Tag Archives: Inerrancy

Infallibility and Inerrancy in the 17th Century

21 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Bibliology, Scripture, Thomas Goodwin, Uncategorized

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There is a contention that “inerrancy” is a bit of a new doctrine (something post-Hodge and Warfield) and is thus a bit of an invention:

The CSBI [Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy] goes on the defensive in article 16 when it affirms that inerrancy “has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its history” and denies that it “is a doctrine invented by Scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.” There is a grain of truth here, but some palpable problems as well. First, Christian believers over the course of history have repeatedly affirmed that the Holy Scriptures come from God, they are to be read and studied in the churches, they are the inscripturated form of the rule of faith, they emit divine authority, they are without falsehood, and they are true and trustworthy. 8 However, to insist that the CSBI understanding of inerrancy is and always has been normative in church history is a bit of a stretch.

Michael Bird, “Inerrany is not Necessary for Evangelicalism Outside the USA” in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) Zondervan (2013-12-10) Kindle Locations 2448-2449. In response, I would like to note the following use of “infallibility” and “unerringness” (inerrancy) from the 17th Century Puritan Thomas Goodwin:

There is a contention that “inerrancy” is a bit of a new doctrine (something post-Hodge and Warfield) and is thus a bit of an invention:

The CSBI [Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy] goes on the defensive in article 16 when it affirms that inerrancy “has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its history” and denies that it “is a doctrine invented by Scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.” There is a grain of truth here, but some palpable problems as well. First, Christian believers over the course of history have repeatedly affirmed that the Holy Scriptures come from God, they are to be read and studied in the churches, they are the inscripturated form of the rule of faith, they emit divine authority, they are without falsehood, and they are true and trustworthy. 8 However, to insist that the CSBI understanding of inerrancy is and always has been normative in church history is a bit of a stretch.

Michael Bird, “Inerrany is not Necessary for Evangelicalism Outside the USA” in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) Zondervan (2013-12-10) Kindle Locations 2448-2449. In response, I would like to note the following use of “infallibility” and “unerringness” (inerrancy) from the 17th Century Puritan Thomas Goodwin:

Apostleship was an office extraordinary in the Church of God, appointed for a time for the first rearing and governing of the Church of the New Testament, and to deliver the faith which was about wants to be given to the Saints (as Jude speaks), and the apostles are therefore entitled the foundation the church is built on, Eph. ii. 20; which office, accordingly, had many extraordinary privileges annexed to it, suited (as all the callings by God and his institutions are) to attain that and which was so extraordinary–as, namely, unlimitedness of commission to teach all nations, Matt. xxvviii.19. They likewise had an infallibility and unerringness, this, whether in their preaching or writing (2 Cor. i. ver. 13 and 18 compared), which was absolutely necessary for them to have, seeing they were to lay the foundation for all ages, although in their personal walking’s they might her, as Peter did, Gal. ii. 10.

Thomas Goodwin, “Exposition of Ephesians 1”, in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 1,(Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 5.

Thomas Goodwin, “Exposition of Ephesians 1”, in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 1,(Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 5.

James Orr, The Virgin Birth of Christ, Lecture One

09 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by in Apologetics, Christology, Incarnation, Scripture, Uncategorized

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The work from 1907 consists of the transcript s of “Lectures Delivered Under the Auspices of the Bible Teachers’ Training School New York, April 1907.” Dr. Orr was a theology professor in Scotland and was a leading member in the production of The Fundamentals.

