Sermon Text: Various Passages
Below is a sermon manuscript from May 4, 2025. Watch the sermon here.
Introduction
Have you ever said something you regretted? It slipped out, and you thought, “Yeah, shouldn’t have said that.” There are major stories about people who post things they shouldn’t have posted. But this happens often in ordinary conversation as well. Watching your kids play sports can be a good test for your sanctification. Out of the mouth, the heart speaks. Sometimes it’s mistimed and not thought out. Sometimes it’s just plain ugly. This was true of me even this past week. I had to ask for forgiveness because my words were not helpful but hurtful. Maybe you have found yourself in a similar situation? I encourage you, if this happens as a parent, be quick to apologize. Model godly repentance before your children. We, too, sin and need to be forgiven.
Some have said that to err is human. It is true that experientially we know this. But is it true on a fundamental level? Not if we are talking about sin. Why? Because Jesus was truly human and yet without sin. We discussed last week the dual-authorship of Scripture. An analogy might be the person of Jesus Christ. He is truly divine and truly human. And he lived a perfect human life, fulfilling the law. Human beings have a capacity for sin, but Jesus, being the God-man, never sinned. In a similar way, the human authors had a capacity for writing in error, but writing the divine Word under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they were guarded from error. Scripture is clear about God’s Words.
As God’s Word, The Bible Is Inerrant
Positively, God’s Words Are True
2 Samuel 7:28
And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.
Proverbs 30:5
Every word of God proves true;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Psalm 119:86
All your commandments are sure;
they persecute me with falsehood; help me!
Psalm 119:160
The sum of your word is truth,
and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
John 17:17
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Negatively: God Cannot lie
We can say positively that God and His Word are true. But we can also speak negatively. In fact, Titus 1:1-2 does both,
Titus 1:1-2
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.
Number 23:19
God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Hebrews 6:18
18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us[1]
God’s Words are True. The Bible is God’s Word. Therefore, the Bible Is True
This truth has been affirmed throughout the history of the church. A traditional term is infallibility. This gets at the idea that God’s word never fails. It relates its trustworthiness to the character and nature of God. But unfortunately, the term in the 20th century started to take on a different meaning.
Some push back and say that some of the Bible is inerrant, but not all of it. They seek to break it up into different sections and are inerrent and others that may err. The common strategy is to say that it is without error in things that teach us about doctrine or morality. But this limited approach had have a spectrum.
But who gets to say which parts are true and which might contain errors? And how does this affect how we view the other parts? I might say that I am 100% right 50% of the time but that just means I am wrong sometimes. How can I be trusted at all? Why is there certainty with some? What are the grounds for that? If it is the character of God who is the author, then that should pervade the writing, not be contained to some sections. If God is sovereign over creation and outside of time, then he is aware of who will read Scripture and will ensure timeless truths.
Christians have Consistently Recognized The Truthfulness of Scripture
One charge that is common today is to say that inerrancy is a modern invention. It’s true the term has been more popularized in contrast with those that want to say the Bible is infallible but not inerrant. It can also been seen as a merely western or American concept because the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy that was published in 1978.
The book Urban Legends of Church History addresses this objection well by surveying many church leaders throughout the ages and giving a rundown of what they taught.[2]
Clement of Rome, (c. 95)
“You have searched the holy scriptures, which are true, which were given by the Holy Spirit; you know that nothing unrighteous or counterfeit is written in them.”
Irenaeus of Lyons, (c. 180)
“The Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit.
Clement of Alexandria (c. 215)
“He who believeth then the divine Scriptures with sure judgment, receives in the voice of God, who bestowed the Scriptures, a demonstration that cannot be impugned.”
Tertullian of Carthage (c. 220)
“The statements, however, of holy Scripture will never be discordant with truth.”
Hyppolytus of Rome (c.235)
“The Scripture deals falsely with us in nothing.”
Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 380)
“We, however, who extend the accuracy of the Spirit to the merest stroke and tittle, will never admit the impious assertion that even the smallest matters were dealt with haphazardly by those who have recorded them.”
