Is it Inspired, Inerrant, Authoritative, the Word of God, or is it just Part of Tradition?
The answer to these questions is: yes.
Scripture is the divinely Inspired, authoritative, word of God (revelation of God) which is free from mistake and falsehood, and it is a reliable rule and guide for all matters pertaining to the Christian faith. 1The Chicago Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics,” Defending Inerrancy (blog), accessed October 17, 2021, https://defendinginerrancy.com/chicago-statements/. This makes Scripture a part of the Christian tradition that is passed down.
Furthermore, I would affirm the language of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith which states, “The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.” 2Stan Reeves, The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith in Modern English (Cape Coral, Florida: Founders Press, 2021), 11.
While this doesn’t dismiss tradition (as, in fact, it is a tradition) it places tradition in submission to Scripture. Thus, the Confession can later state that Scripture rightly interprets Scripture. 3Stan Reeves, 14. (because Scripture itself is the rule or canon of the faith).
Scripture is divinely inspired in that it is God-Breathed through the Holy Spirit as attested to in 2 Timothy 3:16, where “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (NIV)” Scripture is authoritative because Jesus referred to and quoted from Scripture as the basis for his teaching (among many, consider: Matt 5: 17, 7:12, 19:18, 19:19, 22:40; Mark 7:9-13, Luke 24:45-49). Finally, the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of both the Old and New Testaments (2 Peter 1:21, 2 Tim 3:16, John 14:26), so it is completed in its canon and no other writings have in the past or ever should claim inspiration in the same way.
For Martin Luther [and later, Karl Barth], “Jesus Christ and the eternal Word through whom God continues to sustain all of creation are identical.” 4Niall Keane and Chris Lawn, eds, The Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics, Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016, Accessed October 8, 2021, ProQuest Ebook Central, 443.. Therefore, it is Jesus who is accurately called the Word of God. Accordingly, Scripture is authoritative simply because its referent is Jesus Christ, the Word of God come flesh who justifies the sinner through his life, death, and resurrection. While I agree with Luther and Barth that central to the Bible is Christ, who is the divine Word of God, I think they fall short in recognizing that Scripture is also the revelation of God albeit in submission to Jesus (by way of speaking about and pointing to him). This mean, Scripture can rightly be called the word of God as well in an analogous way (although this may be somewhat overused in contemporary evangelical circles).
Through another analogy: as we assert that as Christ has two natures (both fully God and fully man); and, while not exactly the same but similar, the Bible is also fully the product of God and man which is what the doctrine of Inspiration claims. However, if all Scripture is God-Breathed and superintended by the Holy Spirit, then its teaching, proclamation, and descriptions in the original autographs (originals) are without error and therefore it is the inerrant revelation of God. This is the logical conclusion of the doctrine of Inspiration. The classic doctrine of Inspiration states the Scripture comes directly from God through a human agent; if that’s the case, then it must be inerrant, because God does not err.
