In this article we will look at some of the teaching of the Westminster
Confession, Chap.I: 2 & 3;
Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament (and then they are listed as we Protestants accept them). All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life.
The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration,
are not part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are
of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise
approved, or made use of, than other human writings. (Cf. Belgic
Arts 3, 4, 6)
It is important to remember that, at the time of the Reformation,
the Reformers did not argue with Rome about every doctrine in
the Bible. There was no argument between the two over the Trinity
or about the Deity of Christ. Rome had drawn a bead on Servetus
every bit as much as the Protestant Council of Geneva. In certain
respects that is still true today. How often has it been that
the Roman Catholic Church has been the lone spokesman for Christian
morals while Liberal Protestants have been leaders in the new
'morality'? In fact, the Reformers argued as much against the
ana-baptists and enthusiasts (a pretty wild variety of charismatics)
as they did against Rome.
The reason for that is that Rome finds the essence of the Church
in the outward, visible organisation. Baptists (and Baptists are
still ana [again]-baptists) find it in the individual, with a
susceptibility to mystical, private communion with God. The emphasis
then falls on the (so called) invisible Church. Because of the
covenant God made with Abraham we can agree with neither. In the
Covenant we find that the outward, visible Church and sacraments
are important ("So shall my covenant be in your flesh."
Gen.17). But we find that the individual believer is also important.
We cannot be saved by the Church as Rome teaches. But we ought
not seek to be saved without the Church as the Anabaptists taught
and the Belgic Confession prohibits (Art.28). The Bible's approach
is, within the framework of the Covenant Church which brings the
Gospel and the sacraments, the means of grace, the believer must
do personal business with God.
So too, at the Reformation and now, there is no argument with
Rome about the inspiration of the Bible or its infallibility.
But that does not mean we see the Bible in the same light. The
Roman Catholic Church sees the Bible as truly the Word of God,
but it does not see it as essential. For Rome, the Church could
get along without the Bible because, of course, the Church produced
the Bible anyway and then there are the equally important and
equally authoritative Oral Traditions alongside the Bible.
According to the Westminster Confession, the Bible, the Word of
God written, was given the better to preserve the Church and proclaim
the Gospel and comfort believers. Over against that Protestant
idea, Rome has said as recently as 1974 that "the church
does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the
Holy Scriptures alone.... Both Scripture and Tradition must be
accepted and honoured with equal feelings of devotion and reverence
(p.755, Vatican Council II)." The Jesuit, CC Martindale,
is even more explicit and says in his The Faith of the Roman
Church (an officially approved book); the Church "does
not draw her doctrine from the Bible, but that which the Bible
teaches will necessarily be Catholic doctrine and therefore can
in many ways be used to illustrate it, and even to 'prove' it
in the sense of showing that dogma is not at variance with the
doctrine of the first Christian generation" (which really
comes down to us through the oral traditions). Again, "...
what God's Spirit inspired and taught in Scripture cannot conflict
with what the same Spirit teaches through the Church (p.51f.,
written in 1949)." And there is the heart of our argument
with the Roman Church. God wants us to find our hope and security
in the infallible Scriptures on which the Church is built. Rome
would have us find our hope in the infallible shepherds of the
Church who, as a matter of fact, never have been infallible and
whom Paul warned us might even prove to be at times wolves in
sheep's clothing. Which is perhaps a good way of getting into
our subject: what are the Scriptures that in them we should find
our hope and certainty?
1. THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD
2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that "all Scripture is inspired by
God." It is better translated by the NIV which says "all
Scripture is God-breathed." Peter tells us that "no
prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy
never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet.1:20f.)." This passage
is not prohibiting a single person interpreting the Bible and
coming to a private interpretation even though that is not a wise
thing to do. What it is saying is that Scripture was not written,
for that matter, no true prophecy ever came about, because the
prophet looked at the world, or what was going on in history or
Israel or the Church or whatever and, himself, understood the
times, interpreted the trends of the day or the spirit of the
age and said, "Because you're doing this and that, therefore
God will do thus and so or God says such and such." No, true
prophecy always had its origin in the will of God. Prophecy, of
which the Bible is made, is not then the record of man's experience
of God; it is not even merely "the doctrine of the first
Christian generation" (Martindale). It is the living and
enduring Word of God which stands forever over against men who
are like grass and whose glory is like the flowers of the field
which very soon wither and fall (1 Peter 1:23). That is why, again
over against Rome, we do not accept the Apocrypha. They are simply
other merely human writings, one of the better of which admits
that there was not a true prophet in Israel at the time of its
writing (2 Maccabbees 14:41).
So the first thing we believe about the Bible is that it is the very Word of Almighty God. Not that we believe this Word of God was merely taken down by dictation. Actually, I've never been able to understand why people get so upset about such a possibility but, nevertheless, that idea is often thrown at us in scorn when we speak about verbal (or plenary) inspiration: every word inspired by God. As far as I know, that dictation idea has only ever been held by Rome; it was confessed by the Council of Trent. I suspect Liberals are shying at a straw man when they try to throw that one at us. I've never heard anyone, even in my fundamentalist upbringing, who believed it. My own grandfather, EW Rogers, wrote in the thirties or forties, when fundamentalism was in full swing (and he was a fundamentalist);
What then is inspiration? It is that process which resulted in
a perfectly accurate and authoritative compilation of literature
which everywhere bears the hallmark of divine origin. The process
will ever remain a mystery.... (But) it is not mechanical dictation,
for everywhere in Scripture the human element is discernable....
