The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy: Article XV

In formal logic, the logical biconditional is the relation that exists between two statements when they imply – or necessitate – each other. It is usually expressed with the phrase “if and only if.” For example, the statement “I am breathing if and only if I am alive” necessarily entails the statement “I am alive if and only if I am breathing.” We come to something of a logical biconditional in Article XV of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. The affirmation in Article XV reads as follows:

We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration.

In other words, we might say, “The Bible is totally inerrant if and only if the Bible is true regarding its teaching about its own inspiration,” or “The Bible is true regarding its teaching about its own inspiration if and only if the Bible is totally inerrant.” If the Bible is untrue at any point, it cannot be the Word of God, for God is Truth. By the same token, if the Bible is the Word of God, it cannot be untrue at any point.

This is no mere tautology, or a restatement of the same thing twice in different words. Though the doctrine of inspiration necessarily entails the doctrine of inerrancy, the doctrine of inerrancy (as opposed to the mere fact of inerrancy) necessarily demands the doctrine inspiration. As observed earlier on in this series, the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy rise or fall together. Along with the doctrines of Scripture’s divine infallibility, authority, and sufficiency, they come together as a “package deal.” You cannot have one without the other in God’s economy.

The denial included in Article XV applies this principle in an interesting way:

We deny that Jesus’ teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity.

In the wilderness, Christ Jesus laid out His rock-solid doctrine of Scripture as He wielded the Word of truth against the temptations of the evil one. He said, “It is written, MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD” (Matt. 4:4). There are those who in the history of the Church have claimed to admire the goodness and compassion of Jesus of Nazareth while also evading the full force of His doctrine of God’s Word. To such people, He would surely say, “It is written, YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.” Because it is written, Jesus boldly asserts in the face of evil, God’s Word is unassailably true and authoritative.

The issue which The Chicago Statement confronts is a duplex attempt at theological evasion of the full implications of Christ’s teaching (in the case of His wilderness temptation, by example) about Scripture. On the one hand, some naysayers appeal to the transcendence of God in Christ and seek to use the doctrine of divine accommodation to nullify the plain reading of Christ’s teaching on Scripture. When Christ taught on the nature of the Word of God, He used human language to accommodate incomprehensible truths to His followers and those who recorded the Gospel accounts of His earthly life and ministry. Such is true, but only to an extent. Any appeals to accommodation to suggest that the plain understanding of Christ’s teaching about the Word is somehow defective or wrong are themselves defective and wrong. In them we hear echoes of the serpent’s whisper to Eve in Genesis 3:1, “Did God really say?”

On the other hand, some skeptics appeal to the full humanity of Christ to suggest that His teaching on the nature of God’s Word was somehow incomplete, underdeveloped, unsophisticated, immature, and misinformed. Jesus of Nazareth, as the argument goes, being but a man using human language, was constrained by the inadequacies of the speech conventions, vocabulary, and knowledge of His day and age. Over time, language developed, and knowledge improved, so now we can more effectively express what Christ merely began to teach His disciples. Such a position exalts the often cloudy and arrogant judgments of modern teachers over the eternal verities of Christ Jesus the Son of God.

To these foolish flights of fancy, we reply with Colossians 2:9f, “For in Him (that is, Christ) all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” In these verses, we have one of the clearest statements of the sufficiency and authority of Christ, who is Himself both fully God and fully Man, and in whom we have been made complete. These attributes of sufficiency and authority extend from Christ to His Word and teaching at every point. His Word is inspired, and His Word is true.

Zachary Groff (MDiv, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary) is Pastor of Antioch Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Woodruff, SC, and he serves as Managing Editor of The Confessional Journal and as Editor-in-Chief of the Presbyterian Polity website.