Posted on Wednesday, June 08, 2005 - 1:07 pm:

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THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY


PREFACE

The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in
this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and
Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly
and faithfully obeying God's written Word. To stray from Scripture in
faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total
truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp
and adequate confession of its authority.

The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh,
making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We
are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus
Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the
claims of God's own Word that marks true Christian faith. We see it as
our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses
from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and
misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.

This Statement consists of three parts: a Summary Statement,
Articles of Affirmation and Denial, and an accompanying Exposition. It
has been prepared in the course of a three-day consultation in Chicago.
Those who have signed the Summary Statement and the Articles wish to
affirm their own conviction as to the inerrancy of Scripture and to
encourage and challenge one another and all Christians to growing
appreciation and understanding of this doctrine. We acknowledge the
limitations of a document prepared in a brief, intensive conference and
do not propose that this Statement be given creedal weight. Yet we
rejoice in the deepening of our own convictions through our discussions
together, and we pray that the Statement we have signed may be used to
the glory of our God toward a new reformation of the Church in its
faith, life and mission.

We offer this Statement in a spirit, not of contention, but of
humility and love, which we propose by God's grace to maintain in any
future dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly acknowledge
that many who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display the
consequences of this denial in the rest of their belief and behavior,
and we are conscious that we who confess this doctrine often deny it in
life by failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our traditions and
habits, into true subjection to the divine Word.

We invite response to this Statement from any who see reason to amend
its affirmations about Scripture by the light of Scripture itself, under
whose infallible authority we stand as we speak. We claim no personal
infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any help that enables us
to strengthen this testimony to God's Word we shall be grateful.


I. SUMMARY STATEMENT

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy
Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through
Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is
God's witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and
superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all
matters upon which it touches: It is to be believed, as God's
instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God's command, in all
that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it
to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its
meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or
fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in
creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary
origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in
individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total
divine inerrancy is in any way limited of disregarded, or made relative
to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring
serious loss to both the individual and the Church.


II. ARTICLES OF AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL


Article I.

We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the
authoritative Word of God.

We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church,
tradition, or any other human source.


Article II.

We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which
God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is
subordinate to that of Scripture.

We deny that church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority
greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.


Article III.

We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given
by God.

We deny that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only
becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for
its validity.


Article IV.

We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as
a means of revelation.

We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that
it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further
deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has
thwarted God's work of inspiration.


Article V.

We affirm that God's revelation in the Holy Scriptures was
progressive.

We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation,
ever corrects of contradicts it. We further deny that any normative
revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament
writings.


Article VI.

We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the
very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.

We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of
the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.


Article VII.

We affirm that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit,
through human writers, gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is
divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us.

We deny that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to
heightened states of consciousness of any kind.


Article VIII.

We affirm that God in His work of inspiration utilized the
distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had
chosen and prepared.

We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that
He chose, overrode their personalities.


Article IX.

We affirm that inspiration, through not conferring omniscience,
guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the
Biblical authors were moved to speak and write.

We deny that the finitude or falseness of these writers, by necessity
or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God's Word.


Article X.

We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the
autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be
ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further
affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to
the extent that they faithfully represent the original.

We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected
by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence
renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.


Article XI.

We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is
infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in
all the matters it addresses.

We deny that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time
infallible and errant in its assertions. Infallibility and inerrancy may
be distinguished but not separated.


Article XII.

We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from
all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to
spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in
the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific
hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the
teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.


Article XIII.

We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with
reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.

We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to
standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We
further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a
lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or
spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of
falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical
arrangement of metrical, variant selections of material in parallel
accounts, or the use of free citations.


Article XIV.

We affirm the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.

We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been
resolved violate the truth claims of the Bible.


Article XV.

We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching
of the Bible about inspiration.

We deny that Jesus' teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by
appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity.


Article XVI.

We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the
Church's faith throughout its history.

We deny that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic
Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to
negative higher criticism.


Article XVII.

We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures,
assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written Word.

We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation
from or against Scripture.


Article XVIII.

We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by
grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and
devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.

We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for
sources lying behind it that leads or relativizing, dehistoricizing, or
discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims of authorship.


Article XIX.

We affirm that a confession of the full authority, infallibility and
inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of
the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead
to increasing conformity to the image of Christ.

We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we
further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences,
both to the individual and to the Church.


