Biblical Inerrancy: Pt. 8 The Bible & You

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All right, we're at part eight, and today is the last session of explaining inerrancy.

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We'll move on to hermeneutics next week. So we'll just very quickly review 19 articles of affirmation and denial.

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The Bible in authority, the Bible in revelation, the Bible in inspiration, the Bible in inerrancy, the

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Bible in truth is what we looked at last week, and now tonight we're looking at the

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Bible and you, okay? And this is a very important quotation.

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Discussion of inerrancy is merely an academic exercise unless it concerns the individual

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Christian on the level of his growth in God. But this is precisely what it does.

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Confession of the full authority and inerrancy of Scripture should lead us to increasing conformity to the image of Christ, which is the

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God -ordained goal of every Christian. The final articles of affirmation and denial deal with this matter, including the work of the

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Holy Spirit in helping the believer to understand and apply the Scriptures to his or her life. I like the way they brought this whole thing down.

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We've been looking at a lot of technical issues, you know, explaining what's the difference between infallibility and inerrancy, and what's the nature of truth, and, you know, all kinds of different things.

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And even, remember, looking at inerrancy as a doctrine, not as the definition of the word.

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But the bottom line is, why do we engage in all of these technical aspects?

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Because it's important for us, the Bible was given to us to change our lives, not to make us smarter, all right?

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If all we're doing is reading the Scriptures to become intellectually smarter, we're looking at it from the wrong perspective.

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And, in fact, if that's all we were looking at, then inerrancy wouldn't be such a big deal. But we're talking about changing lives, and that's the whole purpose for giving us the

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Scriptures, is to enable us to understand the relationship that we can have with God through Jesus Christ.

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And that's what they say, that the whole idea of the statement is to bring us down to the fact of what is the

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Word of God, what is truth, what is revelation, and all of those things, and then apply it to our individual lives.

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So, we've got four, I think it's four affirmations and denials left.

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The first one is church history. We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the church's faith throughout its history.

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Notice, has been integral. And we'll talk a little bit later on about the fact that the whole reason for this council is somewhat of a new phenomenon.

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This was not something that was historically a major issue in the church, and we'll look at that a little bit later.

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So, what they're affirming in the first case is that it has been integral to the church's faith throughout its entire history.

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We deny that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.

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So, the affirmation and denial give us a full picture, and we'll look a little bit at the exposition.

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This affirmation, again, speaks of the doctrine of inerrancy, not the word inerrancy. Remember, we talked about the difference between what the word inerrancy can mean, and inerrancy can mean different things in different settings.

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But when we talk about the doctrine of inerrancy, we're not talking about something that is relative.

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We're talking about what the Bible itself says about inerrancy and coming right from the nature of God.

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So, the affirmation speaks to the doctrine of inerrancy, not the word inerrancy. It is readily acknowledged that the word inerrancy was not used with any degree of frequency and perhaps not even at all before the 17th century.

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So, basically what they're saying is the word itself may not have been used.

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Now, of course, that is something that the critics like to point out. So, for example,

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Martin Luther nowhere uses the term inerrancy as a noun with respect to Scripture. Because of this, some have said that Luther did not believe in inerrancy, but Luther argued that the

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Scriptures never err. So, what you're looking at is the distinction without a difference.

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I mean, the critics of the Scriptures will go through all kinds of lengths. And here's a perfect one.

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Just because the word inerrancy wasn't used by Luther, they say, well, he didn't believe in it. He said exactly the same thing.

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He never used the word inerrancy as a noun. To say that the

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Scriptures never err is to say nothing more or less than the Bible is inerrant. So, though the word inerrancy is a relatively modern invention, the concept is rooted not only in the biblical witness to Scripture itself, but also in the acceptance of the vast majority of God's people throughout the history of the

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Christian church. Now, that's an important point. Some of the modern critics will say, well, this is a new doctrine.

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And you notice that even in the Affirmation and Denial, it's a product of 17th century scholasticism.

