Chapter Three
“Sola Scriptura”: The Authority and Sufficiency of Christianity
When I was in California in the early eighties, I attended a symposium on the inerrancy of the Scriptures. The attendees represented a virtual “Who’s Who” of everyone in the United States who proclaimed the inerrancy, infallibility, and authority of the sixty-six books of the Bible. While I was there the group reenacted a tradition that began shortly after the Reformation. What I saw had a profound impact on me, and I’d like to recreate it for you here.
At the beginning of the worship ceremony the organ begins to play. A man who has been standing out in the foyer of the church building enters the sanctuary, holding a Bible outstretched in his hands, and walks slowly down the aisle toward the pulpit. Everyone in the sanctuary stands in reverence to the Word of God. They are signifying their submission to the authority of Scripture.
The man walking down the aisle is not dressed in any special ecclesiastical garb. He isn’t a high official of the church. The people are not standing out of respect for him. As that man, who is called “the Beadle,” walks toward the pulpit at the front of the sanctuary holding the Bible outstretched, it is the Word of God that commands the respect of the people in the room, for it is the Word of God that is the ultimate authority for the governance of our churches and our lives. David wrote to the Lord, “You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” In the same way, the people standing in the sanctuary are magnifying the importance of the Word.
While all this was taking place, I was struck by the sight of the second man, who walks behind the Beadle. This second man is the minister who is about to deliver the sermon. He follows several paces to the rear of the man carrying the Bible, and his eyes are cast down in deference and respect. He is the servant of the Word. The people in the room are not looking at the Beadle walking to the front, nor to the minister following at a respectful distance. Instead, the focus of their reverence and awe and adoration is on the Word of God. When the sermon is delivered, the servant of the Word exposes the text. He knows that no one came to hear his opinions; rather, the listeners are there to drink in the truth of God’s Word.
The original idea behind this ceremony was to visually contend for the authority of the Scriptures. The church leaders wanted to paint a direct contradistinction to the Roman state church, where the faithful were taught that the priest, the bishop, and the pope are the ultimate authority. Yes, the Roman church regarded the Scriptures as God’s Word, but the man in the pulpit or in the Vatican was actually considered to be the mouthpiece of God. The words of this man were regarded with reverence and awe and adoration. The authority resided with the priest, in that he was the representative of the Roman state church.
At the time of the Reformation, the teaching of Martin Luther and others burst like a dazzling flare of light against the black backdrop of the Dark Ages. For 1400 years the Roman church had taught her followers that, although the Scriptures were divinely inspired, the Bible could not present a complete, comprehensive, unified body of truth apart from the interpretation of the Roman church. The idea of the primacy (preeminence) and sufficiency of Scripture alone to reveal truth to man was truly revolutionary.
Martin Luther understood that anytime man introduces a “plus”--the Scriptures plus the teaching of the church, salvation through faith in Christ plus man’s good works, etc.--man has introduced blasphemy. By adding a “plus,” man is saying, in effect, that the perfect, finished work of Christ on the cross, as revealed in the perfect, God-breathed truth of the Word, is not sufficient for salvation! Luther and the Reformers boldly proclaimed that there is nothing that can or should be elevated to the plane of truth where God’s Word resides. In other words, the Bible is not one among equals when it comes to the revelation of God’s truth. As John Robbins has said so well, the Bible claims a monopoly on truth.
I say that Luther was “bold” to proclaim this because at that time Sola Scriptura was a radical concept! The common people had been taught that it was only the priest who had the benefit of the whole counsel of God, and truth was revealed through the Scriptures plus the addition of the teaching and traditions of the church. The Roman state church had created the concept of a specialized priesthood, much like the designated priests of the Old Testament. The church taught that only the priest could properly understand and interpret the Bible for the masses.
Martin Luther introduced the doctrine of the individual “believer-priest.” Luther took his stand on the testimony of the Scriptures: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” All Scripture is God-breathed, Luther saw. The Bible is the very out-breathing of the living God! Peter asserted that “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Luther firmly believed and taught that one man or one woman with Bible in hand was “thoroughly equipped for every good work,” able to understand and “declare... the whole counsel of God.”