In these lectures, Dr. Orr addresses the question of whether the Bible truly does support the idea of Jesus being born of a virgin. The question of the Virgin Birth was becoming quite common in center theological circles at the time. Orr first sets forth the case against the doctrine in a fair (even compelling) summary:

The narratives of the miraculous birth, we are told, are found only in the introductory chapters of two of our Gospels— Matthew and Luke— and are evidently there of a secondary character. The rest of the New Testament is absolutely silent on the subject. Mark, the oldest Gospel, and John, the latest, know nothing of it. Matthew and Luke themselves contain no further reference to the mysterious fact related in their commencement, but mention circumstances which seem irreconcilable with it. Their own narratives are contradictory, and, in their miraculous traits, bear clear marks of legendary origin. All the Gospels speak freely of Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary. The Virgin Birth formed no part of the oldest Apostolic tradition, and had no place in the earliest Christian preaching,as exhibited in the Book of Acts. The Epistles show a like ignorance of this profound mystery. Paul shows no acquaintance with it, and uses language which seems to exclude it, as when he speaks of Jesus as”of the seed of David.”1 Peter,John,theEpistle to the Hebrews, the Book of Revelation, all ignore it. If thousands were brought to faith in Jesus as the divine Redeemer in this earliest period, it was without reference to this belief. There is no proof that the belief in general in the Christian Church before the second century. (pages 7-8).

These series of seemingly confirmed “facts” set the agenda for the remainder of the book. Orr asks, “Suppose, then, it can be shown that the evidence is not what is alleged in the statements above given, but that in many respects the truth is early the reverse” (p. 10).

Orr then proceed to explain what he will argue. First, he will not take time to prove that a miracle can happen (after all, that is the point of a miracle!):  “H o w great the intellectual confidence of any man who undertakes a priori to define what are and are not possibilities to such a Being in His relations to the universe He has made!” (p. 13).

Second, since Orr is confronting professing Christians in this work (this is not an apologetic to unbelievers), “It would be folly to argue for the supernatural birth of Christ with those who take naturalistic view; for, to minds that can reject all other evidence in the Gospel for Christ’s supernatural claims, such reasonings would be of no avail.” (p. 15).

What he will deal with are those who claim that the Virgin Birth of Christ can be rejected without rejecting the remainder of Christianity (or at least being in conflict with oneself):

It is here that the position of those who accept the fact of the Virgin Birth, but deny its essential connection with the other truths about our Lord’s Person appears to me illogical and untenable. The one thing certain is:either our Lord was born of a Virgin,or He was not. If He was not, as I say, the question falls: there is an end of it. But if He was— and I deal at present with those who profess this as their own belief— if this was the way in which God did bring the Only-Begotten into the world— then it cannot but be that it has a vital con nection with the Incarnation as it actually happened, and we cannot doubt, in that event, that it is a fact of great importance for us to know. In any case,we are not at liberty summarily to dismiss the testimony of the Gospels, or relegate the fact they attest to the class of ” open questions,” simply because we do not happen to think it is important.(p. 23)

It is Orr’s contention on this point that the Virgin Birth is crucial to the doctrine of the Incarnation — a necessary relationship stands between the two doctrines (even if the Virgin Birth is not the foundation of the doctrine of the Incarnation).

B.B. Warfield on how God prepared the human authors to write inerrant Scripture

04 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in B.B. Warfield, Bibliology, Scripture, Uncategorized

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One argument made from a “conservative” position against the inerrancy of Scripture is that we must admit error in the Scripture if we take the human authorship seriously. Unless we we want to subscribe to a dictation theory of inspiration (the human authors merely copied what God or an angel said to them), human error is a necessary correlate of Scripture as we have it.

Warfield responded to that argument as follows. First, he explicitly rejected a diction model of inspiration:

[T]he gift of Scripture through its human authors took place by a process much more intimate than can be expressed by “dictation,” and that tit took place in a process in which the control of the Holy Spirit was too complete and pervasive to permit the human qualities of the secondary authors in any way to condition the purity of the product as the word of God. The Scriptures, in other words, are conceived by the writes of the New Testament as through and through God’s book, in every part expressive of His mind, given through men after a fashion which does no violence to their nature as men, and constitutes the book also men’s book as well as God’s, in every part expressive of the mind of its human authors.

