The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (12 page)

It was mentioned at the outset that two NT passages cite other NT books as “Scripture” on a par with OT Scripture. First Timothy 5: 18 most likely cites Luke's Gospel as Scripture alongside Deuteronomy, and Peter referred to Paul's letters as “Scripture” on a par with the OT (2 Pet 3:16). The book of Revelation also has a self-attesting character. The author presented the book as prophetic (Rev 1:3) and as a message from the Lord, conveying the words of Jesus (see the first vision and the letters to the churches in Rev 1:9–3:22). Moreover, the book contains the same injunction against adding to or taking
away from it that the OT features regarding the law (Rev 22:18–19; see Deut 4:2; 12:32; Prov 30:6). This injunction, in turn, was common in ancient Near Eastern treaties, which suggests covenant implications.
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By using this formula, the writer most likely understood the book to be afforded the same respect as the OT.
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This is further supported by the possibility that Jesus himself was the one who issued the warning of Rev 22:18.
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One must be careful not to read too much into the formula, but surely the writer considered at least this book to possess scriptural status.
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This puts the self-attestation of the NT on the same level as the self-attestation of the OT.
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The basic contours of God's Word are established by Jesus' teaching. This is further extended to the apostles' teaching and the various NT writers. Beyond this, some of the NT books are recognized as Scripture elsewhere in the NT. As the Word of God, the NT, as well as the OT, is from God, and thus true, authoritative, irrevocable, and irreplaceable. What is more, there is an understanding and expectation that, accompanying the institution of the new covenant, new scriptural documents would be inspired.

Scripture as “Inspired”: God the Source of Scripture (2 Tim 3:16–17)

The NT passage that addresses the issue of the inspiration of Scripture most directly is 2 Tim 3:16–17: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” These verses raise several important interpretive questions; only the most salient points can be noted here.
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1. The term “all”
   (pasa)
   is singular and could be translated “every [individual passage of] Scripture.” However, while the inspiration of individual passages of Scripture may be implied, it is better to think of “Scripture” in the present instance as a collective singular with Scripture being viewed in its totality.
   
2. The word “Scripture” (
   graphē
   ) in the original context refers to the OT.
   
3. The phrase “all Scripture” in the immediate context refers to the entirety of the OT, and the logic of the verse applies by extension to the NT also (see 1 Tim 5 :18, where Paul in all probability used the term
   graphē
   with reference to Luke's
   Gospel). This even includes potentially those NT books such as Revelation that were yet to be written at the time Paul wrote 2 Timothy.
   
4. The term “inspired” (
   theopneustos
   ; lit. “God-breathed” as in the NIV) designates the
   source
   of Scripture—God—rather than elaborating on the
   process
   of inspiration (though see below). Thus, the logic of the verse suggests that because Scripture has
   God
   as its source, it is true. What is more, because Scripture is true, it is therefore valuable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
   
5. In part due to the absence of a form of the verb “to be” in 2 Tim 3:16, the question arises whether
   theopneustos
   is an attributive adjective, in which case the proper rendering of the phrase would be “all inspired Scripture is also profitable”—which may suggest that there are two kinds of Scripture, one that is God-breathed and another that is not—or a predicate adjective (yielding the rendering “[a]ll Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable”). Of these alternatives, the latter is to be preferred if for no other reason than that it is inconceivable that Paul would have distinguished between inspired and noninspired Scripture.
   

These observations, among other reasons, suggest that the affirmation in 2 Tim 3:16 is that “[a]ll Scripture is inspired by God and is [therefore] profitable.”
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What this means is that Scripture has God as its source, and that it is for this reason profitable for a variety of uses to equip “the man of God…for every good work” (2 Tim 3:17). This fits with Paul's earlier exhortation to Timothy to be diligent to present himself approved to God as a worker who correctly teaches “the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15).

Men “Moved by the Holy Spirit”: God as Superintending
the Writing of Scripture (2 Pet 1:19–21)

While the term
theopneustos
in 2 Tim 3:16 focuses on the
source
of Scripture rather than on the
mode
of inspiration, this does not mean that the NT is silent regarding the latter. Second Peter 1:19–21 states, “So we have the prophetic word strongly confirmed.…First of all, you should know this: no prophecy of Scripture comes from one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, moved by the Holy Spirit, men spoke from God.”

That the reference is to Scripture and not a spoken prophecy is clear from the designation “prophecy of Scripture.” The phrase “one's own interpretation”
(idias epilysis)
may be better translated “from his own imagination” and be taken to refer to the reception and interpretation of a prophecy from God. The passage therefore asserts that Scripture is not merely human in origin but the product of the Holy Spirit moving human beings to speak the word of God.
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The description of men “moved by the Holy Spirit” suggests that the Holy Spirit took the prime initiative in the writing of Scripture while human beings cooperated with the Spirit in what B. B. Warfield termed “concursive operation.”
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In this process the human writers freely penned the words God desired them to use. Whether the writing of Scripture involved the use of sources, the reception of a prophetic message directly from God, or some other mechanism, the final product was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Inerrancy and Hermeneutics

The above discussion has attempted to demonstrate that making Scripture's self-attestation primary leads inexorably to the conclusion that Scripture is inspired and inerrant. This both follows from specific scriptural references regarding the nature of Scripture as entirely trustworthy and also is required by the character of God as the ultimate source of Scripture.

