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What
Christadelphians believe about ...
an Inspired Bible
A belief
in a wholly-inspired Bible is the very foundation
principle of the Christadelphian faith. The verbal
inspiration of Scripture is a doctrine of fundamental
importance; for if the writing of the Bible was not
Divinely (and therefore infallibly) guided, then the
source of what we know of God and His dealings with men
would be unreliable. If we could not, with absolute
confidence as to its Divine origin and production, turn
to the Bible as the authoritative Word of God in all its
parts, then we would be quite unable to make any certain
progress towards true enlightenment in spiritual things
and in matters related to salvation.
This is
why the Christadelphians’ Statement of Faith begins
with the Foundation Clause:
"That
the book currently known as the Bible, consisting of
the Scriptures of Moses, the prophets, and the
apostles, is the only source of knowledge concerning
God and His purposes at present extant or available
in the earth, and that the same were wholly given by
inspiration of God in the writers, and are
consequently without error in all parts of them,
except such as may be due to errors of transcription
or translation (2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Corinthians
2:13; Hebrews 1:1; 2 Peter 1:21; 1 Corinthians 14:37;
Nehemiah 9:30; John 10:35)."
The key
aspects of Biblical inspiration are as follows:
1 The
Bible was produced by the 'out-breathing' of God through
His Spirit:
| 2 Timothy
3:16 |
"All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God" (where the
italicised words are a single Greek word, theopneustos,
meaning, literally, 'God-breathed [out]').
(There are no really sound linguistic grounds for
weakening the sense of Paul's words, as the NEB
and the RV do, by translating it as "Every
Scripture inspired of God is also …"
The RV margin, the NIV, the Jerusalem Bible and
many other modern translations give the proper
sense required by the Greek sentence
construction.) |
2 The
Spirit of God 'carried men along' to write His Word:
| 2 Peter
1:20-21 |
"…no prophecy of the
scripture is of any private interpretation. For
the prophecy came not in old time by the will of
man: but holy men of God spake as they were
moved [Gk. phero 'to be carried
(along)'] by the Holy Spirit". |
3 The
inspired writers of the Bible wrote with the Divine
authority of God Himself, and their words are binding on
God's people:
1 Corinthians
2:12-13
|
"Now we have received ... the
spirit which is of God; that we might know the
things that are freely given to us of God. Which
things also we speak, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit
teacheth." |
1 Corinthians
14:37
|
"…the things that I [the
Apostle Paul] write unto you are the commandments
of the Lord." |
John
10:35
|
According to Jesus, "the
scripture cannot be broken." |
4 The
inspiration of the Bible involved the Divine control or
superintendence of the very words used:
| Numbers
22:38; 23:3,5 |
"And Balaam said … the
word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I
speak … and whatsoever He sheweth me I will
tell… And the Lord put a word in Balaam's
mouth." |
| 2 Samuel
23:1-3 |
"Now these be the last words
of David. David the son of Jesse said … The
Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and His word was
in my tongue. The God of Israel said …" |
| Jeremiah
1:7,9 |
"But the LORD said unto me
[Jeremiah] … whatsoever I command thee thou
shalt speak… Behold, I have put My words in
thy mouth." |
| John
14:10,24 |
"…the words that I
[Jesus] speak unto you I speak not of myself the
word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's
which sent me." |
5
Because the words themselves were Divinely inspired (as
well as the writers), the possibility of the original
Scriptures containing errors is excluded:
| Psalm
12:6 |
"The words of the LORD are
pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of
earth, purified seven times." |
"We
do not insist on any particular theory as to the
modus operandi of inspiration. What we contend for is
that by whatever process the result is, the
Scriptures are the product of inspiration, and that
inspiration does not err" (Robert Roberts, The
Christadelphian, Feb. 1887).
6 The
power of God's Spirit to enlighten, to convert, and to
save is in the Scriptures themselves, and the benefit of
their Divine origin is conveyed to us In their words,
which do not require the additional operation of the Holy
Spirit to make them intelligible:
| 2 Timothy
3:15 |
"…the holy scriptures
... are able [Gk. dunamai, 'have
power'] to make thee wise unto salvation." |
| John 6:63 |
"… the words that I
[Jesus] speak unto you, they are spirit, and they
are life." |
| Acts
20:32 |
"I [Paul] commend you to God,
and to the word of His grace, which is able to
build you up, and to give you an inheritance
among all them which are sanctified." |
| Romans
10:17 |
"So then faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the word of God." |
| Isaiah
55:11 |
"My word... that goeth forth
out of My [God's] mouth... shall not return unto
Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I
please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto
I sent it." |
"The
Bible is our light and life as much today as when
fresh from the hands of its Author … As we value
our life, let us stand with indomitable resolution
against all doctrines that would … detract from
the authority or importance of the Scriptures." (Robert
Roberts)
This
article was originally produced by The
Testimony Magazine
and is reproduced here with kind
permission.
A link to The Testimony Magazine's own
website can be found on our Links page.
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