The authority of
Scripture is a key issue for the Christian church in
this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the
reality of their discipleship by humbly and
faithfully obeying God’s written Word. To stray from
Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our
Master. Recognition of the total truth and
trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a
full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.
The following Statement
affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making
clear our understanding of it and warning against
its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to
set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the
Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the
claims of God’s own Word which marks true Christian
faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this
affirmation in the face of current lapses from the
truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and
misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at
large.
This Statement consists
of three parts: a Summary Statement, Articles of
Affirmation and Denial, and an accompanying
Exposition. It has been prepared in the course of a
three-day consultation in Chicago. Those who have
signed the Summary Statement and the Articles wish
to affirm their own conviction as to the inerrancy
of Scripture and to encourage and challenge one
another and all Christians to growing appreciation
and understanding of this doctrine. We acknowledge
the limitations of a document prepared in a brief,
intensive conference and do not propose that this
Statement be given creedal weight. Yet we rejoice in
the deepening of our own convictions through our
discussions together, and we pray that the Statement
we have signed may be used to the glory of our God
toward a new reformation of the church in its faith,
life and mission.
We offer this Statement
in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility and
love, which we purpose by God’s grace to maintain in
any future dialogue arising out of what we have
said. We gladly acknowledge that many who deny the
inerrancy of Scripture do not display the
consequences of this denial in the rest of their
belief and behavior, and we are conscious that we
who confess this doctrine often deny it in life by
failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our
traditions and habits, into true subjection to the
divine Word.
We invite response to
this statement from any who see reason to amend its
affirmations about Scripture by the light of
Scripture itself, under whose infallible authority
we stand as we speak. We claim no personal
infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any
help which enables us to strengthen this testimony
to God’s Word we shall be grateful.
SHORT STATEMENT
1. God, who is himself
truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy
Scripture in order thereby to reveal himself to lost
mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord,
Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God’s witness
to himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being
God’s own Word, written by men prepared and
superintended by his Spirit, is of infallible divine
authority in all matters upon which it touches: it
is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that
it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it
requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it
promises.
3. The Holy Spirit,
Scripture’s divine author, both authenticates it to
us by his inward witness and opens our minds to
understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and
verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or
fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states
about God’s acts in creation, about the events of
world history, and about its own literary origins
under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace
in individual lives.
5. The authority of
Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total
divine inerrancy is in any way limited or
disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth
contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring
serious loss to both the individual and the church.
ARTICLES OF
AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL
Article I. We affirm that
the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the
authoritative Word of God.
We deny that the
Scriptures receive their authority from the church,
tradition, or any other human source.
Article II. We affirm
that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by
which God binds the conscience, and that the
authority of the church is subordinate to that of
Scripture.
We deny that church
creeds, councils, or declarations have authority
greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.
Article III. We affirm
that the written Word in its entirety is revelation
given by God.
We deny that the Bible is
merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes
revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses
of men for its validity.
Article IV. We affirm
that God who made mankind in his image has used
language as a means of revelation.
We deny that human
language is so limited by our creatureliness that it
is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine
revelation. We further deny that the corruption of
human culture and language through sin has thwarted
God’s work of inspiration.
Article V. We affirm that
God’s revelation within the Holy Scriptures was
progressive.
We deny that later
revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation,
ever corrects or contradicts it. We further deny
that any normative revelation has been given since
the completion of the New Testament writings.
Article VI. We affirm
that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down
to the very words of the original, were given by
divine inspiration.
We deny that the
inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of
the whole without the parts, or of some parts but
not the whole.
Article VII. We affirm
that inspiration was the work in which God by his
Spirit, through human writers, gave us his Word. The
origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine
inspiration remains largely a mystery to us.
We deny that inspiration
can be reduced to human insight, or to heightened
states of consciousness of any kind.
Article VIII. We affirm
that God in his work of inspiration utilized the
distinctive personalities and literary styles of the
writers whom he had chosen and prepared.
We deny that God, in
causing these writers to use the very words that he
chose, overrode their personalities.
Article IX. We affirm
that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience,
guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all
matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to
speak and write.
We deny that the finitude
or fallenness of these writers, by necessity or
otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into
God’s Word.
Article X. We affirm that
inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the
autographic text of Scripture, which in the
providence of God can be ascertained from available
manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm
that copies and translations of Scripture are the
Word of God to the extent that they faithfully
represent the original.
