Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 | Date: July 17, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

I’ve been asked, as you know, to deal with the subject of B.B. Warfield and the doctrine of Scripture. I won’t ask how many of you are already acquainted with B.B. Warfield, but hopefully at the end of the evening you’ll see something of his significance in this regard. If you would, please take your Bibles and turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3.

In 2 Timothy 3, Paul is speaking of the godlessness of the last days, giving us a characteristic of what the last days will be like, and that is today. And then at the end of the chapter, he gives us something of the right response to that, something to anchor our thinking. And what do we have to anchor our thinking in the midst of this godless day? I won’t take time to read through it all; let’s pick it up with verse 14:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 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 competent, equipped for every good work.

I should have asked, what translations do you use here? New King James? I should have brought that. I’m sorry. All right, I’ll try to be aware of that. I’m using the ESV if you’re curious.

Significance Of B.B. Warfield

I’ll give a mention, first of all, of the significance of B.B. Warfield and who he was and why we have to mention him when we deal with the doctrine of Scripture. Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield—B.B. Warfield—often signed his articles B.B.W., and those three initials carried massive weight in his own day. Warfield lived from 1851 to 1921, and the doctrine of inspiration is tied forever, tightly, to Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. That is not because Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield originated the doctrine of inspiration or anything like that. But there was no one in the history of the church who has given the doctrine of Scripture a more massive exposition and a more formidable defense. And so ever since B.B. Warfield, his name has been tied tightly to this doctrine of the Scripture, the doctrine of inspiration.

Now that’s actually something, just to give you a little background, that’s not unusual when you study the history of Christian doctrine. At the beginning, with Jesus and then his apostles, we have what I’ve often referred to as a revelation dump. We have this massive gift of revelation from God through Jesus culminating in the writings of the apostles, and that was given to the church once and for all. It was given to the church once and for all to be preserved and defended and expounded and so on. But just because it was given all at that time in the first century doesn’t mean that the church necessarily adequately understood all of it.

Through the history of the church, there have been moments when particular doctrines have come to the fore and God has raised up men who have spoken to that issue in such a definitive way that for all of the time since, that was the watershed moment for that doctrine. So Athanasius with the doctrine of the incarnation, the two natures of Christ—a watershed moment. The Cappadocian Fathers and the doctrine of the Trinity—it was just a watershed moment in the history of the Church, and so we still have the Nicene Creed and things like that that are so formative for the understanding of the Church ever since. Augustine: the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of man and sin. That was the issue of his day, having to deal with Pelagianism and things like that. Later, the doctrine of the atonement: Anselm was the big name that finally formulated the doctrine of satisfaction that was articulated in such a way that it became, again, a watershed moment. Now it needed more refining, and men like Calvin and some of the Puritans did that, but that was a watershed moment in the history of the Church. The doctrine of justification by faith that we would live and die for: Martin Luther was the watershed moment in articulating that doctrine.

It’s in that sense that the doctrine of inspiration is tied to Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. He demonstrated at length that this was the historic teaching of the church, that he wasn’t teaching anything new. This is what the church has always believed about the Scriptures. But he also demonstrated it and expounded it at more length than anyone ever had, gone to more depth, and defended it against the critics more than anyone had before. So his exposition of the doctrine of inspiration, his defense of the doctrine of inspiration, all of that was just a watershed moment in the history of the church. And he demonstrated at great length, “This is what the church has always believed,” but here he has said it now better than anyone else ever has since. And ever since Warfield died in 1921, it has been said that all discussion of the doctrine of inspiration is just a footnote to Warfield.

That’s not really overstating the matter much at all. There are now at this point in history countless books that have been written on the doctrine of Scripture. And many of them have unique contributions of their own in whatever way. But many of them that I have read, after reading Warfield, contribute very little that’s new. It’s basically a footnote to Warfield. His influence in this doctrine was that influential. So that, in a nutshell, is why Warfield and the doctrine of Scripture.

Historical Setting

As I mentioned, Warfield was born in 1851. He was born on a ranch outside of Lexington, Kentucky. His parents were not, I wouldn’t say wealthy at all, but they were probably upper middle class kind of thing. Well enough to do, they could afford tutors at home for the children to be taught and things like that. And Warfield was well-trained at home in something of a classical education.

