Posted on 05/23/2009 9:10:25 PM PDT by Quix
There is that, alright! LOL.
Love you dearly, Bro.
I think you know and believe that, right?
DOH about my math! LOL.
Thanks for the correction.
Excellent points, as usual.
However, on this thread . . . I think I’ve been pretty durn Biblically kosher in spirit and letter.
I pray God to strengthen us in our faith, for Christians to look to their hearts; that He may bless us and our fair country.
Truly, there is only One Great Commandment - loving God surpassingly above all else (Matt 22) is the most thing any of us will ever do.
And if we do not return to our first love, no matter what else we may get "right" we run the risk of the Ephesians, that our light will go out.
Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. – Revelation 2:1-5
There is an old Scottish belief/myth my Grandmother used to tell me about when explaining why/why not I got polio at age two ... she used the myth to debunk my childish irrational fears. Roughly, the myth is that those who are loved too much by their parents are the ones the gods torment out of jealousy. My grandmother's message was that I didn't come down with polio because some god was angry or jealous. Things just happen.
As the world becomes more secularized, an interesting phenomenon occurs: those with a penchant to believe in God for the magic thinking aspect of religiosity will begin to move more toward fear of what satan will do to them if they don't 'go along to get along', rather than fear the Lord's judgment. They rational ignoring God's judgment and His clear messages regarding same written in the Bible as 'God is a loving God, so if I can't stand against the onslaught of evil which I cannot individually stop, God will understand and forgive me my weakness.'
What we are seeing is not so much 'loss of faith in God', it is the satanic plea to 'stop fearing God and God's prescribed judgment.' And after all (satan will whisper) didn't Jesus actually say 'fear him who can destroy body and soul', and soul is equated with 'the cares of this world' in our growing secularized society. We are witnessing the 'believing of a lie'. We are seeing the great delusion playing out in these end times.
Thank you so very much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
I pray God to strengthen us in our faith, for Christians to look to their hearts; that He may bless us and our fair country.
I join in your prayer for Christian revival or renewal throughout our land.
Truly, there is only One Great Commandment - loving God surpassingly above all else (Matt 22) is the most thing any of us will ever do.
And if we do not return to our first love, no matter what else we may get "right" we run the risk of the Ephesians, that our light will go out.
Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. – Revelation 2:1-5
Worthy points, imho.
True. true.
And, while it is true ENOUGH that I can give ALMOST as good as I get . . . and have . . .
I don’t recall EVER ruthlessly going for blood in terms of folks personhood, sanity, psychosis etc.
While some seemingly relentlessly and chronically do so toward me.
That distinction, is, I guess . . . only of merit in the fantasies of the curious space between my ears alone.
Sigh.
LUB
TRUE. TRUE.
THANKS THANKS.
BLESSED BE THE NAME AND WORD OF THE LORD. MAY HE SATURATE ME WITH HIMSELF AND WITH HIS WORD.
LUB
Yeah. We’re tight.
Hey Quix, if this is of any help, please use it. Otherwise, anyone can take it any way they want... :-)
And so, I’ll give a “basis” for Evangelicals in guiding them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, through what the Bible, the Word of God, tells us.
The Cambridge Declaration
from the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals
[An abbreviated listing of the main points; full statement below...]
Sola Scriptura
We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
—
Solus Christus
We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.
We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.
—
Sola Gratia
We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.
—
Sola Fide
We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.
We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.
—
Soli Deo Gloria
We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone.
We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
[the full statement here...]
Cambridge Declaration
April 20, 1996
Evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by the spirit of this age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As evangelicals, we call ourselves to repent of this sin and to recover the historic Christian faith.
In the course of history words change. In our day this has happened to the word “evangelical.” In the past it served as a bond of unity between Christians from a wide diversity of church traditions. Historic evangelicalism was confessional. It embraced the essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church. In addition, evangelicals also shared a common heritage in the “solas” of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.