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Why would they refer back to the 17th century? Why is that such an important century that they would point back to that?

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Not the Enlightenment, but the Reformation, and when were most of the creeds?

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When was our creed established? The Westminster, you see.

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So, this is when these creeds and confessions started to be codified.

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And so, that's what they're basically saying, is that this is a result of a more modern scholasticism, but it was never taught of the church.

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The confession is saying just the opposite. No, it's the biblical witness to Scripture, acceptance of the vast majority of God's people.

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We find the doctrine taught, embraced, and espoused by such men as St.

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Augustine, Thomas Aquinas. Why would those two be important? Why should we listen to these guys, at least on this subject?

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Because, you know, who looks up to these guys?

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The Roman Catholic Church. They idolize, literally, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

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While we would have a few more problems with what Thomas Aquinas taught, nonetheless, on some of the issues of Scripture, we can hardly agree with what he said.

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He had a high view of Scripture. So did Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and a host of Christian scholars and teachers throughout the history of the church.

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So, while the language of inerrancy does not appear in Protestant confessions of faith until the modern ages, the concept of inerrancy is surely not foreign or strange to the confessions of East or West Catholic.

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That's important to know, too, that both the Eastern Orthodox and the

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Western Roman Catholic Church hold to the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture.

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They just add to it. And, of course, all the

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Protestant confessions. So, follow what we're saying?

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So, the denial follows the thinking of the affirmation closely. The denial is simply that inerrancy as a concept is not the product of a rigid, sterile, rationalistic approach to Scripture, born of the scholastic movement of the 17th century

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Protestantism, nor is it proper to understand the doctrine as a 20th century reaction to liberal theology or modernism.

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That's another charge that is leveled by the liberals, is that, oh no, this is new, you've only come up with this doctrine because we're telling people that the

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Bible is not inerrant. But, as we've seen, we go all the way back.

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I mean, there's a high view of Scripture going all the way back. It is not the affirmation of inerrancy that is of recent vintage.

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Now, this is important, follow this. It is not the affirmation of inerrancy that is of recent vintage.

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It is the denial. In other words, it has been the view of mainstream

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Christianity going all the way back to the apostles that the Scriptures are inerrant.

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It's not the reaction to higher criticism, but it's uncritically accepted philosophical assumptions of negative criticism.

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That's the new phenomenon in mainline Christianity. In other words, if you go back several hundred years, if you were to say, well,

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I'm not sure that the Scriptures are inerrant, you would have been, oh, what are you talking about?

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Of course they are, because that's been the mainline view of the church going right back to the apostles.

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And, of course, they would say just the opposite. Such criticism is not new in the sense that no one ever questioned the integrity or authenticity of the

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Scriptures in past ages. But the newness of the phenomena is its widespread and easy acceptance within churches and by leaders who would claim allegiance to mainline

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Christianity. That's what the writers of this, the members of this council are saying, is they're kind of stunned by how quickly and how widespread within mainline churches people are doubting the inerrancy of Scripture.

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Now, here's some just Scripture reference. Now, obviously, we don't have Scripture references concerning the

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Middle Ages, etc. And we know why. I hope everybody understands why.

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Why? Because the canon was complete. Yes, OK, very good. All right.

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But we do get the idea that it goes right back to the apostolic age, and that's some of the

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Scriptures. Titus 1, 1 -3, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness, in hope of eternal life, which

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God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested even his word in the proclamation, which

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I was entrusted according to the commandments of God our Savior. This is an important one.

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Now, notice, Paul is talking about the fact he has been entrusted with the

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Scriptures. And so he, and this is

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Paul's view. All right, 2 Timothy 3, all Scripture is what? Theonoustos, God breathed.

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And profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. And obviously, if it was not inerrant, it could not,

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Paul could not have said that. That would have been a lie. All right, so that the man of God may be adequate.

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And I think I talked a little bit about adequacy and the word, how it doesn't mean our connotation, adequate is kind of like so -so, you know, it's okay.

