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Sam Storms

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Herausgeber: Crossway
Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

Will there be sex in heaven? Are miraculous gifts for today? Does God ever change His mind? Such difficult questions often intrigue us, readily confuse us, and sometimes disturb us. Drawing on nearly 40 years of teaching and ministry experience, pastor-scholar Sam Storms answers 25 challenging questions Christians are often too afraid to ask, addressing thorny issues ranging from the eternal destiny of infants to the roles of demons and angels. The robust, thoughtful answers provided in this book offer a helpful alternative to relying on simplistic explanations, and will encourage you in the search for truth and clarity on such tough topics.

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“Tough Topics offers every questioning person an opportunity to press thoughtfully into the Bible’s answers. Sam Storms is that rare guide we all are looking for—fair-minded, with no axe to grind. I cheerfully commend Tough Topics for your tough questions!”

Ray Ortlund, Lead Pastor, Immanuel Church, Nashville, Tennessee

“Let’s face it, the church has not always done the best possible job at fielding the hard questions posed to it by both skeptics and members. In the case of the first group, skeptics end up discounting Christianity, dismissing it as irrational, head-in-the-sand religious fanaticism. In the case of the second group, members become frustrated with the Christian faith and often drift away from what they have found to be a shallow, inconsistent, and quite unsatisfying worldview. Sam Storms is a leader whom the Lord has wonderfully gifted not only to answer the tough questions, but also to provide an accessible resource for Christian leaders to be better prepared to engage skeptics and church members who wrestle with these issues rather than to rebuff them and discount their difficulties. Sam’s passion is to deal with twenty-five of the most challenging questions you will ever face, and to do it in such a way that you become convinced of the answers and are prepared to offer help to others who face them as well. He accomplishes this goal, not by offering his own good ideas and the best of human counsel, but by relying on the wisdom of God as found in Scripture.”

Gregg R. Allison, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine and Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church

“Sam Storms’s Tough Topics is equally the work of a deeply concerned and caring pastor and that of a thoughtful, seasoned, and biblically saturated theologian. As I read this book, specific people kept coming to mind who would be helped greatly by one or more of its chapters—such wisdom, balance, and biblical clarity. Readers will likely differ at points with their pastor-theologian guide, but they will rise up and thank him for offering such wise counsel on a wide array of difficult and important questions. There’s something here for everyone. Pick up and read, and see how faithful pastoral theology really does bless the church.”

Bruce A. Ware, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Some questions about God and the Bible intrigue us. Others get completely under our skin and frustrate us. The chances are good that if a question is bothering you, you are not the first to ask it! Sam Storms draws on all his pastoral experience in this helpful book as he honestly answers questions some people like to avoid.”

Adrian Warnock, author, Raised with Christ; blogger

“People are inquisitive by nature. It is the way God made us. We have all kinds of questions about him. When people learn that I teach theology for a living, the first thing they do is begin to ask questions—tough questions. Sam Storms has given us an incredibly useful resource in his book Tough Topics. He has braved the minefield of some of the most difficult questions people have concerning God, the Bible, the church, and Christianity in general. What I like about this work is not simply its accessibility, but also Sam’s gentle and balanced scholarship. When we have questions about God, that is no casual thing requiring the opinions of sages on street corners. These are serious questions requiring someone who is well versed in the Bible. Sam has always been one to whom I go when I have questions. Now I have the book! And, as Sam says, the answers to these questions do not drive us to be puffed up in knowledge—they drive us to worship.”

C. Michael Patton, President, Credo House Ministries; author, Increase My Faith and Now That I’m a Christian; blogger, Parchment and Pen

“Sam Storms is an ideal guide to help us navigate through difficult theological questions. He brings a pastor’s heart and four decades of caring for souls to the journey. Along with that, he brings the brilliant mind of a trained theologian. He writes because he cares deeply about the truth and because he loves people. The answers in this book bring clarity instead of confusion. The stated goal of the book is knowledge that leads to worship. Mission accomplished!”

Erik Thoennes, Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University; Pastor, Grace Evangelical Free Church, La Mirada, California; author, Life’s Biggest Questions

Tough Topics

Tough Topics: Biblical Answers to 25 Challenging Questions

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, 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.

Cover design: Patrick Mahoney of The Mahoney Design Team

First printing 2013

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. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

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

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3493-5 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3495-9 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-3494-2 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3496-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Storms, C. Samuel, 1951–

Tough topics : Biblical answers to 25 challenging questions / Sam Storms.

p. cm.— (Re:Lit)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4335-3493-5

1. Theology, Doctrinal—Popular works. I. Title.

BT77.S735 2013

230—dc23 2012046023

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

VP 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Affectionately dedicated to my two sons-in-law Brad and Brett

May your love for God’s Word, even its “tough topics,” deepen and intensify

Contents

Preface

Is the Bible Inerrant?