One interesting little vignette is when he was a child, back in those days, kids learned Latin and Greek. And that was part of your regular education. Today, we don’t even know English. But they would learn Latin and Greek. And when it came time for him to learn Greek, he protested and said, “I don’t need to learn Greek. There’s no use for it. This is not practical. I’ll have no use for it the rest of my life.” And of course—his brother reports this, actually, in a letter—he says something to the effect of, in a home where the Westminster Confession of Faith was memorized by the time you’re six and things like that, youthful protests mattered little. He learned Greek. And what is so ironic about that is that fast forward a few decades, and he’s one of the leading Greek scholars of the world, in the English world at least. He wrote the first textbook on textual criticism, things like that. He’s one of the leading experts on it.

But he grew up in a Christian home, made profession of faith in his church at age 16. He went off to the College of New Jersey when he was just before his 17th birthday, entered as a sophomore. Obviously, not a dumb guy. That, by the way, College of New Jersey later became Princeton University. He went there, graduated in three years at the top of his class, and went off afterwards to study in Germany for a while. He was very interested at the time in the sciences and that’s what he was pursuing.

But then I think it was 1872, if I remember correctly, he sent a letter home, and it was a surprise to all of his family that he had decided that he has to enter the Christian ministry. He was so moved by what God had done for him that he said he just felt like he needed to give his entire life to serving him in a full-time capacity. And so when he came back in 1873, he entered into Princeton Theological Seminary. Back to Princeton—they were two separate institutions, closely related, but separate institutions. But now he’s going to the seminary there. There he studied under the great Charles Hodge. You might have heard that name, the leading Presbyterian theologian of the day. He also studied under men like William Henry Green, the Old Testament giant.

Princeton Theological Seminary at the time was a land of giants. New Testament, Old Testament, theology—every one of them were just head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of the massive learning that they had and also in terms of their intense piety. This was a marvelous seminary at the time that was begun for the purpose of training men for the ministry, and they had this twofold goal of training men in a way that they would be thoroughly learned and yet devoted to Christ with deep, real piety. That was their twin goal, and that was modeled by so many of their professors and so many of their students. Over the next hundred years after the seminary began in 1812, they produced just countless men who went out to serve Christ in various capacities: pastors, theologians, scholars, missionaries, Bible translators. They just had a massive influence on the Kingdom of Christ throughout those days, and Warfield was one of them.

He studied there at that time. He graduated in 1876. He went off to Europe again to study. Now, at this time, Europe was a center of theological learning. It was a center of liberal theological learning, and he got acquainted firsthand there with all of the critical methods of the day and the advances of theological liberalism. He came back then finally after some stints at other places. He taught at Western Seminary for a while and he served as a stated pulpit supply in a couple of churches for a bit. But finally, he ended up at Princeton Theological Seminary again on their faculty, where he made his name.

He had actually already become something of an internationally recognized man by the time he was 30, writing some groundbreaking articles on some very important subjects regarding the reliability of Scriptures and so on. He was already very widely recognized as a man of unusual learning and absolute, utter confidence in the reliability of Scripture, and was ready to defend it in any case and take on the attacks from all quarters. In fact, he came back to Princeton to teach, and as I mentioned, it was a land of giants, theological giants, but by a few years into it, by the turn of the century at least, he was already recognized as head and shoulders above the other giants who were there. In terms of his massive learning, the breadth of his grasp, the depth of his grasp—thoroughly acquainted with the liberals and all of their critical methods, thoroughly acquainted with the Scriptures—here was a giant to contend with if you were going to take a critical approach to the Scriptures.

And that was the issue of the day. The doctrine of inspiration, I should mention that, is not, I don’t think, Warfield’s center. That wasn’t his primary aim. The person and work of Christ was, and he had massive output in that regard as well. But the doctrine of Scripture was the issue of the day. Because of theological liberalism, which had been imported now from Germany, thousands of students in those days—American students—had gone to Germany to study and brought back and imported this new brand of Christianity that had critical approaches to the Scriptures. Warfield had gone to Europe at that time. He wasn’t affected by it, but he did learn of it. And this was the heyday of theological liberalism. It’s called German liberalism sometimes because that’s where it was born. It’s from there that it was imported to the United States.

