I write this prelude to this post to promote and remind me of series I haven’t finished yet. I have at least one more post (number 9) in the series, “Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly” (parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight), one more part for the two part series, “Making Heaven Crowded By Diminishing Biblical Gospel Expectations” (part one), and at least one more post in the long series, “Steps in the Right Process for Belief Change” (parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight). Related to this post, please consider this series: “New List of Reasons for Maximum Certainty for the New Testament Text” (parts one, two, three, four, five, and six).
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Even modern professing conservative evangelicals today attack certainty. These are the most likely churches and church leaders to defend certainty and they won’t. In fact, they promote uncertainty as true and important. One might rightly ask, “How can they be so certain of their uncertainty?” Uncertainty has become a sort of sacrament of modern evangelicals and the actual basis of evangelical unity. It allows for wide doctrinal and practical diversification, something people want to hear who are looking for an accommodation of their lust. This erodes and then eliminates true biblical faith.
The attack on certainty is in fact the assault of true, biblical faith. The two are the same. Faith equals certainty. In Evangelicalism Divided, Iain Murray argues that a primary cause of the decline of 20th-century evangelicalism was a shift in how Christians viewed the nature of truth and the necessity of certainty. He contends that the movement departed from a robust, doctrinal certainty rooted in scripture and toward a dangerous uncertainty that prioritized unity and cultural relevance instead.
The Shift in Certainty
Murray suggests that historical evangelicalism was defined by a firm, objective certainty in scripture and its sure teachings.
- Doctrinal Certainty: Murray posits that for the evangelical forefathers, certainty was not seen as arrogance but as a humble submission to the clarity of God’s Word.
- The Change: He traces a historical move toward a more inclusive evangelicalism, which downplayed difficult or divisive doctrines to maintain a broader coalition. This, he argues, replaced the certainty of “Thus saith the Lord” with a more fluid, subjective approach.
Iain Murray connects uncertainty to the surrender of the doctrine of biblical preservation primarily through the effects of rationalistic textual criticism and the consequential shift in how the church views the historical transmission of the Bible. He argues that once evangelicals moved away from a certainty that God had providentially preserved His Word through the centuries, they essentially capitulated to a naturalistic, purely academic view of the scriptures.
From Providential Preservation to Scientific Reconstruction
Historically, many evangelicals held to a view of providential preservation—the belief that God, by His singular care and providence, kept His Word pure in all ages. Murray suggests that this provided a baseline of certainty for the preacher and the layperson alike.
However, as the “New Evangelicalism” of the mid-20th century sought academic respectability, it began to adopt the methodologies of secular textual criticism. Murray argues this led to:
- A “Wait and See” Theology: If the true text of the Bible is something scholars are still trying to “recover” or “reconstruct” using shifting scientific methods, then the church exists in a state of permanent uncertainty.
- The Loss of the “Fixed” Text: Murray contends that when evangelicals accepted the idea that large portions of the traditional, ecclesiastical text (the Textus Receptus) were uncertain, they lost their footing. This paved the way for a more general skepticism toward the Bible’s total reliability.
The Resulting Divided Mind
Murray illustrates that this uncertainty created a divide between the theological claim (that the Bible is the inspired Word of God) and the textual reality (that we aren’t quite sure what the original words were).
| Old View: Providential Preservation | New View: “Dangerous Uncertainty” |
| God has kept His Word pure through the ages. | The text is a “work in progress” for scholars. |
| Certainty: We have the Word of God today. | Uncertainty: We have a close approximation. |
| Authority: Grounded in God’s faithfulness. | Authority: Grounded in the latest academic consensus. |
Murray argues that you cannot maintain a robust view of inerrancy (the Bible is without error) if you have abandoned the doctrine of preservation (God kept that inerrant Word for us). If the text is uncertain, then the doctrine of inerrancy becomes a theoretical abstraction rather than a practical reality. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 10:17 that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Without the trust in For Murray, the capitulation on preservation was the intellectual surrender that made it much easier for evangelicals to later compromise on social and ecumenical issues.
What is “Dangerous Uncertainty”?
Murray uses the terminology “dangerous uncertainty” to describe the state of a church that no longer knows what it stands for. He identifies several risks associated with this shift:
- The Loss of Authority: When evangelical leaders began to express uncertainty about traditional doctrines (often to appease ecumenical partners or liberal scholarship), they lost their spiritual authority.
- The “Broad Way” of Compromise: Murray argues that once you allow uncertainty on so-called “secondary matters” then to bleed into primary ones, the boundaries of evangelicalism dissolve. This leads to a “divided” movement where the term “evangelical” becomes meaningless because it no longer represents a specific set of certain truths.
- Pragmatism over Principle: He suggests that uncertainty leads to pragmatism. If we aren’t “certain” about specific biblical mandates for worship or church life, we default to whatever “works” to grow numbers or gain social approval.
The Link to Capitulation
Murray explains the evangelical manner of operation as a capitulation because it allowed the academy—rather than the Church or the Holy Spirit—to be the final arbiter of what constitutes the Word of God. Subservience to the academy related to sinful pride in academic respectability.
- Subjectivity over Sovereignty: By treating the Bible like any other ancient book subject to the whims of uncertain manuscript discoveries, evangelicals surrendered the supernatural claim that God has actively guarded His revelation.
- The Erosion of Confidence: Murray notes that once a preacher is uncertain about the exact wording of a passage due to textual variants, his “Thus saith the Lord” becomes a “scholars suggest.” This, in Murray’s view, is the beginning of the end for God’s power in evangelical churches.