Why the Scriptures Must Be Preeminent
Whatever authenticates the Word of God is, by definition, greater and more authoritative than the Word, because that extra-biblical witness becomes the supreme and final attesting source from which the Word receives it legitimacy. Therefore, it is blasphemous to assert that anything is more authoritative and more certain than the Word of God. The Bible authenticates itself when it asserts that it is the only source of truth and knowledge. It is its own ultimate witness to what it is: the Word of God. There is no higher authority to attest to the authenticity of the Scriptures. The Bible needs no accreditation board to validate its unique truth claims. The church simply believes and recognizes the self-evidence of Scripture by means of the Holy Spirit’s inner witness to the truthfulness of the Word. The Bible authenticates the church; the church does not authenticate the Bible.
We must be careful to maintain this assertion as our final appeal to the truth that the Bible is, indeed, the Word of the living God. One of the greatest evidences to attest to the Bible’s unique truth claims, according to the great scholar and philosopher Gordon Clark, is its consistency. Throughout the sixty-six books of the Bible you will not find one instance where it contradicts itself, nor does one part of the Bible refute what another part has said. Truth is consistent; falsehood is inconsistent. The Scriptures are a glorious display of supernatural consistency. It is truth, and there is no other truth. It is the one true, complete, comprehensive, coherent, consistent, and final revelation of God’s truth to His people.
Therefore, we should tenaciously cling to the truth of Scripture for our salvation, our sanity, and the very foundation of our civilization. God has only published one book; and that book is called the Bible, which is His finished Word about His finished work.
The Bible Defies Addition
Martin Luther read verses such as Psalm 138:2--“You have magnified Your word above all Your name”--and deduced that if God places greater value on His revealed truth than on His very name, then our own thoughts should give preeminence to God’s truth, which is fully and completely revealed in Scripture.
The Roman state church was pagan in principle and polluted in practice because the church did not lead men to God and to His Word alone. Jesus proclaimed that it is God’s Word alone that sanctifies men. "Holy Father,” He prayed, “keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are... Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” Tragically, the Roman church did not direct men and women to God’s living and active Word alone, but instead instructed them to turn to the priesthood for truth.
The Reformation, with its foundational credo of Sola Scriptura, wrested authority away from the ecclesiastical bully boys of the Roman church and stripped them of their power. The Reformers stressed that God’s Word was finished and complete, needing no addition from men, and likewise that Christ’s work on the cross was finished and complete. Man could do nothing to “improve” God’s plan of salvation. The sixty-six books of Scripture, the Reformers insisted, were perfect and complete in their original autographs and carried complete and ultimate authority for the governance of the church and the individual believer. Scripture, and Scripture alone, was completely sufficient for bringing men and women to the proper knowledge and understanding of the one true God, and for teaching them to follow His plan for eternal salvation. The Reformation inspired a return to the teaching of the Bible and away from the teaching of the Roman state church.
The Emphasis that the Word Places on the Word
There are more verses than I can possibly give you here which emphasize the authenticity and the authority of Scripture. Let us begin with the authenticity of Scripture. We have all heard at one time or another the unbelievers’ charge that the Bible is merely a collection of “myths” or “fables” written by men, cleverly edited and rewritten to produce a book that has hoodwinked millions upon gullible millions into believing that it is a holy book. Incredibly, some of the Bible’s most treacherous enemies reside within the walls of the church and the seminary. There are far too many so-called “Bible scholars” and “theologians” who claim that the Scriptures are riddled with errors and that only portions of the Bible are trustworthy.
What do the Scriptures, themselves, say? Does the Bible suggest that some portions are the words of men, and therefore less authoritative than the parts that were breathed out by God? By no means! “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” Paul asserted. The very best translation for this verse, as I mentioned earlier, is found in the NIV Bible, which correctly renders the Greek word theopneustos (theo meaning “God,” and pneustos meaning “breathe”) as God-breathed. All Scripture--not “some” Scripture or “most” Scripture--is the very out-breathing of God, Himself!
