Inerrancy: The Flawless Word of God

Biblical Inerrancy is the doctrine that when the Bible was originally written, God inspired the authors in such a way that what they wrote was totally free from error. This would include theological errors, scientific errors, historical errors and grammatical errors. Because God is perfect, when He inspired the writers of Scripture, He guided them to perfectly record His divine truth. It is no wonder, the Bible itself claims to be perfect: The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times (Psalm 12:6). The law of the Lord is perfect (Psalm 19:7). The Word of the Lord is flawless (Psalm 18:30). The entirety of Your Word is perfect and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever (Psalm 119:160). Every word of God is pure (Proverbs 30:5). These claims of purity and perfection are absolute statements. These verses do not say that God’s Word is “mostly” pure or “almost” perfect, but rather every single word in the Bible is perfect; thus the Bible is inerrant. In the New Testament we find similar examples. Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). He said, addressing the Father, Your Word is truth (John 17:17). Jesus also said that not one jot or tittle will pass from the law until all is fulfilled (Matthew 5:18). At every turn, the authors of the Bible give affirmation that the origin of their writings came from God. Since God used His miraculous power to inspire the authors of Scripture to record exactly what He wanted recorded, there could never be any errors in what God produced.

Biblical inerrancy does not mean that we can understand everything in the Bible perfectly, or that there are not difficulties to resolve. However, our failure to understand the Bible does not diminish the fact that it is without error. If we cannot resolve a difficulty, the problem remains with our understanding, not with the Bible. Inerrancy does not demand verbatim quotations from the Old Testament or verbatim reports of the same event. Inerrancy allows for human personality in how each author explains the same event. This is particularly observed in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). Matthew could use slightly different words to describe the same incident that Luke describes, yet both give a perfect rendering of that incident. The reason for this is that one writer might have viewed the event from one standpoint while the other from another standpoint. Inerrancy demands that the Bible records events or sayings accurately and truthfully. Inerrancy includes approximations, free quotations, language of appearances and summations. These are not errors, they are features of human language. But above all of the writing stands God who supernaturally protected the authors of the original autographs from making any kind of error even down to the slip of the pen.

At the Chicago meeting in October 1978, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy issued the following statement on inerrancy: “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.” This document remains the definitive statement on biblical inerrancy that is helpful for the church today. Any understanding of the Bible that falls short of full inerrancy, as stated in this document is utterly destructive to the church.

In the final analysis, the Bible stands alone as the only flawless book ever produced. It claims to be the inerrant Word of God, backs up that claim by prophecies that have been fulfilled, by amazing accuracies with science and history, and by a symphonic unity that is consistent throughout. It has the marks of divine origin all over the place for anyone with a rational mind to see. God’s Word never contradicts itself because God never contradicts Himself. Believers must study this perfect book with passion and consistency, for the rewards are life-changing. Hebrews 4:12, For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.