Theological liberalism was marked by—and I think we can summarize it, I don’t think it’s unfair to do this, it’s not too simplistic—marked by two things. One, naturalism. What we mean by that is everything can be explained in terms of naturalistic causes. Think Darwin. We don’t need God anymore to explain the origin of the earth; it all happened naturalistically. There’s no supernatural intervention. Naturalism, a commitment to naturalism, or you might even say anti-supernaturalism. And two, rationalism. That is, the human mind is capable of determining truth, and every claim that comes to us can be judged by the human mind. We’ve grown up now. We’ve had the Enlightenment and we now can make judgment of truth claims with regard to our religions.

Well, once you’ve committed to naturalism and rationalism, there’s no room left for divine revelation, God speaking, external authority, God saying, “This is it; this is true.” And if we don’t need God to explain the origin of the earth, we don’t need God to explain the origin of a book. You understand it in naturalistic terms. And so everything came under scrutiny, and theological liberalism was and is marked by skepticism. Every claim of the Bible should be doubted. Every claim—the historical claims, claims of the miraculous, claims of its divine origin—all of these things are up for grabs and you essentially don’t believe anything the Bible says unless you have to. Everything is doubted.

This is the environment of Warfield’s career. This was the approach to the Scriptures that was dominating in the religious scene. And in fact, it had become so dominant, and the criticisms against the Scriptures and their reliability—whether it’s its miracles or its historical claims—had become so pervasive. Think in terms of the incarnation of Jesus: two natures, he’s divine and human. “We don’t believe that stuff anymore.” And claims to the miraculous: “He couldn’t really have raised the dead; it must be something else.” In all of those ways, they’re saying, “No, it couldn’t have happened, so we have to find naturalistic explanations for it.”

And that thinking toward the Bible, now imported to the United States by these theological students who have come back, and now they’re pastoring churches, and they’re teaching in theological seminaries, and it’s being pervasive throughout the denominations. Through this time, there are denominational fights, of course, because there are conservatives who are left, and there are heresy trials, and there were wins and there were losses. Overall, you could see the decline. And the pressure from the critics, from the theological liberalism, had become so overwhelming that even many who were otherwise conservative were saying, “We’ve got to adjust in order to spare Christianity. We’re going to lose it altogether if we don’t adjust to this new thinking.”

And it’s in that day that Warfield was the giant who stood up and says, “No, no, we don’t have to make a concession of anything.” And he was so massively informed and so intimately acquainted with the tools of historical criticism and things that were brought against the Scriptures, and so deeply learned in the Scriptures themselves, that he just simply invited all the criticism: “You bring them on from any quarter and we’ll be glad to talk.” And he’s utterly convinced of the veracity of Scriptures.

Well, there’s the historical setting of Benjamin Warfield in his dealing with the doctrine of the Scriptures. You rule out the supernatural. There’s no room left for external authority, no room left for the idea of revelation. The criticism against the Scriptures had become so massive that people are afraid now we’re going to lose Christianity altogether if we don’t adjust it. And here Warfield comes up and says, “No, you adjust Christianity, you change it. You change it into something that it’s not.”

And there are two outstanding features—I hope this is not too simplistic either—but I’ll say it this way, there are two outstanding features of Warfield’s career. Number one, his, I’ve already mentioned it, his massive learning. The learning of this man, both in terms of biblical studies and everything related—historical studies, philosophical studies, the tools of the critics and the theological liberals and how they make their argument. The learning of this man and his grasp of information was so deep and so wide at the same time. It was just staggering. You read the guy and his thinking is so penetrating. That was one of the leading marks of his career and his work: just his massive learning. And you see it in the theological literature today; you read through it, and anyone who dared to disagree with Warfield in print had to make some kind of concession to Warfield and did it with fear and trembling because he’s going to come back and he’s going to eat you alive if you say the wrong things. He was recognized internationally as that kind of a theological giant. If you’re going to go against the Scriptures, you’re going to have to contend with Warfield. He’s the man who’s going to take you to task on your arguments.