A Summary of Murray’s Critique
Murray’s ultimate conclusion is that the only way to heal the division is to return to a courageous, biblical certainty—even if that certainty results in a smaller, less popular movement.
| Aspect | Old Evangelicalism | “Divided” Evangelicalism |
| Source of Truth | Objective Scripture | Subjective Experience/Dialogue |
| View of Doctrine | Essential for Unity | A Barrier to Unity |
| Stance | Dogmatic Certainty | “Dangerous” Uncertainty |
| Goal | Faithfulness to the Gospel | Cultural & Ecumenical Relevance |
Focus on Ambiguity in Conservative Evangelicalism
Last week in Southern California, Grace Community Church held its Shepherds Conference and at the end advertised their Summit on the Sufficiency of Scripture for November 6-7, 2026 there. Abner Chou, the President of Master’s University, said and wrote:
While many Christians affirm the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture and even agree on fundamental principles of interpretation, there remains a troubling tendency to compromise with respect to the sufficiency of Scripture. Some endorse the veracity of the Bible, but hesitate to acknowledge its authority over every matter of life, choosing to allow other voices and professionals outside of Scripture to shape their thinking and practice.
The uncertainty of God’s fulfilling His own promises of preservation of scripture undermines “its authority over every matter of life.” When someone isn’t sure about scripture, he will look “outside of Scripture to shape their thinking and practice.” Textual critics are some of those “professionals outside of Scripture” that they bemoan over sufficiency. Can we trust what the Bible says about its own preservation?
The Master’s University doctrinal statement says “the Word of God” is “absolutely inerrant in the original documents.” Those are “infallible and God-breathed,” but with no mention of the biblical doctrine of preservation. How certain are the words of scripture? What is this “scripture” that is “sufficient”? I sympathize with the concern over sufficiency, but ambiguity over sufficiency proceeds from unsurety over what the words are.
Diversion from Earlier Faith
Open the Door to Atheism and Shaking the Faith
What is the effect of the uncertainty revolving around the unsurety about the very words of the Bible, lost because God didn’t preserve them like He said He would? Richard Capel wrote in his Remains (1658):
And that we have none in Hebrew or Greek, but what are transcribed. . . . Now transcribers are ordinary men, subject to mistake. . . . [But to say we have no supernaturally preserved text] are terrible blasts. . . . [it is] to open the door to Atheism.
Samuel Rutherford in his “A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience” emphasized that the sense of God’s Word is physically wrapped in the letters; therefore, the letters must be certain.
Though the Letter of the Scripture be not the Word alone, yet the Letter with the true sense and meaning of it, is the Word. So if ye destroy the Letter of the Scripture, you do destroy the Scripture. . . . for the Sense lies wrapped up in the Letters.
He continued:
If the letters be not certain, the faith of the believer is shaken, for he knows not if he rests upon the Word of God or the errors of men.
Divine Faith Depends on Divine Testimony
Francis Cheynell in his “The Divine Trinunity” (1650) argued that for scripture to be a perfect rule, it must be pure in its very delivery.
The word of God is pure and perfect, it doth fully discover Gods mind and our duty. . . . nothing can be embraced with a divine faith, but that which is delivered to us upon Divine Testimony.
He also wrote:
We must have the same words which were written by the Prophets and Apostles; for if the words be changed, the sense is in danger of being altered, and then we have not a Divine, but a human doctrine. . . . If the fountain be not pure, the streams of doctrine cannot be sweet.
John Lightfoot wrote:
The very points and pricks of the Hebrew text [vowel points] are of divine origin. . . . to deny the perfection of the letters is to make the Word of God a nose of wax, which every man may bend to his own fancy.
In other words, without perfection of the very letters, scripture becomes something that people can bend the Word of God to his own fancy. Thomas Gataker wrote:
The authority of the Word depends upon the integrity of the text. If any jot or tittle be lost or changed by the negligence of men, the truth of the doctrine is endangered, for God’s truth is tied to His words.
No Sure Foundation for Our Faith Without Keeping Scripture
“The authority of the Word depends upon the integrity of the text.” Edward Leigh makes an argument in his A Body of Divinity that a corrupted jot or tittle would render the Bible a mute judge:
The Hebrew Text is the fountain. . . . and this fountain is kept pure by a singular providence. If so much as one jot or tittle were changed or lost, the Judge of controversies would be corrupted, and we should have no Authentical word to end debates. But Christ saith, not one jot shall pass; therefore, we have them all entire.
He also wrote in the same book:
If the divine providence had not kept the Scripture pure in the original languages. . . . we should have no sure foundation for our faith, nor any certain rule to judge of translations by. . . . God by His providence hath preserved them uncorrupt.
Nicholas Proffet wrote in England’s Impenitencie (1645):
The Word is the Scepter of Christ’s Kingdom. . . . A broken scepter is no scepter. If the words be corrupted by men, it is no longer the Scepter of God, but a reed of man’s making.
Faith and Certainty
Is it right to say that no one can trust anything like He trusts God’s Word? The height of trust is certainty. If nothing is trusted like God’s Word is, then this is certainty. It starts with the inspiration of God’s Words. They were written by God. Whatever he inspired then, we still have. If we can’t be sure about whether we have those words, then we won’t know what they mean.
Meaning hasn’t been lost. Because God expects us to live by His Words, this implies that we can and should know what they mean. But we will never know what they mean if we don’t have them. People already question the meaning of scripture, but that won’t matter at all if we either never had His Words or we don’t have them now, because He never preserved them. The authority of scripture, and, therefore, its sufficiency, rests upon the guarantee that we have His Words in our hands.