1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 1.10 The Infallibility of Holy Scripture

Table of Contents

• The Text
• The Chapter
• The Confession

The Text

Galatians 1:6–10 (CSB) I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him! As we have said before, I now say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him! For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

The Chapter

The supreme judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit, into which Scripture so delivered, our faith is finally resolved.

The Confession

I think Spurgeon said it best:

The Word of God is the anvil upon which the opinions of men are smashed. None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.

Spurgeon.

In the Reformed doctrine of sola Scriptura, one key teaching remains primary: that the Scripture remains infallible in all matters. Faith and practice to be sure. What about the areas of science, philosophy, and history and the like?

This reminds me of Luther and Calvin's hard counter to the Nicolaus Copernicus' theory of heliocentric (that is our system revolves around the sun). Luther and Calvin's view held to a widely accepted common belief that our system revolved around the earth.¹ Calvin and Luther held staunchly to this and defended it because of the account in Joshua 10:

Joshua 10:13 (CSB) And the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on its enemies. Isn’t this written in the Book of Jashar? So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed its setting almost a full day.

The Bible said. "The sun and the moon stood still. Obviously, that means they rotate around the earth." Which we now know, thanks to the works of Galileo Galilei, among many others, that indeed, our system revolves around the sun.

Wny do I say all of that? I have long told others, "The Bible is not a science book primarily but a theology book." That is not to say, when it does speak on matters outside of theology, like science or history, that it can be ignored because it does not have to be infallible on those subjects.

Yet, the author of the Bible is the Creator of all things. All things include historical events and scientific facts. For all events are by his sovereignty, for:

Job 42:2 (CSB) I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be thwarted.

And all science and knowledge come from him, for:

1 Corinthians 3:21-23 (CSB) So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours — whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come — everything is yours, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

That is all fine and good, but what about the theory of evolution?

We should be mindful, with all the advancements that mankind has been able to accomplished, this is at the sovereign kindness and mercy of God our Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ. In that end, we will always have theories. Yet, the truth, in due time, will come to light and we will have a better grasp on how our universe came into existence.

Christians know, without a shadow of a doubt, theologically that God created the heavens and the earth in six days. Someone has come along and said, "wait that is impossible--it must have taken billions of years." Interested theory. Let us depend on God to figure out how did God create the universe scientifically. It seems lofty to think that we will know that information on this side of heaven. But just in my lifetime, I am stand in amazement and awe over the advancements in science and technology. Because, as Paul said, everything that God provided is ours because we belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.