From his essay “Inspiration” (page 99 of volume 1 of the collected works). Warfield then explains how the work of God began well before the actual task of writing by creating and preparing the men who would be the authors to be the authors. This move by Warfield is brilliant, because it draws the fully natural act of normal men into relationship with the supernatural act of the Holy Spirit in inspiration:

And there is the preparation of the men to write these books to be considered, a preparation physical, intellectual, spiritual, which must have attended them throughout their whole lives, and, indeed, must have had its beginning in their remote ancestors, and the effect of which was to bring the right men to the right places at the right times, with the right endowments, impulses, acquirements, to write just the books which were designed for them. When “inspiration,” technically so called, is superinduced on lines of preparation like these, it takes on quite a different aspect from that which it bears when it is thought of as an isolated action of the Divine Spirit operating out of all relation to historical processes. Representations are sometimes made as if, when God wished to produce sacred books which would incorporate His will—a series of letters like those of Paul, for example—He was reduced to the necessity of going down to earth and painfully scrutinizing the men He found there, seeking anxiously for the one who, on the whole, promised best for His purpose; and then violently forcing the material He wished expressed through him, against his natural bent, and with as little loss from his recalcitrant characteristics as possible. Of course, nothing of the sort took place. If God wished to give His people a series of letters like Paul’s, He prepared a Paul to write them, and the Paul He brought to the task was a Paul who spontaneously would write just such letters.

If we bear this in mind, we shall know what estimate to place upon the common representation to the effect that the human characteristics of the writers must, and in point of fact do, condition and qualify the writings produced by them, the implication being that, therefore, we cannot get from man a pure word of God. As light that passes through the colored glass of a cathedral window, we are told, is light from heaven, but is stained by the tints of the glass through which it passes; so any word of God which is passed through the mind and soul of a man must come out discolored by the personality through which it is given, and just to that degree ceases to be the pure word of God. But what if this personality has itself been formed by God into precisely the personality it is, for the express purpose of communicating to the word given through it just the coloring which it gives it? What if the colors of the stained-glass window have been designed by the architect for the express purpose of giving to the light that floods the cathedral precisely the tone and quality it receives from them? What if the word of God that comes to His people is framed by God into the word of God it is, precisely by means of the qualities of the men formed by Him for the purpose, through which it is given? When we think of God the Lord giving by His Spirit a body of authoritative Scriptures to His people, we must remember that He is the God of providence and of grace as well as of revelation and inspiration, and that He holds all the lines of preparation as fully under His direction as He does the specific operation which we call technically, in the narrow sense, by the name of “inspiration.” The production of the Scriptures is, in point of fact, a long process, in the course of which numerous and very varied Divine activities are involved, providential, gracious, miraculous, all of which must be taken into account in any attempt to explain the relation of God to the production of Scripture. When they are all taken into account we can no longer wonder that the resultant Scriptures are constantly spoken of as the pure word of God. We wonder, rather, that an additional operation of God—what we call specifically “inspiration,” in its technical sense—was thought necessary. Consider, for example, how a piece of sacred history—say the Book of Chronicles, or the great historical work, Gospel and Acts, of Luke—is brought to the writing. There is first of all the preparation of the history to be written: God the Lord leads the sequence of occurrences through the development He has designed for them that they may convey their lessons to His people: a “teleological” or “aetiological” character is inherent in the very course of events. Then He prepares a man, by birth, training, experience, gifts of grace, and, if need be, of revelation, capable of appreciating this historical development and eager to search it out, thrilling in all his being with its lessons and bent upon making them clear and effective to others. When, then, by His providence, God sets this man to work on the writing of this history, will there not be spontaneously written by him the history which it was Divinely intended should be written? Or consider how a psalmist would be prepared to put into moving verse a piece of normative religious experience: how he would be born with just the right quality of religious sensibility, of parents through whom he should receive just the right hereditary bent, and from whom he should get precisely the right religious example and training, in circumstances of life in which his religious tendencies should be developed precisely on right lines; how he would be brought through just the right experiences to quicken in him the precise emotions he would be called upon to express, and finally would be placed in precisely the exigencies which would call out their expression. Or consider the providential preparation of a writer of a didactic epistle—by means of which he should be given the intellectual breadth and acuteness, and be trained in habitudes of reasoning, and placed in the situations which would call out precisely the argumentative presentation of Christian truth which was required of him. When we give due place in our thoughts to the universality of the providential government of God, to the minuteness and completeness of its sway, and to its invariable efficacy, we may be inclined to ask what is needed beyond this mere providential government to secure the production of sacred books which should be in every detail absolutely accordant with the Divine will.

