Reformed fundamentalism

• Christology – the pre-existence, supremacy and deity (Jn. 8. 38), co-equality and consubstantiality (with the Father and the Spirit) (Jn. 10.30), authentic and sinless humanity (2 Cor. 5. 21), virgin birth, incarnation (Jn. 1), ministry of miracles, substitutionary and expiatory death, bodily resurrection of Jesus, physical ascension of Jesus, exclusive mediatorial intercession and the visible, audible and bodily second coming of Jesus.[3][4][5]
• The supernatural element of Christianity. God has and does intervene in human history, and supernatural kingdoms exist (kingdom of God, and the kingdom of darkness).[6] Manifestations of the supernatural include plagues, the Exodus, healings, visions, angels and demons, the wicked being called Satan, Christ's incarnation, bodily resurrection, preservation of individuals, prophecy, miracles, upholding of the cosmic constants and laws of the universe etc.
• The infallibility and verbal inspiration of the scriptures and an inspiration of the same substance, of faithful translations (ancient and modern).
• The centrality of the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul
• The historicity of the persons and events in the Pentateuch and particularly the Book of Genesis (e.g. Adam and Eve, Noah and the Deluge, Tower of Babel, the lives of the patriarchs, the exodus and desert wandering etc.).[7] Covenantal theology rests upon Pentateuchal history.
• The Protestant (old perspective) doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone[4]
• Reformed theology such as covenantalism, election, predestination and preordination, Kingdom theology, eternal security, and the sovereignty of God. The covenantalism of reformed fundamentalism stands in contrast to the dispensationalism of wider Christian fundamentalism.
• The authority of Jesus Christ not considered separate from the authority of God's written revelation, a revelation that includes Christ's divine words; scripture is Christ's Word, and bears his full authority.

• Christocentric (a special emphasis upon Christ in preaching, interpretation and practice), and 'crucicentric' (a special emphasis on the atoning work of Christ on the cross). Christ as preeminent.
• The perspicuity or clarity of scripture for salvation (2 Tim. 3. 15)
• The distinction of mankind from the rest of the created order, as mankind is created in 'the image [tselem] and likeness [demuth] of God' (Gen. 1. 27)[6][5]
• The original sin of Adam and Fall of mankind (Gen. 3), and the subsequent pervasive sinfulness of all humans.[6][4]
• Two eternal realities and destinations: the eternal life that is realised in the present by faith in Jesus Christ and that ends with the believer in the presence of the Lord (Heaven) after bodily death, and spiritual death that is realised in the present through slavery to sin and spiritual blindness and that ends with the unregenerate being outside the presence of God after bodily death in eternal perdition. Only the grace of God in Christ through faith can rescue a sinner from eternal death. Jesus Christ in Matthew 7:13-14 distinguishes between the 'broad way that leads to destruction,' and the 'narrow way that leads to life.'
• Christian exclusivism/particularism - salvation in Christ alone (Acts 4. 12). Jesus is considered as having sole access to God the Father (John 14. 6)
• Emphasis is placed upon the prophetic fulfilment of the scriptures in Christ Jesus
• Regeneration by the Holy Spirit[6] and the indwelling of the Spirit
• Salvation is received through the appropriation of the saving work of Christ, not by any personal deeds or efforts (Tit. 3. 5). Jesus' perfect obedience to the Law (active obedience), and atoning death in place of law-breakers, is positively affirmed.
• Justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Saving faith has Jesus as its object.
• Faith as a gift from God (Eph. 2. 8)
• Soul winning and evangelism

