Is all the Bible true?

But God's word IS true. Every single word as originally given is true. Nothing in it is or can be false; we can rely on it and its veracity completely.

Surely nothing can be more positive, nothing wider in reach than this: "Scripture" — not merely this or that passage, specially guided or guarded, because of special importance, but Scripture, as Scripture, — "Scripture cannot be broken." Is it then the statement that "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is," or any other, however insignificant it may seem to us, if Scripture makes it, then its truth is guaranteed — "Scripture cannot be broken."

On the contrary, it is Scripture which gives the church authority; as it is Scripture which furnishes the great store of materials for ministry. At the same time here is the essential difference: ministry is not an ultimate authority in itself. In fact it is not properly authority: the idea of ministry is serving, even if it were the exercise of the gift of rule. For I grant that there are among those that minister such as rule. My advice to those that rule, if I may be allowed to offer any, is to do that work with firmness, however lowlily, as much as anything else. Rule is no less divine a gift for ministry than preaching and teaching. It is well, no doubt, to take care that they are rulers of the Lord's giving before they enter on that grave task. But, however this may be, what I want to show is, that Scripture, so far from interfering with or weakening whatever is good and of God, not only furnishes the finest and most abundant material for the use of those who are serving the Lord, but has another use yet more distinctive — indeed unique. Scripture is not merely a source of truth, an infinitely richer source than all other mines of spiritual lore in the world put together, but it gives you pure truth without error on every subject of which it treats. Not that it talks the science of the nineteenth century: and there is just the wisdom of God. Neither does it talk the science of the first century, or of any other. It stands alone with a wholly different origin, nature, character, and aim. Confessedly the language of science has often changed; it has often had to mend, just because it is imperfect, as it is human. But there is the word of God, which, while it condescends to the humblest, never changes for the highest. It is the expression of the unchangeable One; it is the permanent communication of truth, and for all souls, places, and times. There is nothing similar nor even second to it.

The introduction of the Word of God leads the Apostle to state the character and uses of all Scripture. He says, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (or, "every good work"). vv. 16, 17. All or every scripture is then divinely inspired, given by the operation of the Holy Ghost through human vessels as a revelation of the divine mind (see 2 Peter 1:21), and the Apostle in another place claims this inspiration for the words in which he delivered his message: "Which things also we speak," he says, "not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which [in those which] the Holy Ghost teacheth" (1 Cor. 2:13). It is not only therefore that the Scriptures contain, but they also are the truth; and they are thus absolutely infallible and, as such, have attached to them God's authority because they are the expression of His own mind. They are therefore to be received, unquestioningly received, as the voice of the living God to our souls; and thus the only proper attitude to be taken up when they are read is that of Samuel, who said, "Speak, for thy servant heareth."

The divinely illuminated soul is convinced beyond all manner of doubt that the Holy Scriptures display the dealings of God with mankind. He sees also that they are, on their own testimony, Theopneustic; and that, as the writers recorded the (original) words, their statements expressed exactly what God intended to impart, and expressed the same exactly as He willed it, yet retaining the style of the penman. He observes, further, that every part is essential, and occupies just the necessary position in order to sustain the unity of the whole. He next inquires as to the character of the several parts; for, though all is equally inspired, it does not follow on that ground alone that all is warranted as true.

Thus erroneous acts and sayings of men may be used (as indeed they are) for our instruction. However, there is, obviously enough, no difficulty with the words of God, of the Lord Jesus, direct or through angels; none with the prophets, apostles and others "filled with the Holy Ghost "; none with the sayings of men whose errors of speech are demonstrated in the Word itself; none with the historical facts given as true. But by what criteria is the believer to try the truth of (say) the speeches of Job and his friends or (as some would add) the writings of Solomon in the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes? It seems unaccountable to suppose that God has allowed parts of His word to be so vague that we are to be in doubt whether such and such a passage is absolute truth or merely an illustration of man's liability to err.

The first thing for us, however, is to realize, what I trust we do, that the Word of God is absolutely that from beginning to end of it, — every line, I may say, and letter of it. Of course I do not mean by that at all that translations do not fail. I do not mean that that there are not errors of transcription in copies which have been transmitted to us from old time. But I do mean that when we get fairly and fully what was written at first, we have there, absolutely and fully, the word of God; although He has spoken through man, and the diverse character of His instruments be apparent on every page, yet we have none the less on this account God's word in unclouded majesty — pure truth, without any mixture of defect whatever.

Here is not the place to show, not only how baseless is this unbelief, but the divinely admirable truth which the Holy Spirit set out in these inspired accounts of our Lord as everywhere else in the Bible. It would demand volumes and can be found by those who seriously enquire. But such speculations ought never to have been entertained for a moment. Their source is evil, though good men be ensnared by them. "Every scripture is God-inspired." We are entitled as believers to set one's seal to it that He is true; so is His word. We are bound in simple faith to deny errors or discrepancies in scripture as He wrote it. We may not be able to answer every objection, or to clear up every difficulty which ingenious ill-will or even weakness may muster; for this depends on our intelligence, which may be small. But if we believe the apostle's deliverance on the Bible to be "the commandment of the Lord" (as he claims generally and for smaller things in 1 Cor. 14), we are warranted to rest in the peaceful certainty that "every scripture is inspired of God."

The ground therefore that is taken up by the writers should cause us to accept the book in its entirety, and to bow unreservedly to what is written therein, or else in all consistency we should merely look at it as a purely human production, and that a most erroneous one, because it makes such unbounded profession, which cannot be sustained. It is useless to say that the writers were good men though mistaken when they said they were inspired. There is something very wrong about a man who makes such grave statements if they are unfounded. The exceeding cunning of many of the present attacks is seen in the argument that the book is a very good and valuable one, though in no wise inspired. This line of argument is taken up because it is perceived that the wholesale condemnation of the book would prove the argument to be utterly false, and many, who now listen to specious arguments, would revolt from the coarser ones altogether. The work of the enemy is better done by the insinuation of a mistake here, and a doubt cast on the narrative there, than by direct attacks, and thus the way is paved to go further. We, however, who believe, say that, while admitting small errors by the copyists, which errors are found by comparing different manuscripts to be very trifling, admitting also mistakes in translations, yet we are convinced that we have by the grace of God the Scriptures in their integrity, and we rely upon them absolutely as containing the whole truth of God.

The Bible puts man into the light of God. This is why the natural man hates this book - and has tried to find contradictions everywhere. However, 90% of these are due to either ignorance or bad intentions, or both. Then there are real difficulties, such as differences between Gospel reports. Here it is a matter of asking God to help us understand the Divine design of the scriptures. If we do, the difficulties disappear and the beauty of inspiration is seen. In some extremely rare cases an error may have occurred: in 2 Ki. 8:26 an age of 22 years is given, while in 2 Chr. 22:2 the age given is 42 years - possibly the result of a copying error. But our faith does not depend on this detail.

That there are no real contradictions in the Word of God we are well assured, though there are passages that present a contradictory appearance to the superficial reader. On closer inspection however the contradiction disappears and some rich spiritual instruction comes to light. A case in point is furnished by the two scriptures noted above.