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But the word as it's used in the Scriptures means perfectly, not just so -so.

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All right, equipped for every good work. And of course, 2

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Timothy 2 .2, the things that you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men.

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This is the whole idea that the teaching of the church is passed down from generation to generation, specifically by faithful men who have the word of God, all right, who will be able to teach others also.

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And that's the testimony of the church. That's what we have. Just imagine, you know, this is something

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I've said before from the pulpit. I take great comfort and great confidence in preaching

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Reformed doctrines, because they're the same doctrines that were taught back in the 17th century, same doctrines that the

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Apostle Paul taught, the church fathers believed, and we can teach these with confidence.

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I don't know how people can get into the pulpit, and they're teaching something that started in the 1830s.

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Where's your confidence? You know, if it can change that much, is it going to change again?

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Next article, article 17, Witness of the Spirit. This is the article that caused some members of the council not to sign the document.

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Okay, and I think you'll see why as we go through. We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the

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Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written word.

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Straight to the point. I don't know how anybody could disagree with that statement.

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We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.

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Here is the big one. All right. What is this going to do to some of our charismatic friends?

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They can't agree to that. They believe that the Holy Spirit does operate at least outside of,

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I don't think they would say he operates against the Scriptures, but he at least operates outside of the

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Scriptures. So article 17 attests to the doctrine of the internal testimony of the

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Holy Spirit. That is to say our personal conviction of the truth of Scripture rests not on the external evidences to the

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Scriptures, truthfulness in and of themselves. Now notice I'm not saying we don't use them.

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It's just saying that we don't rely on them alone. All right. But those evidences are confirmed in our hearts by the special work of God the

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Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself bears witness to our human spirit that the

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Scriptures are indeed the word of God. Here God himself confirms the truthfulness of his own word.

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All right. You follow? So in other words, as we learn and as we study, we see, we have the

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Scriptures which are confirmed by the Holy Spirit that it is in fact truth.

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You ever wonder why you see something in the Scriptures and you say, well, this is so obvious.

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And you're witnessing to somebody and you show them, look, look how obvious. And they don't get it.

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Why? Don't have the Holy Spirit. OK. I mean, it's that simple.

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The denial guards against substituting a reliance upon the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit for the content of Scripture itself.

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OK. In other words, the Holy Spirit works in and through the

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Scriptures, not apart from the Scriptures. All right. The thought behind the denial is that the

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Holy Spirit normally works in conjunction with the Scripture and speaks to us through the

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Scripture, not against the Scripture or apart from the Scripture. Word and spirit are to be viewed together.

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Word bearing witness to the Spirit and being the means by which we test the Spirit to see if they be of God.

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And the Spirit working within our hearts to confirm the word of God to ourselves. Thus there is reciprocity.

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Thus there is reciprocity between word and spirit and they are never to be said over against each other.

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That's why if you ever have, you know, a friend who has charismatic leanings, they say, well, the Holy Spirit told me to do this, you know.

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And if it's against Scripture, no, he didn't. Somebody might have told you that, but it certainly wasn't the

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Holy Spirit. Just some

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Scripture references. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

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John 14. I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper that he may be with you forever.

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That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him. John 15, 26.

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When the helper comes whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the spirit of truth who proceeds from the

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Father. He will testify about me. Oh, by the way, this is an important verse. Let me say why this is an important verse.

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There's a lot being done in the name of the Holy Spirit in churches today.

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And somebody says, well, you know what? I know the Holy Spirit was there. People were getting slain in the spirit.

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Or people were doing this and doing that all in the name of the Holy Spirit. Here's the test for if you know the

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Holy Spirit is present. Is Jesus being testified about? The Holy Spirit does not come to testify of himself or even of his work as important as it is.

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The Holy Spirit was going to come and testify to Jesus and his work.