Benjamin B. Warfield, The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Revelation and Inspiration, vol. 1, 101–103.

They possessed perfect knowledge

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Ante-Nicene, Bibliology, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed “perfect knowledge,” as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge

Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” III.1.1, in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 414.

What Does Inerrancy Claim

28 Thursday Jul 2016

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One of the troubles which arise in discussion of biblical inerrancy lies with the scope of the claim. For instance, I have read critics rise to the microphone and present what they believe to be a crushing question: Which translation do you believe is inspired — there are so many translations who knows which one is right?

The answer is easy, None. They are all pretty good; but no sane Christian has ever claimed that a translation is “inspired” or even perfect. They are at best pretty good.

Inerrancy also does not entail a claim that everyone who speaks in the Bible is telling the truth. The first time anyone (beside God) speaks it is the Serpent — and the Serpent is busy lying.

  1.  The claim for inerrancy is only for the autographa: the original documents. Inerrancy is not the claim that the copies are inerrant. I have copied out portions of the Scripture and have made all sorts of mistakes in my copying.
  2. The lack of errors has to do with facts, not grammar. There are odd constructions and even spelling errors (although to be fair, the concept of a spelling error is difficult to support since that assumes a degree of standardization which became much greater after the widespread use of the printing press. But comprehensible spelling variants are quite common before the press.)
  3. Inerrancy does not mean uniformity of interpretation. Two Christians may disagree with one another without calling inerrancy into question. However, inerrancy does relate to inerrancy as to point two: inerrancy of facts. Interpretation tells us what facts are actually being asserted in the Scripture. Joshua does not claim that the sun revolves around the earth when he writes of the sun “standing still” — even though the text was read in that manner at various times in the past.

Adapted from “What Does it Mean to Say that the Bible is True?” Douglas K. Blount in In Defense of the Bible B & H 2013, p. 55.

The Most Basic Theological Issue

19 Thursday Nov 2015

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Packer expressed his concern this way: “I see biblical authority as methodologically the most basic of theological issues. And I have fought not just for the sake of confessional orthodoxy or theological certainty or evangelical integrity or epistemological sanity or to counter dehumanizing rationalisms. Rather, my affirmation and defense of Holy Scripture has been first and foremost for the sake of pastoral and evangelistic ministry, lay godliness, the maturing of the church, and spiritual revival.”

J.I. Packer, The Thirty Year’s War, 25; quoted in Mohler, Inerrancy: Five Views.

The Importance of Holding to the Inerrancy of Scripture

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Apologetics, Church History, Culture, Francis Schaeffer, Scripture, Thomas Brooks

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Photo: Chris DeRham

Francis Schaffer, The Great Evangelical Divide:

Not far from where we live in Switzerland is a high ridge of rock with a valley on both sides. One time I was there when there was snow on the ground along that ridge. The snow was lying there unbroken, a seeming unity. However, that unity was an illusion, for it lay along a great divide; it lay along a watershed. One portion of the snow when it melted would flow into one valley. The snow which lay close beside would flow into another valley when it melted.

Now it just so happens on that particular ridge that the melting snow which flows down one side of that ridge goes down into a valley, into a small river, and then down into the Rhine River. The Rhine then flows on through Germany and the water ends up in the cold waters of the North Sea. The water from the snow that started out so close along that watershed on the other side of the ridge, when this snow melts, drops off sharply down the ridge into the Rhone Valley. This water flows into Lac Leman—or as it is known in the English-speaking world, Lake Geneva—and then goes down below that into the Rhone River which flows through France and into the warm waters of the Mediterranean.

