Whenever I come home from work, our three kids know that I must talk to mommy before I play with them. These post-work conversations with my wife are usually quick as she shares with me important highlights from the day and provides me with any vital information I need about our children. Despite the brevity of these meetings, my wife can provide me with a lot of information. Why? Most importantly, because I trust her.
But how does trust relate to our ability to transfer a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time? Mainly because I don’t need to question her every statement or fact-check her claims. Knowledge flows unhindered from her mouth to my mind because I know I am getting an accurate recounting of the day’s events. My wife is trustworthy, and I know she won’t deceive me. When she speaks, I am confident that I am getting the truth. Knowing my wife’s character enables me to trust her words.
In the same way, God’s character is vitally connected to his words. We trust what he says because we know who he is. Yet, the above analogy falls short because my wife, as lovely as she is, is also a finite sinner. She does not possess exhaustive knowledge of all reality. Her mind, though regenerate, is finite and tainted by sin. It’s possible that while she is reporting to me all that happened during the day, she did not observe all the relevant events and thus interpreted a scuffle between two of our three children inaccurately. I’ve certainly been guilty of these kinds of misinterpretations as I’ve narrated to her all that transpired while she was away from the house. We are both finite sinners who may make a mistake in our retelling and interpretation of events.
The Infinitely Holy, All-Knowing, Sovereign, Good, Unchanging God
God, however, is not suspectable to the limitations of finitude and noetic effects of sin. God is infinite in his knowledge and therefore never in danger of making a misinformed interpretation of an event or delivering a faulty report (Ps 147:5; Is 40:28; Rom 11:34). He sees and knows all things perfectly and all at once. As Stephen Charnock said four hundred years ago, “God knows all things from eternity, and, therefore, perpetually knows them; the reason is because the Divine knowledge is infinite, and therefore comprehends all knowable truths at once.”1 In other words, God has never learned or progressed in knowledge. He knows everything immediately. Therefore, when he speaks, he speaks from exhaustive knowledge without even the possibility of ignorance. The product is flawless, truthful speech that accurately communicates what is really the case.
God is also morally holy and sinless (Is 6:1-6; James 1:13; Heb 4:15), so he can only speak the truth and is never swayed by bias, self-interest, or self-protection as he dispenses his Word to his image bearers. Throughout the Bible, we are regularly reminded of God’s integrity, particularly his unwavering reliability to speak the truth. For example, Israel was told during their march through the wilderness that “God is not a man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind” (Num 23:19).
Accordingly, when God promised David that he would always have a son on his throne, the king responded, “And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant” (2 Sam 7:28). These truths about God’s character are repeated in the New Testament. Paul says straightforwardly that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). The author of Hebrews says the same in order to bolster the faith of some wavering saints. God’s promise of a future inheritance is absolutely certain because God promised it to those who believe in Jesus, and God cannot lie (Heb 6:18).
God is also meticulously sovereign over his creation, which is why he is able to ensure that his word is accurately revealed to his people through human authors. God is in full control of every aspect of his creation (Dan 4:34-35), including seemingly random events like the casting of lots (Prov 16:33). God will accomplish all his good pleasure (Is 46:10), and no plan of his will be thwarted (Job 42:2). Furthermore, God is the creator of human language, men’s minds and bodies, and exercises unmitigated control over our lives, down to the smallest detail (see Matt 6:25-33; 10:26-31). It is no trouble, therefore, for God to secure a flawless written revelation, even if that revelation is delivered through finite, sinful people.2
But we cannot neglect to speak of God’s goodness and love when discussing inerrancy. God loves his people, and he only gives them what is best for them. God’s love was the motivation behind sending his own Son to die on the cross for sinners (John 3:16; Rom 5:8). In order for his people to come into a saving knowledge of Christ, however, it was essential that God provide his people a trustworthy word so they could easily discern between truth and error (e.g., Deut 18:15-22) and cling only to what is true (Gal 1:6-9; 1 Thess 5:21).3 To deliver his people a word that contained error would be a great unkindness, for it would stir up confusion concerning the most important obligation (and privilege) in the world: knowing God (see Jer 9:23-24).