So, one characteristic of Warfield: his massive learning. And two: his absolute commitment to the utter reliability of Scripture. Absolutely committed to the utter reliability of Scripture. And in a nutshell, in case you fall asleep, here’s the whole thing: God said it; of course it’s true. That’s Warfield in a nutshell. Bible is God’s word written; therefore, it’s true. And he’s utterly committed to that. It doesn’t seem ever to have entered into his mind that there could be a doubt about that. And so, far from running from the critics, he invited them. “Bring your criticisms.”

Now, I have no doubt that plenty of people could come to me with a criticism and say, find some problem in Scripture or some supposed contradiction, and it’s something I can’t answer. I’m going to have to find an answer for you. I have no doubt that what the Bible says is true, but I just don’t have an answer to this particular problem. Warfield was not like me. Warfield was ready to answer everybody on all of them, and he did.

So there are two marks of his career. His massive learning, both of the Scriptures and the critics and their approaches and all of that, and two, his absolute commitment to the utter reliability of Scripture. His attitude throughout—and this is really striking about him—thousands of pages that he wrote. I have read it all. I’m acquainted with it all. My doctoral work was on Warfield, and it was just a delight working through it. What you see in Warfield, this theological giant, this man of massive intellect, but what he’s marked by is just a humble trust in the Word of God. That marks him throughout, an absolute confidence. And so he invited the critics, and sometimes in his answers and responses to the critics, he would toy with them. He would mock their criticisms—utter confidence in the Scriptures—and he was one who had the information at a hand’s grasp to show their errors in their attack on Scripture.

Well, that’s a broad overview. I hope it’s not too simplistic, but we only have so much time. That’s Warfield and that’s why he is tied now to this day with the doctrine of Scripture. He gave the great exposition of it and the great defense of it.

Pillar Passages

I’ll give you at this point then just a brief survey of Warfield’s approach to the doctrine of Scripture. And there were several dimensions, various dimensions to the Bible’s claims that he wanted to point out. And number one, we’ll call this the pillar passages. We’ll call it pillar passages. There are certain passages in the Scripture that state in a nutshell and very succinctly and very clearly what the Scriptures are.

And the first one, of course, is 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. You’re familiar with this: “All scripture is breathed out by God [or given by inspiration of God] and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” A few things here. First of all, “all scriptures given by inspiration of God,” or as I have in the ESV here, “all scripture is breathed out by God.” Now the word “inspiration” that we are used to, the theological term, that’s what the King James has used; that’s what we’re all familiar with. “All scripture given by inspiration of God” becomes a theological term that characterizes this expression in the Greek. The Greek, though, more literally says, “breathed out by God.” And so the newer translations have rendered it that way. So to be inspired means to be breathed out by God.

Now, there’s something here that’s very important to notice. The point here is not that the apostles wrote what they wrote and God breathed into it a divine quality making it inspired. That’s not the point. The expression is very explicit: “All scripture is breathed out by God.” You could hardly find a more explicit way to say Scripture is God’s word, God’s word spoken. All Scripture is breathed out by God. And notice, by the way, he’s not speaking here just of the apostles who wrote the Scriptures. So we may speak, and we speak properly, of the inspired apostles. The point here is with the biblical text. All Scripture is breathed out by God. So it’s not just that the apostles wrote it and God gave it his stamp of approval. His point is that the Scriptures themselves come directly from the mouth of God. Okay, that’s metaphorical language, but they come directly from God. That’s the point that Paul is stressing here in verse 16.

And then notice another detail here: “all Scripture.” That’s singular. You can translate it collectively, “all Scripture,” like we’re used to it, or you can say “every Scripture.” It’s singular. You can translate it either way. Point’s the same. All of Scripture, collectively; every detail of Scripture, discriminately—all of it breathed out by God. The statement is very emphatic and very clear that Scripture has a divine origin. And so, because Scripture comes to us from God himself, it’s of divine origin, well then, verse 16, it’s the standard of truth. It’s profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness. It’s the standard of truth. It tells you what’s right, tells you when you’re wrong, corrects you, brings you back. It’s the standard of truth. That’s verse 16b. And then verse 17: it’s sufficient. So the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Everything that God requires of you, this book equips you for. The sufficiency of Scripture. It doesn’t mean we don’t need teachers. It doesn’t mean we don’t need to read books and all of that. But it’s the Scriptures that provide what we need to know in order to live successfully before God. Well, how can we be sure of that? Well, because all Scripture is breathed out by God. It’s His Word. And so it’s the standard of truth. And He’s made sure that it’s all complete for all that we need to live successfully before Him.

