The Doctrine of Scripture E-Book

Mark D. Thompson

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Short Studies in Systematic Theology
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A Clear and Concise Exploration of the Christian Doctrine of Scripture The Bible is the written word of the living God. He speaks through this word, working in and through human agents as he reveals himself to his people. His word is trustworthy, yet many Christians struggle to articulate why they believe that to be true. Centered in the words of Scripture and especially the teaching of Jesus himself, this volume unpacks the doctrine of Scripture as taught by the church through the ages, helping to strengthen readers' confidence in God's word. Despite the challenges that are often leveled against the Bible, Thompson clearly articulates what Jesus taught about the Scriptures, how God speaks to his people through the written word, the crucial work of the Holy Spirit to apply the word, and the vital attributes of Scripture—its clarity, truthfulness, sufficiency, and efficacy. Readers will find encouragement to walk according to the word and to delight in the God who speaks. - Concise and Accessible: Intended for use by church members and leaders as well as those in academic contexts - Christ-Centered: Rooted in Jesus's own words about the Old Testament and his commissioning of the apostles who would go on to write the New Testament - Addresses Common Questions: Answers challenges about the Bible's clarity, truthfulness, sufficiency, and efficacy

Leseprobe

Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

“The doctrine of Scripture remains a foundational—but also hotly contested—matter in Christian circles. Therefore there is a great need for works that are concise without omitting key issues, clear without being simplistic, and learned without being labyrinthine. Mark Thompson has provided such a work. As with other thoughtful and cogent expositions of orthodox doctrines in this series, this volume on Scripture draws on a wealth of historic and contemporary sources to provide the reader with a fine introduction to the topic. The Doctrine of Scripture will make a great volume for discussion groups or private study.”

Carl Trueman, Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies, Grove City College

“Mark D. Thompson has provided Christ followers with an illuminating and refreshing introduction to holy Scripture. This biblically informed and theologically shaped work unapologetically affirms the Bible’s inspiration, truthfulness, and sufficiency, pointing readers to Christ and faithful Christian discipleship. Simply stated, The Doctrine of Scripture is an excellent contribution to Crossway’s outstanding series. I enthusiastically and happily recommend this substantive, thoughtfully organized, and highly readable volume.”

David S. Dockery, President, International Alliance for Christian Education; Distinguished Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Despite the Bible’s status as the number one bestseller in history, there is still confusion about what it says, what it is, and whether Christians should be following the Scriptures rather than Christ. Thompson answers these questions and thoroughly debunks this fateful contrast. In doing so, he performs a signal service to the church. In order to follow Christ, disciples must follow the story and trust the testimony of Scripture, for the story is ultimately about Christ, and Christ identifies its testimony as God’s own word. But the real contribution of Thompson’s book is the way its chapters make explicit the doctrine of Scripture implicit in Jesus’s own teaching.”

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“Given the current ‘crisis of authority’ all around us, the church desperately needs clear and faithful biblical and theological expositions of what Scripture is, along with a renewed commitment to God’s most holy word. In this very accessible treatment of the nature of Scripture, Mark Thompson has almost achieved the unthinkable: he has described, explained, and defended all the crucial points needed for the church to understand and grasp what Scripture is for today. What is so helpful in his discussion is how he rightly grounds the doctrine of Scripture first in the doctrine of God, namely, the triune God who speaks. By doing so, he helps the church understand the Christ-centered nature of Scripture and why Scripture is utterly necessary, authoritative, and true. I cannot think of another book on Scripture that is so accessible to all Christians, faithful in its exposition, and wise in its conclusions. I highly recommend it!”

Stephen J. Wellum, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“For a succinct introductory account of a classic evangelical view of Scripture that travels the path of B. B. Warfield while also drawing upon more recent voices—especially John Webster and Kevin Vanhoozer—look no further.”