We deny that any
essential element of the Christian faith is affected
by the absence of the autographs. We further deny
that this absence renders the assertion of biblical
inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
Article XI. We affirm
that Scripture, having been given by divine
inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from
misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the
matters it addresses.
We deny that it is
possible for the Bible to be at the same time
infallible and errant in its assertions.
Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished,
but not separated.
Article XII. We affirm
that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being
free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.
We deny that Biblical
infallibility and inerrancy are limited to
spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes,
exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and
science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses
about earth history may properly be used to overturn
the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.
Article XIII. We affirm
the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological
term with reference to the complete truthfulness of
Scripture.
We deny that it is proper
to evaluate Scripture according to standards of
truth and error that are alien to its usage or
purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated
by biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern
technical precision, irregularities of grammar or
spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the
reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and
round numbers, the topical arrangement of material,
variant selections of material in parallel accounts,
or the use of free citations.
Article XIV. We affirm
the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.
We deny that alleged
errors and discrepancies that have not yet been
resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible.
Article XV. We affirm
that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the
teaching of the Bible about inspiration.
We deny that Jesus’
teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals
to accommodation or to any natural limitation of his
humanity.
Article XVI. We affirm
that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to
the Church’s faith throughout its history.
We deny that inerrancy is
a doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism, or
is a reactionary position postulated in response to
negative higher criticism.
Article XVII. We affirm
that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures
assuring believers of the truthfulness of God’s
written Word.
We deny that this witness
of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or
against Scripture.
Article XVIII. We affirm
that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by
grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of
its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture
is to interpret Scripture.
We deny the legitimacy of
any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying
behind it that leads to relativizing,
dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or
rejecting its claims to authorship.
Article XIX. We affirm
that a confession of the full authority,
infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital
to a sound understanding of the whole of the
Christian faith. We further affirm that such
confession should lead to increasing conformity to
the image of Christ.
We deny that such
confession is necessary for salvation. However, we
further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without
grave consequences, both to the individual and to
the church.
THE CHICAGO STATEMENTS
ON BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS
ARTICLES OF
AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL
Article I. We affirm that
the normative authority of Holy Scripture is the
authority of God himself, and is attested by Jesus
Christ, the Lord of the Church.
We deny the legitimacy of
separating the authority of Christ from the
authority of Scripture, or of opposing the one to
the other.
Article II. We affirm
that as Christ is God and man in one person, so
Scripture is, indivisibly, God’s Word in human
language.
We deny that the humble,
human form of Scripture entails errancy any more
than the humanity of Christ, even in his
humiliation, entails sin.
Article III. We affirm
that the person and work of Jesus Christ are the
central focus of the entire Bible.
We deny that any method
of interpretation which rejects or obscures the
Christ-centeredness of Scripture is correct.
Article IV. We affirm
that the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture acts
through it today to work faith in its message.
We deny that the Holy
Spirit ever teaches to any one anything which is
contrary to the teaching of Scripture.
Article V. We affirm that
the Holy Spirit enables believers to appropriate and
apply Scripture to their lives. We deny that the
natural man is able to discern spiritually the
biblical message apart from the Holy Spirit.
Article VI. We affirm
that the Bible expresses God’s truth in
propositional statements, and we declare that
biblical truth is both objective and absolute. We
further affirm that a statement is true if it
represents matters as they actually are, but is an
error if it misrepresents the facts.
We deny that, while
Scripture is able to make us wise unto salvation,
biblical truth should be defined in terms of this
function. We further deny that error should be
defined as that which willfully deceives.
Article VII. We affirm
that the meaning expressed in each biblical text is
single, definite, and fixed.
We deny that the
recognition of this single meaning eliminates the
variety of its application.
Article VIII. We affirm
that the Bible contains teachings and mandates which
apply to all cultural and situational contexts and
other mandates which the Bible itself shows apply
only to particular situations.
We deny that the
distinction between the universal and particular
mandates of Scripture can be determined by cultural
and situational factors. We further deny that
universal mandates may ever be treated as culturally
or situationally relative.
Article IX. We affirm
that the term hermeneutics, which historically
signified the rules of exegesis, may properly be
extended to cover all that is involved in the
process of perceiving what the biblical revelation
means and how it bears on our lives.