Grounding these attributes are God’s simplicity and immutability (Mal 3:5; Heb 13:8; James 1:17).4 Because God cannot change in his essence, we can have unqualified confidence in his ongoing ability and steadfast commitment to only speak the truth. His knowledge never grows or improves—he always knows everything—so he can’t make mistakes when he reveals knowledge to his people. God is good, so he provides his people with a reliable word by which they can know him. He is fully sovereign, so he can secure a flawless written text. Furthermore, he is ontologically incapable of saying things that are not true, so he can never deceive someone with his words.5
An Unbreakable Link Between God and His Word
Rightly understanding the character of God is essential for grasping the nature of Scripture. How so? Because Scripture forges an unbreakable link between God and his Word. Paul highlights this connection in 2 Timothy 3:16 when he writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” The phrase “breathed out by God” in the ESV and “God-breathed” in the NIV translates one Greek word, theopneustos, used only here in the New Testament, which is a combination of theos (“God”) and pneustos (“to breathe”).6
Joining these words together, Paul describes the nature of Scripture in a way that communicates graphically that Scripture is the very word of God—indeed, Scripture is the breath of his mouth, no less powerful than the breath that created the universe (see Ps 33:6). In the immediate context, Paul is referring the Old Testament, but the implications of his statement pertain to the New Testament as well. If a book or letter is “Scripture,” then it has a divine origin—God breathed it out.
The ESV and NIV translations capture the original meaning of the word better than the older English word “inspiration,” found in translations like the NASB, CSB, NRSV, and the KJV. This improvement in translation is necessitated not only by the word theopenustos itself, but also because “inspiration” no longer carries the connotations that it once did.7
Over a century ago, to say that Scripture was “inspired” would have communicated to many people that Scripture had a divine origin and could, therefore, be called the word of God.8 Now in our contemporary cultural milieu, the word “inspiration” usually suggests notions of brilliance, genius, or creative stimulus, as in, “I was inspired to take up oil painting after watching multiple Bob Ross videos.” To say that Scripture is “breathed out by God” helps us see the crucial connection between God and his written word.
Some have suggested, however, that errors in the biblical text do not constitute a lie from God. Rather, the communication breakdown occurs with the human author.9 They agree that God always tells the truth. Finite sinners? Not so much. For this reason, it should not surprise us to find errors in the text of Scripture because it is always possible that the human author failed to accurately record the revelation God gave him. It also possible, some say, that God graciously chose to accommodate to the mistaken worldviews and perspectives of the author while revealing divine, “redemptive” truth to his people.10 The problem of errors in the text, therefore, doesn’t implicate God—it’s a charge against sinful humans!
But such an argument cannot stand because the Bible does not allow for such a distance between God and his Word. As we saw in 2 Timothy 3:16, Scripture—the writings themselves (Greek: graphe)—is God-breathed. That is, the quality of divinity is linked directly to what was written down, not to the human author who wrote it. In later articles I will discuss how it was possible for sinful, finite, error-prone human authors to write Scripture and not commit any geographical, historical, or scientific blunders. For now, it is enough to observe that introducing a distinction between God’s character and his written word is a theological move that is contrary to explicit texts of Scripture. To say that Scripture makes mistakes is to say that God makes mistakes, and this is not a claim any evangelical would want to make. Yet, despite popular and sophisticated protests to the contrary, there can be no other conclusion.
Stated positively, because God is infinitely holy, all-knowing, and unchanging, whatever comes from his mouth will always be true. Scripture, as the very breath of his mouth, can contain no errors or mistakes.