Kelly M. Kapic, Professor of Theological Studies, Covenant College

The Doctrine of Scripture

Short Studies in Systematic Theology

Edited by Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin

The Attributes of God: An Introduction, Gerald Bray (2021)

The Church: An Introduction, Gregg R. Allison (2021)

The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction, Mark D. Thompson (2022)

Faithful Theology: An Introduction, Graham A. Cole (2020)

Glorification: An Introduction, Graham A. Cole (2022)

The Person of Christ: An Introduction, Stephen J. Wellum (2021)

The Trinity: An Introduction, Scott R. Swain (2020)

The Doctrine of Scripture

An Introduction

Mark D. Thompson

The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction

Copyright © 2022 by Mark D. Thompson

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

Cover image: From the New York Public Library, catalog ID (B-number): b14500417

First printing 2022

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7395-8 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7398-9 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7396-5 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7397-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Thompson, Mark, 1959 March 12– author.

Title: The doctrine of scripture : an introduction / Mark D. Thompson.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2022. | Series: Short studies in systematic theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021046664 (print) | LCCN 2021046665 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433573958 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433573965 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433573972 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433573989 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible—Evidences, authority, etc.—History of doctrines.

Classification: LCC BS480 .T5135 2022 (print) | LCC BS480 (ebook) | DDC 220.1—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046664

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046665

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-02-22 04:12:15 PM

With deep gratitude

to my colleagues, past and present,

on the faculty of Moore Theological College, Sydney

Contents

Series Preface

Preface

Introduction: How Do We Give an Account of the Doctrine of Scripture?

 1  Jesus and Scripture: The Christian Starting Point for Understanding Revelation and the Bible

2  The Speaking God

3  From the Speech of God to “the Word of God Written”

4  The Character of Scripture (Part 1): Clarity and Truthfulness

5  The Character of Scripture (Part 2): Sufficiency and Efficacy

6  Reading the Bible as a Follower of Jesus

Further Reading

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

The ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus reputedly said that the thinker has to listen to the essence of things. A series of theological studies dealing with the traditional topics that make up systematic theology needs to do just that. Accordingly, in each of these studies, a theologian addresses the essence of a doctrine. This series thus aims to present short studies in theology that are attuned to both the Christian tradition and contemporary theology in order to equip the church to faithfully understand, love, teach, and apply what God has revealed in Scripture about a variety of topics. What may be lost in comprehensiveness can be gained through what John Calvin, in the dedicatory epistle of his commentary on Romans, called “lucid brevity.”

Of course, a thorough study of any doctrine will be longer rather than shorter, as there are two millennia of confession, discussion, and debate with which to interact. As a result, a short study needs to be more selective but deftly so. Thankfully, the contributors to this series have the ability to be brief yet accurate. The key aim is that the simpler is not to morph into the simplistic. The test is whether the topic of a short study, when further studied in depth, requires some unlearning to take place. The simple can be amplified. The simplistic needs to be corrected. As editors, we believe that the volumes in this series pass that test.

While the specific focus varies, each volume (1) introduces the doctrine, (2) sets it in context, (3) develops it from Scripture, (4) draws the various threads together, and (5) brings it to bear on the Christian life. It is our prayer, then, that this series will assist the church to delight in her triune God by thinking his thoughts—which he has graciously revealed in his written word, which testifies to his living Word, Jesus Christ—after him in the powerful working of his Spirit.

Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin

Preface

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who would later pay for his Christian discipleship with his life in the turbulence of the sixteenth century, once asked, “How can anyone then say that they profess Christ and his religion, if they will not apply themselves, as far as they can or may conveniently, to read and hear, and so to know, the books of Christ’s gospel and doctrine?”1 Cranmer understood that following Christ involves living under the authority of his teaching, which comes to us in the Bible. The Bible is not an optional extra for Christians. Reading the Bible, or hearing it read (and expounded), is a serious business. The reason for that lies in convictions about what the Bible is and how it functions in the world, but, even more basically, in a confidence in the goodness of the one who has given us “God’s word written,” as Cranmer would name it elsewhere.2

Yet today it seems that such confidence is on the wane, and in many places those convictions have been discarded. Under relentless assault over the past two and a half centuries—from skeptical philosophy, scientific positivism, and more recently moral and ethical revisionism—the Bible is increasingly displaced by other authorities. The voices of personal experience and the present cultural consensus appear to command more attention from many Christians. As this happens, the churches to which they belong, and in many cases lead, become an anemic reflection of the wider community’s preoccupations and convictions.3As the German pietist Johann Albrecht Bengel wrote almost three hundred years ago, our attitude toward the Bible is a fairly reliable measure of the strength and faithfulness of the church:

Scripture is the foundation of the Church: the Church is the guardian of Scripture. When the Church is in strong health, the light of Scripture shines bright; when the Church is sick, Scripture is corroded by neglect; and thus it happens, that the outward form of Scripture and that of the Church, usually seem to exhibit simultaneously either health or else sickness; and as a rule the way in which Scripture is being treated is in exact correspondence with the condition of the Church.4

It is my prayer that fresh attention to the Christian doctrine of Scripture in books like this one will, by God’s grace, strengthen our conviction that the Bible is the word of the living God, completely reliable, powerful, and effective in all it teaches. It is the instrument the Spirit uses to change lives and to direct them in fruitful discipleship. We need a bold new confidence that God is good and the word he has given us is a good gift to us.

What you have in your hands is not really an apologetic book, defending once again the reliability and relevance of the Bible. As Charles Spurgeon once quipped, “The answer to every objection against the Bible is the Bible.”5 Rather, the current work is intended as a theological account of Scripture, one that at each point relates it to the person and character of the God who has given it. I write as an unapologetic enthusiast for the Bible. I find the account I will sketch in the following pages compelling. Alongside this, though, I can testify that in the pages of Scripture I have been repeatedly addressed by my heavenly Father; confronted with the grace, mercy, and unparalleled authority of Jesus my Savior; and ministered to (with both comfort and challenge) by the Holy Spirit. The Christian doctrine of Scripture explains why this is so.

I am grateful to those who asked me to contribute to the Short Studies in Systematic Theology series. I am also grateful to generations of students at Moore Theological College and elsewhere, whose questions have sharpened my thinking on the subject and so prepared me for this assignment. I owe a particular debt to those I have served alongside, in the past and in the present, in the wonderful privilege of training the next generation of pastors and teachers. We share the conviction that what the world needs at this moment is men and women who have been mastered by the word of God and who will expend every ounce of energy they have to share that life-giving word with others as they direct people to Jesus. The Bible both challenges the world and nourishes Christ’s disciples.

1. Thomas Cranmer, “A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture,” in Certain Sermons or Homilies Appointed to Be Read in Churches in the Time of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory (repr., London: SPCK, 1864), 1. I have modernized the language a little from the Edwardian English of Cranmer.

2. Article 20 of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.

3. Some fascinating voices have protested the eclipse of the Bible. Czeslaw Milosz, an American-Polish poet and Nobel laureate, wrote, “The scriptures constitute the common good of believers, agnostics and atheists.” Milosz, Widzenia nad Zatoka San Francisco (Paris: Insitytut Literacki, 1969), translated in Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (London: Picador, 2007),486. James himself goes on to say, “You can be a non-believer, however, and still be amazed at how even the believers are ready to let the Bible go” (488).

4. Johann. A. Bengel, Gnomon of the New Testament, trans. and ed. Andrew R. Forrest, 5 vols. (Edinburgh: Clark, 1857–1858), 1:7. The English translation was modified in Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1981), 7.

5. Charles Spurgeon, “Speech at the Annual Meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, May 5th 1875,” in Speeches by C. H. Spurgeon at Home and Abroad (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1878), 17.

Introduction

How Do We Give an Account of the Doctrine of Scripture?

In most Christian churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, Western or Eastern Orthodox, traditional or contemporary, the Bible has a central place. It is read out loud, expounded in sermons, discussed in small group meetings. In seminaries around the world, the curriculum includes a study of the biblical text, often in the languages in which it was originally given: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koinē Greek. Commentaries on each book of the Bible continue to be published at an astonishing rate. More academic treatises and dissertations have been written about the Bible or parts of the Bible than about any other literary text.