What Is Open Theism?

Does God Ever Change His Mind?

Could Jesus Have Sinned?

What Did Jesus Mean When He Said, “Judge Not, that You Be Not Judged”?

What Is Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?

Does the Bible Teach the Doctrine of Original Sin?

Are Those Who Die in Infancy Saved?

Will People Be Condemned for Not Believing in Jesus though They’ve Never Heard His Name?

What Can We Know about Angels?

What Can We Know about Satan?

What Can We Know about Demons?

Can a Christian Be Demonized?

Does Satan Assign Demons to Specific Geopolitical Regions? Are There Territorial Spirits?

Can Christians Lose Their Salvation?

Does Hebrews Teach that Christians Can Apostatize?

Will There Be Sex in Heaven?

Are Miraculous Gifts for Today?

What Is Baptism in the Spirit, and When Does It Happen?

Should All Christians Speak in Tongues?

What Was Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh?

Is There Healing in the Atonement?

Why Doesn’t God Always Heal the Sick?

What Is Legalism?

Are Christians Obligated to Tithe?

Preface

Lucy and Linus are gazing out the window at a staggering downpour.

“Boy, look at it rain,” Lucy says, fear etched on her face. “What if it floods the whole world?”

“It will never do that,” Linus responds confidently. “In the ninth chapter of Genesis, God promised Noah that would never happen again, and the sign of the promise is the rainbow.”

“You’ve taken a great load off my mind,” Lucy says with a sigh of relief.

Linus replies, “Sound theology has a way of doing that!”

That is my aim in this book: to articulate good theology in order to put worried minds at rest. All of us are familiar with the sorts of problems and questions and doctrinal conundrums that plague the human mind and agitate the human heart, questions like the one lingering in the thinking of Lucy: Will God ever flood the entire earth again?

In my experience these nearly forty years of Christian ministry, I’ve seen countless people worried and angry and fearful and just plain confused when it comes to some of the more perplexing issues that life poses and the Bible provokes, such as:

Sam, is my baby in heaven?Is it ever okay to divorce your spouse, and if it is, can I get remarried?What about the heathen in Africa who’ve never heard the gospel?My neighbor said I have to be baptized to be saved. Is she right?If my friend goes to hell, how can I possibly enjoy heaven?I’m so angry with my father. People tell me I should forgive him. What does that mean?I’m afraid I’ve committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Have I?Do demons exist? What can they do to me? What can I do to them?Is it ever okay to lie?Will there be sex in heaven?

These aren’t ordinary questions that yield to an easy or simplistic answer. These are among the most challenging subjects people face. The failure to provide a good and biblical answer often leaves Christians in fear or guilt or confusion and can occasionally erode their confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture to say something meaningful and satisfying. Tough Topics makes no claim to answer every question Christians ask. But it does propose to provide solid and scriptural answers to twenty-five of them. Sadly, many believers walk away from church or from a friend or even from a pastor, frustrated that such issues are either answered badly or met with an “I don’t know,” or perhaps even ignored altogether. My aim in this book is to overcome that frustration by looking deeply, not superficially, at what Scripture says and deriving clear and persuasive explanations for these thorny matters.

The chapters vary in length, often in direct proportion to the difficulty of the questions they seek to answer. All are written with the educated Christian layperson in mind. In only a few places do I appeal to the original Greek text, and when I do, it is done in such a way that the person who reads only English can follow the argument.

My hope is that in providing the body of Christ with a resource of this length and depth, much confusion will be removed, and hours of unproductive research can be reduced. In none of the chapters do I respond with a short or simplistic answer. My desire is that by looking deeply into the biblical text and by stretching our minds to explore every possible option, we will walk away not only more informed about what the Bible teaches but also, and even more importantly, more in awe of the greatness and goodness of God. In other words, the ultimate aim of this book isn’t knowledge; it’s worship. By seeing more clearly how God acts and what he meant and why he responds the way he does, I trust that we all will love him more passionately and praise him more fervently.

I suppose some might be tempted to conclude that the easy thing to do would simply be to say “yes” or “no” or “sometimes” to the twenty-five questions posed in this book, and leave it at that. But that wouldn’t be of much help to you when it comes to knowing why the Bible provides the answer it does. If you never move beyond the shallow one-word response to the most puzzling and pressing questions in life, you will forever remain spiritually stunted and immature. And you will be of little to no benefit to others who approach you with their curiosity about these matters. Your grasp of who God is and how and why he does what he does would not be very deep or substantive. The bottom line is this: we need to wrestle with the hard texts and the tough topics in Scripture. Only then will our thinking skills be honed, our minds expanded, our spirits enriched, and our hearts filled with joy and delight to understand the mysterious ways of our great God and Savior.