The tears of Paul, the zeal of Peter, the mysticism of John and
the multitudinous human traits of the other penmen of Scripture
are manifest in their writings which constitute the book truly
human; yet in every part the voice of God is to be heard which
shows it to be really divine. (Short Papers on Some Fundamental
Truths, p.8)
That is just what Peter said. When men were prophesying, they
spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
That is a nautical term - a ship is carried along by the wind
as the air fills her sails. Every sailing ship is built to do
a different job and has, therefore, different characteristics.
Many ancient ships could only sail downwind. A clipper was built
to carry a lighter load fast upwind or down. A little trailer-sailer
is great for nipping around sheltered harbours, but don't enter
one in the Whitbread; for that you need an ocean-going yacht.
Just so, as each human writer of the Bible has his own temperament
and character and different life-situation, when the Holy Spirit
filled his sails, he spoke with all that in mind. Indeed, he probably
spoke without it in mind; it was simply part of who he was and
it influenced, without him thinking about it, how he wrote. But
don't let us forget either what Peter said about the Bible being
the living Word of God - indeed, it is the life-giving Word of
God. Therefore we may go on to say;
2. THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO BE THE RULE OF FAITH AND LIFE.
First of all, Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3 that the sacred Scriptures
breathed out by God are able to make us wise unto salvation. God
has given His Word to bring us to faith - not on its own, of course;
without the Spirit, it is a dead letter. But just as the Spirit
moved over the face of the waters as God spoke the plants and
animals into being in the beginning; just as the Spirit came upon
Mary as God spoke the Word of promise to her that she would be
the mother of Jesus, just so must we be born again by the Spirit
that we might have that faith which comes also by hearing the
Word (Romans 10). Just as true is it that "unless you are
born again (by the Spirit), you cannot see the kingdom of God",
so true is it also that "you are born, not of perishable
seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word
of God (1 Peter 1:23)."
And it would be good for us to let that sink in. In all our contending
for the faith (and pray that our contending truly is for the faith
and not merely contentiousness), let us remember that it is all
very well to believe rightly what the Scriptures are. But what
good will that do us unless they perform in us what God intended
them to do? Timothy knew the Scriptures. From childhood he had
learned them from his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois.
And he had become wise to salvation from sin and hell and judgment
because not only did those two women teach him a knowledge of
the Scriptures; the Scriptures lived in them. Paul had earlier
spoken of their sincere faith. Which brings us right to the other
aspect.
Not only are the Scriptures a rule of faith, but also of life;
not just that we might be saved but that we might live the saved
life. Some very good evangelicals often speak of the Bible as
a manual for life. The funny thing is, their arch-enemies, Liberals,
often see it rather similarly, as a book of ethics, a textbook
on morals. Perhaps that is because both groups, at a more basic
level, make the same mistake (I can hear my evangelical friends
gagging in horror at the suggestion even as I write). But both
views are man-centred; both come at the Bible with the same question
in mind. Now the Bible certainly is to do something to us - it
is to make us wise unto salvation. But even before that it is
simply a revelation of God, of His dealings with His people down
through history; it testifies of Christ (Luke 24:44); it is the
revelation of a Person, not principles. And that is something
that we as Reformed people must always bear in mind. We in this
twentieth century are very quick to come to the Scriptures with
all our questions. Perhaps this is why counselling has assumed
such importance in the life of the Church too. And therefore preaching
must be practical, to help us handle life. Actually though, the
most practical thing in the world sometimes, the best counsel
we can get, is to have our minds lifted out of this world for
a bit; to have them directed for an hour to things above where
our life is hid with Christ in God. Sometimes our biggest problem
is that we spend so much time trying to solve our problems. You
have heard that it hath been said, "So and so is too heavenly
minded to be of any earthly use." Try lining Abraham and
Isaiah and Jesus and Paul up against that. For that reason the
Reformed preacher will be careful about responding too quickly
to this or that pastoral situation or the so-called great events
in world affairs. Who says they are great events anyway? Omri
was a far bigger gun than his son, Ahab, in the records of ancient
secular history, but he gets only a few verses in the Bible. Could
God be telling us something by that? We must let God set the agenda.
Perhaps with our questions and the things we think are important,
we are barking up the wrong tree more often than we realise.
Nevertheless, God has revealed Himself through the Bible to bring
glory to Himself, firstly, by saving us and, secondly, by leading
us on in holiness without which no-one will see the Lord (Hebrews
12:14). As Paul says in Ephesians 1, God has chosen to save us
"before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless
in His sight ... to the praise of His glory." And even that
history of God's dealings with His people in the OT are there
for us to learn from. "These things happened to them as examples
and were written down as warnings for us, ... so that if you think
you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall (1 Cor.10)."
But not just to warn us. Returning again to Romans 15:4, "Everything
that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that
through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might
have hope." So while it is much more, the Bible certainly
does provide us with Basic Life Principles. Jesus commented on
the Jews who "searched the Scriptures, for in them you think
you will find eternal life." They did right in that. And
to live that life pleasing to God, to show true thankfulness for
His saving grace, we must still search the Scriptures.
Rev. John Rogers (North Shore)
Faith in Focus /NZ Reformed Church / gmilne@ihug.co.nz / revised March 96 / Copyright 1996