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So if the name of Christ is not being exalted, but the Holy Spirit is being exalted, I question whether or not that's the work of the

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Holy Spirit. All right. Does that make sense? Especially from this verse right here.

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This is who proceeds. He will testify about me. John 16, 13.

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But when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. Little caveat.

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This first application for this is the writing of Scripture. But I couldn't resist putting it up because there is a secondary application that the

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Holy Spirit does guide us into truth. Okay.

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1 John 4, 1 -3. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

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By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess

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Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, of which you have heard it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

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Great eschatological significance there as well, but we're looking at it from the inerrancy of Scripture perspective.

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Again, notice, how do we test the spirits? Doctrinal purity.

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Any spirit that says Jesus, he didn't come into flesh, heresy. It's Antichrist.

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Okay. And don't be afraid to call it that. That's why you have cults out there that we strongly assert they're not

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Christian. They're cults. Why? Because they deny the creed Jesus Christ came into flesh.

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And we come to Article 18, Interpretation. We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico -historical exegesis, taking into account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret

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Scripture. All right. I'm not going to get too deep into interpretation, because that's what's coming next.

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All right. Starting next week, we're going to be looking at principles of hermeneutics. Okay. We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.

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Okay. Now, we'll expand on that a little bit. Article 18 touches on some of the most basic principles of biblical interpretation.

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Though this article does not spell out in detail a vast comprehensive system of hermeneutics, it nevertheless gives basic guidelines on which the framers of the

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Confession were able to agree. The first is that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico -historical exegesis.

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All right. Now, that's a technical term that refers to the process by which we take the structures and time periods of the written text seriously as we interpret them.

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What it means is really what it's saying. Scripture was given to us in written form, so the grammar is important.

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Nouns remain nouns, verbs, verbs, etc. And, in fact, I've seen this even in evangelical circles where they change things.

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For example, the Great Commission. Go, therefore, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. All right.

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I've actually heard evangelical pastors say there are four verbs in that passage.

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Go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. Four verbs, and that's the thrust of the commandment.

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I see our Greek scholar is shaking his head back there. There's one verb.

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Do you know what the verb is? No. Make disciples. There's one verb.

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The other are participles that support the verb. How do you make disciples? By going, baptizing, and teaching.

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That makes a difference. That's a big difference in what your actions are from that source.

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That is following grammatico -historical exegesis. The other thing is that the grammar is important, but the historical context is also important.

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What is the historical setting, and why were these things being said?

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For example, you have Jesus saying if you're compelled to carry the luggage for a mile, carry it too.

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Why would he say that? Why would he tell you to carry somebody's luggage, particularly a soldier's luggage?

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Anybody know why? It was a law. It's a

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Roman law that any Roman soldier could go up to any citizen and say, here, carry my things with me a mile.

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He could only go a mile. That was the law. So when Christ is coming and saying, you know what?

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If you're compelled to go a mile, go too. That's where we get the phrase, go the extra mile.

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All right? So I mean, the phrase, but that puts a different context in it, you know?

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And that's why we have to look at the historical settings. I've got books in my library that talk about the cultural settings of the day, you know, the days, the early days of the church, so that we can understand what exactly he's saying.

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All right? Does that make sense? So that's simply what grammatical historical exegesis means.

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I'm glad I wasn't going to get too deep into this. I'm actually jumping into next week's, but that's all right, as we interpret them.

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Biblical interpreters are not given license to spiritualize or allegorize text against the grammatical structure and the form of the text itself.

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The Bible is not to be reinterpreted to be brought into conformity with contemporary philosophies.

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That is something that you see, again, this is another frequent error. You have the biblical text brought into modern society, and there's danger in that, grave danger in that.

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And again, I'll give you an illustration. What do you think of when

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I mention the word, he's a Pharisee? What do you think of?

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Yeah, but what? What is it in other words? A hypocrite. A hypocrite.

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In first century Israel, if somebody said, he's a Pharisee, what was brought to mind?