Today the light of the Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The consequence is that the word “evangelical” has become so inclusive as to have lost its meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity it has taken centuries to achieve. Because of this crisis and because of our love of Christ, his gospel and his church, we endeavor to assert anew our commitment to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not because of their role in our traditions, but because we believe that they are central to the Bible.
Sola Scriptura: The Erosion of Authority
Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church’s life, but the evangelical church today has separated Scripture from its authoritative function. In practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of worship, including the doctrinal content of the music. As biblical authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have faded from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly emptied of its integrity, moral authority and direction.
Rather than adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers, we must proclaim the law as the only measure of true righteousness and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth. Biblical truth is indispensable to the church’s understanding, nurture and discipline.
Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing ourselves through the seductive images, cliches, promises and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light of God’s truth that we understand ourselves aright and see God’s provision for our need. The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the church. Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not expressions of the preacher’s opinions or the ideas of the age. We must settle for nothing less than what God has given.
The work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways that are independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never have known of God’s grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather than spiritual experience, is the test of truth.
Thesis One: Sola Scriptura
We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation,which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian’s conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.
Solus Christus: The Erosion of Christ-Centered Faith
As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of our vision.
Thesis Two: Solus Christus
We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.
We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.
Sola Gratia: The Erosion of The Gospel
Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.
God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.
Thesis Three: Sola Gratia
We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.
Sola Fide: The Erosion of The Chief Article
Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article by which the church stands or falls. Today this article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need for Christ’s imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what it is we are preaching.
Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is as important to the success of the gospel as is the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are frequently divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches takes this even further, erasing the distinction between the biblical Word and the world, robbing Christ’s cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to the principles and methods which bring success to secular corporations.
While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel except that of Christ’s substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as God’s children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ’s saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him.
Thesis Four: Sola Fide
We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.
We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.
Soli Deo Gloria: The Erosion of God-Centered Worship
Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God’s and we are doing his work in our way. The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.
God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God’s kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or success.
Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria
We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God’s glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone.
We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.
A Call To Repentance & Reformation
The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century, evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ’s kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal.
We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the “gospels” of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure to adequately tell others about God’s saving work in Jesus Christ.
We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have deviated from God’s Word in the matters discussed in this Declaration. This includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in this life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment of God through eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine of justification is not believed.
The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals asks all Christians to give consideration to implementing this Declaration in the church’s worship, ministry, policies, life and evangelism.
For Christ’s sake. Amen.
Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Executive Council (1996)
Dr. John Armstrong
The Rev. Alistair Begg
Dr. James M. Boice
Dr. W. Robert Godfrey
Dr. John D. Hannah
Dr. Michael S. Horton
Mrs. Rosemary Jensen
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Dr. Robert M. Norris
Dr. R.C. Sproul
Dr. Gene Edward Veith
Dr. David Wells
Dr. Luder Whitlock
Dr. J.A.O. Preus, III
This declaration may be reproduced without permission. Please credit the source by citing the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.
And I’ll make note to the “reservations” I have with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (at least some of them, anyway), in terms of their “Eschatology” (the study of future things in the Bible) in regards to Israel and God’s future purposes for Israel. It’s absolutely clear to me that God has a future purpose to Israel, according to Scriptures, in the Millennial Kingdom to be set up here, on earth by Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, for His 1,000 year reign (and forevermore, thereafter).
But, in terms of the basis for understanding the Bible in terms of its Gospel message, and the fundamental issues, as given above, I would agree 100% with the above, and it would be something that all Evangelicals should have no problems with.
Also, Quix, along with that prior “Cambridge Statement” for Evangelicals, also goes this Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy...
CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY WITH EXPOSITION
Background
The “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” was produced at an international Summit Conference of evangelical leaders, held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Chicago in the fall of 1978. This congress was sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The Chicago Statement was signed by nearly 300 noted evangelical scholars, including James Boice, Norman L. Geisler, John Gerstner, Carl F. H. Henry, Kenneth Kantzer, Harold Lindsell, John Warwick Montgomery, Roger Nicole, J. I. Packer, Robert Preus, Earl Radmacher, Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, and John Wenham.