The snow lies along that watershed, unbroken, as a seeming unity. But when it melts, where it ends in its destinations is literally a thousand miles apart. That is a watershed. That is what a watershed is. A watershed divides. A clear line can be drawn between what seems at first to be the same or at least very close, but in reality ends in very different situations. In a watershed there is a line.

 

A House Divided

What does this illustration have to do with the evangelical world today? I would suggest that it is a very accurate description of what is happening. Evangelicals today are facing a watershed concerning the nature of biblical inspiration and authority. It is a watershed issue in very much the same sense as described in the illustration. Within evangelicalism there are a growing number who are modifying their views on the inerrancy of the Bible so that the full authority of Scripture is completely undercut. But it is happening in very subtle ways. Like the snow lying side-by-side on the ridge, the new views on biblical authority often seem at first glance not to be so very far from what evangelicals, until just recently, have always believed. But also, like the snow lying side-by-side on the ridge, the new views when followed consistently end up a thousand miles apart.

What may seem like a minor difference at first, in the end makes all the difference in the world. It makes all the difference, as we might expect, in things pertaining to theology, doctrine and spiritual matters, but it also makes all the difference in things pertaining to the daily Christian life and how we as Christians are to relate to the world around us. In other words, compromising the full authority of Scripture eventually affects what it means to be a Christian theologically and how we live in the full spectrum of human life.

 

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 4 , “The Great Evangelical Divide) (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 327–328.

 

Harold Lindsell, An Historian Looks at Inerrancy:

Lindsell begins his essay looking the history of attacks upon the Scripture from outside the Church. However, the saddest attacks are taking place within the church:

And the leaven is to be found in Christian colleges and theological seminaries, in books and articles, in Bible institute and conservative churches. The new leaven, as yet, has nothing to do was such a vital questions is the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the vicarious atonement, the physical resurrection from the dead, or the second advent. It involves what it has always involved in the first stages of its development–the nature and inspiration of authority…..

Today there are those who have been numbered among the new evangelicals, some of whom possessed the keenest minds and required the apparati of scholarship, who have broken, or are in the process of breaking, with the doctrine of an inerrant Scripture. They have done so or are doing so because they think this view to be indefensible and because they do not regard it as a great divide. In order for them to be intellectually honest with themselves, they must do it. Logically, however, the same attitude, orientation, bent of mind, and approach to scholarship that makes the retention of an inerrant Scripture impossible also alternately makes impossible the retention of the vicarious atonement, and putative guilt, the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, and miraculous supernaturalism.

 

Harold Lindsell, “An Historian Looks at Inerrancy,” in The Scripture Cannot Be Broken, ed. John MacArthur (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 25-26.

Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies for Satan’s Devices:

By all this we see, that the yielding to lesser sins, draws the soul to the committing of greater. Ah! how many in these days have fallen, first to have low thoughts of Scripture and ordinances, and then to slight Scripture and ordinances, and then to make a nose of wax of Scripture and ordinances, and then to cast off Scripture and ordinances, and then at last to advance and lift up themselves, and their Christ-dishonouring and soul-damning opinions, above Scripture and ordinances. Sin gains upon man’s soul by insensible degrees: Eccles. 10:13, ‘The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talking is mischievous madness.’ Corruption in the heart, when it breaks forth, is like a breach in the sea, which begins in a narrow passage, till it eat through, and cast down all before it. The debates of the soul are quick, and soon ended, and that may be done in a moment that may undo a man for ever. When a man hath begun to sin, he knows not where, or when, or how he shall make a stop of sin. Usually the soul goes on from evil to evil, from folly to folly, till it be ripe for eternal misery. Men usually grow from being naught to be very naught, and from very naught to be stark naught, and then God sets them at nought for ever.

 

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 20.