Peter likewise assured his readers that “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Any Bible scholar worthy of the name will tell you that Peter’s reference to prophecy is meant to include the entire body of Scripture, just as surely as Paul did. “God... spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,” the author of Hebrews reports, affirming that the word of the prophets (the Old Testament) is the Word of God. Romans 3:2 refers to the words of the Old Testament as “the oracles of God.”
Another passage concerning the divine authorship of Scripture, also found in the writings of Peter, reads thus:
Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
These words are so powerful! The prophets to whom Peter was referring are the writers of the Old Testament. These men, who had been directed by the Spirit of Christ [living] in them to write the holy Scriptures, searched these writings diligently, seeking to discover who the Messiah would be and when He would come. It was revealed to them by the Spirit of Christ that was living within them that the salvation--the glories that would follow--was going to be for a later generation, and that the prophets were writing for that group, and not for themselves. This salvation, which is frequently referred to in the New Testament as “the mystery of Christ,” was something so glorious that even the angels in heaven longed to have it explained to them! These “secret things of God” had been entrusted, not to angels, but to the apostles who preached the gospel through the direction of the Holy Spirit of God, sent [to them] from heaven. Clearly, this magnificent passage proclaims that the writing of both the Old and New Testaments was done entirely under the direction of the Spirit of God--they are “God-breathed.” If “angels long to look into these things,” how could men possibly hope to write them down on the basis of their own understanding? I am reminded of the wonderful passage from the book of Acts when Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit,” testified to the salvation that is found only in Christ.“When [the Sanhedrin] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” The passage we have just examined from 1 Peter reveals that the human authors of Scripture had the Spirit of Jesus Christ living within them, directing them to write God’s truth, and God’s truth alone.
“Every word of God is pure,” Proverbs tells us, and the Psalms similarly proclaim that “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times,” and that “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”
These are merely some of the more prominent examples from thousands of verses of Scripture which clearly assert the divine inspiration of the Bible. One could fill a good-sized book by simply printing all the verses--there are 3,808 of them --in which the Old Testament writers call the reader to “Hear the word of the Lord,” or attest that “The Lord says,” “Thus says the Lord,” and so on. There is no claim in Scripture that is made any more emphatically than that the Bible, in its entirety, is the Word--the very breath--of God.
Biblical Inspiration
The Holy Spirit moved supernaturally in the hearts of men so that their writings were the very words of God. These inspired words were supernaturally guarded against all errors of any kind--historical, doctrinal, scientific, or prophetic error. All forty writers, who were carried along by the superintendence of the Holy Spirit to write the sixty-six books of Scripture, recorded nothing but infallible truth. Every dot... every letter... every word came directly from the indefectible mind of the living God who alone, is eternal truth. The Holy Spirit did this in such a glorious way that He did not alter the literary style, personality, or vocabulary of any of the writers. When the Holy Spirit worked through David to record God’s Word, David was never more David in his style, personality, and vocabulary. In fact, as you read the sixty-six inspired books of the Bible, you will notice the distinct individualism of each sacred book. Peter’s writing style does not sound like Paul’s; nor does Paul sound like David; nor David like Moses. The Holy Spirit sovereignly decreed that each of the forty writers would express God’s Word through their own individual minds. The Holy Spirit did not intend for the writers to be divine stenographers, emptied of all personality, or mindless robots who mechanically copied down words. The Spirit sovereignly worked through them as saved men made in the image of God, possessing the gift of human language. As such, He filled them and supernaturally empowered them as God’s mouthpieces to express God’s thoughts through perfect propositions (declarative sentences). The Bible is God’s Word, and His Word has but one author: the Holy Spirit, who brought about that Word through divine and human instrumentality without altering its eternal, infallible, inerrant outcome.
The Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary and equipped her to be the instrument to clothe the eternal Son in human flesh; yet the outcome of this God-man union was that the Son of God was impeccable in His humanity and undiminished in His deity. Similarly, the written Word of God is clothed in human instrumentality, yet undiminished in its infallible, eternal truth. It therefore stands authoritatively alone as the propositional breath of the living God.
The Illumination of the Holy Spirit
In one of his marvelous essays on the inspiration, authority, and infallibility of the Scriptures, Gordon Clark wrote:
Strong emphasis needs to be put on the work of the Holy Spirit. Man is dead in sin, an enemy of God, opposed to all righteousness and truth. He needs to be changed. Neither the preacher nor, much less, the sinner himself can cause the change. But “blessed is the man whom you choose, and cause to approach you” (Psalm 65:4).
It cannot be stressed too often that, just as revelation is a gift from God, so too is illumination, which is God’s sovereign decision to open our eyes to the truths of His Word. As Dr. Clark so succinctly wrote, the mind of the unbeliever is incapable of comprehending God’s truth. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God,” Paul wrote, “for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” In his letter to the Romans, Paul was even more emphatic: “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.”
God sovereignly selected the forty men who wrote the sixty‑six books of the Bible to be the human instruments He would use to impart His revelation. In the same way, God sovereignly chooses to whom He will give His Spirit of truth, so that His people will receive the gift of illumination. Dr. Clark cites Ezekiel 36:26, which reads, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” It is God, working by means of His Holy Spirit, who gives us the ability to understand the Scriptures.
We may hear the cleverest scientific or historical arguments confirming the truth of Scripture; we may listen to the most powerful evangelistic preaching this world has ever heard; but without the gift of a new heart and a new spirit, which is provided only by God, we remain at enmity with God and completely incapable of understanding, much less believing, His written revelation. Dr. Clark concluded:
In the last analysis, therefore‑-although historical and archaeological confirmation of the Bible's accuracy is of great interest to us and of great embarrassment to unbelievers-‑a conviction that the Bible is really the Word of God cannot be the conclusion of a valid argument based on more clearly evident premises. This conviction is produced by the Holy Spirit himself.
It must always be kept in mind that the proclamation of the Gospel is part of a spiritual struggle against the supernatural powers of the evil one, and victory comes only through the omnipotent grace of God.
In the case of both revelation and illumination, the source is God and God alone, and all the credit and all the glory go to God. We cannot take credit for coming to an understanding of God’s truth all on our own through sensation, experimentation, observation, or careful study. We have all heard the sincere testimonies of men and women who have said, “I sat down to read the Bible with an open mind, to see if it was really God’s truth, and I came to realize that the Bible really was the Word of God.” These people, though well meaning, are giving glory to self for discerning the truth of God’s Word. However, as we have seen, the clear teaching of the Scriptures is that man is completely incapable of understanding God’s truth, for “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” It is only when God gives us a new heart and puts His Spirit within us that we are able to understand the Bible and recognize it for what is it is: God’s revealed truth to man. Illumination is the sovereign gift of a loving Heavenly Father: “Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” The gift is given as He wills, not as we wish. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” Paul asserted. God testifies directly to our mind what‑-and Who-‑is the way, the truth, and the life. Without that irresistible, sovereign Light from God, we are powerless to comprehend the truth that is right before our eyes.
The Authority of Scripture
“The word of God is living and active,” Hebrews asserts. “Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.” The Bible is not merely “another great book,” or one “religious book” among equals. There is no other book that reveals the living and active words of the God of the universe, words which penetrate the human soul and judge “the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” How dare the self-appointed “higher critics” call Scripture a “dead letter”?!These critics are messengers of the serpent in the Garden, asking slyly, “Has God indeed said ...?” The Word of God is alive; it is active; and it judges the hearts of men.The words of God “are spirit, and they are life.” I want to give you several verses of Scripture that testify to the authority of God’s Word, in order to really drive the point home, for you and for those with whom I hope you will share this glorious knowledge.
