It is an amazing truth that God has revealed Himself to creation. To deny His special revelation to us is to undermine everything we know to be true. For the church, God has given us His Word, complete and inerrant. The Bible has stood the test of time, enduring much criticism and attack.
Whether a person holds to the inerrancy of Scripture is of utmost importance. If certain truths in the Bible are abandoned than the whole canon of Scripture is in question. Biblical inerrancy as defined by Wayne Grudem: “The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, p90). Millard Erickson says, “If the Bible is not inerrant, then our knowledge of God may be inaccurate and unreliable” (Erickson, Christian Theology, p246).
The Bible speaks much of itself as inerrant, written by men through the Spirit of God (1 Peter 1:20, 21). 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (ESV). The Word of God is wholly perfect and true (Ps. 119:96); to deny this is to destroy the foundation of our special revelation from God. Some have argued that the Bible claiming inerrancy is circular reasoning; while this is true, coming to believe the Bible as perfect, is a work of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14).
The OT canon includes the writings which the Jews accepted as Scripture. The NT was primarily written by the apostles; Wayne Grudem states, “those who have the office of apostle in the early church are seen to claim an authority equal to that of the Old Testament prophets, an authority to speak and write words that are God’s very words” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, p60). This leaves a handful of books, which were not written by apostles (Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews and Jude). The early church preserved these writings and recognized them as divine. As the canon of Scripture was put together, we can trust the process was aided by the Spirit, resulting in the authoritative Word of God.
Erickson states, “Our basis for holding to the truth of any theological proposition is that the Bible teaches it. If, however, we should conclude that certain propositions (historical or scientific) taught by the Bible are not true, the implications are far reaching” (Erickson, Christian Theology, p253). The Bible loses all authority in a person’s life when inerrancy is abandoned. For example, if we cannot trust Scripture in regards to accurately recounting the history of creation, we lose confidence in the Bible accurately recounting the plan of redemption for mankind. A denial of inerrancy results in making our own human intellects of more value than the Word of God; inerrancy is a critical truth, which should be upheld at all costs.