III. EXPOSITION

Our understanding of the doctrine of inerrancy must be set in the
context of the broader teachings of Scripture concerning itself. This
exposition gives an account of the outline of doctrine from which our
Summary Statement and Articles are drawn.


A. Creation, Revelation and Inspiration

The God, who formed all things by his creative utterances and governs
all things by His Word of decree, made mankind in His own image for a
life of communion with Himself, on the model of the eternal fellowship
of loving communication within the Godhead. As God's image-bearer, man
was to hear God's Word addressed to him and to respond in the joy of
adoring obedience. Over and above God's self-disclosure in the created
order and the sequence of events within it, human beings from Adam on
have received verbal messages from Him, either directly, as stated in
Scripture, or indirectly in the form of part or all of Scripture itself.

When Adam fell, the Creator did not abandon mankind to final
judgement, but promised salvation and began to reveal Himself as
Redeemer in a sequence of historical events centering on Abraham's
family and culminating in the life, death, resurrection, present
heavenly ministry and promised return of Jesus Christ. Within this frame
God has from time to time spoken specific words of judgement and mercy,
promise and command, to sinful human beings, so drawing them into a
covenant relation of mutual commitment between Him and them in which He
blesses them with gifts of grace and they bless Him in responsive
adoration. Moses, whom God used as mediator to carry his words to His
people at the time of the exodus, stands at the head of a long line of
prophets in whose mouths and writings God put His words for delivery to
Israel. God's purpose in this succession of messages was to maintain His
covenant by causing His people to know His name--that is, His
nature--and His will both of precept and purpose in the present and for
the future. This line of prophetic spokesmen from God came to completion
in Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Word, who was Himself a prophet--more
that a prophet, but not less--and in the apostles and prophets of the
first Christian generation. When God's final and climactic message, His
word to the world concerning Jesus Christ, had been spoken and
elucidated by those in the apostolic circle, the sequence of revealed
messages ceased. Henceforth the Church was to live and know God by what
He had already said, and said for all time.

At Sinai God wrote the terms of His covenant on tablets of stone as
His enduring witness and for lasting accessibility, and throughout the
period of prophetic and apostolic revelation He prompted men to write
the messages given to and through them, along with celebratory records
of His dealings with His people, plus moral reflections on covenant life
and forms of praise and prayer for covenant mercy. The theological
reality of inspiration in the producing of Biblical documents
corresponds to that of spoken prophecies: Although the human writers'
personalities were expressed in what they wrote, the words were divinely
constituted. Thus what Scripture says, God says; its authority is His
authority, for He is its ultimate Author, having given it through the
minds and words of chosen and prepared men who in freedom and
faithfulness "spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit" (I Pet 1:21). Holy Scripture must be acknowledged as the Word of
God by virtue of its divine origin.


B. Authority: Christ and the Bible

Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is the Word made flesh, our Prophet,
Priest and King, is the ultimate Mediator of God's communication to man,
as He is of all God's gifts of grace. The revelation He gave was more
that verbal; He revealed the Father by His presence and His deeds as
well. Yet His words were crucially important ; for He was God, He spoke
from the Father, and His words will judge all men at the last day.

As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus Christ is the central theme of
Scripture. The Old Testament looked ahead to Him; the New Testament
looks back to His first coming and on to His second. Canonical Scripture
is the divinely inspired and therefore normative witness to Christ. No
hermeneutic, therefore, of which the historical Christ is not the focal
point is acceptable. Holy Scripture must be treated as what it
essentially is--the witness of the Father to the incarnate Son.

It appears that the Old Testament canon had been fixed by the time of
Jesus. The New Testament canon is likewise now closed, inasmuch as no
new apostolic witness to the historical Christ can now be borne. No new
revelation (as distinct from Spirit-given understanding of existing
revelation) will be given until Christ comes again. The canon was
created in principle by divine inspiration. The Church's part was to
discern the canon that God had created, not to devise one of its own.

The word 'canon', signifying a rule of standard, is a pointer to
authority, which means the right to rule and control. Authority in
Christianity belongs to God in His revelation, which means, on the one
hand, Jesus Christ, the living Word, and, on the other hand, Holy
Scripture, the written Word. But the authority of Christ and that of
Scripture are one. As our Prophet, Christ testified that Scripture
cannot be broken. As our Priest and King, He devoted His earthly life to
fulfilling the law and the prophets, even dying in obedience to the
words of messianic prophecy. Thus as He saw Scripture attesting Him and
His authority, so by His own submission to Scripture He attested its
authority. As He bowed to His Father's instruction given in His Bible
(our Old Testament), so He requires His disciples to do--not, however,
in isolation but in conjunction with the apostolic witness to Himself
that He undertook to inspire by his gift of the Holy Spirit. So
Christians show themselves faithful servants of their Lord by bowing to
the divine instruction given in the prophetic and apostolic writings
that together make up our Bible.

