Across the span of six chapters (17 to 22), Beeke and Smalley explain the core Christian doctrines concerning the Bible, including the doctrines of inspiration, perspicuity, inerrancy and sufficiency.
To improve the understandability of these important doctrines, I reframed the doctrines into two questions:
- Doctrine of biblical inerrancy: why do Christians trust the Bible?
- All other doctrines concerning the Bible: what does the Bible mean to Christians?
In another article, I addressed the first question: why do Christians trust the Bible?
If we are to believe that the Bible is without error in all of its teaching, what might be the implications for Christians? This article will thus address the second question: what does the Bible mean to Christians? As such, I will summarize Beeke and Smalley’s explanation in chapters 17 to 19, and 22.
Inspiration: the Bible is the Word of God
“The Bible is the Word of God. This view of the Bible is not an artificial doctrine imposed upon it by churches or theologians, but is the view of the Bible taught by God in the Bible itself” (p. 317). Therefore, the authors caution that “we must avoid the error of seeing parts of the Bible, or elements of its teaching, as the Word of God, but other parts or elements as the fallible word of man” (ibid).
“More than four hundred times that the prophets said ‘Thus says the Lord’ testify that the words of the prophets must be regarded as the royal word of God” (p. 318). “Just as the Lord God commissioned prophets in the Old Testament to speak with divine authority, so the Lord Jesus commissioned apostles in the New Testament … the authority of the apostles arose from the supernatural activity of the Spirit to give them their words … (Matthew 10:20)” (p. 319).
The doctrine of inspiration therefore asserts inspiration to be “the work of the Holy Spirit to produce the Bible through human authors so that it is God’s Word just as surely as the breath of our mouths produces our own words” (p. 329).
Sufficiency: the Bible alone is the source of authority for Christian faith and practice
In another article, I explained that our theology is Reformed. The historical Reformation confessions can be summarized by the five solae, one of which is sola Scriptura or Scripture alone. “The Reformation brought a renewed focus on the Bible’s sufficiency as special revelation in opposition to Roman Catholic claims that the Bible should be supplemented with revelation passed down in church traditions” (p. 397).
The doctrine of biblical sufficiency “declares that everything necessary for saving faith and spiritual life is taught in the Bible” (p. 396).
“The doctrine does not assert that the Bible is sufficient to guide all human activities in every respect. The Bible does not claim to be a comprehensive guide to astronomy, geology, nutrition, warfare, mechanics, business, history, medicine, public speaking, sports, politics or a host of other topics. It gives us ‘the words of the wise’ so ‘that your trust may be in the Lord’ (Proverbs 22:17, 19) … However, since all human activity should aim at the glory of God, the Bible is a sufficient guide for pleasing him in every facet of life” (pp. 397-398).
At the same time, the authors caution that this doctrine should not be understood to “exclude the use of the church’s helps, such as the ministry and works of teachers and scholars … or the creeds and confessions. These are not to be rejected, but welcomed … However, they are subordinate to the Bible in such a way that they have divine authority to direct our faith and obedience only insofar as they faithfully reproduce and apply the teachings of Scripture” (p. 399).
Sufficiency also does not mean that “the Bible contains all special revelation granted through redemptive history. Our Lord Jesus Christ did many things that are not written in the Gospels (John 20:30; 21:25) … Furthermore, there were historical events related to God’s ancient people that, although they might have been recorded in other writings that are no longer extant, were not included in the Bible” (pp. 399-400).
Authority: the Bible offers instructions for our faith and behavior
The Westminster Confession of Faith (1.4) says,
The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, [depend] not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.“When we speak of the Bible’s authority, we refer to its property as the Word of God to obligate readers or hearers to entire submission. The Bible has authority as the rule for faith (what [we ought] to believe) and behavior (what [we ought] to do)” (p. 335).
“The Bible’s property of authority arises directly from its divine origin: it is God’s word” (p. 335). The authors explain that Reformed theologians teach the Bible to be “self-authenticating” (p. 339). “One might objective that this is a circular argument: we know that the Bible is God’s Word because it is God’s Word. We answer this objection by noting that all arguments for an ultimate authority must be circular because one can appeal to nothing higher” (p. 340).