The ICBI disbanded in 1988 after producing three major statements: one on biblical inerrancy in 1978, one on biblical hermeneutics in 1982, and one on biblical application in 1986. The following text, containing the “Preface” by the ICBI draft committee, plus the “Short Statement,” “Articles of Affirmation and Denial,” and an accompanying “Exposition,” was published in toto by Carl F. H. Henry in God, Revelation And Authority, vol. 4 (Waco, Tx.: Word Books, 1979), on pp. 211-219. The nineteen Articles of Affirmation and Denial, with a brief introduction, also appear in A General Introduction to the Bible, by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix (Chicago: Moody Press, rev. 1986), at pp. 181-185. An official commentary on these articles was written by R. C. Sproul in Explaining Inerrancy: A Commentary (Oakland, Calif.: ICBI, 1980), and Norman Geisler edited the major addresses from the 1978 conference, in Inerrancy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980).
Clarification of some of the language used in this Statement may be found in the 1982 Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics [ http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago2.html ]
—
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
Preface
The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God’s written Word. To stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.
The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God’s own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstandings of this doctrine in the world at large.
This Statement consists of three parts: a Summary Statement, Articles of Affirmation and Denial, and an accompanying Exposition. It has been prepared in the course of a three-day consultation in Chicago. Those who have signed the Summary Statement and the Articles wish to affirm their own conviction as to the inerrancy of Scripture and to encourage and challenge one another and all Christians to growing appreciation and understanding of this doctrine. We acknowledge the limitations of a document prepared in a brief, intensive conference and do not propose that this Statement be given creedal weight. Yet we rejoice in the deepening of our own convictions through our discussions together, and we pray that the Statement we have signed may be used to the glory of our God toward a new reformation of the Church in its faith, life, and mission.
We offer this Statement in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility and love, which we purpose by God’s grace to maintain in any future dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly acknowledge that many who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display the consequences of this denial in the rest of their belief and behavior, and we are conscious that we who confess this doctrine often deny it in life by failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our traditions and habits, into true subjection to the divine Word.
We invite response to this statement from any who see reason to amend its affirmations about Scripture by the light of Scripture itself, under whose infallible authority we stand as we speak. We claim no personal infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any help which enables us to strengthen this testimony to God’s Word we shall be grateful.
— The Draft Committee
—
A Short Statement
1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.
—
Articles of Affirmation and Denial
— Article I.
WE AFFIRM that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God.
WE DENY that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.
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— Article II.
WE AFFIRM that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.
WE DENY that Church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.
-
— Article III.
WE AFFIRM that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.
WE DENY that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity.
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— Article IV.
WE AFFIRM that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.
WE DENY that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God’s work of inspiration.
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— Article V.
WE AFFIRM that God’s revelation within the Holy Scriptures was progressive.
WE DENY that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings.
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— Article VI.
WE AFFIRM that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.
WE DENY that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.
-
— Article VII.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit, through human writers, gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us.
WE DENY that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to heightened states of consciousness of any kind.
-
— Article VIII.
WE AFFIRM that God in His work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared.
WE DENY that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.
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— Article IX.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write.
WE DENY that the finitude or fallenness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God’s Word.
-
— Article X.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
-
— Article XI.
WE AFFIRM that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the matters it addresses.
WE DENY that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its assertions. Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished, but not separated.
-
— Article XII.
WE AFFIRM that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.
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 on creation and the flood.
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— Article XIII.
WE AFFIRM the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.
WE DENY that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.
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— Article XIV.
WE AFFIRM the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.
WE DENY that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible.
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— Article XV.
WE AFFIRM that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration.
WE DENY that Jesus’ teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity.
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— Article XVI.
WE AFFIRM that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its history.
WE DENY that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.
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— Article XVII.
WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God’s written Word.
WE DENY that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.
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— Article XVIII.
WE AFFIRM that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.
WE DENY the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.
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— Article XIX.
WE AFFIRM that a confession of the full authority, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ.