The Bible has captivated the imaginations of Christians through the centuries. Augustine, the fifth-century bishop of Hippo Regis, wrote, “Holy Scripture, indeed, speaks in such a way as to mock proud readers with its heights, terrify the attentive with its depths, feed great souls with its truth, and nourish little ones with its sweetness.”1 Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century Reformer, took his courageous stand at Worms on the teaching of Scripture: “I consider myself conquered by the Scriptures adduced by me and my conscience is captive to the word of God.”2His highly influential contemporary John Calvin wrote, “No one can get even the slightest taste of right and sound doctrine unless he be a pupil of Scripture.”3Across the channel, English archbishop Thomas Cranmer wrote, “Unto a Christian man there can be nothing either more necessary or profitable than the knowledge of holy Scripture. . . . [In it] is fully contained what we ought to do and what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God’s hands at length.”4Karl Barth, one of the major theological voices of the twentieth century, once wrote, “Christianity has always been and only been a living religion when it is not ashamed to be actually and seriously a book-religion.”5 Famously, when quizzed about what was “the most momentous discovery of his long theological life, he replied ‘Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.’”6

Why has there been such a sustained interest in this book, or anthology of books, over two thousand years? Why have men and women expended such energy to study it and teach it to others? Why were some, such as William Tyndale, willing to risk their lives by translating the Bible into the common tongue or by smuggling Bibles into places where there was no freedom of religion? Why are some today seeking with such ferocity to exclude the Bible from all public discourse? In sum, why has this book aroused such hostility among some and generated such devotion among others? Another book, the little book you now hold in your hands, gives an answer to those questions. That answer lies in the Christian doctrine of Scripture.

A Christian Doctrine of Scripture

The Christian doctrine of Scripture arises from the gospel of Jesus Christ. When the apostle Paul summarized the Christian message, listing what he described as the things “of first importance,” he wrote “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve” (1 Cor. 15:3–5). The Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament, provide the essential context in which to understand what Jesus came to do and its significance. The New Testament, a product of the apostolic mission initiated by Jesus at his ascension (Matt. 28:18–20), unfolds the meaning, connections, and consequences of the gospel with fairly constant reference back to the Old Testament. The apostle Paul’s little refrain “What does the Scripture say?” (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 4:30) is a very obvious example. Why was this appeal so important? What does it mean? What are its consequences for life now between the resurrection and the return, and even for life on the other side of that great day? These are generative questions for a Christian doctrine of Scripture.

Christian interest in, and even devotion to, the teaching of the Bible is integral to Christian discipleship. It is difficult to sustain the claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ if we do not take the words he endorsed (the Old Testament) and those he commissioned (the New Testament) seriously. The Christian disciple adopts the same attitude toward the Bible as Jesus did. As in all other areas of life, we seek to have “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16; Phil. 2:5–8). The apostle Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy—with reference, first of all, to the Old Testament but, by reasonable extension, to the New Testament as well—that these are the “sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).7 We may come to faith with the barest knowledge of what the Bible teaches, for, after all, it is by being introduced to Jesus and trusting him that we receive eternal life (John 3:16). It is not long, however, before we discover that to know and understand Jesus as he is, and not just as we imagine him to be, we must understand the promises of God concerning him and what he came to do, the difference his coming makes to life now, and the proper dimensions of the hope that he has secured for us. So we who follow Jesus soon find ourselves reading and delighting in the Bible.

The importance of this perspective lies in the way it keeps Jesus at the center of a Christian doctrine of Scripture.8 When this is done, there can be no question of a conflict between the authority of Jesus and the authority of the words we have been given in the Bible. Jesus is understood in the categories provided for him by the Old Testament. The great messianic titles attributed to Jesus (“Son of David,” “Son of Man,” “Son of God,” “suffering servant,” “Lord,” etc.) all have Old Testament origins or anticipations. The words of the apostles carry the authority of Jesus because they are his appointed witnesses and spokesmen. The preaching of the gospel by the apostles can even be described as “the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17; Col. 3:16). Jesus himself spoke of how everyone who “hears these wordsof mine and does them” builds his or her house upon a rock that can withstand the strongest storm (Matt. 7:24–25). Yet we have those words of Jesus only in the written words of the Gospels. Jesus spoke of how the Scriptures testify about him (John 5:39–40) and taught his disciples from all the Scriptures “the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27), yet our access even to these words of Jesus, and his reading of the Old Testament that shows it centers on him, is found only in the New Testament. Critical here, as Jesus made clear, is the work of the Holy Spirit, about whom Jesus promised the apostles: “He will . . . bring to remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26); “he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:15).