Let’s begin in the book of Acts. When the original apostles, men who were eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Christ, decided to select the first deacons for the rapidly growing church, they reasoned that “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.” Notice that they did not say, “We need to keep busy telling people what we have seen and experienced.” No, what they felt was vitally important was to continue to preach the “word of God.”
In Ephesians 6, Paul describes the Armor of God, which protects believers from Satan’s attacks. The first thing he told the Ephesians to do was gird their waists with “Truth,” i.e., with the Word of God. The emphasis and the priority was on the Word of truth: the Bible.
“Doctrine”--meaning sound, biblical teaching--is a word which appears often in the New Testament. Paul wrote to Timothy that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The Scriptures were all young Timothy needed for sound teaching. Mastery of the Bible would leave him “thoroughly equipped” for every work of ministry. Paul didn’t feel that Timothy would need a course in psychology in order to lead the church. He didn’t suggest that Timothy take a course in early childhood development, or that he go out and gain sufficient “life experiences” to prepare himself for the ministry. If Timothy mastered the truth contained in God’s Word, he would be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. No other source of information was necessary. Also note that the very first thing that Paul said the Scriptures were profitable for was doctrine. Sound teaching was the first thing Paul was concerned with. Believers need to order their minds according to the authoritative teaching of Scripture.
“You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” Nothing is more important to God than the revealed truth that He has given to man! The longest chapter in Scripture is Psalm 119, which is 176 verses long. This Psalm is completely and unblinkingly focused on praising and extolling and rejoicing in the Word of God. Psalm 119 is located almost exactly in the middle of the Bible. It is set as a centerpiece, exalting the truth and holiness and righteousness of God’s Word. Verse after verse gives glory to the Scriptures, calling them God’s precepts, His law, His commandments, His testimonies, His justice, His Word, His statutes. In all 176 verses you will not find one which does not refer to God’s matchless Word! That is God’s priority: the truth and the sufficiency of the Bible. What did Jesus tell Satan? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
Jesus Testified to the Authenticity and the Authority of Scripture
On numerous occasions, the teachings of Jesus Christ verified the authenticity and historical truth of the Scriptures. In one sweeping sentence in the Gospel of Luke Jesus spoke of Abel, whose life and death is described in the fourth chapter of the first book of the Bible, and also of the prophet Zechariah, whose prophecy precedes the last book of the Old Testament. In Matthew 24:37-39, Jesus spoke of Noah and the great flood. In John 3:14, He made reference to Moses raising up the bronze snake on the pole, that the people of Israel might be saved from the bites of the poisonous vipers (as described in Numbers 21). Jesus was verifying that this was an historical event. In John 8:56, He referred to the life of Israel’s great patriarch, Abraham, and then uttered the unforgettable words of John 8:58: “Before Abraham was, I am!” In Matthew 8:11, Jesus told his followers of Abraham and his son Isaac, and of Isaac’s son, Jacob. These were real people, living out real history. Jesus spoke of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Matthew 10:15, and elsewhere warned, “Remember Lot's wife.”
The Lord spoke of David and his companions eating the consecrated bread, as was recounted in 1 Samuel 21. Interestingly, when speaking of this event Jesus asked the Pharisees, “Have you not you read what David did...?” He was not encouraging the Pharisees to read some pleasant mythology. Jesus was telling the Pharisees to check the historical facts! Jesus also spoke of David’s authorship of the Psalms in Matthew 22:43. In three short verses in Matthew 12 (vv. 39-41), Jesus authenticated virtually the entire book of Jonah. Perhaps the greatest single affirmation of all the books of the Old Testament came from the lips of the resurrected Christ as He walked along the road to Emmaus with the two discouraged believers. These men were kept from recognizing Christ, and they dispiritedly told Him about the Prophet who had been crucified in Jerusalem. Jesus rebuked them: “‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!’... And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Please note that Jesus did not say, “You should have believed in some of the things the prophets have spoken.” No, they should have believed it all, because ALL Scripture is God-breathed, given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit! Jesus explained everything in all the Scriptures, from the five books of the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) all the way through Malachi, the last prophet in the Old Testament, who foretold the coming of “the Messenger of the covenant.” The obvious conclusion that I want to bring to your attention is that if Jesus is mistaken concerning the truthfulness of these historical, biblical people and events, then the reliability of everything He said is brought into question. In other words, if He is guilty of making any false statements, uttering historical blunders, or holding any false beliefs concerning the Scriptures, how can we trust in anything He said?