All right, that’s the first and the major pillar passage. Look over at 2 Peter 1. This is another what we’ll call pillar passage. Now, our focus here will be on verses 19 to 21, but I’m going to back up to verse 15 just to give us the context. Here Peter says, verse 15:

I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, “this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

So that’s the Mount of Transfiguration. Verse 19:

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So in the context, Peter here is speaking of his teaching, which he says, after I’m gone, will still be the standard of truth. “I want you to have this even after I’m gone.” That’s verses 15 and following. And then verses 19 to 21, our focus here. This is the “how” of inspiration.

So 2 Timothy 3:16 gives us the fact of inspiration: “All scripture is breathed out by God.” 2 Peter 1 tells us how that came about. And notice here, Warfield puts it this way, and I think it’s helpful. First of all, there’s an emphatic denial. That’s verses 20 and 21. And the denial is: Scriptures are not of human origin. That’s verses 20 and 21. “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.” So that’s the denial. It’s not of human origin. But along with that emphatic denial, there’s an equally emphatic assertion, and that’s the end of verse 21: “But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

So what he’s saying here is Scripture was written as God—and here’s the expression—carried along the human authors to give what he intended to be written. So we can characterize this as saying something like, here we have an affirmation of both the human authors and the divine author, but what’s the relation of them? We could characterize it as saying God directed them. That’s not really enough. This verse goes further than that. And we could even say God controlled them. That gets closer. But this expression is more explicit than that. You see that? He “carried them along.” The same verb is used in the book of Acts of a ship at sea being carried along by the wind. That’s what happened. That’s how the Scriptures came. You have these men who were chosen and equipped by God to write the Scriptures, but as they wrote it—writing from their own background, and their own research, and their own thinking, and their own experiences, and all of that—as they wrote it, they’re being carried along by God the Spirit to produce, in the end, the writing that God has given.

And so, again, the point is that the Scriptures are a thoroughly divine book. Thoroughly human, but thoroughly and originally divine. That’s the assertion. So Peter’s point here is that the words of the biblical writers are in fact the very words of God. Quite a claim. So Warfield used to refer to it—he loved this expression—”Scripture is God’s word written.” And here, that’s exactly what this verse is claiming. Now notice, because Scripture is God’s word written, notice the reliability, the implication. Verse 19: “We’ve been eyewitnesses, we saw his majesty on the Mount of Transfiguration, we ourselves heard the voice from heaven, ‘this is my beloved son.’ We’re eyewitnesses, you need to listen to us.” But, verse 19: “We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed,” more reliable even than eyewitness. Why is it more reliable than eyewitness? Well, because it comes from God. And Scriptures are written, yes, by men, but by men as they’re carried along by God the Spirit to produce this book. So again, the words of the biblical writers are in fact the very words of God.

Now, time is moving on faster than I thought, so I won’t look at the third passage. You can write it down if you’d like. In John 10:34 and 35, Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees there, and he makes an interesting play on Psalm 82 with the word “gods.” They’re objecting that Jesus is making himself God, and Jesus refers to Psalm 82 where judges representing God are called gods. There’s an interesting use of it. So he’s kind of toying with his enemies at this point, just tripping them up in their argument. But what’s important in his argument is in John 10, verse 35: “If the scriptures say, ‘you’re gods,’ and the scriptures cannot be broken…” It’s that phrase. “And the scriptures cannot be broken.” There’s Jesus’ conviction about the Scriptures. It’s a shared one with the Jews. Scriptures can’t be broken. What the Scripture says, that’s it. And here we have Jesus teaching now on the reliability of Scriptures. Because it’s—and here he calls it the law, even though it’s the Psalms—it’s divine utterance, absolutely binding, and it cannot be broken. Its claims and assertions are true and must be true at every point. That’s Jesus’ teaching. Now it becomes very important, we’ll see that in a minute. No word of Scripture can ever fail. They can’t be broken.