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He's a godly mind, godly man. So you see, the same word, he's a

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Pharisee, two different meanings based upon historical context. So you have to be careful, all right, to be brought into conformity with contemporary philosophies, but as we understood in its intended meaning and word uses as it was written at the time that it was composed.

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To hold to grammatico -historical exegesis is to disallow the turning of the Bible into,

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I like the phrasing, a wax nose. A wax nose that can be shaped and reshaped according to the modern conventions of thought.

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The Bible is to be interpreted as it was written, not reinterpreted as we would like it to have been written, according to the prejudices of our own era.

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All right. Makes sense, right? The second principle of the affirmation is that we have to take into account of the literary forms and devices that are found within the scriptures themselves.

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For example, Jesus taught frequently in parables. It's not normally the way we teach today.

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We're very much products of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and how we teach logically, all right?

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Jesus taught in stories and analogies, all right? Not that he wasn't logical, but I mean there's just a different style of how he taught.

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So we ought to take into account of the literary forms and devices that are found within the scriptures themselves.

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This goes back to the principles of interpretation espoused by Luther and the reformers. A verb is to be as a verb, a noun, a noun, a parable, a parable, didactic literature as didactic literature.

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Didactic, everybody knows what didactic means? Teaching, instructive, okay?

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Narrative history as narrative history, poetry as poetry, and the like. So for example, psalms, proverbs are poetic literature.

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You treat that differently than kings and the gospels, which are narrative.

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It's historical narrative. It's relaying facts to us, okay? And that's different.

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See, so what they've done is one of the big ways we see this is they take Genesis 1 and say this is poetry when it's clearly historical narrative, okay?

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And the same thing with didactic literature. An example of the didactic literature would be the epistles.

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While there's teaching in all of whether it's poetry or historical narrative, the epistles are primarily didactic, and that's what their intention was.

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The gospels are didactic somewhat in nature, but it's in a historical narrative concept, okay?

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Does everybody follow what I'm saying? All right, okay. All right, poetry is poetry.

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Narrative would, okay. So to turn narrative history into poetry or poetry into narrative history would be to violate the intended meaning of the text.

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Thus it's important for all biblical interpreters to be aware of the literary forms and grammatical structures that are found within the scripture, and an analysis of these forms is proper and appropriate for any correct interpretation of the text.

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This is why we have to be so careful. That's why we're going to go through several weeks just in hermeneutics, and we'll go through the basics of hermeneutics, literal interpretation, grammatical historical interpretation, and then we'll go through typology, we'll go through parables, we'll go through prophecy, okay?

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And they have to be interpreted somewhat different, okay?

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The third principle in the affirmation is that scripture is to interpret scripture. Historically, this principle is called the analogy of faith.

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So if you ever heard anybody talk about the analogy of faith, it means scripture interprets scripture, all right?

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It rests on the previous affirmation that the Bible represents a unified, consistent, and coherent word of God, word from God.

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All right, so this is why this comes under inerrancy, because if there's one portion of scripture that seems to violate or go against another portion of scripture, you've misinterpreted at least one of them, okay?

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Because the Bible is a unified whole, and that has been demonstrated over and over again, all right?

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So any interpretation of a passage that yields a meaning in direct contradiction to another portion of scripture is disallowed.

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Somewhere you've made a mistake. It is when scripture interprets scripture that the sovereignty of the

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Holy Spirit, who is the supreme interpreter of the Bible, is duly acknowledged.

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Arbitrarily setting one part of scripture against another would violate this principle. Scripture is to be interpreted scripture, therefore, in terms not only of its immediate context, but also the context of the whole word of God, okay?

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What that's saying is anytime you find something—well,

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I'll give you an example. Is Jesus man or God?

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Okay, how do we know that? Where? Boy, you guys are good at dodging the questions.

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Right, there's the deity. What about his humanity? Well, actually, that one covers both.

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Yeah, but there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, okay?

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See, what some people will do is they'll take those two portions. See, the

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Bible contradicts itself, says he's God, says he's human, all right?