In some contemporary Christian circles, a line is drawn between the personal authority of Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture. It is even suggested that “we follow Jesus, not the Bible.”9 Yet such a separation cannot be sustained. We do not worship a book. That is true and has never seriously been contested in two thousand years of Christian history. Even William Chillingworth’s famous (or, in some circles, infamous) declaration “The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the Religion of Protestants” needs to be read in context, where it becomes clear that he was not suggesting such a separation.10 It is the person, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of Israel and the Savior of the world, in whom and through whom we worship the living God. He is the Word of God, with a capital W. Martin Luther once mused upon the various ways the expression “word of God” could be used: of the gospel faithfully made known to us through the words of the prophets and the preaching of the apostles, of the words of Scripture, and of the person of Jesus Christ. But, he reminded his dinner guests, only one of those is “in substance God.”11

Nevertheless, the point remains that to take the person seriously we need to take seriously the words he has given us. Just as it is pointless to claim you are taking me seriously if you regularly dismiss what I have to say, or twist my words to mean something other than what I intended, or even refuse to listen in the first place—most of us have had an experience of something like this—so it is with Jesus Christ. It is because he endorsed the Old Testament and commissioned the apostles and their mission, which produced the New Testament, that taking the Bible seriously is taking Jesus seriously. Likewise, as we shall see, if it is the Spirit of God who spoke through the prophets and who is integral to the production of Scripture that is genuinely God-breathed, then taking the Bible seriously is taking the Spirit and his ministry seriously too. Jesus’s promise to the apostles that he would send the Spirit to them stands alongside the commission he gave them to take his words to the end of the earth and the end of the age as the real source of the New Testament.

Too often throughout Christian history, in attempts to answer those who have doubts about the authority of Scripture, Christian theologians have begun their discussions of the nature and use of the Bible elsewhere. Sometimes they have begun with a discussion of how we know, how we can (or even whether we can) know God, the nature of religious texts, or the confessional statements of a particular theological tradition. Others have begun in a more apologetic mode, discussing the reliability of the Bible in terms of its description of historical events, the fulfillment of prophecy, its powerful impact on those who have read it over the centuries, or its explanatory power when it comes to the world as we know and experience it. None of these approaches is outright wrong, but they can turn out to be counterproductive. The appeal to external authorities (philosophical, historical, or any other) can in fact undermine the claim being made that the Bible is the final authority in matters of faith and Christian living.

The appeal to the nature of religious texts and how they function within religious systems fails to appreciate the uniqueness of the Bible: it is not simply the Christian alternative to the Qur’an or the Bhagavad Gita. Even Judaism, though the traditional custodian of Old Testament revelation and faith, approaches the text of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings in a way that is significantly different from the way Christians do. It is certainly possible and appropriate to enter into discussion of theological matters from a number of different starting points (e.g., the person and nature of God, the nature of the theological task, the biblical starting point in creation, or even the end to which all things are heading). However, starting with Jesus ensures a distinctive and determined Christian approach to the discussion and avoids the danger of generic statements and abstractions.

Abstraction carries with it a particular danger. It is important to make a careful distinction between the person, words, and work of Jesus and the theological concept of incarnation. While a study of Jesus’s person under the heading of incarnation is warranted on the basis of John 1:14 and is extremely useful in a range of contexts, the Christian doctrine of Scripture is even more closely anchored in what this person actually said. Too hasty an appeal to incarnational theology has led to dubious conclusions for the doctrine of Scripture.12The unity of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ is unique (as Luther recognized) and cannot, without significant qualification, be likened to the identity of God’s word and the words of the human biblical authors.13 Attentiveness to the pattern of Jesus’s ministry, as well as what he in fact taught his apostles about the Scriptures of his time and about their future ministry, assists us in avoiding the danger of inappropriate inferences from the incarnation.

