Westminster Confession of Faith 1.1

Given that we have completed our look through the Directory for Private Worship, I thought it worthwhile to look at another historic reformed document. This time I have chosen the Westminster Confession of Fath, a more important document, and one that is still held as a standard by Presbyterian churches around the world today. We will work through this confession point by point every Wednesday.

The Confession was drawn up by an Assembly of clergy and laymen which was appointed by the English Parliament in 1643. The Assembly also produced other Christian classics such as the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Form of Church Government and the Directory for Public Worship. The Confession itself was completed in 1647.

Today we will begin at Section 1 Of Holy Scripture.

1. Of Holy Scripture

1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.

The first clause highlights what some refer to as general revelation. God’s works of creation and providence display who he is. We know that ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’, (Psalm 19) and we know that the apostle Paul says that what may be known about God is plain to men and they are without excuse before God (Romans 1). However, this revelation of God is not sufficient for knowledge that leads to salvation.

This leads to the next sentences where special revelation is introduced. God has spoken and revealed himself in various ways and manners (Hebrews 1:1). The purpose of the revelation is to reveal his will to his people. These revelations have been committed to writing so that the truth can be preserved and spread as well as aiding the church to establish itself and protect God’s people against the corruption of the world, the flesh (our fallen and sinful nature as expressed in Romans 8:7) and the devil.

The final clause highlights an important point. Scripture teaches that God no longer reveals himself in the ways he revealed himself to the prophets and apostles of old. The Assembly believed that his final revelation was in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:2). For the Church, this means the Scriptures are our final standard in life and practice, since they are the revelation of Christ and his will for his church.

Letter #1

I Won’t Believe Unless God Speaks to Me

Regarding your question about the friends who say they will not believe unless God speaks to them or reveals himself to them in a special way. First of all, I would ask them how do they know that he isn’t already doing so. This will probably surprise them. But this is the teaching of the Bible. Creation speaks of God every second of every hour, every day, throughout all ages. I’m sure you would have learned Psalm 19 as a child.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Here David poetically describes the truth that all of creation is a message from God about him addressed to anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear. This speech of God’s is able to cross any language barriers. It goes throughout all the earth. So God is doing amazing things and speaking amazing things every second. He is revealing himself every minute of the day through his creation. So the problem is not that God is not revealing himself…the problem lies somewhere else.

Think of it like this. Let’s say you visit someone who has a house right next to the motorway. Perhaps you have been living in the country all your life. When you visit this friend’s place, you will certainly notice the sounds of the cars whooshing past. You ask your friend how they manage to live with such noise. And what will their answer be? They don’t even notice it any more. In fact likely as not, they will find things extremely odd if they went to live in the country. Something would be missing, but they won’t be able to put their finger on it. It’s like this with God’s speech to us. The sun, the planets, the stars and the moon are all speaking to us. Actually speaking to us and telling us about God. But we have heard their voices our whole lives, and the background noise of their speech no longer signifies anything to us. Were they to stop (which is impossible, for all creation even the very stones must cry out testifying to God), we would suddenly realise that something has stopped. Something would be missing. So in one sense, our problem is that we are so used to God speaking that it has just become part of the background noise.  

But the problem is even deeper than this. For in our example, the person living next to the motorway can train herself to hear the sound of the cars passing if she concentrates. Our problem is our naturally rebellious hearts do not want to hear God. It’s a problem of our hardness of heart – our spiritual blindness and deafness. For example, Romans 1 teaches us that creation itself is sufficient to know God. Here is what Paul says in Romans 1:18-20.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

In other words, according to Paul, the knowledge of God is plain. So plain that God holds each one of us without excuse. We should be able to see his power and his divinity through his creation. But the rebellious human heart suppresses the truth. We bury it deep within us and any time this knowledge attempts to come to our consciousness in our natural rebellious state we push it back down again. The human heart does not want any reminders of God and his claims on us. 

This rebellious suppression of the truth is so bad, that it will reject even the most miraculous evidence of all. Take a look at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. In this parable, the rich man ends up in torment, and he asks for the poor man Lazarus to be raised to life and tell his sinful brothers to repent so they can avoid his fate. In the parable, Jesus has Abraham tell the rich man that even if someone rises from the dead, they will not repent if they refuse to hear Moses and the Prophets. I think the point Jesus is making through this parable is that repentance comes not so much through seeing something miraculous and it changing you. Rather as Paul puts it, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17). Jesus’ point is even further underlined by the response to his own resurrection from the dead. This is a resurrection that was testified to by hundreds of people, including the apostles, all of whom (except for John) died gruesome deaths testifying to the risen king. (They were in the position to know whether the resurrection was a lie, but they died claiming it was true.) Even so, many of the Pharisees and religious leaders of the day carried on suppressing the truth even though they knew he had risen. Although the knew Jesus’ claims about rising from the dead (Matthew 27:62-64), when it actually happened, they tried to cover it up by paying the guards who had seen things to lie. (Matthew 28:11-14).

So in summary, God is speaking through his creation. He has spoken in his word which is powerful to change hearts. And he has spoken fully and finally through the Word, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, we have the final and full revelation of God to us. As John puts it, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side; he has made him known.” (John 1:18). How can a God who has not a body like men reveal himself in the context of a world of suppressors of the truth? He becomes a man to make himself known. The incarnation is the great one-off miracle that reveals God to every human being.

Can miraculous events occur? Can God speak audibly? Can he come to us in visions? Of course. He’s God. Is this enough for a doubter to believe? No. God must change our hearts. Does God ordinarily work through visions and audible speech to draw people to himself? No. He usually uses ordinary means. It is his Word about Christ by his Spirit which breaks down our sinful rebellion and draws us to himself. 

Another question to ask these friends might be this one: Are you willing to bet your eternal soul that Jesus is not the king of the universe and requires you to repent and submit to him just because he doesn’t appear to you in the manner you want him to? Think about romantic relationships. Let’s say a guy wants to get to know a particular girl he is attracted to. He asks her out to watch drag racing with him. She’s not interested in drag racing and says no. Perhaps she suggests coffee instead. What would happen if the guy stubbornly says, “No, I want you to come to watch drag racing with me.” That’s just not going to happen. If he wants to get to know the girl, he must do it on her terms, not his own. God is there and he is not silent. He speaks, but we cannot demand that he reveals himself to us on our terms. He is God. He gets to dictate the terms of our relationship. If we refuse to accept this, we will never know him. 

Nothing but Blind Pitiless Indifference

Many of my readers are no doubt familiar with Richard Dawkins, probably the world’s most famous and outspoken atheist and critic of religion. The author of The God Delusion has recently had his 1996 humanist of the year award withdrawn by the American Humanist Association for statements that demean marginalised groups.

Just what statement was this? It was a tweet.

Harmless enough right? Well, not in this age. Especially not for the secular humanists. There is a beautiful irony in this. Rev Richard Dawkins has not caught up with the implications of his materialist religion. He’s the chap who wrote, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” Here’s what happens when your religion has no transcendent authority mate. If there is no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, there certainly is no rationality. You’d be best just to watch which way the mob is going and run with them. Alternatively, you could stop suppressing the truth, believe in the God who is and who is the reason there is truth and rationality. That’s God’s voice you are hearing in creation that causes you to know men can’t really identify as women.