• The Protestant canon (39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament)[7][4] and Scripture as the supreme and final authority in faith, practice and life[3][5]
• God as Triune (Trinitarianism)[3][6]
• Church invisible and Church spiritual
• The believer's necessary dependence on the Spirit (Gal. 5. 25), and the evidence of the works of the Spirit on the believer (e.g. conviction of sin, confidence of forgiveness in Christ, assurance of adoption, renewed hope of heaven)
• The action of Christian faith through the means of grace (Protestant) to spiritually soften and cleanse the inner parts of the believer. The Puritan notion of "heart work."
• The goodness and grace (unmerited favour) of God, particularly the saving grace and forgiveness that comes through the redemption that is found in Christ Jesus. The Old Testament 'grace formula' (Psa. 103.8) is consistent with the grace of God in the New Testament.
• The severity of sin and a high view of the eternal righteous Law of God (Rom. 3. 31): a higher view of grace comes from a high view of Law.[8]
• The practice of believers to contend against evil and the 'deeds of darkness' (Eph. 5.11). See the Church Militant. Christians are encouraged to hold their governments to righteous account.[9]
• Gymnobiblism - the belief that the bare text of the translated vernacular Bible, without commentary, may be safely given to the unlearned as a sufficient guide to religious truth. Good teachers are valued, but by gymnobiblism are to an extent judged, evaluated and corrected. The common church-goer can attain salvation, grow in faith, and fulfil a regulative function in the local church.
• The five solae of the sixteenth century Reformation – scripture alone (sola scriptura), grace alone (sola gratia), faith alone (sola fide), Christ alone (solus Christus), glory to God alone (soli Deo Gloria)[10]
• The ordination of human government (Rom. 13.1), government that ought to be respected and obeyed in so far as it is not at variance to the law of God and Christian conscience.[9]
• The judgement seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5) - all persons will appear before the judgement seat of Christ.[11]
• The resurrection of the dead;[12] the resurrection of believers is distinct to the resurrection of those who died without faith (Dan. 12; 1 Thess. 4; Rev. 20)
• The rapture, or gathering, of God's elect (1 Thess. 4; 1 Cor. 15)
• The millennial reign of Jesus Christ (Rev. 20. 6)
• Protestant non-conformism and ecclesiastical separatism, and an adherence to a doctrine of separation (2 Tim. 3)[6][7]
• Priesthood of all believers - the believer can go to God directly because of the mediatorial intercession of Christ, and a priestly class is not needed for direct communion with God.
• The 'good works' of believers (Eph. 2; James 2) - the good deeds of believers show the new life received in Christ.[13]
• The absence of contradiction between true scriptural interpretation and authentic scientific findings
• The "chief end of man" to glorify God, and enjoy him forever (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q1)[14]
• Creation from nothing (creatio ex nihilo) and Gen. 1 and 2 as 'narratively-tied' within the single account of creation.[15] Unlike more mainstream fundamentalism, some reformed fundamentalists influenced by Augustine and Calvinists, have been open to a non-solar 'day' interpretation of Genesis 1.[16]
• Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch
• Monogamous heterosexual marriage.[17] In Pauline literature, single believers who desire marriage, are exhorted to marry only believers (2 Cor. 6.14-16).

Reformed fundamentalists believe in the 'organic' inspiration (theopneustia) and conservation of the scripture entire. The forerunning debates in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries resulted in the formulation and clarification of the doctrine of the superintended plenary (full) inspiration of the scriptures, a doctrine confused and derided as 'mechanical' inspiration.

Since the scriptures are the work of God, the doctrine of the scripture 'terminates in mystery,' not unlike the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation.[18] The contentment in spite of hermeneutical limitations, and care not to claim perfect comprehension, favours an emphasis upon the salvific end of the scriptures (2 Tim. 3.15) and recognition of the Divine activity involved in the authorship. The truth of inspiration rests upon the scripture itself. Whether all the writers knew they were writing scripture is not revealed.[19] The canon is the collection of inspired books that God alone intended to be the rule of faith, and imposed on the consciences of men as truth: likely inspired works, such as the Epistle to the Laodiceans (Col. 4. 16), were unintended to become a rule of faith for the entire Church.[20]

Verbal inspiration, upheld by various Protestant churches, maintains that the individual backgrounds, personal traits, and literary styles of the writers and compilers were authentically theirs, but had been providentially prepared by God for use as His instrument in producing scripture. The normal exercise of endowed abilities was unhindered.[21] God superintended the process so mysteriously, that every word written was the exact word God wanted to be written, free from all confusion. The words in the infallible autographs, as well as the concepts, were given by inspiration, an inspiration unable to be dissected (e.g. into substance and form).[4] The original autographs are considered inspired, and apograph copies, when known to be freed from copyist erratum, are treated as God-breathed and as a veritable rock of translation foundation.[6][7][4] The scripture is unfailable and exempt ab intra from accusation of fatal blunder and flaw. Even the biblical writer/prophet's scriptural familiarity was providentially prepared. "Speculation into the “how” of inspiration is a prying into what is not revealed, and therefore unwise and unbecoming. We are not told how God inspired the writers of the scriptures. It is probable that none could know save those who were so energized" (William Kelly, God's Inspiration of the Scriptures, p. 44). For reformed fundamentalists, inspiration does not stop at the autographs. The languages in which the writing was done are considered as being perfectly adapted to the expression of God's 'divine thoughts.' (Edward F. Hills)