A Biblical Doctrine of Scripture

Such a commitment to a Christian starting point necessarily involves appeal to the text of the Bible itself. After all, as we have seen, we know the person, words, and work of Jesus through the testimony of the biblical text, with only brief corroborative statements in other nearly contemporary texts, such as those by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56–120), the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (AD 37–100), and the Governor of Bithynia, Pliny the Younger (AD 61–112).14Jesus himself made a clear appeal to the Old Testament in the face of the Pharisees’ refusal to come to him—“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39)—and he commissioned the apostles to be his witnesses “in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). We turn to the Bible to learn of Jesus, and it is the Jesus we find there who provides us with the appropriate attitude toward the Bible.

Yet are we simply arguing in a circle? The argument appears to boil down to this: the Bible is the word of God because in the Bible Jesus says it is, and the Bible’s testimony to Jesus’s position on this is authoritative because it is the word of God. The logic is flawed, it is sometimes argued, because it assumes the conclusion from the beginning. However, this charge of vicious circular reasoning can be answered on a number of levels.

First, as many have made clear, a degree of circularity is inevitable when we are arguing about final authorities. The rationalist argues for the ultimate authority of reason by using reason. The experientialist points to experience as the ultimate validation of the appeal to experience. As John Frame has written, “All systems of thought are circular in a sense when they seek to defend their ultimate criterion of truth,” and “no system can avoid circularity, because all systems . . . —non-Christian as well as Christian—are based on presuppositions that control their epistemologies, argumentation, and use of evidence.”15 Not all circular arguments are vicious; that is, they don’t all undermine their conclusion, especially when they are this kind of argument.16 As Frame wrote in another place, “One cannot abandon one’s basic authority in the course of arguing for it!”17

Second, the nature of the Bible as we have it needs to be taken into account. While we rightly speak of the Bible as a single work with an overarching narrative, a central figure, and a single primary author, it is at the same time a collection of writings from different human authors written over an extended period. Close examination also reveals a variety of genres (law, proverb, poetry, prophecy, epistle, and apocalyptic vision, as well as historical narrative), highlighting those multiple voices and perspectives that make up the whole. There is a texture and depth to the Bible, which raises questions about any suggestion that its self-testimony is viciously circular. An appeal to the Bible is in fact an appeal to the promises recorded in Genesis, played out in the history of Israel recorded centuries later, alluded to and reaffirmed by the prophets writing later still, with the poetic voice of David and the wise sayings of Solomon brought alongside at appropriate moments. It is an appeal to the New Testament fulfillment of that Old Testament promise and anticipation in the record of the life and ministry of Jesus, his words (and in some cases those of his opponents), and the words of his commissioned missionaries and spokesmen.

The New Testament stands in deep continuity with the Old, and yet with its own distinctive contribution. There is more in the fulfillment than might appear at first glance in the promise. The person of Jesus Christ and the apostolic mission to the nations certainly make sense against the backdrop of the Old Testament but go beyond it in significant ways. The reality is bigger, better, and brighter than the anticipation. Jesus as the Messiah draws together several threads of Old Testament promise and prophecy and, in so doing, transcends any one of them. He is the great high priest who is also the sacrificial victim; the conquering King who is also the suffering servant; the prophet, like Moses, who speaks the words God gave him but is also the central focus and content of those words. In the Old Testament the nations are drawn to worship the Lord at Mount Zion (Ps. 86:9; Mic. 4:2—mission in a centripetal mode), while in the New Testament Jesus’s disciples are thrust out to the ends of the earth (Matt. 28:18–20; Acts 1:8—mission in a centrifugal mode). Yet the differences Jesus brings make perfect sense and are even anticipated in the Old Testament itself (e.g., Gen. 12:3; Jonah).