Some of these chapters may well leave you hungry for more. For that reason I’ve included a brief list of recommended reading to help you continue your pursuit of a more comprehensive explanation in each case.

Most of these chapters stand independent of each other. In other words, you may want to scan the table of contents and read first (or perhaps only) those chapters that intrigue you most. However, there are a few chapters that answer questions related to each other, which is to say they are concerned with the same general theme in Scripture. In those cases I recommend that you read them in order because they do build upon one another to some extent. But on the whole, I’ve written the book so that the person who wishes to read it more selectively can do so without significant loss.

Is the Bible Inerrant?

This book is entirely devoted to providing what I hope will be biblical answers to hard questions people ask. What you or I may prefer to be true or what may or may not make us feelcomfortable or what appears to our judgment to be fair or unfair simply doesn’t matter. When we say we believe in the inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of the Bible, we are making known that the only answers we will embrace to troublesome questions are those found in Scripture. It seems only appropriate, therefore, that we begin our journey together by asking: Is the Bible in fact inerrant? Are the answers that it gives us always true? Can we trust what the Word of God says on any subject on which it speaks? So let’s get started!

By What Authority?

There is no more critical issue in life than that of authority. In other words, by what standard, or on what grounds, and from what source, and for what reasons do you believe something to be true and therefore binding on your conscience (beliefs) and conduct (behavior)?

Authority for the Christian is thought to come from one of three sources. For some, primarily Roman Catholics and those in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the consensus of the church as expressed in its traditions and creedal formulations is the authoritative guide to God’s will. Hence, as far as these folk are concerned, “What the church says, God says.” A few would insist that the individual is the final authority, such that the Bible and the church are little more than resource materials to assist each person in making up his or her own mind on what is true and authoritative. Thus, they conclude, “What my own spirit says, God says.”

I hope that you are among those who embrace the third option. According to this view, the Bible is the final authority for all matters of faith and life. Consider how this is stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith: “The supreme judge by which all controversies are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.”1 Thus, “What Scripture says, God says.”

It is for this third option that I will contend. The first paragraph in most local church doctrinal statements affirms belief in the inspiration and authority of the sixty-six books of the Bible. How could it be otherwise? For apart from a belief in the authority of Scripture, we would have no way of knowing with any certainty whether any of the remaining doctrinal affirmations is true or false. If the Bible is not the sole, sufficient revelation of God himself, how could we possibly know that God is a Trinity of coequal persons, or that the second person of that Trinity became a man in Jesus of Nazareth and died for sinners and was raised on the third day? Simply put, the inspiration and authority of the Bible is the bedrock upon which our faith is built. Without it, we are doomed to uncertainty, doubt, and a hopeless groping in the darkness of human speculation.

But do we have good reason to believe that this book, the Bible, is different from Plato’s Republic or Shakespeare’s Hamlet or any other human composition? Why do we believe that the sixty-six books of the Bible are divine revelation and authoritative for belief and life? There are any number of reasons, drawn from historical, archaeological, theological, and experiential resources and arguments (perhaps chief among which is that the Holy Spirit has borne witness in our hearts that Scripture is God’s Word). But we must also take into consideration that Jesus himself clearly believed in the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Being a disciple of Jesus entails not only doing what Jesus did but also believing what Jesus believed. It is impossible to accept the authority of Christ without also accepting the authority of Scripture. To believe and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior is to believe and receive what he taught about Scripture.

Clearly, then, the question What do you think of the Bible? reduces to the question What do you think of Christ? To deny the authority of Scripture is to deny the lordship of Jesus. Consider the people and events of the Old Testament, for example, which Jesus frequently mentioned. He referred to Abel, Noah and the great flood, Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot, Isaac and Jacob, the manna from heaven, the serpent in the desert, David eating the consecrated bread and his authorship of the Psalms, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, and Zechariah, and so on. In each case he treated the Old Testament narrative as a straightforward record of historical fact.

But, critics respond, perhaps Jesus was simply accommodating himself to the mistaken beliefs of his contemporaries. That is to say, Jesus simply met his contemporaries on their own ground without necessarily committing himself to the correctness of their views. He chose graciously not to upset them by questioning the veracity of their belief in the truth and authority of the Bible.