These passages provide indisputable truth from the lips of Jesus Christ that the Bible is historical truth. History is His story! The Scriptures are not, as some have stated, mythological or analogical. There are no mistakes, no inaccuracies, no blunders in reasoning, no missing elements, and no contradictions. God never contradicts Himself. He speaks absolute truth. God has decreed that all the events of history will take place for His glory. The Bible was not written to give us “great literature” or “nice” teachings for Sunday School classes. We do not merely receive some “great principles” from the study of Scripture. Every detail is truthful and factual. The stories in Scripture are literal events. They are the true and accurate account of God’s interaction with mankind.
Jesus not only verified the historicity and the authenticity of Scripture, He also gave His testimony, over and over again, to the absolute authority of the Scriptures. He began His ministry with the reading of the Scriptures:
So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus began His ministry on the authority of Scripture, quoting Isaiah 61:1-2. He based the validity of His entire ministry on what had been written in the Old Testament, and proclaimed that He was the fulfillment of the prophecies about the coming King, the Messiah. So it began here--the ministry that would reshape the entire world--and it began with Jesus revealing the authority that had been granted to Him through the Scriptures.
At the very end of His ministry Jesus was doing the same thing: quoting Scripture. He spoke from Psalms 22, Psalms 31, and Hosea 10. His ministry began and ended with Scripture on His lips, and throughout the entirety of His ministry, Jesus attested to the authority of what He said by citing Scripture. Time and again He prefaced His statements by saying, “It is written,” or introduced a Scripture quotation by asking, “Have you not read...?” He once demanded of a group of Pharisees who were badgering Him about Sabbath regulations, “Have you not even read this...?” On another occasion He rebuked the Sadducees, saying, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” We read more than once in the gospels that “The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” He spoke with authority because He spoke the Word of God, not the written regulations of an ecclesiastical council!
Jesus asserted the purity and the authority of the entire body of the Scriptures on more than one occasion, saying, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets [the Scriptures]. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” Similarly, Jesus declared, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law [the Scriptures] to fail.” Perhaps the greatest single passage concerning the authority, inerrancy, and irrefutable nature of Scripture is John 10:35, in which Jesus affirmed, “The Scripture cannot be broken.” The great theologian B.B. Warfield paraphrased this verse to mean that “It is impossible for the Scripture to be annulled, its authority to be withstood, or denied.” Dr. Warfield asserted that the Scriptures cannot be refuted. They are true, they are without error, and their truth will never fail.
Jesus spoke several times about the absolute necessity that the things written in the Old Testament must be fulfilled. In the gospel of Luke, He told the twelve disciples, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.” Similarly, in Matthew, Jesus declared, “The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him.” When Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot and arrested, Peter attacked with his sword, seeking to drive off Jesus’ captors. Jesus stopped him: “Put your sword in its place... Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?” The resurrected Christ reassured the disciples, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” The Gospels are replete with such verses, in which Jesus asserted that the Scriptures must be fulfilled. They cannot be broken, even by God, for “It is impossible for God to lie.”
The Apostles’ View of Scripture
The apostles--men who had personally seen the resurrected Savior and had been taught by Jesus Christ--were equally emphatic in their proclamations of the truth and the authority of Scripture. These men spoke with power and authority, so much so that thousands of people believed in their message and were baptized in a single day! On the night before His arrest and subsequent crucifixion, Jesus told the twelve disciples: “I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you... When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” Jesus Christ, the second member of the Holy Trinity, promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit (the third, co-equal member of the Trinity) would come to them and teach them and guide them in all the things of God! Jesus had been walking the earth, preaching and teaching God’s truth--and only God’s truth. He had told His disciples, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.” Now He was giving the disciples the authority to speak of all the things of God. Jesus would shortly be leaving this earth and going to sit at the right hand of the Father. The disciples would now become the apostles, the men who would declare God’s truth. Jesus Christ had expressly given them the authority to teach the things of God.