WE DENY that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Exposition
Our understanding of the doctrine of inerrancy must be set in the context of the broader teachings of the Scripture concerning itself. This exposition gives an account of the outline of doctrine from which our summary statement and articles are drawn.
Creation, Revelation and Inspiration
The Triune God, who formed all things by his creative utterances and governs all things by His Word of decree, made mankind in His own image for a life of communion with Himself, on the model of the eternal fellowship of loving communication within the Godhead. As God’s image-bearer, man was to hear God’s Word addressed to him and to respond in the joy of adoring obedience. Over and above God’s self-disclosure in the created order and the sequence of events within it, human beings from Adam on have received verbal messages from Him, either directly, as stated in Scripture, or indirectly in the form of part or all of Scripture itself.
When Adam fell, the Creator did not abandon mankind to final judgment but promised salvation and began to reveal Himself as Redeemer in a sequence of historical events centering on Abraham’s family and culminating in the life, death, resurrection, present heavenly ministry, and promised return of Jesus Christ. Within this frame God has from time to time spoken specific words of judgment and mercy, promise and command, to sinful human beings so drawing them into a covenant relation of mutual commitment between Him and them in which He blesses them with gifts of grace and they bless Him in responsive adoration. Moses, whom God used as mediator to carry His words to His people at the time of the Exodus, stands at the head of a long line of prophets in whose mouths and writings God put His words for delivery to Israel. God’s purpose in this succession of messages was to maintain His covenant by causing His people to know His Name—that is, His nature—and His will both of precept and purpose in the present and for the future. This line of prophetic spokesmen from God came to completion in Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Word, who was Himself a prophet—more than a prophet, but not less—and in the apostles and prophets of the first Christian generation. When God’s final and climactic message, His word to the world concerning Jesus Christ, had been spoken and elucidated by those in the apostolic circle, the sequence of revealed messages ceased. Henceforth the Church was to live and know God by what He had already said, and said for all time.
At Sinai God wrote the terms of His covenant on tables of stone, as His enduring witness and for lasting accessibility, and throughout the period of prophetic and apostolic revelation He prompted men to write the messages given to and through them, along with celebratory records of His dealings with His people, plus moral reflections on covenant life and forms of praise and prayer for covenant mercy. The theological reality of inspiration in the producing of Biblical documents corresponds to that of spoken prophecies: although the human writers’ personalities were expressed in what they wrote, the words were divinely constituted. Thus, what Scripture says, God says; its authority is His authority, for He is its ultimate Author, having given it through the minds and words of chosen and prepared men who in freedom and faithfulness “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (1 Pet. 1:21). Holy Scripture must be acknowledged as the Word of God by virtue of its divine origin.
Authority: Christ and the Bible
Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is the Word made flesh, our Prophet, Priest, and King, is the ultimate Mediator of God’s communication to man, as He is of all God’s gifts of grace. The revelation He gave was more than verbal; He revealed the Father by His presence and His deeds as well. Yet His words were crucially important; for He was God, He spoke from the Father, and His words will judge all men at the last day.
As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus Christ is the central theme of Scripture. The Old Testament looked ahead to Him; the New Testament looks back to His first coming and on to His second. Canonical Scripture is the divinely inspired and therefore normative witness to Christ. No hermeneutic, therefore, of which the historical Christ is not the focal point is acceptable. Holy Scripture must be treated as what it essentially is—the witness of the Father to the Incarnate Son.
It appears that the Old Testament canon had been fixed by the time of Jesus. The New Testament canon is likewise now closed inasmuch as no new apostolic witness to the historical Christ can now be borne. No new revelation (as distinct from Spirit-given understanding of existing revelation) will be given until Christ comes again. The canon was created in principle by divine inspiration. The Church’s part was to discern the canon which God had created, not to devise one of its own.
