There has been some recent discussion over a small part of Ember Church’s statement of faith. When declaring our beliefs about Scripture, we state this:

We believe that God sovereignly provided human beings with the sixty-six books of the Protestant Canon as his written revelation, and that these books are authoritative for all Christians, infallible in all matters of faith and practice.

The part I’ve put in bold is the statement in question. Within some evangelical circles, saying that the Bible is infallible in all matters of faith and practice is code for theological liberalism. Let me say, definitively, that neither I nor Ember Church are “theologically liberal”. Neither are we “fundamentalist”. Instead, we consider ourselves historically orthodox in the Protestant, evangelical tradition.

Why, then, does our Statement of Faith not declare the Scriptures to be “inerrant in the original manuscripts”? For many evangelicals, the inerrancy of the Bible is a “watershed issue”, meaning that it is fundamentally definitive of evangelicalism, and a hill on which one should die. Inerrancy is not a position that should be compromised, and anyone who does is slipping toward theological liberalism.

I think this is untrue. In fact, I understand infallibility to be a much stronger position on the Bible than inerrancy. Let me explain why.

The Questions of the Enlightenment

Inerrancy is an apologetic doctrine. That is to say, it is a belief formulated in defense of Scripture. Inerrancy is not so much motivated by the desire to explain Scripture, but rather to defend its authority and accuracy as God’s revealed word. Inerrancy is evangelicalism’s attempt to answer the skeptical questions of modernism and the Enlightenment. “The Bible is so full of contradictions and errors,” cry the skeptics! “No it’s not,” retort the believers, “it is without error in the original manuscripts.”

But I believe that the questions of the Enlightenment are designed to trap believers. When the skeptics tried to trap Jesus with trick questions, he skillfully evaded them and turned the tables on the doubters. Inerrancy, however, tries to answer the trick questions of the Enlightenment, whereas infallibility says to the Enlightenment, “You’re asking the wrong questions.” The precision of details and the length of days have absolutely no bearing on what God is trying to communicate in his word.

It’s as though the Enlightenment has come along and said, “If football is the perfect game, then why can’t you hit a home run in it?” And we’ve gone ahead and tried to explain just how one might hit a home run in football. Their questions are nonsense, and we need not spend time addressing them. When the doubters questioned Jesus about paying taxes, he turned the tables on them and said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.” I believe the doctrine of infallibility, properly understood, does likewise.

The Standard of Error

Who decides what is error and isn’t? Should an ancient document be judged by modern standards? Who gets to set the standard of errancy?

God sovereignly ordained the Scriptures to be written in premodern times, long before the advent of modernism, the Enlightenment, and the supremacy of science. Paul, Isaiah, and Moses had different standards of error and definitions of precision than the team of scientists that flies people to the moon. This seems so obvious as to go without saying, and yet I see that people on both sides of the aisle–both skeptics and believers–are demanding that Scripture conform to the precision of modernity. Isn’t it more remarkable that the Bible was written over a period of 1500 years by dozens of different people in wildly divergent cultures and environments, all forming one cohesive story which explains life and all of history from beginning to end? Isn’t that so unfathomably amazing that whatever tiny errors of precision (according to the standard of modern science) are absolutely inconsequential?

Just as it is nonsense to apply the standards of baseball to the game of football, so it is nonsense to apply the standards of modern science to the content of Scripture. The Bible wasn’t written last year. It was written on scrolls and parchments by shepherds and itinerant preachers long before printing presses, copy machines, and ctrl+c ctrl+v were invented. You don’t have to defend the Bible. Anyone who knows anything about ancient manuscripts and literature knows that the Bible is the gold standard.

And that’s one of the main problems I have with inerrancy–it looks to a standard outside of Scripture. It says, “there is no error.” But as John Frame says, infallibility declares of Scripture, “there can be no error.” In other words, the Bible, not the Enlightenment, sets the standard of error. The Bible is its own standard.

Original Manuscripts

As an apologetic doctrine, inerrancy is intellectually weak in that it points to “the original manuscripts” as being without error, but we no longer have any original manuscripts. They no longer exist. In my opinion, then, inerrancy is an incredibly weak position apologetically, because we can’t produce the evidence to substantiate our claim. We are, in effect, putting our faith in some documents that no longer exist.