The Holy Word of a Holy God
Given this unbreakable connection between God and his word, it is no wonder that Scripture is often described according to God’s own attributes. For example, Scripture is described as perfect (Ps 19:6; cf. Deut 32:4), pure (Ps 12:6; cf. Hab 1:13), righteous (Ps 19:9; cf. Ps 11:7), good (Ps 119:39; cf. Ps 110:5), trustworthy (Ps 93:5; cf. Ps 111:7), true (Ps 18:30; cf. Jer 10:10), upright (Ps 33:4; Ps 25:8), and eternal (Ps 119:152; Deut 33:27).
Each of these attributes relate directly to the question of biblical inerrancy. To say that God’s Word is without flaw (perfect), unalloyed (pure), fully aligned with God’s own character (righteous), wholesome (good), wholly reliable (trustworthy), true (corresponding to what really is the case), honest (upright), and never-ending (eternal) is to say that God’s word can contain no error or internal contradictions. Again, to repeat an above point: To suggest that Scripture can err is to suggest that God can as well. But Scripture will not allow this conclusion.
Nor can we entertain such thoughts. While some evangelicals have suggested that inerrancy is a weight that hinders our spiritual growth and hermeneutical freedom, we see rather that inerrancy is a ballast that keeps our doctrinal and spiritual lives steady and on course. As Matthew Barrett has observed, our spiritual lives must deteriorate if we reject inerrancy.
I cannot stress this enough: apart from the veracity of his divine revelation, we have nothing to stand upon, for the foundation of our faith has been removed. No longer can we know whether or not our God has spoken to us truthfully.11
He’s right. Without the sure confidence that our God cannot lie and that his word, therefore, can contain no errors, we will be ever tossed to and fro, unable to stabilize our convictions or consistently enjoy God in the Scriptures. If we are always second-guessing the reliability of his word, our hearts will find little rest, and we will look elsewhere for truth to settle our listless minds.
But if we are certain that God’s Word bears the same integrity as God himself, knowledge of God will flow unhindered from his mouth to our minds, and we will experience the truth of what Jesus said when he quoted Deuteronomy: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). If we reject inerrancy, we not only throw God’s character and nature into question; we also rob ourselves of a gloriously sure foundation from which we can derive sound doctrine and upon which we can build our lives and ministries.
Summary
Inerrancy is inextricably coupled to God’s character and nature, for Scripture allows no distance between God and his word. God’s unchanging holiness, exhaustive knowledge, power, goodness, and absolute sovereignty ensure that his written revelation has been delivered to his people without a flaw. Thanks be to God that he has only spoken true words to his people. What a good and gracious Father.
NOTES
1Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (1853; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 323.
2Stephen J. Wellum, “What’s at Stake: The Inerrancy of Scripture,” in Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity, eds., John Piper, Justin Taylor, Paul Kjoss Helseth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 237-74. Throughout this book, I am assuming a compatibilist view of human freedom or, as it has also been called, “freedom of inclination,” where human freedom is defined as a person’s ability to do what they most want to do. Thus, God can control all events related to the writing of Scripture without violating genuine human freedom.
3Bahnsen, “The Inerrancy of the Autographa,” 159.
4See Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2019), 71-109.
5Sinners are only deceived by their own hearts, fellow sinners, or by Satan and his demons. When God eventually sends a great delusion upon unbelieving mankind due to their refusal to believe the gospel, the delusion will not originate in God, but in Satan and the antichrist (2 Thess 2:9-12). Deception cannot originate in God (1 John 1:5), although God does use the deception that originates in sinful creatures as an instrument of judgment.
6William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, WBC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 566.
7See Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, second edition(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 64n6.
8See Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948). The words “inspired” and “inspiration” had “acquired…a technical sense with reference to the Biblical writers and the Biblical books” (131).
9So argues Kenton Sparks in Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2012), 29.
10Peter Enns advocated for this kind of accommodation in Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), as does Sparks, God’s Word, 243.
11Matthew Barrett, God’s Word Alone: The Authority of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 273n32.