The word canon, signifying a rule or standard, is a pointer to authority, which means the right to rule and control. Authority in Christianity belongs to God in His revelation, which means, on the one hand, Jesus Christ, the living Word, and, on the other hand, Holy Scripture, the written Word. But the authority of Christ and that of Scripture are one. As our Prophet, Christ testified that Scripture cannot be broken. As our Priest and King, He devoted His earthly life to fulfilling the law and the prophets, even dying in obedience to the words of Messianic prophecy. Thus, as He saw Scripture attesting Him and His authority, so by His own submission to Scripture He attested its authority. As He bowed to His Father’s instruction given in His Bible (our Old Testament), so He requires His disciples to do—not, however, in isolation but in conjunction with the apostolic witness to Himself which He undertook to inspire by His gift of the Holy Spirit. So Christians show themselves faithful servants of their Lord by bowing to the divine instruction given in the prophetic and apostolic writings which together make up our Bible.
By authenticating each other’s authority, Christ and Scripture coalesce into a single fount of authority. The Biblically-interpreted Christ and the Christ-centered, Christ-proclaiming Bible are from this standpoint one. As from the fact of inspiration we infer that what Scripture says, God says, so from the revealed relation between Jesus Christ and Scripture we may equally declare that what Scripture says, Christ says.
Infallibility, Inerrancy, Interpretation
Holy Scripture, as the inspired Word of God witnessing authoritatively to Jesus Christ, may properly be called infallible and inerrant. These negative terms have a special value, for they explicitly safeguard crucial positive truths.
lnfallible signifies the quality of neither misleading nor being misled and so safeguards in categorical terms the truth that Holy Scripture is a sure, safe, and reliable rule and guide in all matters.
Similarly, inerrant signifies the quality of being free from all falsehood or mistake and so safeguards the truth that Holy Scripture is entirely true and trustworthy in all its assertions.
We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a human production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and conventions of His penman’s milieu, a milieu that God controls in His sovereign providence; it is misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.
So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: since, for instance, non-chronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.
The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by the appearance in it of irregularities of grammar or spelling, phenomenal descriptions of nature, reports of false statements (e.g., the lies of Satan), or seeming discrepancies between one passage and another. It is not right to set the so-called “phenomena” of Scripture against the teaching of Scripture about itself. Apparent inconsistencies should not be ignored. Solution of them, where this can be convincingly achieved, will encourage our faith, and where for the present no convincing solution is at hand we shall significantly honor God by trusting His assurance that His Word is true, despite these appearances, and by maintaining our confidence that one day they will be seen to have been illusions.
Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single divine mind, interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy of Scripture and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical passage by another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer’s mind.
Although Holy Scripture is nowhere culture-bound in the sense that its teaching lacks universal validity, it is sometimes culturally conditioned by the customs and conventional views of a particular period, so that the application of its principles today calls for a different sort of action.
Skepticism and Criticism
Since the Renaissance, and more particularly since the Enlightenment, world-views have been developed which involve skepticism about basic Christian tenets. Such are the agnosticism which denies that God is knowable, the rationalism which denies that He is incomprehensible, the idealism which denies that He is transcendent, and the existentialism which denies rationality in His relationships with us. When these un- and anti-biblical principles seep into men’s theologies at [a] presuppositional level, as today they frequently do, faithful interpretation of Holy Scripture becomes impossible.
Transmission and Translation
Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this science, however, is that the Hebrew and Greek text appear to be amazingly well preserved, so that we are amply justified in affirming, with the Westminster Confession, a singular providence of God in this matter and in declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error-free.
Similarly, no translation is or can be perfect, and all translations are an additional step away from the autographa. Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English-speaking Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true Word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in view of the frequent repetition in Scripture of the main matters with which it deals and also of the Holy Spirit’s constant witness to and through the Word, no serious translation of Holy Scripture will so destroy its meaning as to render it unable to make its reader “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
Inerrancy and Authority
In our affirmation of the authority of Scripture as involving its total truth, we are consciously standing with Christ and His apostles, indeed with the whole Bible and with the main stream of Church history from the first days until very recently. We are concerned at the casual, inadvertent, and seemingly thoughtless way in which a belief of such far-reaching importance has been given up by so many in our day.
We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one’s critical reasonings and in principle reducible still further once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.
We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified. Amen and Amen.