Moreover, we are also unintentionally undermining the very good science by which we reconstruct the Scriptures through the manuscripts we do have–and we have a lot! The New Testament, in particular, is, by far, the most well-attested ancient document in the world. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to early and reliable manuscripts. For a rundown on how the science works, check out this post. This is a strength of Scripture to be embraced, not a weakness to be ignored.

The Historicity of Christianity

One critique of what we have in our Statement of Faith is that it doesn’t account for history. But our faith is fundamentally historical. The Gospel is the account of the historical crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Christian faith is rooted in Jewish history. Because infallibility allows the Bible to set the standard of error, we believe that everything the Bible says happened, happened.

In conclusion, infallibility is a richer, more robust understanding of Scripture than inerrancy. In fact, infallibility includes inerrancy, but only according to the standards that Scripture itself ordains, and not according to the standards of skeptical modernity. The way that I understand infallibility is that, rather than being code for theological liberalism, it is actually more theologically conservative than inerrancy because it allows the Bible to speak for itself, on its own terms; it honors God’s sovereignty in his decision on the where and when and how and by whom of biblical authorship; and it honors God’s power in preserving, for the church, a superabundance of ancient manuscripts from which we can get a solid understanding of what was written in those elusive original manuscripts.

If you’ve managed to make it through this ridiculously long post, I’d love to hear your feedback. You can either leave a comment or send me an email.

By now you’ve no doubt heard that the Rapture is supposed to happen tomorrow. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Harold Camping has predicted the end of the world. In fact, we have a long history of enterprising individuals who have convinced themselves and others that God had given them a special revelation as to the end of all things. Do you remember the book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 (and don’t forget the follow up book the next year)? We tend to get fascinated by these things.

Let me say, first of all, without hesitation, there is no Rapture. It will not happen. It is not in the Bible. I’ve written about this extensively in the past, and if you’re curious, you can read my thoughts here, here, here, and here. While a lot of folks are laughing at the Rapture crowd, I don’t find it amusing. This is a dangerous doctrine that has far more in common with Greek Philosophy and Gnostic Heresy than Christian Theology. Underneath the doctrine of the Rapture is the belief that this world is fundamentally evil and destined for annihilation, making escape from this world necessary for all true believers to experience eternal life with God in heaven.

The idea of escape from this world is a very old idea, going back at least to ancient Greek Philosophy. Many Greek teachers believed that this body was a prison for the soul, and that death was a welcome escape from the pains and rigors of this life.

The idea that this world is evil also goes back a long way. The early Christian heresy Gnosticism taught that everything material was evil and everything spiritual was good. These two streams, escapism and dualism, combine with a fundamentally flawed eschatology to create the doctrine of the Rapture.

But none of this has anything to do with Jesus, who, rather than escape the trial set before him, endured the suffering of the cross and died for our sins. In his death, Jesus has set the pattern of life for those who would come after him–suffering for the sake of his glory. Not escape, but endurance.

What is more, in his resurrection (a bodily resurrection, not a disembodied apparition) Jesus has begun the renewal and recreation of this world, which God has already called “good” and stills deem it good enough to redeem. God judges the world not because he has given up on it, but because he wants it to become what he intended it to be from the beginning.

The Bible teaches us not to seek escape from this world, but rather to engage with it in order to spread the rule and reign of Jesus Christ into every heart and home on earth. If you believe in the Rapture, I urge you to reexamine the passages I’ve linked to in this post, and also to take a close look at the worldview that is driving your profession of Rapture Theology. I sincerely believe that belief in the Rapture clouds our understanding of Jesus and Scripture, and I only offer my words here because I know that you deeply love Jesus and are fundamentally committed to the teachings of Scripture. Please, for the sake of the kingdom and your heart, take a second look at the Rapture.

I blogged yesterday about what we find at the end of the Bible–the wedding of Jesus and his bride, the Church. I tried to make the point that this heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, in Revelation 21 and 22 is actually us. It’s not a city at all; it’s just a picture of the new people of God.