The translations of the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament are considered the inspired word of God to the extent that they are a close, accurate rendering of the scriptures. Wherever the English version of the testaments lies fairly within the confines of the original, the authority of the latest form is as great as that of the earliest. In other words, inspiration is not considered as 'limited to that portion which lay within the horizon of the original scribes'.[22] Additionally, the Bible's inspiration is made immediately apparent by the Holy Spirit to the believer only, who has been gifted the Spirit at salvation.

Verbal preservation is defined by the retention of every inspired canonical word in the original languages that God intended for future generations: no single word, letter, accent, or character, in the autographs has been lost forever. The preservation of scripture is considered complete and singular (special).

The preservation of God's written word is considered a faith position, one that Christ held (Matt. 5.18). "We add that the whole scripture entire, as given out from God, without any loss, is preserved in the Copies of the Originals yet remaining; What varieties there are among the Copies themselves shall be afterwards declared; in them all, we say, is every letter and Tittle of the Word" (John Owen, Of the Divine Original, Authority, Self-Evidencing Light, and Power of the Scriptures, p. 173-174). Other scriptures that have been cited as proof texts of God's preservation of His written Word are Matt. 5.18, Matt. 24.35, John 10.35, and 1 Pet. 1.25. Chapter 1:8 of the Westminster Confession of Faith speaks of the scriptures as being 'by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, [and] are therefore authentical.'[23]

Faithful textual study is considered to confirm true textual recognition, and that diligent and devotional study renders the Christian's access to God's Word identical to what God's Word is ontologically. It is held, that as God providentially entrusted the transmittance of His Word through human scribes, God has allowed His elect referential textual usage..

An example of an institutional acknowledgement of preservation is that of the Trinitarian Bible Society, which advocates Scrivener's Textus Receptus and the Ginsburg-ben Chayyim Masoretic Text.[24]

• Prayer for illumination by the Spirit
• Initial and pre-eminent "plain reading." Dr. David L. Cooper's "Golden Rule" of interpretation.
• Christocentrism and typological interpretation
• Historical-grammatical method and appropriate consultation of the original languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic) through lexicons, grammars, concordances, and Hebrew and Greek testaments.
• Contextual grounding by searching in concentric circles (e.g. verse, paragraph, chapter, book, genre, testament etc.)
• The analogy of faith (scriptura sui ipsius interpres) and scripture interprets/informs scripture[25]
• The principle of non-contradiction.[26] The diverse motivations of canonical books, place in the unfolding of progressive redemptive history, and re-casting of events and details, lowers the impression and depletes the validity of charges of textual variance.
• The preference for the literal-historical interpretation over less concrete tropological, allegorical, and anagogical interpretations Criticisms of the literal method often confound literalism for letterism.
• Sensitivity to literary genre (e.g. prophetic, poetic, apocalyptic, Gospel etc.)
• The mediation of scripture through secondary authority (e.g. tradition, human experience etc. ) and the general catholic (universal) rule of Vincent of Lérins, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est ('what (is) always, what (is) everywhere, what (is) by everybody (believed)')
• Scripture as 'finitely plastic,' and not as a 'wax nose.'[27]

• Creedal: Nicene Creed, Apostles' Creed, Athanasian Creed (and Chalcedonian Definition).[28] The first four ecumenical councils of the early Church are therefore acknowledged.
• Confessional: Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)[29]

Whilst received and used, they are not considered as carrying the same authority as the Bible.