Augustine of Hippo (c. 420)
“I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the MS [manuscript] is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.”
Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1077)
“I am sure that, if I say anything which plainly opposes the Holy Scriptures, it is false; and if I am aware of it, I will no longer hold it.”
Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1150)
“They are the words of the Lord, and it is not permitted to doubt or hesitate.”
John Calvin (c. 1560)
“We treat Scripture with the same reverence we do God, because it is from God alone, and unmixed with anything human.”
Jacob Arminius (c. 1605)
“If some things in those sacred books seem to be contradictions, they are easily reconciled by means of a right interpretation.”
John Bunyan (c. 1688)
“Suffer thyself, by the authority of the word, to be persuaded that the scripture indeed is the word of God; the scriptures of truth, the words of the holy one; and that they therefore must be every one true, pure, and for ever settled in heaven.”
John Wesley (c. 1776)
“If there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth.”
Abraham Kuyper (c. 1900)
“Inspiration is the name of that all-comprehensive operation of the Holy Spirit whereby He has bestowed on the Church a complete and infallible Scripture.”
Charles Ryrie (c. 1999)
“God superintended the human authors of the Bible so that they composed and recorded without error His message to mankind in the words of their original writings.”
Scripture is Inerrant, Don’t Misunderstand
Recently, we were at a Baseball game, and I’ve never seen parents more nervous. They were running to get their kids, and nothing could stop them from protecting them at that moment.
There can be a danger of thinking that we need to protect the Bible. Thinking that we need to run to it and save. But this is funny. I remember what Charles Spurgeon once said, “Defend the Bible? I’d sooner defend a lion. You don’t defend the Bible; you open its cage and let it roar.” I love that. The Word of God is living and active. It doesn’t need our defense, still, with this in mind. We should recognize when we are getting in the way of the Word of God or obscuring its veracity with our faulty understandings. Let’s look at a couple of ways that we can muddy the waters.
Misunderstanding #1: Failing to recognize inerrancy is concerned with Original Manuscripts
One caveat we need to be aware of is that this doctrine is associated with the original manuscripts. This means two things: it’s not directly related to copies or translations. That said, I think it is fair and acceptable to say that we have God’s inspired, inerrant word available to us. But with that, we keep in mind that our translations are dependent upon many copies of the original manuscripts. This means that it’s okay for us to be aware of differences in manuscripts and what that means for us.
We don’t need to be ignorant of these things. In fact, your English translations will have footnotes where there may be differences. I randomly flipped my Bible looking for an example as I prepared this message and saw Luke 8:3. If you have your Bible, you can flip there, you will notice there is a footnote number 2 by the word them. At the bottom of the page it reads “some manuscripts him.” This is a word that is different in some manuscripts. Now, in the reading of the passage, it’s merely who is being referred to. Did they provide for the disciples or for Jesus? It doesn’t change the meaning of the passage, but our English Bibles still make us aware of what is referred to as a variant.
We will look at these kinds of things more closely at the end of the series. But for our purposes today, it is sufficient to say that we have faithful and trustworthy witnesses to the inerrant word of God in our Bibles. Our Bibles are inerrant in a derivative sense insofar as they transmit the original writings, but not in an absolute sense like the original writings. Again, we will see how incredibly trustworthy our Bibles and translations are at the end of the series.
An example of this could be a manufacturer’s guarantee on an automobile. This may not extend if you make changes to your engine or put larger wheels on it. Those who make modifications can stand out from others, but they are also pretty easily recognized.
Misunderstanding #2: Extending Inerrancy to Our Interpretation Instead of Scripture’s Intent
Inerrancy relates to Scripture not our individual interpretations. There are various aspects where our interpretations go wrong. There was a book published that was titled 88 reasons why Jesus will return in 1988. 1988 came and went and then in 1989 there was a follow up 89 reasons why Jesus will return in 1989. The author’s interpretations of Scripture were fallible, not infallible. They were errant, and humorously so. But there are other ways that we can misunderstand inerrancy.
