chapter six THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE
chapter six
THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE
How are biblical revelation, inspiration, and authority different, and what are the three disclaimers we must add to these words?
I tried in the preceding chapter to summarize the message of the Bible, and in the previous three to outline the geographical and historical settings in which this message was given and received. But is the biblical message really the divine revelation it claims to be? Can we trust the Bible? Has it any continuing authority?
Drop the word “authority” into any conversation today, and it sets off in people a whole range of different vibrations. None of us has escaped the crisis of the last two decades. The widespread, conscious revolt against all established authority—government, university, church, family, tradition, Bible—broke out in 1968 when students and workers took to the barricades in Paris and the “Free Speech” movement erupted on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Since then some genuine gains can be registered, in that contemporary society is more open and participatory than before. But there have been serious losses too, especially in the rejection of values and standards. Anarchists, in an uneasy alliance with existentialists, declare that nothing has meaning any longer, and that therefore no intellectual or moral authority of any kind is left.
The Christian evangelist who seeks to infiltrate the defenses of anarchists will not begin with the authority of the Bible, but rather with the authority of Christ. For Jesus of Nazareth remains an attractive figure to them, in spite of the fact that he somehow managed to combine with his radical challenges to tradition a strangely conservative attitude to God and to Scripture. Moreover, his humble submissiveness had a self-authenticating quality, and still has when embodied in his followers. His authority does not simply impose itself from above; it commends itself from below. It is unexpectedly liberating.
My concern in this chapter is not with rebels and anarchists, however, for they are not likely to be found among the readers of this book. I am concerned rather with those who profess and call themselves Christians, and who accept that the words “authority” and “submission,” although in constant need of redefinition, cannot possibly be dropped from the Christian vocabulary. For have they not confessed that “Jesus Christ is Lord”? And does not their confession of his lordship inevitably involve a submission to his authority? Further, should not their submission to his authority bring with it a submission to the Bible’s authority? Could it be that his exhortation “he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2–3) is an invitation to listen to Scripture through which Christ by his Spirit still speaks to the church? These are the questions I want to raise. They are crucial questions, which must be answered and cannot be dodged.
For one thing, the Bible claims (as we have seen) to be a book of salvation, to “make us wise for salvation.” Therefore we must know whether the way of salvation it unfolds is true or false. The eternal destiny of human beings depends upon it.
For another thing, the contemporary church is confused. The non-Christian world is constantly being treated to the bewildering spectacle of Christians in disagreement and discord. Why is this? The primary cause of confusion in the church is the lack of an agreed authority. The church will never recover either its morale or its mission unless it first rediscovers the source of its authority.
In addition, it is fashionable nowadays to indulge in a little religious syncretism, that is, to deny to every religion whatever exclusive elements it may claim; to assert that all religions are relatively true and so to try to combine them. Other religions also have their holy books; what is so special about the Christian Scriptures, the Bible?