The picture is meant to be contrasted with Rome, the “Eternal City” and source of persecution against God’s people. John measures the heavenly city to show that it is incomprehensibly large, and far greater in every respect than Rome. In other words, Rome loses. The enemies of God lose; and the Church, those who persevere through trial and persecution and hardship–the Church wins because our Husband fights on our behalf.

The good news of all of this is that we have a Husband, a Conquering King-Groom, who is, even now, fighting on our behalf. All of the powers of evil that rage against us are not, themselves, without an enemy. Jesus is waging war for you. He is destroying “all dominion, power and authority”, and he is putting all of his enemies “under his feet”. This is what he is doing, right now, for us, in us, and through us.

Wherever you may be right now, you are headed for a wedding. That’s how this story ends and the next story begins. The wedding of Jesus and his Church. And your Husband is not simply waiting around for you to arrive; he is actively creating a world that he deems suitable for your eternal presence. He is preparing a place for you by waging war against evil and darkness and sin and idolatry.

The Greeks loved drama. They had, basically, two kinds of dramas they would write: tragedies and comedies. The way to tell the difference was in the ending. Tragedies end with a funeral; comedies end with a wedding. You are in a comedy. Live, therefore, in the hope that this story–your story, my story, our story–ends with a wedding.

All this talk and blogging on Love Wins, and the fact that the world is clearly going to end on May 21, has got me thinking about the end times. Or, to be more accurate, it’s got me thinking about the end of the Bible.

Revelation is a tricky book. It’s difficult to understand and interpret because of it’s apocalyptic nature. The images are extreme, the language is deeply biblical and often coded, and the timeline seems to skip around a bit. Some of it is clearly in the past, while other parts of it seem to be yet in the distant future. That’s what I want to write about today: the future parts.

Revelation 17-19 deal with the fall of Babylon, which is probably a code for Rome. You have to remember that the people to whom Revelation was first written (the seven churches of Asia Minor in chapters 2 and 3) were under severe persecution from Rome. Rome and her emperor stood against Christ, and often waged a violent war against the followers of Jesus. So, for those saints, the fall of Rome meant the destruction of God’s great enemy on earth.

In the middle of chapter 19, we get this wonderful song:

Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.

Babylon falls. People rejoice. And a wedding is coming. But we don’t have the actual wedding; we only have a song. The wedding is coming between the Lamb (hint: Jesus) and his bride. And as chapter 19 continues on into chapter 20, we see Jesus portrayed as this conquering King who throws Satan and his minions into the Abyss for a thousand years. And then his people rise from the dead and reign with him for that thousand years, after which the devil and his crew come out of the Abyss and wage war against Jesus again, only to be defeated again, and cast into this awful, horrible lake of burning sulfur to be tormented for ever and ever.

Thus the groom. The twice-conquering King. But do you know who hasn’t shown up yet? The bride. As in weddings today, the bride doesn’t show up until she’s ready. And in this wedding, she doesn’t show up until chapter 21.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. …One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

Thus the bride. But what does this mean? Does Jesus marry a city? That can’t be right, can it? Maybe this is another one of those parts in Revelation where the language shouldn’t be taken literally. Maybe the New Jerusalem is something else—someone else. In fact, the bride is us, the Church, all who have called on the name of Jesus and overcome the world. You and I are the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, beautifully prepared for the wedding by God, and being escorted down the aisle, from Heaven to Earth, by God himself.

And this “Heavenly City”, the New Jerusalem, which is us, dwarves the “Eternal City”, Rome. By a lot. And not just in size, but in grandeur. There is no temple because God Almighty and the Conquering King-Groom are the temple. As Jesus declared from the throne,

“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

There is no need for the light of the sun or moon, because God himself will give us light. The gates will never be shut, not because it is all-inclusive, but because there is nothing to fear. The night and its terrors have fled away, and there is no reason to hide behind city walls and closed gates. And “nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Why? Because God has already prepared the bride. He has already brought his people through tribulation and great trial, and they have overcome by the blood of the Lamb. God’s work of preparing the bride for the wedding is done. She is ready. She has gone down the aisle.

The Holy City, the New Jerusalem, is not heaven; it’s us. We are being made ready for a wedding, our wedding, where God walks us down the aisle and gives us over to his son, the Conquering King-Groom, the Lamb, Jesus Christ. We are far, far greater than Rome or any of God’s enemies, because we are being made suitable for the Son of God.