By authenticating each other's authority, Christ and Scripture
coalesce into a single fount of authority. The Biblically-interpreted
Christ and the Christ-centered, Christ-proclaiming Bible are from this
standpoint one. As from the fact of inspiration we infer that what
Scripture says, God says, so from the revealed relation between Jesus
Christ and Scripture we may equally declare that what Scripture says,
Christ says.


C. Infallibility, Inerrancy, Interpretation

Holy Scripture, as the inspired Word of God witnessing
authoritatively to Jesus Christ, may properly be called 'infallible' and
'inerrant'. These negative terms have a special value, for they
explicitly safeguard crucial positive truths.

'Infallible' signifies the quality of neither misleading nor being
misled and so safeguards in categorical terms the truth that Holy
Scripture is a sure, safe and reliable rule and guide in all matters.

Similarly, 'inerrant' signifies the quality of being free from all
falsehood or mistake and so safeguards the truth that Holy Scripture is
entirely true and trustworthy in all its assertions.

We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on
the basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in determining
what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the
most careful attention to its claims and character as a human
production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and conventions of
his penman's milieu, a milieu that God controls in His sovereign
providence; it is misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.

So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole
and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation
as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions
in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: Since, for instance,
nonchronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and
acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not
regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When
total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it
is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the
sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense
of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at
which its authors aimed.

The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by the appearance in it
of irregularities of grammar or spelling, phenomenal descriptions of
nature, reports of false statements (for example, the lies of Satan), or
seeming discrepancies between one passage and another. It is not right
to set the so-called "phenomena" of Scripture against the teaching of
Scripture about itself. Apparent inconsistencies should not be ignored.
Solution of them, where this can be convincingly achieved, will
encourage our faith, and where for the present no convincing solution is
at hand we shall significantly honor God by trusting His assurance that
His Word is true, despite these appearances, and by maintaining our
confidence that one day they will be seen to have been illusions.

Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single divine mind,
interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy of Scripture
and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical passage by
another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the
imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer's mind.

Although Holy Scripture is nowhere culture-bound in the sense that
its teaching lacks universal validity, it is sometimes culturally
conditioned by the customs and conventional views of a particular
period, so that the application of its principles today calls for a
different sort of action.


D. Skepticism and Criticism

Since the Renaissance, and more particularly since the Enlightenment,
world views have been developed that involve skepticism about basic
Christian tenets. Such are the agnosticism that denies that God is
knowable, the rationalism that denies that He is incomprehensible, the
idealism that denies that He is transcendent, and the existentialism
that denies rationality in His relationships with us. When these un- and
anti-Biblical principles seep into men's theologies at presuppositional
level, as today they frequently do, faithful interpretation of Holy
Scripture becomes impossible.


E. Transmission and Translation

Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture,
it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original
documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as
a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the
course of its transmission. The verdict of this science, however, is
that the Hebrew and Greek text appears to be amazingly well preserved,
so that we are amply justified in affirming, with the Westminster
Confession, a singular providence of God in this matter and in declaring
that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact
that the copies we possess are not entirely error-free.

Similarly, no translation is or can be perfect, and all translations
are an additional step away from the autograph. Yet the verdict of
linguistic science is that English-speaking Christians, at least, are
exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent
translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true
Word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in view of the frequent
repetition in Scripture of the main matters with which it deals and also
of the Holy Spirit's constant witness to and through the Word, no
serious translation of Holy Scripture will so destroy its meaning as to
render it unable to make its reader "wise for salvation through faith in
Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15)


F. Inerrancy and Authority

In our affirmation of the authority of Scripture as involving its
total truth, we are consciously standing with Christ and His apostles,
indeed with the whole Bible and with the main stream of Church history
from the first days until very recently. We are concerned at that
casual, inadvertent and seemingly thoughtless way in which a belief of
such far-reaching importance has been given up by so many in our day.

We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from
ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one
professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the
Bible that God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead
is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical
reasoning and in principle reducible still further once one has started.
This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as
opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time
being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the
full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while
methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of
knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move
further.

We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified.
Amen and Amen.

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