Things have been rather busy for Sojournal writers, and I see that it has been almost 2 months since our last WCF post. There we saw how Scripture interprets Scripture. Where the meaning of Scripture is not grasped easily, we ought to see use Scripture where it speaks more clearly to help us to interpret tricky passages. Today we complete the first chapter of the Confession (on the Holy Scripture) with the principle that Scripture is our supreme judge.
X. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined; and in whose sentence we are to rest; can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.
Obviously, there is a historical situation that is being addressed here. The Roman Catholic Church saw itself as having the power and authority to interpret infallibly the Scriptures. The framers of the Confession begged to differ. Their point here seems to me to flow out of the authority of Scripture which they highlight in sections 1.4 and 1.5 of the Confession.
It’s not that we should despise the opinions of the ancient writers (like the church fathers), or that people who claim that God has spoken to them are always wrong. It’s that we cannot judge disagreements over Scripture and the faith by appealing to these sources. While the early Christian writers have much good to say, at times it can be demonstrated from Scripture that they are just plain wrong. The framers of the confession were themselves a kind of council, so it’s not that they thought groups of people coming together to write statements of faith was a bad thing per se. It’s that individuals and councils can make mistakes. the Scriptures do not. Therefore “Reformed Christianity,” according to Williamson in his commentary on the Confession “refuses to allow the conscience to be bound by anything except the infallible Word of God itself.”
There is a danger in this. Scripture is the Supreme judge, so certain sectors of the evangelical church want ‘a verse’ for everything. For these people there has to be a proof text for everything. However, it pays to remember that Scripture is not an encyclopedia where were can look up things like “Women” and then find the section on careers and from there find a verse that justifies or condemns the practice. Scripture does not work that way. We need to be more sophisticated in our approach to Scripture as our only infallible rule of faith and practice. A lot of what Scripture teaches is not written in bald propositional logic. And incidentally, Scripture has a lot to say about career women if we are saturated in its story.