Biblical Inerrancy: Pt. 6 Inerrancy of the whole

All right, here we go. We're up to part six. If you remember, let me just review this. We're going through the 19 articles of affirmation and denial. Article 1 and 2, Bible and authority. Article 3 through 5, Bible and revelation.

And then the Bible and inspiration. And this is the one where we're still in this. Remember, last week we started starting in Article 9 and we got up to Article 11. Then we're going to, next week we'll start the Bible and truth and then ultimately get to the Bible and you.

I just want to review, this was Article 10. These are the affirmations and denial. I'm not going to read through them, but this is the doctrine of inerrancy and it talks about what inspiration conferred in what inerrant means.

And we went through that last week. Then we went through Article 10, the autographs. And this is talking about the fact, if you remember, that God only preserved or inspired the original documents. And we found out that the translations that we have can be considered the word of God to the extent that they hold true to the original autographs.

So don't try to tell somebody that the King James Version you have on your shelf is the only authorized version and it is, in fact, inspired. That would be not something we would want to do. Then Article 11 is infallibility.

And remember, we learned the difference between being infallible and inerrant. What's the difference between infallibility and inerrancy?

Go ahead, Ashley. Perfect. That's it. Infallibility has to do with ability. It's impossible to be.

Wrong. Inerrancy means just a statement of fact. You can do something inerrant for at least a short period of time. This is what would come tonight to Article 12, inerrancy of the whole. We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, and deceit.

That's the affirmation. Notice it says, in its entirety, and we'll get into that a little bit more. It seems almost inane that they would have to come up, after defining inerrancy and infallibility, that they would have to come up and say, oh, and by the way, we mean for the whole of Scripture.

If the parts are, you would think that it would automatically come. But this is in response to some of the criticisms that are leveled against Scripture. The denial is rather lengthy. We deny that biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science.

We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture. Now we'll get into that. I just want to look at those phrases underlined in red.

Entirety is inerrant, free from falsehood, fraud, or deceit. We deny that it's limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, and exclusive of fields of history and science. And we'll talk about that.

Article 12 affirms clearly and unambiguously. In other words, it's clear. There's nothing cloudy about it. The affirmation, the meaning of inerrancy, is given in negative terms. That which is inerrant is free from falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

That's what we're talking about. It's interesting how they begin in what is considered to be an affirmation, that the affirmation defines inerrancy in negative terms, telling you what it is not. You've heard me say this numerous times, if you've heard me at all on this, that sometimes one of the best ways to define something is to include in the definition what it is not.

And that's exactly what they do in this document. Here, inerrancy is defined by way of negation, by establishing parameters beyond which we may not move. I like the way they phrase this as well. In other words, they establish the parameter, the boundaries, which you can't transgress.

And inerrant scripture cannot contain falsehood, fraud, or deceit. Those things, very specifically, cannot be included because we believe in the inerrancy of scripture. Now, the denial rejects the idea that the Bible is only inerrant on spiritual or religious themes.

You will actually hear people say things like this. It's become very fashionable in our modern and postmodern society to have people say this. The Bible only has to be accurate on redemptive themes. It's merely a record of redemptive history.

You'll hear people say this. I'm talking about you'll hear Christians say this because they've been indoctrinated, probably in the public schools or in the universities, and saying that the Bible and science are incompatible with each other.

And in fact, science refutes claims that the Bible makes. And so, some Christians have retreated into this type of thinking that the Bible, it's only redemptive history. And as long as it's true on redemptive history, we can still consider it to be inerrant.

Kind of a cop-out, isn't it? And it's also not true. One of the problems, and I say one of the problems because there's numerous problems with that type of thinking, is that God's acts of salvation occurred in a space-time world.

Jesus Christ came to earth as a man, lived and died and rose again in a human body. The creation of the world was a physical act, not just a spiritual one. And everything that has happened throughout the history of Old Testament history, and then even the history of the church, happens in time and space.