I’m sorry, but that’s not the Jesus about whom I read in the New Testament. The Jesus of the Gospels was not at all sensitive about undermining mistaken, though long-cherished, beliefs among the people of his day. He loudly and often denounced the traditions of the Pharisees and took on their distortion of the Old Testament law in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus challenged nationalistic conceptions of the kingdom of God and the coming of the Messiah. He was even willing to face death on a cross for the truth of what he declared. In referring to the Old Testament, Jesus declared that “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Again, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void” (Luke 16:17; see also Mark 7:6–13; Luke 16:29–31). He rebuked the Sadducees, saying, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). When faced with Satan’s temptations, it was to the truth and authority of the Old Testament that he appealed (Matt. 4:4–10). Note especially his words, “It is written.” And Jesus didn’t hesitate to deliberately offend the religious sensibilities of his contemporaries when he chose to eat and socialize with both publicans and prostitutes.

There is a tendency in some evangelical circles to drive a wedge between revelation (the transcendent Word of God) and the Bible (understood as man’s written record of or witness to the Word). It is said that we cannot identify the words of Scripture with divine revelation. Rather, the words are the sacramental means or instrumentality by which divine revelation encounters or engages us experientially. The writings of Scripture are said to mediate the revelatory Word to us. But the former are not identical with the latter.

I believe, on the other hand, what Augustine meant when he envisioned God saying, “O man, true it is that what My Scripture says I myself say.”2 Scripture is thus the “transcript of divine speech.”3 In his article “Inspiration,” J. I. Packer unpacks the significance of this principle:

Christ and his apostles quote Old Testament texts not merely as what, e.g., Moses, David or Isaiah said (see Mk. 7:10, 12:36, 7:6; Rom. 10:5, 11:9, 10:20, etc.), but also as what God said through these men (see Acts 4:25, 28:25, etc.), or sometimes simply what “he” (God) says (e.g., 2 Cor. 6:16; Heb. 8:5, 8), or what the Holy Ghost says (Heb. 3:7, 10:15). Furthermore, Old Testament statements, not made by God in their contexts, are quoted as utterances of God (Mt. 19:4f.; Heb. 3:7; Acts 13:34f.; citing Gen. 2:24; Ps. 95:7; Is. 55:3 respectively). Also, Paul refers to God’s promise to Abraham and his threat to Pharaoh, both spoken long before the biblical record of them was written, as words which Scripture spoke to these two men (Gal. 3:8; Rom. 9:17); which shows how completely he equated the statements of Scripture with the utterance of God.4

Let’s begin by defining two critical terms: revelation and inspiration. Revelation is the activity of God by which he unveils or discloses or makes known what is otherwise unknowable to humanity. It is God making himself known to those shaped in his image. Revelation is what God does, not what mankind achieves. It is a divinely initiated disclosure, not an effort or endeavor or achievement on the part of mankind. Packer explains: “Revelation does not mean man finding God, but God finding man, God sharing His secrets with us, God showing us Himself. In revelation, God is the agent as well as the object.”5 The God of the Bible, notes Donald Bloesch, “is not a God who is discovered in the depths of nature or uncovered in human consciousness. Nor is he a God who is immediately discernible in the events of history. . . . For the living God to be known, he must make himself known, and he has done this in the acts and words recorded in Scripture.”6

Much has been made of an alleged distinction between revelation as propositional and revelation as personal. Since God is himself a person, so some say, revelation cannot be propositional (or at least, not primarily so). Revelation is God making himself known, the event of disclosing his person to other persons. But Packer is certainly correct in pointing out that this distinction should not be pressed too far. He notes:

Personal friendship between God and man, grows just as human friendships do—namely, through talking; and talking means making informative statements, and informative statements are propositions. . . . [Indeed] to say that revelation is non-propositional is actually to depersonalize it. . . . To maintain that we may know God without God actually speaking to us in words is really to deny that God is personal, or at any rate that knowing Him is a truly personal relationship.7

In other words, special revelation is a verbal activity, in the sense that “God has communicated with man by means of significant utterances: statements, questions, and commands, spoken either in His own person or on His behalf by His own appointed messengers and instructors.”8 This does not mean that God is less active, less personal, as if he were nothing but a celestial lecturer. He discloses himself by powerful acts in history, encountering his people, showing himself gracious by redeeming them, kind by forgiving them, strong by delivering them, and so forth. The Bible “itself is essentially a recital of His doings, an explanatory narrative of the great drama of the bringing in of His kingdom, and the saving of the world.”9 Let us not forget that faith is often portrayed in Scripture as trusting, often against great odds, what God has said (see Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6; Heb. 6:13ff.; 11:8–13, 17, 33).