These men knew full well that they were teaching God’s truth and not their own. “We also thank God without ceasing,” Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.” This is why Paul did not hesitate to command the churches to read his letters to their entire congregations. “I charge you by the Lord,” he wrote to the church at Thessalonica, “that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.” To the Colossians, Paul wrote, “Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.” The only way Paul could legitimately give such an emphatic command was because he knew that he was directing the churches to read the very words of God.
Peter verified the authority of the epistles of Paul when he wrote, “Our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” Writing under the direction of the Holy Spirit, Peter was saying that Paul had written with wisdom that had been given to him by God, but that ignorant and evil people had twisted Paul’s words, just as they did with all the rest of the Scriptures. In linking the thirteen epistles that Paul wrote to the rest of the Scriptures, Peter was confirming that Paul’s words were, indeed, the words of God. Paul had confirmed to the Galatians that he was not uttering the teachings of men: “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”
Paul also linked the Old and New Testaments together as one body of truth, when he wrote to Timothy, “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.’” The key to understanding the significance of this verse is knowing which Scriptures Paul is citing here. The first verse is Deuteronomy 25:4, which comes from the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament). What is so powerful is that the second verse is a direct quote from the words of Christ, which are recorded in Luke 10:7. The Holy Spirit directed Moses to speak God’s truth, and He directed Luke in the same way. Paul is linking the Old and New Testaments together under one, inclusive name: The Scripture, the very out-breathing of the living God.
What is the Word of God to You?
In the next chapter, we’ll spend some time discussing why the concept that the Bible alone is the Word of God is the all-important First Principle upon which Christianity rests. Before we do that, however, I’m going to ask you a personal question. What does the Word of God mean to you? There are many commentators who believe that when Jesus Christ said to Peter, “On this rock I will build My church,” He was referring to the “rock” of God’s revealed Word. “Blessed are you, Simon Bar‑Jonah,” the Lord said, “for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” The only foundation upon which we can build our lives, our families, our churches, and our civilization is God’s perfect, infallible, inerrant Word.
Do you hold God’s Word in that kind of esteem? Do you really? Or have you been swayed just a little by the seductive whisper of the ancient deceiver in the garden: “Has God indeed said ...?” He hisses at you from textbooks and “educational” television shows. He gleefully cackles at God’s truth during news broadcasts and talk shows, and he writes articles for the major newspapers and periodicals. These are not the voices of “wisdom” or “truth”: these are the voices of Satan! If you gain nothing else from reading Legacy, I hope you will gain a new reverence and adoration and confidence in the matchless truths of God’s perfect Word. The Scriptures tell us time and time again that they are the words of God, not the words of men. It has been proven to my satisfaction, and I’m sure to yours, that the teachings of men, if these teachings are not deduced from Scripture, fall far short of the truth.
I am always slightly puzzled by the thought patterns of those who insist that the Scriptures contain errors. I have mentioned the Jesus Seminar, for example, which is a group of individuals purporting to be Bible scholars who vote with colored beads to determine which parts of the gospels are, in their opinion, fact and which are fiction. Every year this bunch finds new passages of Scripture which their beads tell them are not really the words of Christ. The mainstream press is always quick to trumpet the findings of this group, announcing to the world that the Scriptures cannot be trusted. This group is merely the most public and one of the most egregious in their pious skepticism. This kind of deconstruction of the Scriptures has contaminated a great many of our seminaries. Young men enter these schools with a desire to learn how to preach and teach the Word of God, and depart from them with the firm belief that the Scriptures are not to be trusted! I have sat face-to-face with many of these disillusioned young men. They have every reason to be discouraged.
