Authority of Scripture
It All Starts Here
Luke 10:26 (Romans 4:3)
Jesus said, "What is written in the Scriptures? How do you understand them?"
Psalm 16:11, 36:9b
You have made known to me the path of life; In your light we see light.
Psalm 119:130a (NKJV)
The entrance (unfolding, revelation) of Your words gives light…
John Arrowsmith Armilla Catechetica: a Chain of Principles, 1659
All the natural reason in the world can neither discover what God is nor what worship He expects, without divine and supernatural revelation from Himself.
Exodus 20:1 God spoke all these words saying...
2 Samuel 22:31, Psalm 12:6, Psalm 18:30, Proverbs 30:5
The words of the LORD are flawless...
Psalm 119:89, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:25
The word of God will last forever.
Psalm 138:1-2
I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart...for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.
Hosea 1:1, Joel 1:1, Micah 1:1, Haggai 1:1, Zephaniah 1:1, Ezekiel 1:3, Jeremiah 1:4
…the word of the LORD came…
A.W. Tozer
The certainty of the believer may be understood when it is remembered that it springs from his faith in the Scriptures as the full and true revelation of the mind of God to men. His dogmatism has back of it the strong “thus saith the Lord" of prophet and apostle.
Isaiah 8:20
Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light...
1 Thessalonians 2:13
…when you received the word of God, which you heard from us you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God…
Galatians 1: 11-12
I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I (Paul) did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 4:15 (KJV)
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord...
C.H. Spurgeon on Hebrews 13:5 "He hath said..."
Since "He has said" is the source of all wisdom ad the fountain of all comfort, let it dwell in you richly, as "a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life." (John 4:14)
“The Bible”, a sermon delivered March 18, 1855
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons01.xiv.html
This Bible is God’s Bible; and when I see it, I seem to hear a voice springing up from it, saying, “I am the Book of God. Man, read me. I am God’s writing. Study my pages, for I was penned by God. Love me, for He is my Author, and you will see Him visible and manifest everywhere.”
"Place for the Word", 1883
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/place-for-the-word/#flipbook/
Have no master but Christ, and have no book but the Bible - to be your infallible guide.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Scripture, you see, must be interpreted by Scripture; we must never interpret any Scripture in such a manner as to contradict other Scriptures. We must ‘rightly divide the word of truth’ (2 Timothy 2:15), and we must see that there is a conformity of doctrine to doctrine.
The Approach to Truth: Scientific and Religious
When "the world by wisdom knew not God" (1 Corinthians 1:21), God sent His own Son into the world. God came into the world in the Person of His Son...from outside...'out there'...Here is Truth being revealed to us, coming to us...
Authority
All teaching and all truth and all doctrine must be tested in light of the Scriptures. Here is God's revelation of Himself, given in parts and portions in the Old Testament with an increasing clarity...coming eventually to the perfect, absolute, final revelation in the Son.
He in turn enlightens and reveals His will and teaching to these apostles, endows them with a unique authority, fills them with the needed ability and power, and gives them the teaching that is essential to the well-being of the Church and God's people. We can build only upon this one, unique authority.
Christian Unity
We must never separate the Spirit and the Word. The Spirit speaks to us through the Word; so, we should always doubt and query any supposed revelation that is not entirely consistent with the Word of God. Indeed, the essence of wisdom is to reject altogether the term “revelation” as far as we are concerned, and speak only of “illumination.” The revelation has been given once and for all, and what we need and what by the grace of God we can have, and do have, is illumination by the Spirit to understand the Word.
From Fear to Faith
We must ask ourselves as in the presence of God, the simple question "Am I submitting myself to the fact that what I read in the Bible is the word of God and is true?"
Jesus said "I tell you the truth..."
John 1:51, 3:3, 3:11, 5:19, 5:24, 6:26, 6:32, 6:47, 6:53, 8:34, 8:58, 10:1, 10:7, 12:24, 13:16, 13:20, 14:12, 16:7, 16:23, 21:18
John 12:49-50 (ESV)
(Jesus said) I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.