Shepherds Conference 2015, Albert Mohler: Inerrancy & Hermeneutic

06 Friday Mar 2015

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Shepherds Conference 2015
Thursday 8 p.m.
Albert Mohler

We do feel the weight of history on this; we do feel that we will look back and say “I was there.”
“I was there when Mark Dever read Psalm 119”.

We are here because we are invited to be here. My position here tonight is one every preacher would envy, to preach about inerrancy and hermeneutics.

Imagine how many people out in the world would think we are insane to gather at this hour of a Thursday night to speak about it. This summit will encourage all the right people and irritate all the right people. It isn’t over and we aren’t giving up without an argument. And the Lord we are confident will defend his Word.

We would interrupt anything to defend the inerrancy of Scripture. It matters more than most people think, more than most people who sit in your churches now understand.

In about a month the Supreme Court will hear argument on the issue of same sex marriage. The line of precedent runs back to Griswold and he invented the “right to privacy”. Douglas found it in the penumbra & emmanations of the constitution. But my concern is not the Court, it is what you do in the pulpit.

It comes out in two different legal theories. First are strict constructionism. These are people who believe words are words and reveal intention. Second there is critical legal studies. There is a living constitution from which we find what we need (not to be bound by a 200 year old constitution).

It means everything for preaching: it is either we are bound by the text or not.

“When the Bible speaks God speaks.”

plenary verbal inspiration: total truthfulness

The Bible Without Illusion: The writers of the NT & OT believed the inerrancy of Scripture and that remained through all through the Reformation. It was not challenged until the Enlightenment.

Nothing they confronted in 1978 has gone away (there are merely new things); although some stuff has come back in new clothes.

Go to Schleirmacher (liberalism, higher criticism): he did not believe the Scripture could be inerrant because he did not believe in verbal inspiration. This is not just a great intellectual crisis for elite institutions; it touches every Jr. High School. The very air we believe is deeply subversive of all claims of scriptural inspiration.

There has been a great intellectual embarrassment by many preachers and theologians. Fosdick at the Beecher lectures at Yale: the Bible is a problem.

John Updike: the reverend Clarence Wilmont: he lost his faith because he came to believe that the OT was an ancient set of writings. He traced it back in the historical critical approach to the seminary: “he plunged into the chilly Baltic sea of higher criticism.”

Many “evangelicals” are promoting new approaches that treat the Bible as something other than the Word of God.

Does Inerrancy Imply a Hermeneutic

The most important statement on hermeneutics is in the ICI, then if we believe in plenary verbal inspiration then we are committed to a historical grammatical hermeneutic.

