Our confidence in the Word comes back to our faith in God, to the reality of His saving grace in our own lives. We will have little success reasoning someone into believing inerrancy if he does not first believe in God. But belief in God will surely lead someone to trust His Word, not just in pieces, not just in certain subjects, but in every subject and every word.
- Kevin DeYoung, Taking God at His Word (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity, 2014), 39.
- Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 1999), 94.
- John MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine: a Systematic Summary of Bible Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 110.
- MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 107.
- MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 109.
- This is not necessarily circular. A book that is true should tell you that it is. If we believe the Bible is from God, we do well to listen to what it says.
- DeYoung, Taking God at His Word, 39.