Augustine
We yield to and agree to the authority of the Holy Scripture which can neither be deceived nor deceive.
The Genevan Confession of Faith, 1536
We desire to follow Scripture alone as the rule of faith and religion, without mixing with it any other things which might be devised by the opinion of men.
Westminster Confession (14.2)
By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the word.
Westminster Shorter Catechism
Q. 2: What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
A.: The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.
Romans 4:3 “What does the Scripture say?”
1689 Second London Baptist Confession, Chapter 1:4-5, “Of The Holy Scripture”
The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, depends not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God.
2 Peter 1:19–21; 2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 John 5:9
Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy 1978
We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified.
Carl Henry ‘The Authority and Inspiration of the Bible’ in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
Inspiration is that supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit whereby the sacred writers were divinely supervised in their production of Scripture, being restrained from error and guided in the choice of words they used, consistently with their disparate personalities and stylistic peculiarities. God is the source of Holy Scripture; Christ Jesus is the central message; and the Holy Spirit…inspired it and illumines its message to the reader…
Louis Gaussen (1790–1863) ‘It Is Written’ or ‘The Scriptures the Word of God’
Let our reason employ all its powers, in the sight of God, to recognize, in the first place, that the Scriptures are from Him, and afterwards to study them. Let it bend daily more closely over its Divine oracles, to correct itself by them, not to correct them by it; to search therein the meaning of God, not to substitute its own.
Sir Frederic George Kenyon, Director of the British Museum and President of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, 1895
The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation, throughout the centuries.
Martin Luther before the Diet of Worms April 18, 1521
Unless I am convinced by Scripture or by clear reasoning that I am in error – for popes and councils have often erred and contradicted themselves – I cannot recant, for I am subject to the Scriptures I have quoted; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.
Thomas Watson A Body of Practical Divinity, "The Lord's Prayer"
Obedience must be set by the sundial of God's word.
Jonathan Edwards
“Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England”
Persons who thus make their own experiences their rule of judgment, instead of bowing to the wisdom of God, and yielding to His word as an infallible rule, are guilty of casting a great reflection upon the understanding of the Most High.
“Ministers to Preach Not Their Own Wisdom but the Word of God” in The Salvation of Souls
Sir, I would now humbly and earnestly recommend to you that Holy Book which God is about to commit into your hands, as containing that message which you are to deliver to this people in his name. God gives you this Word—which is his Word—to preach that, and not the dictates of your own reason. You are to preach the dictates of God’s infinitely superior understanding, humbly submitting your reason as a learner and disciple to that, renouncing all confidence in your own wisdom and entirely relying on God’s instructions.
Danial Webster’s Confession of Faith
https://books.google.com/books?id=5Cx3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA9&lpg
I hold it my duty to believe, not what I can comprehend or account for, but what my Maker teaches me.
C.H. Spurgeon
"The Christian's Service and Honor"
http://thekingdomcollective.com/spurgeon/sermon/2651/
I believe certain doctrines because God says they are true; and the only authority I have for their truth is the Word of God. I receive such doctrines, not because I can prove them to be compatible with reason, not because my judgment accepts them, but because God says they are true.
Now this is one of the best services we can render to God, to submit ourselves to him in our belief of what he has revealed, and ask him to fix his truths in our hearts, and make us obey them.
Speeches at Home and Abroad, from a message at the Annual Meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, May 5th, 1875
There seems to me to have been twice as much done in some ages in defending the Bible as in expounding it, but if the whole of our strength shall henceforth go to the exposition and spreading of it, we may leave it pretty much to defend itself. I do not know whether you see that lion—it is very distinctly before my eyes; a number of persons advance to attack him, while a host of us would defend the grand old monarch, the British Lion, with all our strength. Many suggestions are made and much advice is offered. This weapon is recommended, and the other. Pardon me if I offer a quiet suggestion. Open the door and let the lion out; he will take care of himself. Why, they are gone! He no sooner goes forth in his strength than his assailants flee. The way to meet infidelity is to spread the Bible. The answer to every objection against the Bible is the Bible.