12 Principles of Hermeneutics for Inerrantists:

1.  When the Bible speaks God speaks. An auracular book (Warfield).Our task is to hear God’s voice; affirming the authorship and authority which comes from God and God alone. We are thus committed to a hermeneutic of submission (as opposed to a hermeneutic of suspicion). A self-attesting revelation. The Bible does not merely contain the Word of God; it is the Word of God.
The biblical text determines the limits of its own interpretation. We take the text as it is given to us. Look to the genre. This means that we can’t be looking for a meaning that is behind or after the text; it is within the text. We approach the text looking for the “plain meaning” of the text. We are not looking for the “Bible code”.
Scripture is to be interpreted by Scripture (the analogy of faith). There is no conflict in the text. Not as some of the emerging church; it can’t be authoritative because it is not coherent. Yet, if there is an apparent conflict the problem is in our reading, not in the text.
2. The Biblical text addresses as words, propositions, sentences. Words are adequate conveyors of truth. That may seem odd, but that is taught. The Lord who has made us in his image is the Lord who has addressed us in words. We live in an age which denies propositions. [Wittengenstein, Surely it’s not a proposition until its understood.] Attacking propositions is of course a self-contradictory proposition. Henry: relationships may not be reducible to propositions, but we cannot speak of the relationship without proposition.
3. We are given a canon of Scripture. We need all of it until Jesus comes. The canon itself also establishes a basic proposition for interpretation: it limits where we may look. [Funny discussion of the Jesus Seminar voting with marbles: but do you preach & teach as if I hold all of the canon as inspired.]
4. The forms of biblical literature are themselves essential to the understanding of the text as God intended. We need the forms to understand what God would have us to know. Is it poetry or parables or history, etc. Jesus affirmed that he spoke in parables for a very specific reason. We are not to teach everything as it is given to us. We are to receive all of it and teach it that way.
5. No external authority can correct the Scripture. We have the text of the OT, but it just wasn’t verified by modern archaeology. Nothing can correct the Bible in any respect. There is no form of human knowledge that can correct the Scripture. We are getting hit from two sides. First, there is the attack on creation: but there are no “assured results of modern science”. The amazing thing is that people think this is new. We must know that there is a direct collision between naturalistic worldview. We are not being asked to re-understanding creation; we are being asked to surrender. The second attack is on sexuality. Paul was doing the best he could in dealing with sexuality; but he didn’t know what we know about sexuality. He was only a First Century man. If the ultimate author of Romans that is a plausible argument. norma normans non normata: the norm of norms that can’t be normed. Luther
8. Scriptural claims about historical claims about the space-time continuum are to be understood as claims within the space-time continuum. We have to affirm “true truth”. Schaefer: there are those who want to speak of history of something that is not really history “it happened”. Some evangelical writers: “history-like”. The Bible doesn’t say “once upon a time”; it says “In the beginning God ….” Our salvation depends upon things that happened in the space time continuum. 1 Cor. 15:
9. Holy Scripture is to read as a Scripture that contains stories; it has a metanarrative. Grammatical historical, redemptive historical, unabashedly Christological.
10. Our confidence in the Bible is unbroken: all that claims it is true; in all that it promises will come to be. It is as true of the future as it is of the past. All truth claims: what it meant is what it means.
11. Our understanding of Scripture is dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit. He did not merely inspire the text he makes possible our understanding (and assured) and makes possible our proclamation. The Scripture is meant to be heard & obeyed. John Calvin: rightly preaching the Word of God makes possible the Word of God being heard.
12. Our study & our preaching of the Bible is not an end itself. Every word of scripture is profitable. The end of our hermeneutic is the knowledge of the one true and living God and the one whom he has sent. The hermeneutic leads to a homiletic. Philip and the eunuch: how can I understand without a guide.

There are millions of Americans are affected by work of the Court in interpreting the constitution: the ultimate argument is between those who find words which are there and those who say we are bound by words as given.

How much more is at stake when you are your chambers, your study. How much more is at stake when you stand in the pulpit to speak. What you speak is dependent upon your hermeneutic which you bring to your pulpit.
Jeremiah 23:28:

Jeremiah 23:28 (ESV)
28 Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully.

Shepherds Conference 2015: Derek Thomas on 2 Peter 1:16-21

06 Friday Mar 2015

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Derek Thomas
2 Peter 1:16–21 (ESV)

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

John Wesley said, If there is one error in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there is one falsehood, it did not come from the God of truth.

I believe that. I was 18; math, physics major
At 18, my best friend sent me a copy of Stott, Basic Christianity. Within a few days I was on my knees asking God to save me. The text in that book that came to me like a hammer: Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

I was at RTS when Lindsell came out. It was a required text.

What is the Bible. 750,000 words in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, poetry, letters, sermons, treaties, travel narratives, Gospel, apocalyptic, songs, prayers, inventories, et cetera. All of it God’s breathed-out Word, the breath of God.

All Scripture is God breathed out; it is the breath that you can see. When God breathes out what do you get? Scripture.

Peter is writing out in the midst of false teachers of immoral lives

Three Things:

What does Peter say the Bible is?

God’s Word written through human instrumentality.
Men spoke from God.
Men from various backgrounds, different style, different
Paul always right about everything. Can you imagine going up to Paul asking him whether he has an opinion about something and he says, “I don’t know.”
Examples of all the differences of styles and structures throughout the Scripture.