The fact that revelation is verbal does not mean that knowing God is simply a matter of memorizing texts or cataloging doctrines.

But what the claim that revelation is essentially verbal does imply is that no historical event, as such, can make God known to anyone unless God Himself discloses its meaning and place in His plan. Providential happenings may serve to remind us, more or less vividly, that God is at work (cf. Acts 14:17), but their link, if any, with His saving purpose cannot be known until He Himself informs us of it. No event is self-interpreting at this level.10

Again,

All history is, in one sense, God’s deed, but none of it reveals Him except in so far as He Himself talks to us about it. God’s revelation is not through deeds without words (a dumb charade!) any more than it is through words without deeds; but it is through deeds which He speaks to interpret, or, putting it more biblically, through words which His deeds confirm and fulfill.11

Packer’s point is simply this:

No public historical happening, as such (an exodus, a conquest, a captivity, a crucifixion, an empty tomb), can reveal God apart from an accompanying word from God to explain it, or a prior promise which it is seen to confirm or fulfill. Revelation in its basic form is thus of necessity propositional; God reveals Himself by telling us about Himself, and what He is doing in His world.12

The notion of propositional revelation in no way denies the revelatory activity of God in events, in personal encounters, or in the dynamic and relational ways whereby he engages his people and makes himself immediately and experientially known to them (see Heb. 1:1). The “many ways” in which God revealed himself personally included theophanies, angelic visitations, an audible voice from heaven, visions, dreams, supernatural writing, inward impressions, natural phenomena, and more. But in each of these instances the divine disclosures introduced or confirmed by these means were propositional in substance and verbal in form. In other words, whereas not every statement or revelatory deed comes to us in strict propositional form, all do in fact presuppose a proposition on the basis of which a truth claim about the nature of reality is being made.

Another characteristic of revelation is that it is progressive, that is, cumulative. God has not revealed himself comprehensively at any one stage in history or in any one event. Revelation is a series of divine disclosures, each of which builds upon and unpacks or unfolds that which preceded it. Revelation moves from what is piecemeal and partial and incomplete (but always accurate) to what is comprehensive and final and unified. This contrast between the incomplete and complete, between the partial and the full, is not a contrast between false and true, inaccurate and accurate, but a contrast between shadow and substance, between type and antitype, between promise and fulfillment.

Inspiration, on the other hand, was the related process whereby God preserved the biblical authors from error when communicating, whether by his voice or in writing, that which he had shown them. The Holy Spirit superintended the writing of Scripture, that is to say, he acted to insure that what the human authors intended by their words is equivalent to what God intended (a process also referred to as concursive inspiration). Thus “each resultant oracle was as truly a divine utterance as a human, as direct a disclosure of what was in God’s mind as of what was in the prophet’s.”13 The Spirit thus brought the free and spontaneous thoughts of the human author into coincidence with the thoughts of God.

Many question how this can be done. They contend that if God’s control over what the biblical authors said was exhaustive, they must have written as mindless automatons. On the other hand, if their minds operated freely according to their own volitional creativity, then God cannot have kept them free from error. But this dilemma “rests on the assumption that full psychological freedom of thought and action, and full subjection to divine control, are incompatible.”14

The doctrine of verbal, plenary (i.e., complete, total) inspiration means that the words of the Bible are the words of God. This doesn’t mean that God spoke every word himself, but that the words spoken by the authors of Scripture are the words that God desired them to speak in the revelation of himself. Thus there is no significant difference between the ultimate authority of God and the immediate authority of Scripture. “The authority of Scripture is the divine authority of God Himself speaking.”15 Some argue that one cannot stand under the authority of the living Word, Jesus Christ, and at the same time stand under the authority of the written Word, the Bible. This is a false antithesis. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Scriptures and in the latter the former is revealed and made known, and his will unfolded. To obey the latter is to obey the former. To disobey the latter is to disobey the former.

Inerrancy

The debate over whether Scripture is inerrant shows no signs of slowing down, much less going away. Among evangelicals, two views have dominated the landscape. Some embrace what has been called “limited inerrancy.” One of the more able and articulate defenders of this view is Daniel Fuller.16 According to Fuller and those who follow his lead, the inerrancy of a book or piece of literature can be evaluated solely in light of the author’s intention or purpose. Does the author fulfill his or her purpose in writing? If so, the work is inerrant. If not, it is not. The purpose of the Bible, they say, is to make us “wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15). The purpose of the Bible is not to make us wise unto botany or geology or astronomy or history. Rather, according to Fuller, the biblical writers declare that their purpose is to report the events and meaning of the redemptive acts of God in history so that men might be made wise unto salvation. By this criterion, says Fuller, the Bible is inerrant. It perfectly lives up to its purpose. It never fails to fulfill its purpose or intent of making the reader wise unto salvation.