In a sermon “The Lover of God’s Law Filled with Peace,” preached on January 2, 1888
The Word of God can take care of itself, and will do so if we preach it, and cease defending it.
A.A. Hodge "The Rule of Faith and Practice"; contrasting the Reform and Catholic positions https://www.monergism.com/rule-faith-practice
J.C. Ryle
Prove all things by the Word of God—all ministers, all teaching, all preaching, all doctrines, all sermons, all writings, all opinions, all practices—prove all by the Word of God. Measure all by the measure of the Bible. Weigh all in the balance of the Bible. Examine all by the light of the Bible. Test all in the crucible of the Bible. That which can abide the fire of the Bible, receive, hold, believe and obey. That which cannot abide the fire of the Bible, reject, refuse, repudiate and cast away.
True Preaching
The spiritual reformers of the eighteenth century taught constantly the sufficiency and supremacy of Holy Scripture. The Bible, whole and unmutilated, was their sole rule of faith and practice. They accepted all its statements without question or dispute. They knew nothing of any part of Scripture being uninspired. They never flinched from asserting that there can be no error in the Word of God; and that when we cannot understand or reconcile some part of its contents, the fault is in the interpreter and not in the text. In all their preaching they were eminently men of one book. To that book they were content to pin their faith, and by it to stand or fall.
Old Paths, Chapter 1 - "Inspiration"
http://www.preachtheword.com/bookstore/old-paths-ryle.pdf
This is the first point we have to ascertain about anything in religion. It matters nothing who says a thing, and declares it to be religious truth; it matters nothing whether we like or dislike a doctrine. Is it in the Bible? That is the only question. If it is, we have no right to refuse it. If we reject a Bible truth because we do not like it, we do so at the peril of our souls, and might as well become infidels at once. This is a principle which ought never to be forgotten.
Charges and Addresses, 1903
(To hope for) Christian morality without Christian doctrine is to desire the fruits of Christianity without the roots.
Providentissimus Deus, the Papal Encyclical of Leo XIII issued 1893
It is absolutely wrong … either to narrow inspiration to certain parts of Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred … So far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God himself, the Supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.
B.B. Warfield The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible
(God has) so loved us as to give us this pure record of his will — God-given in all its parts, even though cast in the form of human speech — infallible in all its statements — divine even to its smallest particle!
W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology 1930
Divine truth was given to, through, and for man. Let us never forget that it is not the human but the Divine element that constitutes the Bible, the Word of God. It is fallacious, and indeed, impossible to attempt to separate and distinguish the Divine and the human elements. The true idea is not the Divine and the human, but the Divine through the human. When this is realised the Bible speaks with Divine and convincing authority.
John Murray, Collected Writings, Vol. 1, ‘The Infallibility of Scripture.’
The doctrine of infallibility is not peripheral. What is at stake is the character of the witness which the Scripture provides for the whole compass of our faith. It is concerned with the nature of the only revelation which we possess respecting God’s will for our salvation, the only revelation by which we are brought into saving encounter with him who is God manifest in the flesh, the only revelation by which we may be introduced into that fellowship which is eternal life, and the only revelation by which we may be guided in that pilgrimage to the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
E.Y. Mullins The Axioms of Religion
The Bible is final...on all questions of doctrine and polity and Christian living. The doctrines of salvation, of the church, and of the ordinances we derive from the Bible. In its teachings alone do we find our sufficient, certain and authoritative source of knowledge concerning all these matters.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Revival
There is a call today to separation. It is the only distinction in the Church which I recognize at all: those who submit to the Word of God, and its revelation, and its teaching, and those who do not.