So, to try to make a dichotomy between redemptive history and secular history is just not acceptable. Okay? So, that will put you into more trouble than it will get you out of if you start thinking in that way, because God moves.

In fact, let me rephrase it, that all history is redemptive history. There is no history that is beyond the scope of God and that is not in some way working towards the culmination of this world that God has planned for it.

So, all of history, whether we can see it or not, is part of redemptive history. The single most important historical occurrence in the history of the world is the cross of Christ. All right? A real historical event.

It's not just some myth, it's not just some story, it's a real historical event which is captured on the pages of history. All right? So, the further denial refutes claims that new scientific theories overturned the teaching such as the six days of creation and the flood.

Oops, didn't mean to go that fast. You will hear taught, especially in secular universities, that the geological column, for example, makes the teachings of scripture about the age of man, the age of certain things, as being false or erroneous, when exactly the opposite is true.

The most recent scientific discoveries always support the biblical record and, in fact, here's a little known fact which will be denied by geologists, but those who study fields of archaeology, geology, and all, when they're going to go on a dig, an expedition in certain parts of the world, do you know what they secretly do?

They go to the biblical text because they know that the Bible is accurate. Now, they won't admit that, but I had this on first-hand authority from somebody who was in the field. They say they always go to the biblical text and look and see what was going on around and if they can place it in proximity to other places that have been already excavated.

It's never proven wrong, okay? In fact, one of the cases where that was true was for years there was doubts up until, I think, the early 1900s that there was ever such a person as Pontius Pilate because some of the ancient manuscripts extant from scripture that talked about Pilate hadn't been discovered yet.

And guess what? They wound up on a dig right in Judea and they came up and they found a nameplate written in Latin, Pontius Pilatos, Pontius Pilate. They said, oh, maybe he did live, okay? And then since that time, there have been more manuscripts extant to scripture that talk about Pilate.

So now, I mean, now it's just an accepted fact, but the Bible said, well, see, that's a myth. There was no such person as Pontius Pilate. Okay, remember I told you that I saved all the scripture references on the inerrancy to the end, so this is going back even to last week's.

Just some of the important scripture references that are referring to inerrancy. All scripture is inspired by God. That's the term that every Christian should know. The Greek term that's used there is theonoustos, God breathe.

Theo coming from theos, meaning God, and noustos coming from pneuma, all right, which means breath or wind, which is also used for spirit, okay, which is very interesting how the Holy Spirit is the hagios pneuma, the Holy Spirit.

All right, so all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, or training in righteousness, and we've been through that in other Bible studies, the fourfold use of that scripture, so that the man of God may be adequate.

I don't like the translation. This is the new American standard. I don't like the translation only because of what adequate has come to mean in our society. Adequate seems like, well, he's okay, he's adequate, you know, but the Greek term that's used here actually means perfectly equipped.

It's adequate for the job at hand, but what is the job at hand? It has to be perfect, all right, so sometimes you'll even hear me read it, and when I quote it, I go, so that the man of God may be perfectly equipped for every good work, and I believe that's an acceptable translation, so complete, good, yeah, equipped for every good work, all right.

What is the good work? All right, that's the work for the kingdom. It's not that it's going to equip you to work on your car. Jake, if you have some cars to work on, don't try the Bible to tell you how to change the carburetor, okay?

That may be an okay work, but it's not the good work.

Lastly, you've shown your age with carburetors.

Okay, also, let me just add to that, don't ask me to work on your cars if you want a good work, because I'm not even adequate for it. You know, I'll show you how far back I go. When I was working on cars when I was a young man, there was enough room in the car.

I could actually climb inside the car engine underneath the hood, and you could work on the car standing next to the engine, so my first car was a 1952 Ford, so if anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment.

