021. ERRANCY OR INERRANCY?

ERRANCY OR INERRANCY? Do I say that there are errors in matters of historical detail, errors in New Testament translations from the Hebrew, errors in exegesis, errors in logic? I say nothing of the kind. I do not myself feel compelled to recognize such errors as existing in the original autographs. I have carefully examined one after another of the so-called contradictions between different historical books of the Bible, and I have yet to find one where some reasonable hypothesis will not furnish a reconciliation. The so-called errors of translation, exegesis, logic, seem to me, in almost every case, to be the figments of a shallow criticism or an unbelieving spirit. But I recognize the right of others to another conclusion than mine. I am not willing to stake the Christian faith upon the correctness even of the original autographs of Scripture in matters so unessential as these. I open my mind to evidence. I do not prejudge the case. I refuse to impose on students for the ministry the dogma of absolute inerrancy in matters which do not affect the substance of the Bible history, or the substance of the Bible doctrine. I refuse to make either baptism or ordination conditional upon the candidate’s ability to say that Scripture is absolutely free from error in matters which have nothing to do with Christ or salvation.

I remember that although the great mass of our present Old Testament Scriptures was in the time of Christ regarded as indubitably canonical, there was yet a sort of penumbra around the sun; the sacred writings shaded off into some that were not so sacred; about Esther and the Song of Solomon some of the rabbis doubted whether they were really a part of the word bf God. So I find in the early church far less external evidence for Second Peter than for the synoptic Gospels; even about the Epistle to the Hebrews some doubted; the New Testament had its penumbra like the Old; for four centuries the outline of the sun’s disc was not perfectly defined. And now in our day, among those who accept the whole Bible, there is a question whether even around the great sunlike testimony of the accepted books there may not be a penumbra, or shading off into inaccuracy, of historical or scientific detail. This, I say, is a mere question of fact, and its decision either one way or the other should not shake in the least our confidence in the proper authority of Scripture.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was a great painter and a great teacher of his art. His lectures on painting laid down principles which have been accepted as authority for generations. But Joshua Reynolds illustrates his subject from history and science. It was a day when both history and science were young. In some unimportant matters of this sort, which do not in the least affect his conclusions, Sir Joshua makes an occasional slip; his statements are inaccurate. Does he, therefore, cease to be an authority in matters of his art? And must I have presented to me the alternative of renouncing Joshua Reynolds as a guide in painting, or of taking for absolute truth all his statements of historical and scientific detail?

I say, once more, that I do not as yet find indubitable evidence that the original autographs of Scripture were marked by such errors of detail. But I say also that the question is not one of such moment as to make me willing to exclude from my Christian fellowship one who thinks he does find such errors. We may still hold to one Lord, one faith, one baptism. If my brother, after patient, candid, and reverent investigation, thinks that he finds such errors, let him say so; no man is required to lie for God. The Christian should love truth, for Christ is the Truth. He should face the facts, for whatever they may be, and however the knowledge of them may require the modification of his former views, Baptists, above all, should recognize the right of private judgment and should not be quick to stigmatize possible progress as heresy. The anxiety of many Christians to maintain the historical and scientific inerrancy of Scripture is mainly the result of their fear that the possibility of mistake in such minor matters may carry with it the possibility of mistake in the greater matters of faith and doctrine. But the fallibility of the record in the one case does not necessarily involve its fallibility in the other. A secular history may be perfectly trustworthy in its great features, while yet it is inaccurate in some of its details. The Duke of Wellington said once that no human being knew at what time of day the battle of Waterloo began. One historian gets his story from one combatant, and he puts the hour at eleven in the morning. Another historian has his information from another combatant, and he puts it at noon. Shall we say that this discrepancy argues error in the whole account and that we have no longer any certainty that the battle of Waterloo was ever fought at all? Nay, verily. Both historians may be good authority for all the main facts of the battle, notwithstanding this difference with regard to the precise time of its commencement.

What we need in Scripture is an absolute authority in matters pertaining to salvation. The Bible may conceivably be an authority about Christ and Christian truth without being absolutely inerrant in its account of the numbers slain in some Old Testament battle, or of the length of time from Abraham to Moses. In its chosen sphere it is infallible, and its chosen sphere is the revelation of moral and religious truth.

We see a striking combination of authority and errancy in many a legal decision. The judgment as a whole is final and binding, for it is a judgment of the highest court. So far as it keeps to the purpose of its utterance, it settles the matter at issue; but the obiter dicta of the judge, his allusions to other matters, his remarks by the way, while they may be instructive and interesting, are not necessarily authoritative.