The Bible teaches us about a great many things: the nature of God, the nature of man, the eternal destiny of all men and women, and the history of humanity, to name just a few. However, the most important tenet of the Bible is that which we are currently discussing: the absolute integrity of the entirety of Scripture. It is this integrity that is denied by the modern liberal theologians. Here is the question I’d like to ask them all. We have just reviewed a sampling of the unequivocal claims of Jesus Christ that every jot and tittle of Scripture is true. Now, these 20th Century “scholars” tell us that Jesus is either mistaken or deliberately lying. Their claim is that the Bible is riddled with errors and inaccuracies, if not outright falsities. If contemporary liberal deconstructionist scholars are correct, then Jesus is not to be trusted on the issue of biblical inerrancy. If this is true, and we can’t rely on the words of Christ when it comes to the Scriptures, how in the world are we supposed to trust Him when He makes the claim that He is the Son of God? How are we supposed to believe Him when He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” ? If we cannot believe His teaching on the inerrancy of Scripture, and we cannot believe His teaching about His deity and the plan of salvation, then how are we to believe anything He says? Obviously, we can’t!
No wonder so many seminary graduates are discouraged! They have been robbed of all authority. They have been told that the very Scriptures which authenticate the church and authorize and equip their ministry are false. They are at once reduced to building their theological house on the same shifting sand that everyone else builds on: the opinions of men. However well intentioned these various opinion-leaders might be--whether they are educators, scientists, psychologists, archeologists, journalists, or politicians--the words they speak are not deduced from God’s revealed truth and, therefore, provide only the most flimsy and unstable foundation upon which to build a family, a church, or a society.
Just look at the incalculable damage that the intellectual “elites” have done to American society in the last fifty years! As I write these words, Americans are still groping for answers in the aftermath of the shocking attack in Littleton, Colorado, where two students wielding guns and pipe bombs laughed aloud as they massacred twelve schoolmates and one teacher. While people like you and I wept in horror and frustration when we saw the images of this ghastly carnage, the intelligentsia sprang into action, clucking about the need for stiffer gun laws and content restrictions on the Internet. Please don’t misunderstand, it may be that more laws are needed, but no law will do anything more than address the symptoms of the sickness that is gripping this country. The root cause of the moral cancer eating away at the American experiment is that our nation has turned away from the great Reformation doctrine that truth is only found in one place: the Scriptures--Sola Scriptura. The great theologian John Wycliffe said, “All law, all philosophy, all ethics are in Scripture, in Holy Scripture is all truth.” The reason that America has so quickly jettisoned the truth of God’s Word is because the pastors of America, whom God has charged with shepherding, feeding, and leading His people, have stopped teaching about the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. We must equip and encourage our pastors to become the preachers and teachers that are needed for such a time as this! It is my fervent hope and prayer that this book will be the beginning of just such a movement in our troubled nation.
And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Dr. John Robbins, Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand And The Close of Her System, p. 388.
Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32; 1 Corinthians 4:6; Hebrews 10:11-12.
Proverbs 30:5; Psalm 12:6; Psalm 119:160.
D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Authority (1958; Carlisle, PN, Banner of Truth Trust, 1984), p. 50.
Gordon H. Clark, God’s Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics, (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 1982), p. 22.
Clark, God’s Hammer, p. 23.
Cornelius Van Til and other theologians have stated over the years that the words of the Bible are merely analogous to the true thoughts of God. Their erroneous assertion is that God is incapable of speaking in language that enables man to come to an accurate and complete understanding of God’s truth. Therefore, they claim, there is no identity of mind between man and God. They would have you believe that there is no real truth expressed in Scripture, only a facsimile of God’s truth, written in language that the feeble mind of man can comprehend. Dr. Robert Reymond, among others, is strong in his denunciation of such thinking. See his fine work, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), p. 95-110.
See John 7:16; 8:26-28; 12:49-50.
Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration And The Authority Of The Bible (Phillipsburg, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1948), p. 139.
Quoted in Dr. John Robbins’ address, “Bleating Wolves: The Meaning Of Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” The Trinity Review, October/November/December, 1998.
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