Remember, this is what does the Bible say about itself. The Bible claims to be the inerrant Word of God. Hebrews 4 .12, for the Word of God is living and active, okay, meaning that it has the ability to change, to do things, okay, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of the both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Only the Word of God, the inerrant Word of God can do that. No self-help book, no self-esteem book, okay. No, I'm okay, you're okay, okay. I was going to write a sequel to that book, I'm okay, you, I'm not so sure about.

John 14 .26, but the helper of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things. There we have the guarantee that the Bible is not merely the words of men, but it is the Holy Spirit who is actually superintending and teaching those who wrote Holy Scripture.

And bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. There's again the promise. How did these apostles, 10, 15, 20 years later, be able to write this? Because the Holy Spirit was guiding and superintending them, and bringing back to their remembrance what they needed to write.

1 Corinthians 2, 10 -13, for to us God revealed through the Spirit, notice, God revealed them through the Spirit. Again, this is Paul talking about how he wrote, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

This is amazing, all right. The Holy Spirit revealed thoughts that, even the depths of God. For among men, who knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. Notice, who knows the depths of the things of God? The Spirit of God. And what has happened? We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things freely given to us by God, that we may know.

That's an important word there as well. Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. Yes.

When I got saved, first time I read that, I remember flipping out and calling my wife, and listen to this, you know, this is how I know what I know. You know what I'm saying? It just.

Was so obvious to me when it happened. Yeah. Yeah, this is really a very crucial portion of Scripture. And this whole study of the inerrancy of Scripture. First Thessalonians 2 .13, for this reason, we also constantly thank God that when you receive the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the Word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God.

I mean, there's just no question that the Bible itself speaks and testifies to what it is. Now you may say, well, of course it should do that. But you would expect that if something is the Word of God, that it would make that claim.

If it didn't make the claim, you would have reason to suspect, well, maybe it's not the.

Word of God. Right? Yes. I mean, it's just so crazy. Like when we consider the consistency of Scripture in terms of there being like so many other writers, but just the parallels remaining the same, like there are writers who it's their own book and it's just them.

And they forget about things that they wrote about like 10 chapters ago and make errors. And then to have so many other contributors, but it all being consistent and open, it's just like.

How? Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we're going to cover that a little bit. You know, I addressed some of that. No, no, that's good that you bring it up. Yeah. And in addition to what Maria just said,.

Each book, each each writer has their own personality. Yes. And different writing style.

And so you see that they were people. Yes. Yep. They were not robots. Nope, they were not robots. Isaiah 55, 11. So my word, so will my word be which goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I send it.

We pray that often from the pulpit. That's one of the comforts for the pastor. We pray that a lot because, you know, even though we may stumble at point over our words, as long as we're preaching the word of God, we don't have to worry about how effective we are.

The Holy Spirit, the word itself will be effective. Second Peter 1, 3 and 4, seeing that his divine power, all right, has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

Now, this is obviously the apostle Peter speaking. Notice what he says. His divine power, God's divine power has given to us everything we need to know about life and godliness. That's an all-encompassing statement, all right, through the true knowledge of him.

And how? For by these, the these there refers back to the scriptures. By these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

And then later on in the same chapter, but know this first of all, no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

I mean, the scripture is just clear. It is rife with the claims of what it can do and how that comes up. Now, just a couple of scripture references. What did Jesus say about the word of God? Matthew 5 verse 17, do not think I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, now I underline that. Why do you think I underline that? Yeah, I hope by now you've seen that when Jesus says, for truly I say to you, he's putting the amen, truly is amen.

He's putting the amen beforehand. In other words, he's saying everything that I say is important to you, but listen to this. And he's placing an emphasis on it. It's like on board ship when the captain speaks.

He goes, now hear this, now hear this. This is the captain speaking. On board of a Navy vessel, when that happens, everybody stops everything they're doing and they listen because it's the captain speaking.

You know, if a Bosun's mate got on and said, this is Bosun's mate, first class, John Smith. I want everybody to listen. People would be throwing things at him. But when the captain says it, everybody stops and listens because they know if the captain gets on the bullhorn, it's something important.