Since, in this view, inerrancy should be expected only in the case of those biblical assertions which teach or rightly imply knowledge that makes man wise unto salvation, Scripture can and does err in other matters. That is to say, there are passages in the Bible that are but incidentally related or entirely unrelated to its primary purpose. Fuller calls these incidents or texts nonrevelational matters—biblical statements on such topics as geology, meteorology, cosmology, botany, astronomy, geography, history, and the like. Since the principal aim or authorial intent of Scripture is not to teach truths on such matters as these, such statements may err while the statements in keeping with its primary purpose remain inerrant. The Bible is inerrant on those matters it intends to teach, matters essential to making us wise unto salvation. These, and these alone, are revelatory.

Fuller is not saying that the Bible cannot err on revelational matters. He is saying that on nonrevelational matters there may indeed be errors in Scripture (he believes there are), but that on revelational matters he has discovered none yet and hopes he never will. “I sincerely hope,” writes Fuller, “that as I continue my historical-grammatical exegesis of Scripture, I shall find no error in its teachings. But I can only affirm inerrancy with high probability.”17

Contrary to the above perspective, the Bible makes no distinction between inspired and uninspired texts or topics, nor does it place any restrictions on the kinds of subjects on which it speaks truthfully (see esp. Luke 24:25; Acts 24:14; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:11). Thus I embrace and want to argue for what I’ll call the doctrine of “complete inerrancy.” Some prefer that we use the word infallibility, which comes from the Latin infallibilitas, meaning the quality of neither deceiving nor being deceived. Inerrancy comes from the Latin inerrantia and simply means freedom from error. This means that Scripture does not affirm anything contrary to fact. Together both ideas express the idea that all Scripture comes to us as the very words of God and is thus reliable and true and free of error. Consider these definitions of inerrancy, each of which makes an excellent contribution to our understanding of what is at stake:

Inerrancy will then mean that at no point in what was originally given were the biblical writers allowed to make statements or endorse viewpoints which are not in conformity with objective truth. This applies at any level at which they make pronouncements.18

Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.19

When all the facts are known, the Bible (in its original writings) properly interpreted in light of which culture and communication means had developed by the time of its composition will be shown to be completely true (and therefore not false) in all that it affirms, to the degree of precision intended by the author, in all matters relating to God and his creation.20

Except for the types of textual corruption that can arise in the course of repeated copying, the Bible offers an accurate, though not comprehensive, description and interpretation of the world and human history from the creation to the rise of the Christian church, as well as a reliable record of divinely revealed truths about God and his plans for humanity, which careful exegesis can demonstrate to be internally consistent and concerning which, through fair and informed analysis, plausible solutions for apparently fundamental conflicts between it and objective extra-biblical data can be suggested.21

2 Timothy 3:16–17

Anytime the concepts of inspiration and inerrancy are mentioned, 2 Timothy 3:16–17 soon becomes the focus of discussion. “All Scripture,” writes the apostle Paul, “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 complete, equipped for every good work.” It will do us well to make a few observations on what Paul meant.

The word “all” (in “all Scripture”) has a collective sense and means the whole of Scripture: the entirety of the Bible, inclusive of all its parts. Some translations employ the term “every,” which has a distributive sense and means each Scripture individually, the various parts of the Bible comprised in the whole. Whether it is translated “all” Scripture or “every” Scripture, Paul is saying that whatever is Scripture is God-breathed.

But what does Paul have in mind when he refers to “Scripture”? In verse 15 the words “sacred writings” refer solely to the Old Testament. On what grounds, then, do we extend the affirmation of inspiration to the New Testament writings? First of all, Peter refers to Paul’s writings as “Scriptures” in 2 Peter 3:14–16. We also know that Paul directs that his epistles be read publicly for instruction in the church, presumably along with the Old Testament (Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27). Paul also calls his message “the word of God” in 1 Thessalonians 2:13. In 1 Corinthians 2:13 he refers to what God has revealed to him as “words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit.” And in 1 Timothy 5:18 Paul indicates that there is more to Scripture than the Old Testament: he places Luke’s Gospel (or at least the materials from which Luke’s Gospel was to be composed) on a par with Deuteronomy.

But should we translate the text “all God-breathed Scripture is also profitable” (or “all Scripture that is God-breathed is also profitable”) or “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable”? The former might (but need not) suggest that only some of Scripture is God-breathed, not all, and hence only some Scripture is profitable. The latter, however, is more likely. It is a double predicate adjective connected by kai (“and”).