We deny that the message
of Scripture derives from, or is dictated by, the
interpreter’s understanding. Thus we deny that the
horizons of the biblical writer and the interpreter
may rightly fuse in such a way that what the text
communicates to the interpreter is not ultimately
controlled by the expressed meaning of the
Scripture.
Article X. We affirm that
Scripture communicates God’s truth to us verbally
through a wide variety of literary forms.
We deny that any of the
limits of human language render Scripture inadequate
to convey God’s message.
Article XI. We affirm
that translations of the text of Scripture can
communicate knowledge of God across all temporal and
cultural boundaries.
We deny that the meaning
of biblical texts is so tied to the culture out of
which they came that understanding of the same
meaning in other cultures is impossible.
Article XII. We affirm
that in the task of translating the Bible and
teaching it in the context of each culture, only
those functional equivalents which are faithful to
the content of biblical teaching should be employed.
We deny the legitimacy of
methods which either are insensitive to the demands
of cross-cultural communication or distort biblical
meaning in the process.
Article XIII. We affirm
that awareness of the literary categories, formal
and stylistic, of the various parts of Scripture is
essential for proper exegesis, and hence we value
genre criticism as one of the many disciplines of
biblical study.
We deny that generic
categories which negate historicity may rightly be
imposed on biblical narratives which present
themselves as factual.
Article XIV. We affirm
that the biblical record of events, discourses and
sayings, though presented in a variety of
appropriate literary forms, corresponds to
historical fact.
We deny that any event,
discourse, or saying reported in Scripture was
invented by the biblical writers or by the
traditions they incorporated.
Article XV. We affirm the
necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its
literal, or normal, sense. The literal sense is the
grammatical-historical sense, that is, the meaning
which the writer expressed. Interpretation according
to the literal sense will take account of all
figures of speech and literary forms found in the
text.
We deny the legitimacy of
any approach to Scripture that attributes to it
meaning which the literal sense does not support.
Article XVI. We affirm
that legitimate critical techniques should be used
in determining the canonical text and its meaning.
We deny the legitimacy of
allowing any method of biblical criticism to
question the truth or integrity of the writer’s
expressed meaning, or of any other scriptural
teaching.
Article XVII. We affirm
the unity, harmony, and consistency of Scripture and
declare that it is its own best interpreter.
We deny that Scripture
may be interpreted in such a way as to suggest that
one passage corrects or militates against another.
We deny that later writers of Scripture
misinterpreted earlier passages of Scripture when
quoting from or referring to them.
Article XVIII. We affirm
that the Bible’s own interpretation of itself is
always correct, never deviating from, but rather
elucidating, the single meaning of the inspired
text. The single meaning of a prophet’s words
includes, but is not restricted to, the
understanding of those words by the prophet and
necessarily involves the intention of God evidenced
in the fulfillment of those words.
We deny that the writers
of Scripture always understood the full implications
of their own words.
Article XIX. We affirm
that any preunderstandings which the interpreter
brings to Scripture should be in harmony with
scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it.
We deny that Scripture
should be required to fit alien preunderstandings
inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism,
evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and
relativism.
Article XX. We affirm
that since God is the author of all truth, all
truths, biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent
and cohere, and that the Bible speaks truth when it
touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or
anything else. We further affirm that in some cases
extrabiblical data have value for clarifying what
Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of
faulty interpretations.
We deny that
extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of
Scripture or hold priority over it.
Article XXI. We affirm
the harmony of special with general revelation and
therefore of biblical teaching with the facts of
nature.
We deny that any genuine
scientific facts are inconsistent with the true
meaning of any passage of Scripture.
Article XXII. We affirm
that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the
book.
We deny that the
teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical and that
scientific hypotheses about earth history or the
origin of humanity may be invoked to overthrow what
Scripture teaches about creation.
Article XXIII. We affirm
the clarity of Scripture and specifically of its
message about salvation from sin.
We deny that all passages
of Scripture are equally clear or have equal bearing
on the message of redemption.
Article XXIV. We affirm
that a person is not dependent for understanding of
Scripture on the expertise of biblical scholars.
We deny that a person
should ignore the fruits of the technical study of
Scripture by biblical scholars.
Article XXV. We affirm
that the only type of preaching which sufficiently
conveys the divine revelation and its proper
application to life is that which faithfully
expounds the text of Scripture as the Word of God.
We deny that the preacher has any message from God
apart from the text of Scripture.
Other statements of faith worth your studying in
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