“Someone might object that to accept the Bible as an absolute authority is unscientific, since the scientific method demands that all things be proven to the satisfaction of our reasoning” (p. 341). In response, the authors explain that “we all base many of our beliefs upon things that we have not personally seen or tested, but instead trust the testimony of an authority. The testimony of written documents plays a central role in history. How else can we know who was the president of the United States a century ago? Legal decisions by the courts often depend upon eyewitness testimony and expert testimony. The scientific enterprise depends upon the ability of the scientific community to trust the testimony of those who write scientific books and publish articles—no one scientist has attempted to prove everything, and neither could one do so. Therefore, it is not irrational or foolish to base one’s beliefs upon testimony” (ibid).
The authors go on to explain that “those who would construct a more ‘scientific’ and modern Christianity without the divine authority of the Bible build on sand. Today’s scientific findings are only tentative; tomorrow’s research and discoveries could negate them. As such, the ‘assured results’ of science provide no sure foundation for faith” (p. 341).
Clarity (or perspicuity): the Bible can be understood by all people
The Westminster Confession of Faith (1.7) says:
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.“The Reformers called this doctrine the perspicacity of Scripture … in a time of widespread of illiteracy, and before the invention of the moveable-type printing press (c. 1439), the Scriptures were in the hands of comparatively few members of the pre-Reformation church … it was argued that putting the Bible in the hands of the unlearned laity would do great harm to all concerned. Only the most learned of men, and then only with the approval of the authorities, could read and interpret the Scriptures profitably. Much to the dismay of the pope and his adherents, the Reformers brought the whole Bible back into the church, translated it into the language of the people, and made it the sum and substance of their preaching, and central in public worship. In doing so, they were acting on their conviction that God’s Word is for all of God’s people” (pp. 344-345).
Most importantly, the authors point to three Bible verses that underscore the intention of the Scriptures to be understood and applied in our lives:
- The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 29:29)
- For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Romans 15:4)
- All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16)
“The great obstacle to our understanding of the truths of God is not the Bible, but the sin and satanic unbelief that dominate the wicked (John 8:43-45; 2 Corinthians 4:4) …. this explains why Moses, Peter and Paul addressed their writings to the whole people of God and not merely to priests and scholars. They believed that their writings were not ‘hidden things’ but a ‘manifestation of truth’ that would commend themselves to ‘every man’s conscience’” (p. 346).
Unity: the Old and New Testaments have a unified theme about Jesus Christ
The Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments, is about Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that “the gospel of God … concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” is the message that God “had promised afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures” (Romans 1:1-3).
“Therefore, the Bible is not a disparate hodge-podge of stories, laws, and promises to Israel, but a unified revelation that progressively leads us the Jesus Christ, and then, in the New Testament, reflects deeply upon his finished work, present activity, and future appearing. John Murray wrote of the ‘organic interdependence’ between the Old and the New Testaments, for the Old gives the historical background for the New, and in the New the great spiritual realities emerge to which the Old pointed with its shadows” (p. 360).
“The subject of Christ’s revelation of himself in the Bible is particular challenging when we come to the Old Testament, but when we carefully read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, we discover a vast richness to how God manifested his Son” (p. 361). The authors list four examples:
- Christ was revealed in “explicit promises” (p. 361). For example, Micah 5:2 promised a king to be born in Bethlehem.
- Christ was revealed in types of a “person, institution, or event divinely designed to imperfect yet truly foreshadow Christ as his kingdom” (ibid). For example, “the lives of King David and of prophets such as Elijah and Elisha foreshadow Christ in both their trials and mighty works. Melchizedek is a preeminent type of Christ as the priest-king (Hebrews 7). The institution of the Levitical priesthood, with its sacrifices at the holy places, is a shadow of the atoning work of Christ (Hebrews 10:1). The historical event of the exodus from Egypt is a great type of Christ’s revelation, as the book of Revelation repeatedly shows by portray a new and greater exodus by the Lamb” (p. 361).
- “We recognize the presence of Christ in the Old Testament through supernatural figures as the angel of the Lord” (p. 361).
- “Some texts in the Old Testament reveal Christ indirectly by teaching us our need for a mediator of saving grace” (p. 362). For example, in Romans 3:10-12 and 21-26, Paul points to Psalm 14:1-3 to indicate the need for the righteousness of Jesus Christ to be given freely through faith.
Efficacy: God’s words are to be understood and applied in our lives
“Whether used for teaching the truth, reproving sin, correcting sinners unto repentance, or instructing people in the way of righteousness, the Bible is ‘profitable’ (2 Timothy 3:16)” (p. 331).
This article is part of a series on systematic theology, based upon the first of four volumes of Reformed Systematic Theology by Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley.