Various Dimensions To The Bible’s Claims

Well, these are the pillar passages then, the “culminating statements,” I think Warfield calls it, the culminating statements that we find in three of the major ones that state for us the doctrine of Scripture very succinctly. Now, another aspect of the Bible’s claims—and I think this is very important, I think it’s fascinating to see—is that we have these pillar passages that tell us, we’ve got it clear now, clearly stated, but Warfield makes the point that if we did not have these pillar passages—”all scriptures breathed out by God,” “scriptures came from men carried along by the Holy Spirit”—if we did not have those pillar passages, those culminating statements, we would be forced to conclude the very same doctrine, even if we didn’t have those.

And so he brings us to think through, what does the Scriptures claim for themselves? And he’ll point to things like David in 2 Samuel chapter 23: “The spirit of the Lord spoke by me and his word was on my tongue.” Or as David in Psalm 2 is quoted in Acts chapter 4: “Who by the mouth of David said, the Holy Spirit, who by the mouth of David said…” There’s the same doctrine. Or all through the prophets, their characteristic expression: “Thus says the Lord, thus says the Lord, thus says the Lord.” “The burden of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet saying.” Over and again, there’s this repeated assertion that what Scripture says, God says.

In fact, and this is another line of study that Warfield explores at length—scores of pages devoted to this—and that is to show that when the New Testament writers cite the Old Testament, they may cite it saying, “David says,” “Moses says,” “Isaiah says,” “Scripture says,” or they might cite it saying, “God says,” “the Holy Spirit says.” And he correlates all of these passages where the New Testament cites the Old Testament, and he shows and demonstrates at length—and it’s obvious—that to say Moses said is to say God said.

Let me give you one simple illustration of that. Let’s look at Matthew chapter 19. Matthew chapter 19, and then put your finger there, but look back at Genesis chapter 2. In Genesis chapter 2, we have the details of the seventh day and God creating man and creating Adam and then Eve and giving us the details of their creation and the command that God gave to Adam. Adam being alone, and God saying it’s not right that he should be alone, so he puts him to sleep, brings about the woman, and then, you know, the narrative. Then verse 22, God makes the woman from the rib of the man, and then verse 23, then the man said, “this is at last, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” And now, verse 24, we have Moses’ comment: “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” That’s Moses’ interpretation. He draws that from the narrative, all right? Keep that in mind.

Now look at Matthew chapter 19. And here we have another one of his conflict passages where the Pharisees are trying to trip him up. Matthew 19, verse 1:

Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. And the Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?”

That’s Genesis chapter 2.

And he said, “therefore, man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

That’s Genesis 2:24, right, that we just read? But now look at verse four again. Notice the subject: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, ‘therefore a man shall leave his father and mother’?” Who said? God said. He who created them said a man shall not leave his father and mother. Now in Genesis chapter two, that’s Moses’ interpretation of the passage. That’s his comment. But Jesus says, that’s God saying it. What Moses says, God says. And you see the link, and you can establish at length with many different passages. What the Scripture says, God says. You’re forced to conclude that. That’s Jesus’ claim. That’s the apostles’ claim throughout when they cite the Old Testament. What Scripture says, God says. What David says, God says. What Moses says, what Isaiah says, God says. The terms are used interchangeably. It could be sometimes that it’s “Scripture says” in the Old Testament and it’s cited by “God saying,” or it’s “God saying” and it says “Scripture says.” What Scripture says, God says. What God says, Scripture says. The two are brought together and equated where you have to see and you have to conclude the same doctrine that we find in 2 Timothy 3:16, that Scripture finds its origin in God himself.

And in fact, there’s one fascinating instance of this—there are a couple of actually—but in Hebrews chapter three, here in verse seven, it’s an interesting one. The New Testament writers don’t only say, “God said,” but they will use the present tense: “God says.” And so we have that in Hebrews chapter one in verse eight, and then in Hebrews 3 in verse seven: “The Holy Spirit says,” and there he quotes Psalm 95. So God not only said, but God still says it in Psalm 95, in Genesis 2, or whatever. God is still speaking through it. And the present tense there indicates, as Warfield calls it, their conviction that the Scriptures are the ever-speaking Word of God. God’s still-speaking Scriptures are God’s Word written. Warfield explains this at more length.