Robert White “Substantial Marrow: Calvin’s Institutes in English” in Banner of Truth, August-September 2014
Speculative theology, which asks questions the Scriptures do not answer, or intuitive theology, which works upwards from man to God, is bad theology. The human mind cannot fathom the unfathomable. Calvin is adamant that only God can speak of God, and in words which accommodate themselves to our weakness. Since we do not recognize God in his works of creation and of providence, we must seek him in his written Word, whose witness is sealed to us by his Holy Spirit. Nor is Scripture a convenient peg on which doctrine may be hung, more or less at will; it is the indispensable foundation on which doctrine rests, the standard by which it is judged, and the rule by which it is corrected.
A.W. Tozer
The hope of the church yet lies in the purity of her theology, that is, her beliefs about God and man and their relation to each other. These beliefs have been revealed to her by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the sacred Scriptures. Everything there is clear-cut and accurate. We dare not be less than accurate in our treatment of anything so precious.
No man has any moral right to propound any teaching about which there is not full agreement among Bible Christians until he has made himself familiar with church history and with the development of Christian doctrine through the centuries. The historic approach is best. After we have discovered what holy men believed, what great reformers and saints taught, what the purest souls and mightiest workers held to be important for holy living and dying—then we are in a fair position to appraise our own teaching.
The Next Chapter After the Last
The true ground of religious hope (is) the character of God. Scriptures are the very words of God; altogether glorious when understood as the verbal expression of His holy being.
Jesus, Our Man in Glory
In referring to the Word of God, we do not mean just the book—we mean the eternal expression of the mind of God...speaking to our hearts and to our souls. The voice of God fills His world, and Jesus Christ, the living Word, holds everything together.
Rut, Rot or Revival
It has been a long time since Jesus was born in Bethlehem, died on the cross, rose again the third day, ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty and sent the Holy Spirit to establish His church. Since those days there have been changes in the world so radical, sweeping, all-pervading and revolutionary as to be entirely incredible to anybody living in Jesus' day. Today's world was entirely unimaginable to the people of those times. These changes (have not) forced God to modify His plans for His church and for mankind.
The Alliance Weekly/Witness, “Light To Live By”, 1962
The Bible is the voice of God calling men home from the wilds of sin; it is a road map for returning prodigals; it is instruction in righteousness, light in darkness, information about God and man and life and death and heaven and hell. In it God warns, commands, rebukes, promises, encourages. In it He offers salvation and life through His Eternal Son. And the destiny of each one depends upon the response he or she makes to the voice of the Word.
Resources
Edward J. Young Thy Word is Truth, 1957 "The real issue before the church today, and for that matter before every individual Christian, is whether the Bible is to be regarded and accepted as a trustworthy teacher of doctrine."
https://www.booksataglance.com/blog/thy-word-truth-e-j-young/
Sinclair Ferguson From the Mouth of God: Trusting, Reading, and Applying the Bible
Kevin DeYoung Taking God at His Word
Peter Williams Can We Trust the Gospels?
Thomas Guthrie, Way To Life, “The Unchangeable Word”
https://books.google.com/books?id=gMJAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7&source
Rob us of the Bible, and our sky has lost its sun.
CAUTION I
Every disciple of Jesus Christ will give an account of the words we speak (Matthew 12:36) and God takes very seriously the sin of presuming to speak for Him, from His word, falsely - Deuteronomy 18:20, Jeremiah 23:14, Ezekiel 22:38, Galatians 1:8
Proverbs 30:5-6, 1 Corinthians 4:6, Revelation 22:18-19
Every word of god is flawless; do not add to his words.
Basil, Bishop of Anycra when threatened by Emperor Valens, 5th ruler of the Byzantine (Eastern) Empire
https://books.google.com/books?id=JXhAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA222&lpg
These speeches (the Arian heresy) are fit to catch little children, but we who are taught by the Spirit are ready to endure a thousand deaths rather than suffer one syllable of Scripture to be altered.