Revelation is not flat. It is progressive and developmental. Even within a single man. Compare Paul in Galatians and 2 Timothy. He has not changed any theology but he writes differently.

Compare 1 & 2 Peter.
Men wrote the Bible. You can see them and hear them, their personalities and backgrounds.

But you can’t apply to err is human.

How is the Bible Written Through Human Instrumentality
No prophecy comes from one’s own interpretation. It does not come from someone making it up. Even if we limit this to specific interpretations, he is making the point that it is part of Scripture. These prophecies are true because they are Scripture.

No prophecy was ever produced: source. In v. 17 the source of the voice was heavenly.

Men spoke as they were carried along; like the ship in Acts 27 was driven along by the wind. The motion of the ship has everything to do with the wind.

Somehow the men’s personalities are seen and yet they were carried along so that they would write what God intends for them to write. When Scripture speaks, God speaks.

Issue: Is this dictation? No & yes. At times there was dictation: the ten commandments, the 7 letters in Revelation. Sometimes wrote with astonishing informality. Hebrews 2, It is has been testified somewhere.

How can God superintend men to bring about inerrant Scripture? By a doctrine of providence. It is as God accomplishes his will with human beings in any other category of life.

“Denials of inerrancy are eruptions of pride in rebellion to the sovereignty of God in the life of a human being.”

Human instrumentality through the Sovereign intention of God throughout all its production. The Bible is as God intends it to be.

To What Extent Can we Be Certain that the Bible is God’s Word Written?

Men spoke from God: that’s the Bible’s view of itself.
Peter is first of all speaking of the OT. But you turn to 2 Peter 3 and Paul’s writing is hard to understand. [I don’t understand what Paul is talking about with women’s head coverings]. Paul is on the level of Scripture. Peter is already recognizes the authority of Paul’s writing.

Today we are facing the contention of human language to convey divine truth. Post modernism’s attack on words; words are unable to contain divine truth. But Peter says the language contains divine truth.

God speaks. We are in the image of God. We have the innate capacity to understand the truth. We may suppress it, but it gets through.

Why do I believe the Bible to be the Word of God? Jesus. When Jesus speaks, God speaks. He is divine & human; there is only one “he”. When Jesus speaks the Second Person of the Trinity speaks.

The Bible is God’s Word in men’s mouths.
Everything to which it speaks, however incidental is true.

Notice how the NT picks up on incidentals of the OT are picked up. Constant small details are recounted and used.

Matt 22/Mark 12 authorship of Psalm 110 as David. The superscription is the basis of the argument.

Those who argue
The Bible is divine spirated and exactly as God intends it to be — and contains all sorts of human (intended) errors.
Peter, Men wrote as they were carried along by the Spirit. The relationship between the divine & human authorship is not symmetrical — just as it in all of God’s Providence:
Think of how great the Mount of Transfiguration. You think the way to be sure is an experience, a vision; Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. But Peter says, You have all the certainty you need right here in the Holy Scriptures.

to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place

What happens after night? Dawn. The day star rising, the Second Coming.

What have you got to help you through all of life’s difficulties? The Bible, to which you will do well to pay attention.

I have such a propensity in my hear to accommodate my sins. Heresy brings in immorality; immortality brings heresy. Are you tempted in your exposition to take the softer line because you conscience condemns you and your heart condemns you? You will do well to pay attention to Holy Scripture. It’s all you’ve got; and it’s all you need.

Our charge is believe that every word is fire.

Shepherds Conference 2015: Q & A Thursday 3:00 pm John MacArthur Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, Kevin DeYoung, Ligon Duncan

06 Friday Mar 2015

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Q. John MacArthur: Evangelicals declared inerrancy settled in 1978, what happened?

These men were talking about inerrancy after the writing of the book, Five Views on Inerrancy. The climate had allowed that book to exist. There are many men who have started churches without adequate theological training, and they would not be able to deal with this problem. For many others, seeker, pragmatic, inerrancy didn’t really matter

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