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But they are reconciled. How are they reconciled? He's both. So there is no contradiction, all right?

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And that's basically what they're asserting here. The denial part of Article 8 decries the propriety of critical analysis of the text that produces relativization of the

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Bible. This does not prohibit an appropriate quest for literary sources or even oral sources that may be discerned through source criticism, but draws a line as to the extent to which such critical analysis can go.

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In other words, it's okay to start trying to find out sources, but there comes a point where you're going too far.

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When the quest for sources produces a dehistoricizing of the Bible or a rejecting of its teaching or a rejection of the

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Bible's own claims of authorship, it has trespassed beyond proper limits. This does not prohibit the external examination of evidence to discover authorship of books that go unnamed in sacred

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Scripture, such as the Epistle to Hebrews, all right?

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So in other words, what the writers of the Confession are saying is that it's okay to continue to pursue this.

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Whether or not you ever come up with the answer to it is another question. Scripture references, but know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.

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It's an easy one. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

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2 Peter 3, 14 -18. I'm going to shorten this because we're running a little late.

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According to the wisdom given to him, Peter talking about Paul, wrote, he says, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do the rest of the

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Scriptures. Notice this is one of the biggest problems, untaught and unstable. You have people today getting saved and within six months they're pastors in pulpits.

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No biblical training, no understanding of hermeneutics, et cetera. And we'll get into that more specifically starting next week.

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You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard, so you are not carried away. Come on.

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You are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace and knowledge.

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Here's the health of the church is the last article, Article 19. We affirm that a confession of the full authority, infallibility, and inerrance of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the

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Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ.

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This is what I was talking about earlier. Why do we have such a confession as this? Why is this important?

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Basically, to increase our sanctification. It's through the edification of the church.

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We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the church.

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All right. Let's go through this quickly. The affirmation speaks to the relevance of the doctrine of inerrancy to the life of the

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Christian. Here, the functional character of the biblical authority is in view. The article is affirming that the confession is not limited to doctrinal concern for theological purity.

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See that? That's not its sole thing. Is that a goal? Yes, we do want to see doctrinal purity, but it originates in a profound concern that the

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Bible remain the authority for living out the Christian life. In other words, what?

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It's not just theoretical. It's practical. All right.

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It also recognizes that it is possible for people to believe in the inerrancy or infallibility of Scripture and still live godless lives.

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And it says the opposite, too, that you can not believe in the doctrine of inerrancy and still be saved.

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However, not without serious problems. It recognizes that a confession of the doctrine of Scripture is not enough to bring us to sanctification, but that it is a very important part for the growth process of the

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Christian, that he should rest his confidence in the truthful revelation of the Word of God and thereby should be moved inward to conform to the image of Christ.

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A strong doctrine of the authority of Scripture should, when properly implemented, lead a person to a greater degree of conformity to the

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Word that he espouses as true. That seems pretty obvious, too, doesn't it?

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If you understand, if you can rest assured you know the Scripture is inerrant, isn't it easier to put your faith and confidence into it?

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If somebody says, you know, this is about 90 percent right. But trust your life to it.

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That's like getting a bowl of oatmeal and say, 90 percent of it is pure oatmeal, about 10 percent of arsenic in it.

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Go ahead and eat. No, I'll pass on the oatmeal.

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I don't like oatmeal anyway. The denial in Article 19 is very important.

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The framers of the Confession are saying unambiguously that the confession of belief in inerrancy of Scripture is not an essential of the

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Christian faith necessary for salvation. So you can find somebody who denies the doctrine of inerrancy, and that doesn't mean that they're not necessarily a

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Christian. We gladly acknowledge that people who do not hold to this doctrine may be earnest and genuine, zealous in many ways, dedicated to Christians.

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We do not regard acceptance of inerrancy to be a test for salvation. However, we urge as a committee and as an assembly that people consider the severe consequences that may befall the individual or church which casually and easily rejects the inerrancy.