Webpage — http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html
Indeed Christ WAS harshly fierce with such people (e.g., the Pharisees). But that was His prerogative: after all, He is the Son of God and final Judge.
But we Christians are not. In fact, the Holy Scriptures warn us, "Judge not, lest ye shall also be judged." Which I take to mean: "You yourself will be judged by the very same standard of judgment that you apply to others." If one is not totally humbled by this Biblical assertion, one doesn't truly understand it yet. For to truly understand it, is to become very circumspect in what one says about others.
May I say the propensity to flame warfare is not exclusive to Catholics? I've seen Reformed believers of different confessions going "hammer-and-tong" at Catholics and each other around here, too. Over at the Crevo threads, the atheists seem especially good at perpetrating such pointless mayhem; and they usually get a pretty good rise out of their creationist opponents, who then return in kind.
But it's all the same thing: All heat and no Light. It's like battling Rhinos going at it — which might make sense to Rhinos, but I fail to see what edification it has for human beings. Nobody's mind is changed a whit about anything at the end of the day. Such egoistic displays serve no purpose otherwise than "entertainment value" for cynics, skeptics, and atheists. In short, we should not approve that of which Satan approves (e.g., strife among the brethren), and restrain our behavior accordingly.
My strong and prayerful desire is to see Christians focusing on what all Christians hold in common — not dwelling on controversies about doctrinal details. IOW, focus on what unites us, not on what divides us. The latter only serves the interests of Satan (not to mention the OThuga-style State).
Quix, you ended up giving a critique of the Roman Catholic Church itself. If I might observe, "outside criticism" can't really convey much about how the "insiders" regard their faith and spiritual life precisely because they're "outside" the community and thus remote from the way in which the community thinks about and experiences its confession of faith. It is a hoary old tale (alive in the Framers' age) that the Roman Catholic Church worships, beside the Blessed Trinity Father–Son–Holy Spirit, also Mary and the Saints and the Pope and the Vatican and whatnot. (Some Protestants are completely convinced that the Roman Church worships the devil, too.)
Yet Roman Catholics draw a distinction between worship — which is owed to God alone — and veneration of holy persons such as Mary and the Saints. Mary is deeply venerated — as befitting the Mother of God. She is regarded as the Mother of the Church, by virtue of the fact that she was the Mother of Christ's Body. She is prayed to, not as God, but as an intercessor with God on behalf of men's souls.
If this sort of thing is not according to one's own understanding, then one has two choices: (1) Let it pass in Christian peace and goodwill. Ultimately, what a man truly believes in his heart is a matter between him and God alone, a sacred relation that I don't want to barge into with my own little inconsequential opinions about what a man must believe in order to be "right with God" ("in my judgment"). (2) Commence an argument that one's own theological perspectives are somehow "better," and risk touching off controversy and strife among brethren.
The latter choice is not necessarily an exercise in evangelicalism; to me, it so often looks more like engaging in disputation for its own sake, to demonstrate that one's own view is superior.
Yet in a certain way, to speak of something being "superior" to something else requires an "apples-to-apples" situation of comparison. Yet this is not what we have, strictly speaking, between the Roman and the Reformed Churches. The essential core of the Faith is the same in both traditions, but there are very distinctive differences between the two, so in some lesser respects we have more of an "apples-to-oranges" situation. Here are what I think are two key differences between the two major Christian faith traditions, FWIW:
The Roman Church does not "disparage the body" in order to elevate the soul. Neither is sense perception disparaged; indeed the Roman Church does all in its power to engage the "whole man," body, soul, sense perception, and his physical life as lived. The Reformed Church evidently is unaware of what the Roman Church's use of imagery (frescoes, paintings, stained glass, statuary, sacred music, et al.) is designed/intended to do: To lead the soul through the window of sense perception of beautiful objects to the contemplation of eternal divine beauty and majesty. Thus the Church does not regard them as "idols" — as ends in themselves elevated to worship; but as doors for the soul to pass through in its meditative ascent to God. Yet many Protestants stubbornly cling to the idea that all such are "idols," and leave their own alters and meeting places bare.We Christians have different points of view and different paths to walk, but all lead to the One True God in Christ. Christians may disagree about the particulars. Still all compose the Body of Christ. So it seems to me the best thing to do is to respect and honor our differences, and unite ourselves to the core Christian Creed so sublimely stated in the Lord's Prayer.Different strokes for different folks, I say.