Most important of all is the meaning of the word translated “breathed out by God” (theopneustos). The translation “inspired” can be misleading, for it might suggest to some an already existent text into which God breathed or to which he imparted some special spiritual or divine quality. The Greek word actually means “breathed out from God” not “breathed into by God.” The Scriptures are a product of the divine breath (origin). The Scriptures find their origin in God, not in the creative genius of humans. In the Old Testament the “breath” of God is his creative power (cf. Job 32:8; 33:4; 34:14; see also Gen. 2:7; Ps. 33:6).

Lastly, it is difficult to see how error can be “profitable” and contribute to our “teaching” and “correction” and “training” in righteousness. According to Packer, “authority belongs to truth and truth only. . . . I can make no sense—no reverent sense, anyway—of the idea, sometimes met, that God speaks his truth to us in and through false statements by biblical writers.”22

Clarifying Misconceptions of Biblical Inerrancy

People often reject the concept of biblical inerrancy because they misunderstand what is being affirmed by our use of this term. So let me address several misunderstandings about what inerrancy does and does not entail.

First off, it is no objection to inerrancy that God used sinful, error-prone human beings in the process of inscripturation. It is one thing to say that because we are human we can make mistakes. It is another thing to say we must (see esp. 2 Pet. 1:20–21). The doctrine of inerrancy, therefore, does not diminish the humanity of Scripture any more than the deity of Christ diminishes the reality of his human flesh.

It is no objection to inerrancy that sometimes the Bible describes things as they appear, that is, phenomenologically, rather than as they really are. We would be compelled to acknowledge an error only if the Bible explicitly taught that things appeared one way when in fact they did not, or if the Bible explicitly taught that things were one way when in actual fact they were altogether other. But when the Bible says that an event appears in a particular way, that is to say, it seems to the naked eye and from the vantage point of human observation to be a particular way when in fact it actually is another way, it is not an error.

It is no objection to inerrancy that God often accommodates himself to human language and experience when making known his will and ways in Scripture. Similarly, it is no objection to inerrancy that the Bible contains figures of speech. Some erroneously believe that inerrancy requires that everything in the Bible be taken literally, as if to suggest that God literally has wings and that mountains literally leap for joy. But truth is often expressed in nonliteral or figurative and symbolic language.

Inerrancy is perfectly compatible with the fact that the Bible emphasizes certain concepts or doctrines more than others. Some have drawn the unwarranted conclusion that since the Bible does not emphasize, say, geology, anything it does say concerning geology is in error. It is true that the declaration “Jesus Christ [is] risen from the dead” (2 Tim. 2:8) is more important than “Erastus remained at Corinth” (2 Tim. 4:20). But the comparative unimportance of the latter does not imply its falsity.

It is no objection to inerrancy that the authors of Scripture occasionally sidestep conventions of grammar. A statement can be ungrammatical in its style while entirely true in its content. As John Frame points out, “ ‘I ain’t goin’ is considered less proper than ‘I am not going.’ But the meaning of both phrases is clear. They say the same thing, and they can both express truth.”23

It is no objection to inerrancy that our interpretations of the Bible are less than uniform. The explanation for disparate interpretations must rest with the interpreter, not with the text. The fact that I am a credo-baptist (only believers should be baptized) and one of my close friends is a paedo-baptist (he practices infant baptism) means that one of us is wrong, but not that Scripture is.

It is no objection to inerrancy that the Bible is not equally clear in every place. In other words, the inerrancy of Scripture does not guarantee its complete lucidity. Even the apostle Peter acknowledged that the apostle Paul wrote some things “that are hard to understand” (2 Pet. 3:16). But the complexity and difficulty of what Paul wrote doesn’t mean it is less true or less accurate than anything Peter or Luke or John may have written.

It is no objection to inerrancy that the Bible records lies and unethical actions. We must distinguish between what the Bible merely reports and what it approves, between descriptive authority and normative authority.

It is no objection to inerrancy that authors of the New Testament cite or allude to the Old Testament with less than verbal precision.24 We must be careful not to artificially impose on authors in the first century the literary standards of the twenty-first century. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, for example, had never heard of Kate Turabian or The Chicago Manual of Style!

