Is The Bible Authoritative and Inerrant?

What is biblical inerrancy? Is the Bible really authoritative?

What is Inerrancy?

Something that is described as inerrant or having inerrancy means that it is without error. If you handed in a paper in school and the teacher didn’t find a single error on it, your work would be said to be inerrant or having no mistakes. Anything that is said to be perfect or without error has a freedom from error or untruths and by that definition, there is inerrancy to it. One definition of inerrancy is that it contains no errors at all but also, something or someone who is inerrant is incapable of making an error, therefore, there is infallibility in that something or someone, so the question is; “Is the Bible inerrant?”

The Inerrant Word

The Bible describes Jesus as being full of grace and truth (John 1:14) which is why God desires those who worship Him do so in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), so truth is important to God because He is the truth. Jesus said as much by saying “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) and the truth is, God cannot lie (Heb 6:18), so whatever Jesus says is truth, and the words of Jesus which are recorded in the New Testament must necessarily true too since God is not like man who can lie (Num 23:19). If you have a red letter Bible, every red sentence you read is the truth, directly from the mouth of God since Jesus is God, however the authors of the Bible also wrote the truth as Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2nd Tim 3:16-17) so “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation” (2nd Pet 1:20) and all means all and includes the Old Testament since that is all the early church had. The Apostle Paul wrote that, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4).

The Authoritative Word

Since we know that the truth comes in the Person of Christ (John 1:14), we also know that “Every word of God proves true” (Prov 30:5). Solomon must have been speaking about the Old Testament since the New had not yet been written, so here is the wisest man on earth at the time telling us dogmatically that “Every word of God proves true,” not just some of it or parts of it; all of it is! Since God’s Word is true, it must be authoritative since God inspired the writers to write, “Thus says the Lord” whenever God spoke to them directly so it is God speaking and we’ve already read that God cannot lie. Just a brief look at other ancient documents we see that we have ten copies of Caesar’s writings from the first century but the earliest copies we have come 900 years later. We have forty-nine copies of Aristotle’s works from the 4th century BC with the earliest copies found 1,000 years later so that makes them 1,500 years later than the original. Now, examining the 5,800 copies of the New Testament Greek manuscripts, but also 20,000 other copies from the Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and others with the earliest manuscripts coming by AD 125 so that’s a lapse of only 25 years! No one disputes Aristotle’s or Caesar’s writings or their historical existence with only handfuls of copies remaining (20 combined) but the manuscripts and portions of manuscripts of the Bible total over 30,000.

Variableness in Manuscripts

The error rate for those who copied the manuscripts is said to be about one percent but these differences are those, for example, have differences like “He” instead of “Jesus” or one copy might have “Jesus Christ” while another s it “Christ Jesus” so the doctrinal issues of the teachings of the Bible are simply not affected by this tiny percentage. The saying “the main things are the plain things” is true about the Bible. Those who say they can’t trust it are only making excuses since they love their sin and due to their pride, they don’t want to let someone else sit as chairman of the board of their own life. Make no mistake about it; everyone who rejects God has no excuse. Paul wrote that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom 1:18-20).

Conclusion

The Bible has archaeological, historical, paleontological, and manuscript support like nothing else in all of human history that conclusively proves that God’s Word is authoritative, His Word is inerrant, and His Word is final, therefore I plead with you to repent today and turn from your sins and forsake them and then put your trust in Christ. If you still choose to reject Jesus, it is “because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works” (Rom 2:5-6) and “those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Rom 2:8).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.