Another striking difference, it seems to me, is that the Reformed Churches have somewhat imbibed from the springs of the Enlightenment in the emphasis they place on reason and on personal autonomy. The sanctification of the body so important in Roman Catholicism isn't an issue for Reformed Christianity. Where the authority of the institutional Roman Church is centralized and hierarchical, the authority of the Reformed Churches is decentralized and democratic.
Thus all things considered, it is highly unlikely to me that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution could have been composed by a body of Roman Catholics. But this is not to wholesale disparage the Roman Church as somehow "inferior" to the Reformed. It is only to note that, given the historical setting, these documents were penned by men of Reformed Church confession. And the main religious stamp on American character, culture, and society has been Reformed Church ever since. The personal autonomy and democracy of the Church has been translated into a (so far) stable and prosperous secular state that is strongly resonant to democratic principles.
A true evangelist (it seems to me) focuses on the core of the faith common to all Christians: Salvation in, by, and through Christ only, the Two Great Commandments of the Christian Dispensation, and something along the lines of the Nicaean Creed regarding the disposition of the Blessed Trinity. You don't start out with doctrinal disputes, such as predestination vs. free will, faith vs. works, divine election vs. free grace, etc., etc.
What the true evangelist affirms is the salvific Love of God, His free sacrifice of Himself that enables us to live life "more abundantly" in the here and now and in the hereafter; His eternal Truth and Justice; the Judgment to come. God help me, but I believe those are the most important things that we need so desperately to hear nowadays, Christians and non-Christians alike. For Satan is in the world, and his time is growing short....
I'm so sorry if my "humble opinion" offended you or embarrassed you. I hope you will not form a wrong impression. It wasn't offered in that spirit, nor does it appear you took it that way. But I'm apologizing in any case. For my utter simple-mindedness!
I'm becoming more "simple-minded" as time goes on. I'll give you an example, one that bears on the judgments we make.
If the Holy Spirit were to come to me bearing a message from God, "I want you to go jump off a cliff," I would have some doubt about the message, not to mention the messenger. For the character of God is such that He does not tempt us, does not lie to us, and does not contradict Himself. Since He is the Lord of Life, and thus regards suicide as utter abomination, He would not ask me to jump off a cliff.
Then again, if the Holy Spirit were to come to me bearing a message from God, "I want you to harden your heart against John Jones, for I consider him to be utterly lost already so don't waste your time on him," again I would have some doubt about the message, not to mention the messenger. For God commands us to love one another as we love ourselves. So to harden our heart against someone would show that we are dwelling outside God's second Great Commandment and thus also living outside the law of the first Great Commandment: To love God with our whole heart and soul and mind and stength. Ergo, God would not ask us ever to "harden our hearts" against anyone, for in essence that would mean we would be hardening our hearts against God Himself.
The only reason I mention these examples is I know that many people have experiences of inspiration directly from the Holy Spirit. I also know that the Devil is the father of lies, and so may "impersonate" the Holy Spirit so to tempt us through our own vanity and weakness. If the message is contrary to what the Holy Scriptures declare as righteous Truth, the messenger may be an imposter, and the message a lie.
Seems pretty simple-minded to me: Verify your experiences against the standard of Biblical Truth. And pray to God: "Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil."
Well I suppose I've been nattering away here like your Aunt Nellie! Time to put a sock in it.
Thank you ever so much for your inspiring and prayerful essay/post, dear brother in Christ!
HIDEOUS.
Am reminded of the Scripture about the one that thinks they can take hot coals into their lap and not be burned.
YEA AND PRAISE GOD AND YOUR KINDNESS
FOR THAT.
I cherish that.
WORKS WELL FOR ME.
THX
THX
THANKS BIG.
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