Likewise, it is no objection to inerrancy that the authors of Scripture round off or approximate numbers and measurements. Alleged “inaccuracies” must be judged by the accepted standards of the cultural-historical context in which the author wrote, not by the scientifically and computerized precision of twenty-first-century technology. “The limits of truthfulness,” notes Wayne Grudem, “would depend on the degree of precision implied by the speaker and expected by his original hearers.”25 Frame agrees, reminding us that “precision and truth are not synonyms, though they do overlap in meaning. A certain amount of precision is often required for truth, but that amount varies from one context to another.”26 For example, if you asked me how old I was when I wrote this paragraph, I would say, “sixty.” But that is not precise. I was literally 60 years, 7 months, 16 days, 7 hours, and 22 minutes old. Although I did not answer you precisely, I did answer you truthfully. Or if you wanted to know how far I live from my church office, I would be truthful in saying “ten miles,” although the precise distance is 9.4. Thus, as Frame notes, inerrancy

means that the Bible is true, not that it is maximally precise. To the extent that precision is necessary for truth, the Bible is sufficiently precise. But it does not always have the amount of precision that some readers demand of it. It has a level of precision sufficient for its own purposes, not for the purposes for which some readers might employ it.27

It is no objection to inerrancy that the recorded account of certain events is not exhaustive in detail. That the description of an event is partial does not mean it is false. Inerrancy simply means that when Scripture does speak, however extensive or minimal it may be, it speaks accurately. Related to this are those instances when two authors record the same event from differing perspectives and for different purposes. Thus it is no error that Matthew mentions one angel at the tomb of Jesus (Matt. 28:2) while Luke mentions two (Luke 24:4). After all, if there were two, there was assuredly one. If Matthew had said there was “only” one angel and Luke had said there were two, we’d have a problem. But such is not the case.

It is no objection to inerrancy that the biblical authors used uninspired and errant material in composing Scripture. Inerrancy simply means that when they do quote or borrow from uninspired sources, they do so accurately. It is no objection to inerrancy that we cannot, at this time, harmonize all allegedly disparate events or data. This would make the authority of the Bible depend on the resourcefulness of humans. It would also indicate that we have learned little from history, for on countless occasions historical, archaeological, exegetical, and scientific discoveries have resolved what were apparent contradictions in the Bible.

Conclusion

So, why is this doctrine or concept of Scripture as verbally, plenarily, and inerrantly inspired so critical? First, because

biblical veracity and biblical authority are bound up together. Only truth can have final authority to determine belief and behavior, and Scripture cannot have such authority further than it is true. A factually and theologically trustworthy Bible could still impress us as a presentation of religious experience and expertise, but clearly, if we cannot affirm its total truthfulness, we cannot claim that it is all God’s testimony and teaching, given to control our convictions and conduct.28

Second, we should subject our souls to the infallibility and authority of the Scriptures, immerse our minds in its truths, and bathe our spirits in its teachings because the inerrant special revelation of God in Scripture has the power to change human lives and to transform the experience of the church.

The Word of God is the means or instrument by which the Holy Spirit regenerates the human heart. That is to say, the proclamation or communication of the Word is the catalyst for the inception of spiritual life. When we look at 1 Peter 1:23–25, we discover that this “word” that brings life is a “preached” word! The Word of God is the power of God unto salvation (see esp. Rom. 1:16–17; 10:14–15; 1 Cor. 1:18–25). The Word of God is the spring from which the waters of faith arise. Paul says in Romans 10:17 that “faith comes from hearing” and that hearing comes “through the word of Christ.”

It is from or through the Scriptures that the Spirit imparts perseverance and encouragement: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). It is from or through the Scriptures that joy, peace, and hope arise. How so? Paul prays in Romans 15:13 that God would “fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Both joy and peace are the fruit of believing, which in turn yields hope. But believe what? Belief is confidence placed in the truth of what God has revealed to us in Scripture about who he is and our relationship to him through Jesus. Belief does not hover in a contentless vacuum, but is rooted in the firm foundation of inspired, revelatory words inscripturated for us in the Bible.

It is the Word of God that accounts for the ongoing operation of the miraculous in the body of Christ. We read in Galatians 3:5, “Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” The instrument God uses is the faith that we experience upon hearing the Word of God! When we hear the Word of God (in preaching and teaching), our thoughts and hearts become God-centered; our focus is on his glory, and thus our faith in his greatness expands and deepens, all of which is the soil in which the seeds of the supernatural are sown. Apart from the truths of preached texts, there can be no genuine, long-lasting, Christ-exalting faith; and apart from such faith there can be no (or at best, few) miracles.

It is the Word of God, expounded and explained and applied, that yields the fruit of sanctification and holiness in daily life. Consider the following:

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. (1 Thess. 2:13)

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. (1 Tim. 4:6)

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. (1 Pet. 2:2)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Heb. 4:12)

So, is the Bible not only inspired or breathed out by God, but also inerrant? And does it matter? The answer to both questions is, “By all means, yes, and again, yes!”