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What's the big one? If somebody says, no, I'm a Christian. I believe Jesus died for my sins. I've repented of my sin.

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I've done all of that. But I just don't believe that the Bible is completely inerrant. What's the biggest temptation?

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What's the biggest problem with that? Biggest danger. Okay. Anything else?

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Yeah. Yeah, you're all hitting around.

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From my perspective, you could be easily swayed. You get somebody with a persuasive argument against Scripture, and if you're not convinced that the

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Scripture is true, what is it that keeps us on track? Somebody comes up and they say something that's contrary to Scripture.

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We say, so what? It's contrary to Scripture. Scripture is true. If you're not sure that Scripture is true, somebody comes up with a logical, very appealing argument, and you could be easily swayed.

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Okay. To me, that's the biggest danger. We believe that history has demonstrated again and again that there is too often a close relationship between the rejection of inerrancy and subsequent defections from matters of the

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Christian faith that are essential for salvation. In other words, if you believe the Bible can be wrong in this, well, why couldn't it be wrong over here?

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When the church loses its confidence in the authority of sacred Scripture, the church eventually looks to human opinion as its guiding light.

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That's what John said. When that happens, the purity of the church is direly threatened. Thus, we urge upon our

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Christian brothers and sisters of all professions and denominations to join with us in reaffirmation of the full authority, the authority, integrity, infallibility, and errancy of sacred

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Scripture to the end that all our lives may be brought under the authority of God's Word, that we may glorify

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Christ in our lives individually and corporately as the church. This, just again, looking at 2

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Peter 3 .16, the untaught and unstable distort as they do the rest of Scripture to their own destruction.

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And again, this is now, beloved, the second letter I'm writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the

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Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. 2

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Timothy 2 .14 -15, be diligent to present yourself approved unto

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God, a workman who needs not be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

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Questions? This is the last one on inerrancy. Like I say, next week we'll pick up on hermeneutics.

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Any thoughts? Yes. Some of it is a matter of faith, but again, notice the section on the

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Holy Spirit I think was very important. You read it, and when you read the

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Scriptures and you interpret them properly, you can see from my perspective, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the internal consistency of it, the accuracy of it, and the truthfulness of it.

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And even when you look at extant sources, you know, you look at archaeology, you look at history, and you find out just how accurate the

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Bible is. That leads you that way, but the final confirmation comes when you have the Holy Spirit, and the

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Holy Spirit guides you into truth. Yes. Exactly, that's an easy one, yeah.

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The Holy Spirit, when we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, there's no question that the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways inside of us that we don't know.

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We don't know exactly how it works. We're not saying, and they're not saying, that the

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Holy Spirit does not lead you or guide you. All right?

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But what we're saying is you can't hold that to the standard of Scripture, which is binding, and it's a norm.

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All right? See, if I pick up the Bible and I say, thou shalt not kill, don't you do it, that's the word of God, and if you do it, you're in serious trouble.

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That's different than if you say, you know, I have a feeling, I think the Spirit is leading me to move to Cleveland.

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All right? See what I mean? You may be absolutely right. Maybe the Holy Spirit is leading you to Cleveland, but you can't claim that as the same authority as Scripture.

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In fact, that might be a poor example because I don't know if the Holy Spirit would lead anybody to Cleveland, but that's it.

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Sorry, Fred, my good friend who's a pastor of a church in Cleveland. Well, yeah, but see, being a

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New Yorker, I just get back because people are always dissing New Yorkers, you know, so if I get an opportunity,

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I'll diss on anybody. It's part of my spiritual gift. But do you see the difference?

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You know, Jay Adams had a famous saying once. He says, you know, people get these leadings of the

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Spirit. He says, how do you know it's a leading of the Spirit and not the pepperoni pizza you had last night? You don't.

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See, if the Spirit is leading you to do something that's good, then that's fine.

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Just don't claim that it's binding and authoritative. Okay? Okay? Any other questions?