In the New Testament too, various distinctive tones and emphases can be discerned. The voices of Peter, Paul, John, James, and the unnamed writer to the Hebrews have their own distinct timbres. Particular emphases and characteristic patterns of thought can be relatively easily discerned. A rich unity of focus and purpose across the entire New Testament exists alongside undeniable variety in expression and specific concern. The four Gospels present the person and ministry of Jesus from particular perspectives with subtle differences of interest and emphasis in the same events that one would expect of eyewitnesses. Eyewitness testimony from the apostles about Jesus (Matthew, Mark, John) sits alongside the results of careful investigation and research by one closely associated with the apostles (Luke).18 Peter had particular concerns as he wrote his letters, but as he expressed those concerns he also testified to the importance of Paul’s writings (2 Pet. 3:16). It is still perfectly appropriate to speak about “the New Testament” as a unit, just as it is to speak about “the Bible” or “Scripture,” but it is also important to realize that any appeal to Scripture is both an appeal to one voice and to many complementary voices. We see this phenomenon in the New Testament itself. Jesus could speak of how “Scripture” would be fulfilled (Luke 4:21; 22:37), but, as we have seen, he could also speak about the words of Moses (Matt. 4:1–11) and the words of the prophet Isaiah (Matt. 13:14). In time the apostle Paul too would cite individual biblical authors (Rom. 9:25, 27, 29) but also ask, “What does the Scripture say?” (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 4:30).

Third, an appeal to the authority of Scripture, even in the exposition of a doctrine of Scripture, is, as N. T. Wright has observed, an appeal ultimately to the authority of God.19 If God addresses us in the words of Scripture, it is his testimony to the nature, place, and use of the Bible that we hear there. John Calvin considered Scripture to be “self-authenticated” (autopiston) and affirmed that “the certainty it deserves with us, it attains by the testimony of the Holy Spirit.”20 A page earlier he had written (echoing the words of the fourth-century bishop Hilary of Poitiers):

The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what has been divinely commanded.21

A Christian doctrine of Scripture is inevitably a biblical doctrine of Scripture. As John Webster once wrote about Christian doctrine more generally:

Theology is exegesis because its matter is Jesus Christ as he communicates himself through Holy Scripture. And so attention to Holy Scripture is not only necessary but also—in a real sense—a sufficient condition for theology, because Scripture itself is not only necessary but sufficient.22

As we embark on our investigation of the Christian doctrine of Scripture, it is right and proper that the words of Scripture are not simply in the background stimulating our reflections, but surely and confidently in the foreground. The trajectory of Scripture, to and then from Christ, needs to be followed if our theological investigation is going to be properly disciplined by Scripture. Understanding our place in God’s timetable, from Genesis to Revelation, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, from promise to fulfillment, guards us against misreading and misapplying the biblical text. In this important sense, the discipline of biblical theology is the necessary companion of a faithful, coherent, and convincing systematic theology.

A Theological Doctrine of Scripture

As an exercise in systematic theology, the Christian doctrine of Scripture must find its ultimate anchor in the person and work of the triune God. The ancient definition of theology as “the study of God and of all things in relation to God” is as relevant here as elsewhere.23 It is right to begin with Jesus Christ, who is, after all, the centerpiece and fulfillment of God’s purpose in creation, redemption, and the regeneration of all things. Just as all things come into existence through him and reach their fulfillment in him, they cannot exist in the interim independently of him. That extends to the Scriptures as much as anything else. It is appropriate, then, that our doctrine of Scripture has this Christocentric character.

However, Jesus Christ is revealed to us in Scripture as the beloved Son of the Father and the one who uniquely comes among us in the power of the Holy Spirit. All that Jesus does and says arises in this context, and so our doctrine of Scripture must find its ultimate ground in the being and activity of the triune God. “As Father, Son and Spirit, God freely discloses his being and ways to his creatures as part of the saving economy of divine mercy.”24

Scripture does not comment upon the economy of creation, redemption, and regeneration from outside of it. The written word is itself part of that economy: the nature, character, and function of Scripture are determined, ultimately, by “God’s gracious turn towards creation in the missions of the Son and Spirit.”25God’s self-revelation is an expression of the same other-centeredness that explains his action in creation and redemption. He created human beings to know him and revealed himself to them throughout biblical history, but fully and finally in his Son, with the purpose of redeeming a people to enjoy his rest. More than that, as we shall see, Scripture as the written