This is taken directly from the qualifications for this doctrine that are provided in the book, Evangelical Convictions, that I mentioned last week. The Bible must be understood on its own terms. “The Bible is without error in all that the writers intend to affirm as true.” What does this mean? It means that when the writers quote Satan telling a lie, that doesn’t mean we should believe the lie. But it is a true record for our good. It also means understanding if the writers are using hyperbole, metaphors, or other literary devices. We must be careful not to jump to these conclusions merely because the passage makes us uncomfortable. Hard work is necessary to understand the text as it is meant to be understood, not how it appears to us or how we would like it to be read.
We should also be aware of what the writers are intending to communicate. Sometimes, the charge is levied against Scripture that it has error because it speaks of the sun setting and rising, for example. But is this intended to make a declaration of the Sun’s movement or merely telling something from human observation? We don’t say a news station is in error when it says the sunset is at a specific time. However, we may say it’s in error if it makes the statement “there will be no rain today” when we encounter rain that same day.
Grammar
Inerrancy is also not related to what we may think of as perfect or proper grammar or literary form. Sometimes this is noted in the Biblical text. But, we need to recognize our limitations in approaching an ancient text as well as realize that the purpose of the prophets and apostles is not – to quote one theologian – “to produce an ancient writer’s manual,” they continue…”grammatical correctness is not essential to true communication.”[3]
Scientific Precision
Another thing that we need to be aware of is that precision and truth can seem to be synonymous when they are not. We live in a time that loves precision. Perhaps even in your job, being a tenth of a inch off in your measurement is catastrophic. But even if that’s the case, you likely tell people your height in feet and inches. The exact precision isn’t necessary there. In the same way, if a high school senior says they are 18 we don’t say “liar” you are 18, 3 months, 2 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes and 37 seconds – oops, 40 seconds.
We also are not saying that the Bible speaks with the same precision of terminology used in modern scientific writing. For example, we read that the metal basin outside the temple was ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference (1 Kings 7:23). However, if the edge of the basin was a true circle, then its circumference would have been approximately 31.415926535 cubits. The Bible is not a science textbook or a document for technicians and specialists, but a book written for ordinary people. A scientist might say that the time is 1:02 p.m. and 27.764 seconds, but if we were to say that it is one o’clock, we are not telling a falsehood, just speaking with ordinary precision. Similarly, the book of Leviticus classifies the bat as one of the “fowls” with hawks and owls (Lev. 11:13–19). However, this is not a false teaching about ornithology (the study of birds), but a cultural and linguistic difference, because the Hebrew word translated as “fowl” (‘oph) refers to flying animals, not a class in modern biological taxonomy.[4]
Order of Events and Specific Words
Related to this are the order of events. The Bible often simply tells of events and doesn’t make claims of their precise order. Because of this, there are many portions that are not academic histories in the modern sense.
We also need to be careful of placing modern standards on quotations of the words of others. Today we seek to be very precise.
Conclusion
We can use Jesus himself as an example against those who seek to undermine the trustworthiness of Scripture.
Jesus taught that All of Scripture is True
Matthew 5:18
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
John 10:35
If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken.
This is extremely important. The religious leaders were pressing Jesus. He taught of his oneness with the Father and they responded by charging him with blasphemy. He responded in a unique way. He said that the Scriptures would use the word god to refer to people. In doing this, Jesus isn’t giving.
Be careful of going to the Bible and looking for errors, because the errors you find might just be your own. It will reveal your sin. But it will also help you see that hope is found in Jesus.
Jesus helps us understand how the Bible can be human and divine. He also helps understand how humans can be united to God. Our sin alienates us from God, separating us from his presence. But Jesus came to bring us back into a proper relationship with God. He came to do what we couldn’t do. He died to pay the penalty for our sin. This is what we celebrate this morning.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Heb 6:18.
[2] All the quotes are from John Adair and Michael J. Svigel, Urban Legends of Church History: 40 Common Misconceptions (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2020), 246-247.
[3] Joel Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology: Volume 1: Revelation and God, Reformed Systematic Theology Ser (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 373.
[4] Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 374.
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