Is the Bible 100% 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.

After all, if God has given us the Holy Scriptures surely they are faultless from beginning to end. This is the attitude of faith. And thank God the copies of the original and the translations therefrom are so good and reliable that we may rest content that we have God’s own veritable word in our hands. Hoping this may help you.

No doubt, every true believer enters upon the study of scripture with the full and deeply wrought conviction of its absolute perfectness in every part. He reverently believes that there is not, from the opening of Genesis to the close of Revelation, a single flaw, a single hitch, a single discrepancy — not one; all is as perfect as its divine Author.

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."

But we must not go too fast. The word of God is not a mere narrative of ordinarily truthful men. If inspiration means anything, it means more than this. It means that in God's use of the instruments whom He has chosen to record for us His narrative, no question of inaccuracy or human infirmity such as would be perfectly proper as to human productions, could be allowed as to Him who is holy and true, whose omniscience precludes the thought of imperfection and the essence of whose character is light. We know our Lord; we know the revelation which the Spirit of God has given, how it is "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," how it speaks not as men, but with authority, and how we have been compelled to bow to that divine authority in our inmost soul. This precludes the thought of inaccuracy in the Gospel narratives.

The question that lies at the foundation of all theological controversies, and which must be settled before Truth gets its rightful place on the throne of the human mind, is this: Have we a complete, unerring, revelation from God? If we confess that we have, and are assured that the Bible is that revelation, let us be true to our confession, and let us not negative the whole power of it by a process of reasoning that manifests a will at variance with the declarations of a God that cannot lie.

The Bible states clearly that it is the word of God: it assumes verbal plenary inspiration and therefore infallibility. Let us thank God that He has been pleased to reveal Himself to man in such a reliable way. The Bible is the safest point in the universe: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Lk. 21:33).

These scriptures are quite sufficient to show that the New Testament writers while asserting the inspiration of the Old assume it in equal measure for themselves; and that therefore while the Holy Scriptures, which Timothy knew from his childhood's days — according to 2 Timothy 3:15 — were the Old Testament writings, the "all scripture" of the next verse covers all those writings which we know as the Bible. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God," or "is God-breathed." A remarkable expression that! Just as in creation the finely wrought vessel of clay — for "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground" — became a living entity only after God's in-breathing — for He "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul" — so what would otherwise have been but a collection of literary fragments has by the fact of God in-breathing every part become one organic whole; living and powerful indeed, since it is the inspired Word of God.

In ordinary thoughts and discussion on inspiration it is not always remembered that the apostle claims it authoritatively for "every scripture." This goes far beyond what men uttered from God, moved or borne along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). For we are taught, not only what the Holy Spirit gave by His living instruments, but that what is written by Him abides now of at least equal divine authority. It is painful to see the readiness of any Christian to allow the compatibility of this divine power with historical or any other inaccuracies, natural enough to man's spirit. But the apostle Paul in the text before us leaves no room for evasion or uncertainty. "Every scripture" is either assumed, as some argue, or asserted as others believe, to be God-inspired. Does He fail to exclude verbal errors? Is He capable of historical or any other inaccuracies?

Next, it is known that versions and critics of reputation differ somewhat where the unexpressed but necessarily implied copula should be inserted. It is not always seen that this is a comparatively slight difference. The substantial sense abides. The Revised Version, with several, prefers to render thus: "Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable … " The Authorized Version with others have it thus: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable … " I have no doubt it is more correctly translated above: "Every scripture [is] God-inspired and profitable … " What is common here to the Authorized Version and mine is that the apostle asserts inspiration by God and profitableness about scripture; whereas, according to the Revisers, divine inspiration is assumed, and its profit seems rather awkwardly asserted, "is also … " After all, the difference is practically small. In the Revised Version that is assumed for divine inspiration which in the other is directly affirmed in the first place, with defined and varied profit following after.

Scripture then, that is, everything which comes under the designation of scripture, is inspired of God; not merely holy men of God spoke, borne by — under the power of — the Holy Spirit; but every thing written in the Spirit with a view to permanent guidance of the faithful is inspired of God. Thus simply believed must necessarily exclude error from holy writ; for who would say that God inspires mistakes, great or small? Those who so think cannot really believe that every scripture is inspired of God. Time was when God's word was of course inspired but not yet written; now it is in infinite mercy written by His gracious power Who knew the end from the beginning, and would provide an adequate and perfect and permanent standard for every need spiritually on earth. Hence it is written, and, to be divinely authoritative, is inspired of God: not the sacred letters of the Old Testament only, but the writings of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament the foundation on which the church is built (Eph. 2:20).