Westminster Confession of Faith 1.9 – Scripture Interprets Scripture

The week has flown by and we are back to Wednesday again which means Westminster Confession of Faith day! Last week we focused on the authority of the original languages. While these are the final authority, we learnt that good translations in the language of ordinary people are good and necessary. Today we look at the penultimate point in the first section of the Confession ‘Of the Holy Scriptures’ and our key focus today is the way Scripture is its own interpreter.

IX. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

What do we learn here? Firstly, that Scripture interprets Scripture. We have seen hints of this in WCF 1.7 where we learned of the perspicuity of Scripture. The “things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation“ are clear to such a degree that ordinary people can by ordinary means of careful reading understand the Scriptures. The point made here is related. We do not need an authoritative Church to interpret Scripture for us. The Scriptures are authoritative and we look to them to understand them! Note for example how Paul charged Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15 to work diligently to be a man who rightly handles the Word of Truth. In Acts, the Berean Christians were noted for their noble-mindedness when Paul preached to them. What did they do? They examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was teaching was what the Scriptures taught (Acts 17:11).

Secondly, we are informed in passing that there is one right and true sense of any Scripture. Wilkinson in his study of the Confession mentions that medieval scholars spoke of four levels of meaning in a text, and there was a tendency to allegorise Scripture which led to a twisting of Scripture by some to make it say whatever they already believed. This ought to be avoided. Even today, in some Christian circles the tendency to allegorise is a problem. I remember preaching a sermon on David and Goliath and after the service a man came up to me and explained to me the real meaning of the five smooth stones. The details are no longer clear in my mind, but I do remember him speaking of the smooth stones and the many aeons of water and physical weathering and hitting up against other rocks that made them ready to be used by David in his takedown of Goliath. God’s works in our lives to make us smooth stones ready for his use. What he said was not bad or evil, but clearly not what the passage is about.

How do we understand what a given Scripture is saying? We must interpret it in a literal manner. And here, Wilkinson is again helpful. Some of our godly brothers misunderstand the meaning of literal and take it to mean literalistic and they tend to approach Scripture in a wooden way. A literalistic reading might argue that the Scripture teaches the earth is flat because four corners of the earth are spoken of, or that people will literally have 666 written on their hands and forehead. What we mean by literal is taking into account the genre and understanding how language is used within this genre to determine what the author intended to say. It will not do to read, “He kicked the bucket” and assume a literalistic interpretation of a chap booting a poor defenceless bucket. A lot more could be said here, and perhaps in the future we will look at this in more detail.

Finally, we are given the well-known principle that we must let the places where Scripture speaks more clearly be our guide. Many have taken obscure passages out of context, misinterpreted them and made whole doctrines out of them. This will not do. We must let all of Scripture help us interpret any one Scripture, allowing the more clear to help us determine the meaning of the less clear.