CAUTION II
Westminster Confession of Faith 1646 "Chapter 1 - Of The Holy Scripture"
Article 1:10 - The supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined … can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.
(31:3) - All synods or councils, since the Apostolic times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice; but to be used as a help in both.
Article VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.
Isaac Newton
It must be expressed in the very form of sound words in which it was delivered by the apostles. For men are apt to run into partings about deductions. All the old heresies lie in deductions. The true faith was in the Biblical texts.
Richard Baxter Practical Divinity
The Word of God is divine; but our mode of dispensing it is human, and there is scarcely anything we have the handling of, but we leave on it the prints of our fingers.
CAUTION III
St. Augustine Sermons
If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
A.W. Tozer The Warfare of the Spirit
Christians today have developed the perilous habit of accepting the authority of the New Testament on matters that do not concern them and rejecting it on matters that do.
CAUTION IV
St. Augustine Genesi Ad Litteram
In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.
John Calvin
Sermons on II Timothy
When God teaches us with his own lips, we must not venture to move too far ahead, as do those who walk in disobedience. It is presumptuous of us to try to discover more than God allows, but when we act soberly and reverently in obedience to our God, hearing and accepting what he says in holy Scripture, the way lies open before us.
Institutes I.XIII.21 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.xiv.html
(We should) philosophise with great sobriety and moderation, and also with extreme caution, lest either our ideas or our language should proceed beyond the limits of the Divine word.
CAUTION V
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Joy Unspeakable
We should not interpret Scripture in the light of our experiences, but we should examine our experiences in the light of the teaching of the Scripture.
WARNING
God's revelation is complete, full, and final in the Word (Jesus), and in the inspired Apostolic written words in Scripture.
There is no "continuing, new or additional" revelation.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Christian Unity
We have all truth in the New Testament, and we have no need of any further revelations. All has been given, everything that is necessary for us is available. Therefor if a man claims to have received a revelation of some fresh truth we should suspect him immediately.
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/gods-final-revelation/
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/thus-saith-the-lord/
God has placed knowledge of His law in everyone's heart - Romans 2:15 "They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness..."
God has also placed knowledge of Himself (General Revelation) in everyone (Romans 1:19-20), and we can see His attributes in His creation, in science, and in His dealings with mankind through history, esp. with Israel. Apart from God's word (Romans 10:17), that knowledge however is inadequate for saving faith, forgiveness of sin, justification, reconciliation/peace with God through Christ Jesus, and the assurance of eternal life (John 3:36, Romans 10:14)
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/scripture-divine-revelation/
Newer translations are OK. I like the 1984 NIV and the a bit harder 2001 ESV (with later revisions), but sometimes the NLT (1996 & 2004) is easier to understand and use in order to make personal application.
We don't speak or write like this anymore; John Wycliffe's Matthew 17:1-3 (The "Early Version" was printed by hand and released in 1382)
"And aftir sixe dayes Jhesus took Petre, and James, and John and ledith [led] hem [them] by hem selve aloone in to an high hil; and he is transfigurid before hem. And his clothis ben maad [were made] schynynge [shining] and white ful moche [much] as snow, and which maner clothis a fullere [cloth worker], or walkere [worker] of cloth, may not make white on erthe. And Helye [Elijah] with Myses apperide [appeared] to hem, and thei weren [were] spekynge [speaking] with Jhesu."
"How Did We Get The English Bible?"
https://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/
Daniel Wallace, Executive Director of Center For The Study of New Testament Manuscripts & Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, "15 Myths About Bible Translation"
https://danielbwallace.com/2012/10/08/fifteen-myths-about-bible-translation/
G. Campbell Morgan
To the man who has given up the New Testament as final, authoritative, and infallible, I have no appeal. We have no common ground. If you are attempting to erect a Christian structure upon your philosophizing I have no time to argue with you. I respect your conviction, I believe in your honesty, but I part company with you. To me the New Testament is the living, final, absolutely infallible Word of God.