These are the various aspects of the Bible’s claim. You have the pillar passages, you have the same conclusions being drawn from observations like this. You have it drawn from titles for Scripture that are given: it’s called Scripture, it’s called Holy Scripture, the sacred writings, the oracles of God. Language like that is used with reference to the Scriptures. It’s called the law, binding authority. Even the word “prophets” implies the same: these are spokesmen for God. You have other passages in the New Testament where we find the same conviction echoed. Jesus says, for example, in Luke chapter 24, “the scriptures must be fulfilled.” If Scriptures say it’ll happen, it has to happen. It’s God’s Word. We find the same thing with the famous line that Jesus used many times: “It is written.” And that settles the argument as binding authority. “You do err not knowing the scriptures.” If you just know the Bible, you’ll be right. If you understand the Bible correctly, you can’t be wrong. “But you’re wrong because you don’t understand the scriptures.” That’s what Jesus said. Or he’ll say things in other conflict passages—they’ll try to trip him up with a question and he’ll respond, “Haven’t you read?” and he’ll quote some passage from the Scriptures. The binding authority of Scripture is what he insists on throughout.

All right, a quick survey of that will have to suffice. It’s important to note also that the apostles now not only follow Jesus in carrying on the same teaching regarding the character of Scriptures, but they consider their own writings on the same level, and they consider their own writings to be an extension of the Old Testament Scriptures. They consider their own writings to be inspired of God, breathed out by Him, and of binding authority.

Now we find this reflected many ways in the New Testament. The apostles, first of all, were chosen and appointed for this very task. I would love to take the time with you to develop John chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17, where throughout that whole passage we have this teaching regarding the nature of the apostleship and their authority as Jesus’ representatives. And there’s something of a vicar of Christ—not in his redemptive work, but in terms of his binding authority—coming from Christ, from the Father, from the Son, through the Spirit, to the apostles, that tradition, handing it down, and coming now with binding authority.

They claim over and again in the New Testament—this is commonplace in the apostolic writings—that their message is, in fact, the Word of God. Paul can write to the Thessalonians, for example, “I’m thankful that when you heard the Word of God, which you heard from us, you received it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually works in all of you who believe.” The apostles can write with authority when they have to put their fists down and address an issue. Paul will—he does this on several occasions—he’ll say, “Here’s the way it is, and if someone doesn’t agree with this, well, you tell him he doesn’t agree with the Lord. This I say to you by the word of the Lord. This I say by the command of Christ.” Paul does that in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3: “We’ve got this brother who needs to be shunned by the church, don’t have anything to do with him, and I tell you this by the command of Christ.” He speaks for Christ. The apostles are spokesmen for Christ. This is God’s Word that comes. Peter can say, “We preach the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit from heaven.” The claim throughout is that what the apostles give comes from God.

And in fact, we find in 2 Peter 3 that Peter designates the apostles’ writings as Scripture. He gives it the same status. Peter speaks of Paul’s letters, some of which he says can be hard to be understood. I think Peter had a lot of guts saying that because some of his things are hard to be understood as well. But he says it’s just like all the Scriptures. Paul’s writings are like all the other Scriptures, all the rest of it, all on the same par.

Now that raises a question that Warfield takes up and I think it’s an important one. Why do we believe that the Bible is inspired of God? Now, this is a question that comes up in the theology books routinely. It’s an epistemological question. What’s the ground of our belief? How do we justify our belief in the inspiration of Scriptures? Typically, the answer that is given is that we believe it because the Bible claims to be. Now that’s often criticized because it sounds like circular reasoning. “I believe it because it says it is.” What kind of authority is that?

There is something to that, though. When we’re speaking of a question of ultimate authority, how can you ground your answer to that in anything but the ultimate authority? If I say, “I believe that it’s the supreme authority because I figured it out,” you’ve just made yourself the ultimate authority. And so ultimately, we have to say that Scripture is inspired of God because it claims to be. So there’s nothing wrong with that approach, and I think it’s an important one to keep in mind, and I don’t think we should run from it.