SIDEBAR 1.6: SCRIPTURAL SELF-AFFIRMATIONS:
KEY ATTRIBUTES OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE

The Bible teaches the following truths regarding itself. First, Scripture is the
inerrant
Word of God.
¹
In keeping with the divine attribute of truthfulness (Ps 19:7), written Scripture, as the Word of God, is completely truthful and thus, conversely, without error.

Second, “the Word of God” refers to each word down to the smallest parts—not even the tiniest letter will disappear (Matt 5:18). Biblical inspiration, then, is
verba
l
, that is, it pertains to the very words, not merely the general concepts or ideas, that are used.
²

Third, there is no indication that any portion of Scripture is “more inspired” than another: “
All
Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim 3:16). Inspiration of Scripture is therefore considered to
be plenary
, that is, “full” or “complete.”

Fourth, the Scriptures are inviolate, that is, they may neither be supplemented nor edited by human beings regarding their content, as the scriptural warning not to add to or take away from Scripture indicates (Rev 22:18-19; see Deut 4:2; 12:32).

Fifth, Scripture, being the Word of God, is the church's only authoritative source for doctrine and therefore the norm for life and practice for God's people (“profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness”; 2 Tim 3:16).

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¹
See N. L. Geisler, ed.,
Inerranc
y
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980); see especially the classic definition of inerrancy by P. Feinberg (p. 294) which is quoted below with further discussion.

²
Against N. T. Wright,
The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scriptur
e
(San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005), who says only the story line of Scripture, but not the very words of Scripture, is inspired.

Some might allege that this is essentially circular reasoning and constitutes an improper use of deduction. The argument is circular, those writers may claim, because Scripture is taken at face value as a witness regarding itself rather than biblical claims being subjected to critical evaluation by modern scholars. It is deductive because in essence the argument proceeds along the lines of the following syllogism: (1) the Bible is the Word of God; (2) God is true and does not err; (3) therefore the Bible is truthful and inerrant.

Three responses may be made with regard to these concerns. First, while a certain amount of circularity in the above-made argument cannot be denied, it should be noted that this fact does not necessarily render the argument invalid or improper. Certainly there seems to be no good reason to deny Scripture a place, even a primary place, in attesting to its own nature. To the contrary, if Scripture were in fact found to be inerrant, it would inexorably follow that it speaks inerrantly regarding its own inerrant nature. In this case there would be nothing improper about accepting these claims of Scripture regarding itself.

Second, the character of God is properly a factor in assessing the nature of Scripture in light of its claims regarding itself. In fact, it may be countered that anything less than inerrant Scripture would be inconceivable as revelation of a God who is everywhere in the Bible represented as true. The burden of proof should instead be placed on critical scholars to explain how a less than inerrant Scripture can meaningfully function as an authoritative guide for the life of the church as well as individual believers. Are the mutually contradictory judgments of critical scholars truly superior to accepting Scripture's consistent self-affirmation regarding its nature?

Third, placing primary weight on Scripture's affirmations regarding itself, apart from being a necessary entailment of the Reformation principle of
sola Scriptura
, in no way obviates the need for hermeneutics and the interpretive process. To the contrary, this is clearly indicated by the classic definition of inerrancy by P. Feinberg, who wrote: “Inerrancy means that
when all facts are known
, the Scriptures in their original autographs and
properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm
, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.”
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This definition tacitly acknowledges the reality of apparent contradictions that must be subjected to appropriate harmonization as part of the need to deal satisfactorily with the actual phenomena of Scripture.
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Hence, inductive approaches that address by exegetical means issues which are raised by individual texts and their relationship to other biblical
texts ought to supplement the deductive, presuppositional affirmation that Scripture is the Word of God and therefore inerrant.
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As the above-stated definition makes clear, Scripture still requires interpretation, and only when “properly interpreted” will obstacles to understanding be resolved or apparent contradictions be removed. What is more, “all facts” may not always be known, so that at times it may be necessary to suspend judgment in the case of particularly vexing issues.
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Yet even in those cases, judicious interpreters will not rush to judgment but will humbly acknowledge their own limitations and continue to seek a proper resolution of apparent incongruencies, being slow to assume that an
apparent
contradiction necessarily represents a
real
contradiction.

In fact, the statement in the above definition, “will be shown to be wholly true,” frankly acknowledges that finding Scripture to be free from actual contradictions will frequently involve an interpretive process that carefully weighs all the relevant issues before arriving at tentative conclusions regarding the interpretation of individual biblical passages.
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At the same time, it expresses the confidence that when all the facts
are
known, the Scriptures will in fact be found to be “wholly true” “in everything that they affirm.”

The latter affirmation (“in everything that they affirm”), in turn, limits the scope of inerrancy to authorial intentionality. The interpreter must not misrepresent a given biblical author's intentions but rather be fair in his or her handling of the scriptural evidence.
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This includes allowing for paraphrase in quotations, round numbering, accommodation,
phenomenological language, and so on.
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It also includes the recognition that inerrancy, properly understood, is claimed only for the scriptural autographs, which, although no longer extant, are well attested by the large number of available manuscript copies.
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All of this is to say that the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture are not merely the products of circular reasoning or of improper deduction from the character of God. These can also be demonstrated inductively from the actual scriptural phenomena themselves, albeit requiring hermeneutics and occasional harmonization. Thus doctrinal and exegetical efforts must work in tandem, and both are essential if Scripture is to be properly appreciated and interpreted.
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