Appendix 2: The Authority of the Scriptures
The Authority of the Scriptures
Notes by Dr Leon Morris, Scripture Union Training Day, 1971
1. Authority
(a) We all have some final authority that decides our doubts.
(b) For thinking Christians there are three possibilities – the Bible, the church and reason.
(c) None of these operates by itself. But for everyone, one of them has the final word.
2. Revelation and the Bible
(a) All Christians agree that God has revealed himself and that this revelation is in some way embodied in the Bible.
(b) Evangelicals take this as final.
(c) This is not a clamouring for some infallible authority. It is a humble acceptance of what God has done.
3. The Teaching of Jesus
(a) For him, ‘it is written’ ends discussion, e.g. ‘He will come and destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others. When they heard this, they said, “God forbid!” But he looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written: ‘The very stone which the builders rejected …’?”’ (Luke 20:16f.) The temptation narratives are particularly important, for they are not an appeal to the men of the day.
(b) Prophecy must be fulfilled: ‘Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled’ (Luke 24:44).
(c) The source of error is ignorance of the Bible: ‘Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?’ (Mark 12:24).
(d) Scripture must have fulfillment. ‘For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished’ (Matt. 5:18). The ‘iota’ and the ‘dot’ refer to what is written.
(e) Scripture cannot be ‘broken’: ‘If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken)’ (John 10:35). Note that this point would have been invalid if any other word for judge had been used in Psalm 82.
(f) What Scripture says God says. ‘Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife”’ (Matt. 19:4f.). But in the Old Testament passage God is not the speaker: ‘She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife’ (Gen. 2:23f.)
(g) An objection is that Jesus adopts a critical attitude to the Bible, for example when he says, ‘You have heard that it was said to the men of old … But I say to you …’ (Matt. 5:21f., etc.). But Jesus is not speaking of the attitude any man should take up. He is saying that he, being what he is, the Son of God, has authority to make pronouncements equally authoritative with Scripture (note the emphatic ‘I’).
(h) Nowhere in the teaching of Jesus is there a parallel to the attitude of the modern critic who sees himself free to accept the Bible or not.
4. The Teaching of the Apostles
(a) There is an habitual appeal to Scripture as decisive, e.g. Rom. 3:4; Heb. 7:17, etc.
(b) Repeatedly Scripture is applied to its readers, e.g. ‘But the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also’ (Rom. 4:23f.); ‘For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake?’ (1 Cor. 9:9f.).
(c) Scripture is ‘God-breathed’: ‘All scripture is inspired by God’ (2 Tim. 3:16).
(d) It originates with God: ‘No prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God’ (2 Pet. 1:20f.).
(e) Passages not directly ascribed to God in the Old Testament are introduced in the New by ‘God says’ or the like, as Heb. 1:5ff. (where seven passages are ascribed to God, only one of which is directly spoken by him), Acts 1:16, etc.
5. What of the New Testament?
(a) Jesus’ teaching is ‘of God’ (see John 17:7); his word is that of the Father (John 14:24).
(b) Some words are said to come directly from God, as the voice at Jesus’ baptism (Mark 1:11) and the transfiguration (Luke 9:35). God spoke to Paul (Acts 27:24; 2 Cor. 12:9).
(c) The Christian message is divine in origin, it is the ‘gospel of God’ (1 Thess. 2:2,8,9), ‘the word of God’ (Acts 13:46).
(d) Many passages attest the fundamental importance of heeding Christ’s message, e.g. ‘So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven’ (Matt. 10:32f.). But for us the words are accessible only through the written record.
6. The Importance of the Biblical Witness
(a) The difficulties in the way of accepting the Bible witness are not nearly as great as that which sees the whole church as wrong for centuries, led by Christ and the apostles.
(b) The Christian position must always be that which is derived from Christ and his apostles, not that which originates in modern times.
(c) This is not reasoning in a circle, for ultimate authority must always authenticate itself.
7. Authority is More Important than Inspiration, Inerrancy &c.
[End of notes]
[Bible quotations in this appendix are from the RSV.]