But Warfield takes another step, and he says, yeah, of course we believe the Bible is inspired of God because the Scripture claims to be. It says that it is, and Scripture is the Word of God. But he goes a little bit deeper and he says, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God because Jesus said so. And here he takes on those who want to say that they are Christian and yet reject the inspiration of Scripture. They still have some affinity for Jesus and they want to be Christians and whatever, but they don’t want this doctrine of inspiration. Warfield presses the point that if we deny the authority and the inspiration of Scriptures, we have to discount Jesus. Because on any reading, Jesus taught this. And on any reading of it, the apostles taught this. And so the real problem of inspiration is, Warfield says, that’s what Jesus taught. And you can’t have the Jesus of the Bible while rejecting the Bible of Jesus. It’s all or nothing.

And he presses that point that to reject this historic doctrine of the Scriptures that the church has always held, you have to discount Jesus and you have to discount his apostles altogether. And once you’ve done that, you’ve destroyed the whole foundation of Christianity and you’ve got no right to claim the name at all. It’s all or nothing. And this in turn—and this is a very important point I think to recognize—in turn, it answers another question. It explains why this doctrine of Scripture has been so common to all of the branches of Christianity for the history of the Church. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant—in all of its branches, this has historically been the doctrine of the Church. Historically, it was only some harebrained groups here and there that have questioned it. It was almost insignificant until modern times when it comes to be questioned. This has always been the doctrine of the church. And Warfield raises the question, how do you explain that? How do you explain that there’s been such unanimity on this question? And the answer is, it’s because Jesus gave it to us. This is part of the founding of the church. Jesus and his apostles gave this doctrine, or Warfield’s word sometimes is, “imposed” this doctrine on the church. And that explains why it’s so common to all of us.

Doctrine Of Inerrancy

Now, all of that then brings us to address, just quickly now, the doctrine of inerrancy. And I’ve taken my time not to deal with the inerrancy first because that’s the way Warfield does it. And I think his approach is right. Warfield, by the way, didn’t often use the word “inerrancy.” He was not afraid of it; he was glad for it. He affirmed it and infallibility and things like that. But his preferred terminology was the authority of Scripture or the trustworthiness of Scripture. Whatever Scripture affirms, it’s trustworthy. It’s reliable or inerrant.

Now, why do we believe in inerrancy? Well, for Warfield, the question’s already been answered. You see that? We’ve already answered that question, haven’t we? The Bible is breathed out by God. The Bible is God’s word written. If the Bible is God’s word written, of course it’s without error. God doesn’t make mistakes. He’s not stupid. He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t mislead us. Of course, it’s inerrant if it is the Word of God. So that question of inerrancy is settled already when we say the Bible is inspired of God. And that’s his approach to it always.

And if the Bible is the Word of God, then it’s authoritative. Of course, it’s infallible. If the Bible is the Word of God, we are obliged to believe it. We’re obliged to trust its promises. We’re obliged to heed its warnings. If the Bible is the Word of God, well then, its trustworthiness is already settled. Warfield writes, “It is the mark of the Christian man that the word is his source and norm of truth. And wherever it has spoken, he asks no further evidence, nor can he admit any modification whatever of its deliverances, no matter from what quarter they may be drawn.” Anybody can say anything, but if the Bible says this, we may be assured that God says this, and we may be sure that it’s true.

And this was the whole ground then of what I mentioned earlier of Warfield’s utter confidence in the reliability of Scripture. It is a thoroughly divine book, and it’s because of this he’s never afraid of the criticisms that may come. Nobody’s going to disprove God. He even makes the point sometimes: for the Christian, there ought to be always the presumption of inerrancy because God said it. And if someone comes to you with a problem that you can’t answer, I’m not thrown by that. I’ll find the answer. I haven’t in all of my years—I’ve never found a new question that has come up. They’ve been answered a hundred times. I just might not be aware of that yet. I’ll find it. Never thrown; it’s the Word of God. I don’t have to worry that it’s going to be disproven at any point.

I’ll close with this quote from Warfield: “Let us bless God then for his inspired word. May he grant that we may always cherish, love, and venerate it, and to conform all of our life and thinking to it. So may we find safety for our feet and peaceful security for our souls.” Scripture is the Word of God. We may trust it at every point. Amen.