Is the Bible “God-breathed”?
by T. C. Pinckney Vol. XI, No. 4, April 1998
We conservative Southern Baptists are at a dangerous stage in the doctrinal renewal process which has been underway since 1979. Through the Lord’s help and faithful perseverance we have accomplished what many thought in the early 1970s to be impossible, the recovery and recommitment of the SBC to the full authority of God’s inerrant Word. Now we see every trustee board with a conservative majority, and since the trustees make policy and normally hire the most senior staff, that is an extremely significant accomplishment.
Sounds great! So what is the problem or problems? I see two. First, now that our focus need not be exclusively on the liberals, we may go to fighting among ourselves. Second, we may drop back into the doctrinal doze so prevalent between the 1920s and 1970s. We may just forget how bad it was and allow heresy to “creep in unawares,” as Jude phrased it. We must remain eternally vigilant. God’s enemy and consequently ours, Satan, is devilishly persistent. He will not quit until the Lord returns and chains him in the pit. To expect no more doctrinal problems would be naive stupidity.
One way to retain our sensitivity to the danger is to keep in view just how bad it was in the past. And that brings us to “Anti-Heritage.” This month’s selection is from pp 56-7 of Dr. E. Glenn Hinson’s book, Jesus Christ published in 1977. At the time of publishing and through spring 1991 Dr. Hinson taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY. He is now on faculty at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, the liberal seminary established by those unhappy with the direction of the SBC. BTSR receives significant financial support from the Baptist General Association of Virginia and from the “Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.”
I have quoted rather extensively to try to give readers the context of Hinson’s statements. As you read these paragraphs, ask yourself what they reveal about Hinson’s view of biblical authority. In the four paragraphs prior to our quote Hinson discusses the approaches of the four gospels and Acts. I have added bold print to emphasize several sentences.
“Each of these writings, then, had a theological slant which will not allow them to be read as a dispassionate and objective report on Jesus' life. In addition, each sought in different ways to present Jesus and the movement which began with him in the best light. All, for example, sought to shift the blame for Jesus' death from the Romans to the Jews. The reason for this is obvious. The Romans put Jesus to death as the possible leader of a revolution. They had no other interest in him. Christians had to explain how such a charge could have been made and to insist that Jesus' kingdom was not of this world. The answer was that the Jews distorted the case. Unfortunately, the Jewish people have suffered the effects of anti-Semitism ever since.
“Do theological and historical biases such as these discredit the Gospels as sources for the life and ministry of Jesus altogether and thus render the ‘quest’ impossible? This writer would say no. All sources, however objective they claim to be, have biases. They reflect the slanted viewpoints of their authors. At the same time most possess, in varying degrees, some element of fact. The fact that none of these is absolutely factual, however, does not take away all of their value. What it takes away is the dogmatic certainty with which historians in the past sometimes operated. With dogmatic certainty out of the question the historian speaks in terms of relative certainty. He approaches all sources critically and seeks to evaluate their accuracy from as many sides as possible. In the case of the Gospels one can safely conclude that a kernel of historical fact underlies the early Church's handling of the material. There is thus no justification for the skeptical attitude which would declare the whole story nothing but a figment of later Christian imagination. Behind the early Christian preaching, kerygma, lies an historical event, the man Jesus of Nazareth and his message.”
What would you say Dr. Hinson has omitted or ignored? The inspiration of the Scripture by the Holy Spirit. What he writes is accurate insofar as it applies to human writings. All authors (other than those to whom God chose to convey His theopneustos Word) do have biases, slanted viewpoints. Remember that Jesus said, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18) And the “jot” and “tittle” were, respectively, the tiniest Hebrew letter and the smallest projection on the corner of certain Hebrew letters. Jesus is claiming not only perfection of thought, substance, or doctrine for the Scripture, but that even the smallest details of the very letters were exactly what God desired.
Are we to call Jesus a liar by saying that none of the gospels is “absolutely factual,” that they have “biases,” that we must deal with them as matters of “relative certainty,” or that they contain mere “kernel(s) of historical fact”?
Now please note that this is not to say that Dr. Hinson is not a nice individual. He is. But the issue in the SBC is not who is the nicest. The question is the authority of Scripture. And here Dr. Hinson has long departed from orthodox Christianity.
In our case, eternal vigilance is the price of fidelity.