Jesus is saying, now hear this. All right, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Did he have a poor view of the law? John 17, 17 in his high priestly prayer, sanctify them in truth.

Your word is truth. Now I'm not going to expand on that because the next whole section is the Bible and truth. Now I just put up some logical considerations for inerrancy, all right, as opposed to biblical.

It's all based on scripture. But first thing we want to look at is internal consistency. This is what Maria had alluded to before. There are 66 books that comprise the Bible. I remember, who remembers Walter Martin?

Few people remember Walter. Walter Martin was the leading Christian apologist going through the 1950s, 1960s, probably all the way into the 70s. He was kind of like a James White or, you know, these debaters that we have now.

He debated everybody and he was marvelous. He was on a Long John Nebel show and he was debating, I don't know if it was a Muslim or somebody who was rabidly anti-Christian, and the guy was making the claim that, well, your reasoning is circular because you use the Bible to prove the Bible.

So you got one book self-attesting to the fact that the book is true. And Walter Martin just looked at him and said, no, the Bible isn't one book. It's 66 different books. It just happens to be bound together for convenience sake.

But he says it's 66 different books and they all agree with each other. It was written by at least 40 different people over a period of almost 2 ,000 years, between 1500 and 2 ,000 years, and they all agree.

So you, as Maria said, you don't have any other book that has that type of consistency. And in fact, specifically, the Quran has blaring contradictions in it. 40 different authors, period of over 2 ,000 years, yet there is complete harmony and unity in the message from Genesis to Revelation.

But don't lose sight of that fact if somebody starts coming up with that argument, well, it's one book. No, it's not. It was written by all these different authors. Then you have external consistency, historical reliability.

The Bible has never been proven wrong in history. In fact, how many people know what the Assyrian eponym list is? Anybody know what the Assyrian eponym list? The Assyrians kept track of who their kings were, all right?

And they linked the reign of the kings to major occurrences, earthquakes, wars, things of that nature, all right? Textual critics have taken the Bible, compared it with the Assyrian eponym list, and it is amazing how we have been able to date even portions of our Bible by using the Assyrian eponym list, right?

We actually went through this when we started our survey of the Old Testament 40 years ago. No, it wasn't 40 years ago, but this is some survey that we're going through. No, but we actually went through it and showed how compatible it is with historical events that we do have excellent literature on.

So, we have historical reliability. Then we have archaeological reliability. I mentioned that before, how some of the archaeological digs just come up and just verify, you know? In fact, another one was, in the scripture, it talks about Solomon having a stable for a thousand horses, I believe it is, and they said, that's impossible.

They found it right where the Bible said it was going to be, a stable that would hold a thousand horses. I think it was Ezean-Gabor, don't hold me to that, but I think that was the name of the city. Scientific reliability.

I'm always amused when somebody says, well, you know, the Bible is wrong and has been proven to be wrong. Look, the Bible taught that the Earth was the center of the universe, and we know now that the Sun is the center of our solar system.

Well, that's an erroneous argument. The Bible never taught that. The Roman Catholic Church taught that, because they misinterpreted the scripture. If you follow what the scripture says, you will find that it is in complete harmony, even to the fact of describing the Earth as an orb and not a flat disk, okay?

So, scientific reliability is there, again, never has been proven otherwise. Textual reliability. There are 10 known historical non-Christian sources that confirm at least 12 facts about Jesus and events that happened during his life.

This is courtesy of our apologist here, Anthony, Brother Anthony, who gave this information to me. 10 known historical non-Christian sources that confirm at least 12 facts about Jesus and events that happened during his life.

Who are these sources? Josephus. Josephus clearly refers to Jesus as the Christ, okay? Remember, he was a Jewish historian who was under contract by Rome to write a history, all right? And yet, he confirms Jesus.

Tacitus, a Roman senator and historian, certainly no friend of Christians. Pliny the Younger, a Roman politician. Phlagon, a slave who was freed and wrote histories. Thallus, a first-century historian.

