“ . . . and the Scripture cannot be broken” (και ου δυναται λυθηναι η γραφη)
. . . the one reference which appears to come close to a biblical
statement on inerrancy is John 10:35. We must look at the context of this statement,
though it is of no concern here to demonstrate the exact progression of Jesus’
argument as he responds to the Jews’ accusation of blasphemy. It is enough to
know that he predicated of Scripture an indefectible authority; for while this
verse may well include an element of mockery, Warfield is doubtless correct in
dismissing any attempt to suggest that Christ was merely hanging the Jews with
their own rope and not actually approving the statement about Scripture.
Warfield admits that there is a vein of satire running throughout the passage,
yet the argument from Scripture, he says,
is not ad hominin but e concessu; Scripture was
common ground with Jesus and his opponents. If proof were needed for so obvious
a fact, it would be supplied by circumstances than this is not an isolated but
a representative passage. (Inspiration, 140)
Granting, then, that the Lord considered the Scriptures
inviolable, it nonetheless remains to indicate what sort of inviolability it is
to which he referred. Two observations are important.
The first concerns the meaning of λυθηναι and the
point of Christ’s appeal to the character of Scripture. Λυθηναι as it occurs in this verse is often translated ‘to be broken’, but
this has frequently proved misleading. Arndt and Gingrich classify this
occurrence under a heading based on these meanings: destroy, bring to an
end, abolish, do away with; and with respect to commandments, laws and
statements—repeal, annul, abolish. (BAGD, 484) While many want to see in
John 10:35 an affirmation that “every statement of Scripture stands immutably,
indestructible in its verity, unaffected by denial, human ignorance or
criticism, charges of errancy or other subjective attack” (R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation
of St. John’s Gospel [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1943], 767), that is not quite
the point of saying that Scripture is ου δυνατι λυθηναι. Christ was not concerned here with the
factual verity or accuracy of Scripture, but with the authority of its voice
and the binding nature of its testimony. (It should be noted that in Matt
5:17-20 καταλυσαι is
contrasted with πληρωσαι, ‘to fulfil’;
cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John: I-XII [AB; Garden
City: Doubleday, 1966], 403f., who is following Jungkuntz. Cf. also John 7:23)
The rendering of The New English Bible, “Scripture cannot be set aside,”
comments itself as an accurate and suitable translation which leads the reader
in the proper direction. Such a statement is indeed relevant to the inerrancy
discussion in its broader terms, but can hardly be used to support the position
of exhaustive inerrancy—not, at least, when the second observation is made.
The second observation is this: those who with Warfield employ
this passage in an attempt to justify the opinion that Christ and the New Testament
authors “appeal indifferently . . . to every element in Scripture” are quite
mistaken. (Inspiration, 140). It is true that Ps 82:6, the passage to
which appeal has been made, does not normally bear heavy traffic, and that
Christ focuses on a single word at that. But in doing so he is appealing to a
prophetic judgment involving nothing less than a divine interpretation and
appraisal of a very significant office among his people (that of judge or
magistrate). The single word “gods,” by which he makes his point, is an
extremely noteworthy appellation and is pivotal in its own context, making
sense of the entire Psalm. Klaas Rnnia also takes note of this: “ . . . the
word ‘gods’ is no less than the key word in this Psalm.” (Karl Barth’s
Doctrine of Holy Scripture, 185. Without it, as Runia says, “the Psalm not only
wholly loses its point, but one of the most decisive indications of the very
special place and function of the magistrates has disappeared from Scripture.” It
was their exalted role as representatives of divine justice that formed the
basis for the judgment pronounced against these judges in Psalm 82 ; cf. James
3:1])
Warfield therefore goes astray when he says:
Now, what is the particular thing in Scripture, for the
confirmation of which the indefectible authority of Scripture is thus invoked?
It is one of its most casual clauses. This means, of course, that in the Savior’s
view the indefectible authority of Scripture attaches to the very form of
expression of its most casual clauses. It belongs to Scripture through and
through, down to its most minute particulars, that it is of indefectible
authority. (The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 140)
This sort of argument, with its temporary laying aside of
exegetical acumen, is all too common. Runia is worth quoting at some length on
this point at issue here. Jesus and the apostles, he says, never appeal to the
Old Testament in the abstract,
as to a kind of divine oracle-book, but always to the divine
record of God’s saving acts in the past, to the divinely given proclamation of
the history of salvation, to the Old Testament as the book of the prophecy of
Christ. Unfortunately, this has been too often neglected by orthodoxy. The attitude
of Jesus and the apostles has sometimes been described as a more or less
mechanical, undifferentiated appeal to a book which in all possible respects is
sacred and infallible. When, for example, Warfield in his defense of the
doctrine of verbal inspiration (which we also hold) says that Jesus in John 10
appeals to one of the “most casual clauses” of Psalm 82 . . . this is a serious
misrepresentation of Jesus’ attitude . . . No, Jesus does not use the
Scriptures indiscriminately. (Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Holy Scripture,
185)
The proper attitude toward Scripture, the attitude of Christ, is
visible in another good rendering of John 10:35 in Raymond E. Brown’s
commentary: “the Scripture cannot lose its force.” (The Gospel According to
John: I-XII, 402. I.e., λυθηναι would be understood
in the sense of ‘to be dissolved’ or ‘slackened’ or ‘dismissed’ [see LSJ]) This translation (along with that of the NEB)
properly represents the kind of inviolability in view, and to this
inviolability at the Church must remain committed without squabbling about
lesser things. It is, after all, precisely this perspective that allows us to
say with Francis Shaeffer that obedience to Scripture is the real
watershed issue for the Church today. (This assertion, of course, only underlines
the need for the Church and its teachers to face the hermeneutical and theological
challenges of the day boldly, for if the Scripture is to be obeyed and thus
fulfilled, if its force is to be properly felt, then it must be understood and
the hearer must be brought to stand in the way of its impact. But this labor itself
must be carried out with a humble and discerning spirit, in honest submission
to the counsel of the Lord [cf. Jer 8:8f., 23:16ff.) (Douglas Farrow, The
Word of Truth and Disputes About Words [Winona Lake, Ind.: Carpenter Books,
1987], 104-7)