Now in Scripture there is certainly no forgery, no misrepresentation or idealization, no conscious connivance at the mistakes of others. But if any one says that the most natural explanation of certain apparent discrepancies is that each of the differing authors used the material ready to his hand, and that the Spirit of inspiration did not regard it as worth the while to correct the unimportant variation, I cannot prove that his view is incorrect. It would only enlarge a little my conception of the amount of human imperfection which the Holy Spirit may leave in inspired Scripture. It would only make the Scripture histories a little more like secular histories, two of which may vary in slight details, while both of them in all essentials are perfectly harmonious.

It becomes us to be very slow in concluding that seeming discrepancies are real errors, for many such difficulties in the past have been removed by increasing knowledge. Careful examination has strengthened rather than weakened faith in the accuracy of Scripture. But let us not preclude inquiry by any a priori theory of what the Bible must be. Why should we deny to inspired men the right to use all the ordinary methods of honest literature? Why may they not collect material as other historians do? Why may they not embody previously existing documents in their own productions? Why may not truth be put in parabolic or dramatic form? Why may not the words of Satan, or of wicked men, or of good men in their occasional periods of depression or skepticism, be embodied in sacred literature, to give examples of all the various experiences of life under the providence and discipline of God? Do you say that this leaves us without a clue to what is true and what is false? Not so. In each of these cases inspiration guarantees that the story is true to nature and valuable as containing divine instruction; and the difficulty of distinguishing man’s words from God’s words, or ideal truth from actual truth, only gives stimulus to inquiry, puts us upon our honor and conscience, and makes the book of Scripture more like the book of nature, which yields its treasures of knowledge only to the diligent and devout.

God’s word is "a stream in which the lamb may wade and the elephant may swim." There is a general plainness of teaching, so that the wayfaring man may read as he runs. The tenor of Scripture will not be mistaken by any sinner who humbly seeks the way of life. Not from single passages, isolated from their context, are we to gather our scheme of doctrine. We are "to compare spiritual things with spiritual." "Every scripture inspired by God is profitable," but the parts are of complete authority only when taken in connection with the whole. Inspiration, then, makes the whole Scripture to be the word of God. And by inspiration I mean—to use the language of another—" such a complete and immediate communication by the Holy Spirit to the minds of the sacred writers of those things which could not have been otherwise known, and such an effectual superintendence as to those things concerning which they might otherwise obtain information, as sufficed absolutely to preserve them from every degree of error in all things which could in the least affect the doctrines or precepts contained in their writings." And this is to say over again, in other words, that the Scriptures are not the original, but the reflection; not the Being revealed, but the revelation of that Being; not the Christ, but the witness to him. I reverence the Bible, then, as an organic and progressive account of Christ’s historical work and teaching, both under the Old Dispensation and under the New. I reverence it because of him, not him because of it. When he tells me that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass away till all be fulfilled, I take his word as true. If I can find out precisely what he meant when he says that Moses wrote of him, I shall believe that. The higher criticism, conducted in a humble and candid spirit, can only show me the real meaning of Christ’s words. I have no fear of the higher criticism, therefore, but rather welcome it as a new means to the understanding of Christ. That the Pentateuch is a composite production made up in part of documents which Moses found ready to his hand, and also in small part of material added after Moses’ death, is now a matter of probability. Yet still, Moses is substantially its author. I believe that the higher criticism itself will yet show the most of it to have been written by him. What others added, and how they added it, I hold myself free as air to determine, after the investigation of the facts and the application of proper scientific tests. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture, as a rule of faith and practice, is the formal principle of the Reformation. Too many martyrs have shed their blood for it, for us to be willing to renounce it now. But not even Protestants have the right to put the formal principle of the Reformation before its material principle, justification by faith. The Christ in whom we believe is greater and more perfect than the Bible, which only speaks of him. And the right of private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture is just as important an article of faith, and just as essential to a complete Christian life, as is the authority of Scripture itself. -¹ We may be compelled to admit that there are literary, historical, and scientific imperfections to some small extent in the Bible, but we can never admit that there are imperfections in Christ. He is the final and ultimate authority, while the authority of Scripture is subordinate and limited. He is himself the Word of God, and Scripture is but the reflection of that Word. His words are the very words of God, for he says: "I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak: whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father hath said unto me, so I speak." In his last great prayer our Lord declares that he had communicated God’s words to men: "All things whatsoever thou hast given me are from thee; for the words which thou gavest me I have given unto them; and they received them, and knew of a truth that I came from thee, and believed that thou didst send me." He promised that the memory of his communications should not leave his disciples’ minds. "The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you." The result of this work of the Holy Spirit is the Scriptures of the New Testament. They are inspired, as the Old Testament Scriptures were inspired. They derive their authority from Christ himself; and so, in spite of the human element that mingles with them, they constitute "the word of God which liveth and abideth forever," and they are "able to mike us wise unto salvation."