At the end of the book of the Revelation is an invitation—a wedding invitation. But it’s not simply an invitation to the ceremony; it’s a call to participate, to be the bride.

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

This is how love wins.

When reading Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins, it’s important to keep two things in mind: Who the book is for, and who the book is against. Ironically enough, Love Wins is an often angry diatribe against a very particular group of people (fundamentalists) for the sake of another very particular group of people (skeptics). If you don’t catch this, you’ll miss the point of Bell’s book altogether.

Love Wins was written with the intention of destroying a popular view of the afterlife. Bell alludes to this indirectly on page 200, where he writes, in the Acknowledgements, “[Thanks to] Zach Lind for saying ‘wrecking ball’ under his breath several times in a row.” The book, then, is a wrecking ball against a peculiar understanding of heaven and hell, salvation and damnation. What, exactly, is that understanding? Let’s sketch the main points.

Heaven is Somewhere Else

Heaven is where you go when you die if you prayed the sinner’s prayer in this life and put your faith in Jesus Christ. It is an entirely spiritual place, and is basically a worship service that goes on forever. It is completely discontinuous with life on earth, which will be entirely destroyed anyhow, so life on earth doesn’t have much significance, other than putting your faith in Jesus.

Hell is Somewhere Else

As with heaven, hell exists somewhere else. Metaphorically speaking, heaven is up and hell is down. Hell is a spiritual nightmare (or possibly a physical nightmare). Eternal torment goes on and on forever amidst the raging fires.

It’s All About Eternity

All that really matters in this life–your life now–is what it means for your eternal destiny. The only thing that has any true, lasting significance is whether you surrendered your life to Jesus in faithful obedience.

God is Angry With You

Your sin makes God angry. He is waiting to pour out his divine wrath upon you as the just penalty for your sins. Fortunately, Jesus has stepped between you and God; he took the full brunt of the wrath of God against the sins of humanity on the cross. Those who place their faith in Jesus Christ will receive God’s love, but those who reject Jesus Christ (or have never heard of him) will bear God’s wrath forever in hell.

Turn or Burn

Repent of your sins, renounce your ungodly ways, and turn to Jesus; or else face the consequences of burning in eternal hellfire. It’s really that simple.

The Gospel is Your “Get Out of Hell Free” Card

Our primary motivation to trust in Jesus is that he saves us from hell. “If you were to die tonight, are you 100% certain you would go to heaven?” That’s the question that must be asked of unbelievers. While the forgiveness of sins is important, it is our escape from hell that is the gospel’s greatest benefit to us.

God has Predestined a Select Few for Heaven and Everybody Else Goes to Hell

In his sovereignty, and for his glory, God has predestined a certain number of people–the Elect–to receive salvation. Conversely, he has predestined everyone else to receive condemnation. The Elect will enjoy eternal communion with God in heaven, but the rest will suffer eternal torment in hell.

Those Who Have Never Heard of Jesus will Spend Eternity in Hell

The Bible teaches that, besides Jesus, “there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved.” Conscious, responsive faith to the gospel message is the only means of salvation available to humans. We are all, from birth, under the wrath and judgment of God as the due penalty for our sins, and he has graciously offered one way, one truth, and one life–Jesus Christ, his son. Nobody can come to the Father except through him.

These eight main points comprise the basic worldview which Rob Bell is seeking to destroy in Love Wins. This is the eschatological building against which Love Wins is the “wrecking ball”. You should know this going in.

I’ve tried to present the views as accurately as possible, though I can’t say that Bell has been as gracious in his book. He often creates a strawman based on caricature beliefs of extreme fundamentalist Christians, and then proceeds to swing his “wrecking ball” at the strawman. While it’s rhetorically effective, I found it rather disingenuous and, in the end, detracted from the force of his argument.

I’ll continue to post more on Love Wins this week. Some of it I like, some of it I don’t, and I’ll try to offer some reasonable counterarguments where I disagree with Bell. In the meantime, if you want to know the love that Bell is referring to (though he doesn’t talk about it like this), check out this post, and this one, too.