Early fundamentalists exalted the King James Version, and held that the Textus Receptus (TR) was the honoured and restorative Greek text of the Church, first to the Western Church. It must be noted, the TR is now generally applied to the family of similar Byzantine-text Greek New Testaments, for example, the editions of Erasmus (first edition, Novum Instrumentum omne, 1516), Beza (first edition, Octavo, 1565) and Stephanus (notable third edition, Editio Regia, 1550). The editions published by Abraham and Bonaventure Elzivir, almost identical to the texts of Beza, became known as the Textus Receptus ('Received Text') due to a note in Heinsius' preface ('Therefore, you have the text now received by all in which we give nothing altered or corrupt.'), but Textus Receptus has also been applied to the 1550 Stephanus edition.[33] The 47[34] translators of the 1611 KJV (AKJV) used the New Testaments of Erasmus, Stephanus and Beza, yet augmented with the Vulgate, Tyndale, Geneva, Complutensian Polyglot, Coverdale, Bishops' and Matthew Bibles.[35] Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the edition of the Greek text that lay behind the Authorised Version. The 1611 KJV was revised in 1612, 1613, 1616, 1617, 1629, 1630, 1634, 1638, 1640, 1762 (S. F. Paris, Cambridge Edition), 1769 (Benjamin Blayney, Oxford Edition) and 1873 (F. H. A. Scrivener, Cambridge Paragraph Bible).[36] Despite editorial changes (e.g. grammatical alternations), the text has been materially unchanged. Norton's New Cambridge Paragraph Bible (2005) is a modern revision of Scrivener's 1873 edition. Blayney's 1769 Oxford edition remains the most printed KJV.[37]

The publication of the New King James Version (1982) has been a minor development within fundamentalism. The preface to the NKJV states that the New Testament is based upon the same New Testament selection behind the KJV; the translation removes older English words and detaches from some of the 'damnation language' and titles of Divinity. The text for the Old Testament deviates from that of the KJV, the translators preferring the Biblia Hebraica and in places, readings from ancient translations of the Hebrew Scriptures set aside the Masoretic reading. However, the Bomberg edition was consulted according to the preface. The NKJV includes in the footnotes where the translated Greek text differs from the critical text (minority text) and recent majority text: the accommodation to include references to critical editions of the New Testament continues to divide opinion, and source discussion, as does the minute departures from the Old Testament Masoretic text. A small number of New Testament readings are close to eclectic readings.[38] The NKJV is prudently used in congregational teaching and preaching, with an informed awareness of the modern translations, but personal use of the Authorised version is concurrently practised by predominately dedicated Anglosphere Christians.[39] Preference for, and informed views of, the KJV and NKJV are observed along with the KJV-Only movement, and the broader text bloc.

Some fundamentalists do use translations based upon the earliest extant manuscripts, such as the NRSV, ESV and NASB (the NASB being very stylistically similar to the NKJV). Such translations are considered serious renderings of the critical text. The proliferation of the New International Version (NIV) has been observed with a degree of censure, yet, the ability for various translations to lead an individual to Christ is affirmed. Many affirm the stylistic standard of prior versions.[40] The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster uses the Authorised Version, '[b]elieving it to be the most reliable translation.'[41]

A number of fundamentalists today recognise the strong commitment to scriptural inspiration and sound doctrine of early translators, and the need for the Christian to be a regular reader of the Bible. Finally, contemporary reformed fundamentalists firmly desire equitable discussion and unity, and condemn any unnecessary division.[42] Fundamentalists see themselves as 'people of the Book,' and desire to know the incarnate Word (Jesus) more deeply through his written Word.

• The scriptures are said to be 'self-authenticating' (autopiston)[47]
• Fulfilled Old Testament prophecies, including Messianic prophecies fulfilled in Jesus (Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Micah 5.2 etc.),[48] and fulfilment of prophecies given by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse (siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, emergence of false messiah-claimants, continuance of war, increase in famines and pestilences, and the acute persecution of believers, etc.).
• Archaeological finds compatible with scriptural accounts (e.g. Pilate stone, Vardar Gate 'Politarch' inscription, Tel Dan stele, Merneptah Stele, Ketef Hinnom scrolls, Lachish letters, Siloam tunnel, Kurkh Monoliths, Nimrud Tablet K.3751, Azekah Inscription, Sennacherib's Annals, Cylinders of Nabonidus, Nabonidus Chronicle, Mesha Stele, Elephantine papyri, Arch of Titus, Nazareth Inscription, Hittite cuneiform etc.)[49][50][51]
• The intellectual insufficiency of humans, and the reluctance of critics to affirm authentic external verification, and internal textual suggestion
• The Gospels as following best ancient historiographical practice[52]
• The unity of the Bible
• The Bible as faith-producing[53]