Aug 22 2009
Inerrancy and Inspiration of the Bible
If you are a Christian, have you ever asked yourself how you can be so sure of your eternal destination? If you are a seeker of the truth, trying to find God for your life, have you wondered how you could know for sure that you have found the one true and almighty God?
It is a necessity for all of us to find evidence for everything that we believe in, unless we eventually put the matter aside as a speculation or unproven theory. Therefore, we are eager to find proof for the belief that the God of the Bible is the one and only true and living God. So, how can we find the all important assurance that this is actually so?
The only solid foundation for the Christian faith that we have physically on hand today is the Bible. However, for the Scriptures to be the basis for our belief, we have to be certain that the Bible is not just as all other books that may include truth and error or fiction alike. How could we come to the conclusion that the Bible is indeed completely true and factual?
This article is simply an effort to put in motion your desire to study and evaluate the Bible for yourself, and cannot take away that necessary work of your own. So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Rom. 10:17). God has given us an inquisitive mind to be able to verify our belief.
When you go about your study of the Bible, consider the prophecies in the Old Testament that have come true. Notice that these prophecies could not have been some speculative guesses of future events to happen. If there were only one prophecy that came true in the Scriptures, the odds of a “good guess” or coincidence would still be somewhat likely. However, in combination, all the prophecies in the Bible having come true are providing us with a statistical impossibility of coincidence or gamble. Thus, the Bible proves itself as true.
The next consideration necessarily needs to be how the Scriptures can be so very accurately true when they were written by humans of ancient times. The only possible reasonable answer is that God inspired these authors to write what He Himself revealed to them. It is not only logical, but also necessary, that God inspired these men, in order for the Bible to be totally inerrant and true.
Once we have come to this conclusion, the most important effect is that we now have an absolutely visible and available reason to believe, because the Bible itself has become the foundation for our faith. Furthermore, we have at the same time a manual that teaches us how to conduct our walk of life. And, last but not least, we have arrived at a reason for living that goes beyond the uncertainties of a finite life on this earth.
Suddenly, there is meaning to life, rather than only spending our years with limited value or vanity. It is eternity that becomes the ultimate destination. Eternity becomes our goal at the horizon, and the Bible is our map and manual through life, instructing us what is right and what is wrong. The Holy Scriptures can only do so, because they are the Word of God. Only our Heavenly Father God is infallible and omniscient. Only He is perfectly knowing the truth, giving us His perfect standards of right and wrong. We humans do not have that wisdom and knowledge by ourselves. Once we arrive at that realization, faith has found its valid foundation.
Let us, however, spend a few moments reflecting on the consequences of this conclusion. As long as we follow our map and manual, we are on the right path, conducting our lives as we should, according to the will of God. When we stop looking at the map and discontinue to follow the Bible’s instructions, then it is eventually unavoidable that we go astray and are no longer headed towards our destination.
Another fateful trap to fall into is forgetting that the Bible is the inerrant inspired Word of God. Once we do so, we have lost focus of God’s absolute standard. He is the One who never changes. He has been and will be the same from eternity past until eternity future. That is the reason why we can completely trust Him without possibility of error.
The main reason for doubting or attempting to change God’s standards for our lives, given to us in the Bible, is our human pride, which makes us falsely conclude that we are in control of our own lives and affairs. Our reasoning then becomes that since the world has changed, so our lives have changed. Therefore, we claim that we must be flexible to adapt to today’s realities, rather than hold on to something written by some human authors in old days that is absolutely incompatible and inapplicable to us in our times.
When we fall into this trap, we cannot but also fall into sin, because we are denying that God’s absolute standard that was given to us in the Bible is still sufficient and applicable. It is also significant that this error is based on the false assumption that the Bible was written by authors, who were not inspired by God, and could therefore only write what there limited human perception in their own days would cause them to express. This, however, is in complete contradiction to our earlier discovery that the Bible has proven itself to be trustworthy, inerrant and inspired by God, because of the fact that it is reasonably and statistically impossible for all the prophecies of the Bible to have come true by means of guessing.
Please allow me to prove to you at this point that such a fundamental human error does not only occur to ordinary believers who are neither seminary trained nor otherwise very knowledgeable or versed by regular and frequent study of the Bible. For this purpose, I will only go as far back as yesterday, when we were presented with the following news:
“By voting Friday to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, the 4.7-million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will either show how a church can stand together amid differences, or become another casualty of division over sexual morality and the Bible, observers say.” (By Eric Gorski, Associated Press Writer, August 22, 2009, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_lutherans_gays;_ylt=AgQHL7UD.1w9PdO2s2d6VBF0fNdF)
Who is right and who is wrong in this case? The majority or the minority? The pros or the cons? Or could they both be partially right? You can answer that question for yourself. Read Genesis 19, how God dealt with Sodom, and also consider the following two verses (NIV).
“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” (Lev. 18:22)
“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.” (Lev. 20:13a)
The ELCA’s decision was at least partially based on the erroneous assumption that human arbitrary interpretation of customs should supersede God’s standard as given in the Bible. It was evidently also based on the false assumption that the authors’ of the Bible were simply writing their own thoughts, and that the Bible is therefore not God’s inspired Word. That would leave any man with the liberty of doing what he pleases, which equals the denial of God’s right to determine what is right and what is wrong. This in fact is highly blasphemous, because the Creator retains the right to direct His creation.
We can clearly recognize the terrible dilemma by reading the following statement in the same article.
“Barbara Wheeler, a former president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York who is now director of the school’s Center for the Study of Theological Education, praised the ELCA for laying a theological foundation for Friday’s vote by first approving a broad social statement on sexuality.”
“It’s a completely theological argument toward openness to the possibility of faithful, committed same-sex relationships,” said Wheeler, who has played a central role in gay clergy deliberations inside the Presbyterian Church (USA). “What you’re seeing is two things: The society is in the process of changing its collective mind about the moral status of same-sex relationships, and there’s a parallel theological movement.”
Here we can see human arrogance and its consequences so very clearly. The professors at some “Theological Seminaries” today are teachers of human philosophy, rather than Bible teachers. If they were right, the Christian faith would have lost its fundamental basis. No, ladies and gentlemen, society cannot change the standards for our living, and then claim that they just rightfully adjusted God’s will and standard for our conduct, since it supposedly has to coincide with our own human sinful determination. Such teachers are as the pharisees, who outwardly were religious, yet failed to be followers of God.
If we were to allow that the Bible be represented as just another book, that it is not the infallible inspired Word of God, then we consequently would deprive ourselves of the basis for our faith. This, however, is the choice that such “theologians” and the ELCA are obviously making. They put man above God.
Let me close with God’s Word about that from Acts 15 (KJV) as the closing to my article.
27And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,
28Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
29Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
30The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
31Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
32And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.