Suetonius, a Roman historian. Lucian, a Greek satirist. Celsus, a Roman philosopher. Mara ben Serapion, a private citizen who wrote letters to his son. And lastly, the Jewish Talmud. Most of these are antagonistic to Christianity, and yet, they all acknowledge.

And the reason that this is important is you have, you actually have people who say, well, you know, Jesus didn't really exist. It was a myth that Jesus existed. He's only, the only time you read about Jesus is in the Bible.

Not true. Here you have 10 extant sources who mention Jesus. Now, what, what are the 12 facts about Jesus and events that happened during his life? One, that Jesus lived during the time of Tiberius Caesar.

That's confirmed. He lived a virtuous life. He was a miracle worker. That, Josephus specifically talks about the fact that he, that he was a miracle worker. In fact, Josephus says that he rose again on the third day.

Just puts it down as a matter of fact. He had a brother named James. He was acclaimed to be the Messiah. Again, they make no bones about that in the writings that that's what the claim. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover. Again, a very crucial point to, to our theology. Darkness and an earthquake occurred when he died. His disciples believed he rose from the dead. His disciples were willing to die for their belief.

Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome and his disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God. Pretty impressive. Now, what is the reliability of the ancient documents that we have? There are 24 ,000 manuscript copies of scripture.

Now, when we say that's not complete copies, that could be remnants and whatnot, but, but part, but 24 ,000 manuscript copies of scripture. That's important because remember when we went over textual criticism, it's, we're able to construct what the original said by the copies and the reliability, the copies that we have.

So 24 ,000. The next closest ancient manuscript is Homer's the Iliad with 643 copies or parts of copies. Now imagine that. Do you hear people say, we can't trust that we're reading the Iliad. Does anybody ever say that?

No, no, no. This is Homer's Iliad published in books. Is there any disclaimer that we don't know if this is reliable or not? 643 copies, 24 ,000 manuscript copies of scripture in various pieces. And what do you have?

Oh, well, we don't know if it's reliable. I think there's a little bias there. There are only between two and 20 copies of most other historical writings, such as the works of Plato, Suetonius, and Euripides.

22 to 20 copies. Plato is one of the worst. Plato, we don't, the last that I remember, they're not certain of about 80 of the writing of Plato, of how accurate it is. And yet you never hear Plato question those.

These are the writings of Plato. 20, okay. If you can't trust the Bible, then the rest of ancient literature is less than useless. I just figured I'd throw that in. Yes. When you factor in all of the early church.

Fathers and their writings who quote the scriptures, you can recreate a whole New Testament with the exception of a dozen verses. So that's all of the church fathers quoting the scriptures. Right. Even if you didn't have the manuscripts, you have them quoting those as scripture.

Very good. Yes, Steve. I worked with a man, his name is Homer, and so he has an interest in Homer's writings. He told me it's even ambiguous that was there even a Homer or a group of people who wrote as a group?

It's not even known if it was one man's work. Right. So even if there's 640 to the second place, 643 copies, it may be like a whole school of people. Sure. And remember when.

We talk about manuscripts, we're not talking about whole manuscripts. That's including the number of remnants that there are. So yeah. Any other questions on the inerrancy of scripture.

As a whole? Ashley. It's an early question, more of a statement, because we were speaking about how Christ, how Jesus said scripture and how he didn't come to it. It made me think of Luke 24. And there were two people that were telling him, like, didn't you know what was happening?

You were not here. And then he tells them in verse, so it's Luke 24, verse 25, and he said to them, O foolish men, and so hard to believe in, to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory?

And then in verse 27 says,. Then beginning with Moses and all, and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself and all the scriptures. So it wasn't like he was like, can you see I'm the Christ?

And he was like, showing his hands and all. He was going through.

The scriptures for himself. Yeah. Amen. Good point. Excellent. Somebody else had their hand up.