Together, we had been talking about the organism of revelation. We had looked at general revelation, which we looked at under the categories of creation revelation, revelation through providence, and revelation through conscience. And then if you recall, we segwayed to particular revelation. And again, I want to draw your attention to the distinction between particular and general revelation. General revelation is universal. It holds at all times and all places. Particular revelation, however, is historical revelation. It is God speaking or acting in context with particular persons. And we had under Romerimus 11 of your outline, the last thing we were doing was looking at the word and spirits. And here we come to point D, the primacy of the Holy Spirit. And I don't have my notes on that, just a second. Here I got you organized, and I didn't get myself organized. Okay, now I actually do have them under a different title here in front of me. John Calvin, as we noted last week, held that neither a church nor a reason, nor a philosophical school or tradition, or the subjective self can qualify as authorities, which established the Bible as God's word. The belief that scripture is the word of God is neither the result of a papal pronouncement, nor a conclusion inferred from rational principles, rather it's a belief which the Holy Spirit produces within the people of God. This primacy of the spirit, as regards biblical authority, fits beautifully with scripture's own witness concerning the ministry of the Spirit in John chapter 14 through 16. I just want to mention three items real quick, very quickly, from that section of John, which makes the point. First of all, the Holy Spirit witnesses to Christ, and Christ comes to us only in scripture second. The same spirit who impresses Jesus upon us also guides the people of God into all truth. And third, the Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. But this emphasis upon the internal working of the Holy Spirit does raise questions about the Reformation view of authority. I want to look at two questions here. First of all, does this reliance upon the authenticating work of the Holy Spirit regarding revelation, render all rational or evidential claims invalid? In other words, are we working simply by the Spirit and everything else is to be ignored or tossed out? The answer is no by no means. The Westminster Confession chapter 1, article 5, claims that we are completely persuaded and assured of the infallible truth and divine authority of the Bible, only by the inward working of the Holy Spirit, who testifies by and with the word in our hearts. Immediately preceding that, the Confession cites some of what we might call the objective perfections of scripture. Its coherence, its magnificence of style, its antiquity, and so forth, and claims that the Bible itself shows that it is the Word of God. Calvin said the same thing, 80 years before, but such facts as the historical accuracy of the text fulfilled prophecy and all the rest are not proofs so much as they are confirmatory arguments. They are, if you will, an apologetic for the people of God, for they tell us that we are within our intellectual rights to believe, even if our believing is not the process of an intellectual process. Its not the result, excuse me, of an intellectual process. Another way of saying this is that faith seeks understanding. Right back to that formula from an Enselm, we do not believe because something is absurd. We don't believe against all argument, against all reason, but we do believe firstly because of God's effectual working through his spirit. I can probably say it this way, God does give his people reasons to believe, but the cause of our belief is the spirit of God. Second question is this, if the spirit brings home the Word of God to the people of God, if he teaches the body of Christ and leads that body into all truth, does this merely put us back into the hands of a subjectivism? An individual experience dressed up under the name of the internal working of the spirit. That's the Roman Catholic argument regarding John Calvin and the reformed tradition. And some folks in the broad reformed or Protestant tradition do seem to represent such a view. Bernard Ram, for instance, who actually was a Baptist theologian, spoke of the pattern of authority as being one the objective word written in Scripture, together with what he called the subjective word, the inner illumination and conviction of the spirit within the heart of the believer. I think that's insufficient, however, because it doesn't do full justice to the reformation doctrine of the word and spirit. Calvin did not view the spirit of God as working individual insights in individual believers, but rather as working through the body of Christ. The reformation goal was not each man alone with his Bible, with only the internal working of the spirit to help him. The reformers, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, on down, opposed the energy of the anabaptists, as surely as they opposed the ecclesiastical monarchy of Rome. And Geneva is a good example of what Calvin had in mind here. All the pastors in the city would preach in the same text each week, and for the week preceding the sermon, there would be Bible study groups, which talked about the sermon, discuss the text, and that very reality would later be codified in the reformed tradition as the teaching elders in the church. The spirit of God illuminates the entire body, not just the individual person, and he illuminates the body of Christ throughout its history. This present community, the present community of faith, is nothing more than the current installments of the historic church. We sometimes think of history as being something other than us. History is us. We are the present installment of that history. Roman in the middle 12, relationships within a threefold word. If you've been counting, we've actually talked about revelation in a number of forms, but it really kind of boils down to three. That universal revelation, that's true at all times in all places, and that's given through creation, providence, and conscience, particular revelation, which we tend to associate and rightly so with Scripture. God has a general revelation, and then a particular, special, inscripturated revelation. Well, where do you get the third one, Williams? The third one I think is Jesus. I want to give him a pride of place here, after all, he is the word of God in the flesh. So we've been talking about the word of God in three manifestations, general, particular and Jesus Christ, who himself is particular revelation, but I'm going to draw him out and give him pride of place. Yes, any discussion about revelation, about the word of God, which intends to stand within the classical Orthodox tradition, must begin with the Bible, Scripture. It must begin with the confession that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the word of God. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, this is chapter 1, Article 6. The whole Council of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith in life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, onto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of man. Beginning with that confession that the Bible is the word of God. We must then allow the Bible to instruct us about revelation. It is a word of faith and salvation through which alone we are brought to the word of God our Savior. Again, as we pointed out last time, we believe the Bible yet we did not believe in the Bible. Only Christ is the Redeemer. But without Scripture, Jesus will always remain unknown to us. And interestingly, that was true just as much for first century people who met Jesus as it is for us. It was only as John and Matthew and the rest of the disciples and everyone else. It was only as the word of God opened their hearts and minds to the truth that they knew Jesus of Nazareth, the word of God, become man. It was only as these people, even though they saw Jesus in the flesh, it was only as they understood the Old Testament expectation that they were able to recognize who they were dealing with. And here you might look at Luke 16 verses 29 through 31, Luke 24 verses 25 through 27, John 5 verses 46 through 47. And we can say the same thing about creation. It's only as our hearts and minds are opened up by the faithful, spirit-directed reading of Scripture that we will appreciate this world as God's creation. Again, repeating ourselves a bit from last time, though the word of God is plainly seen in the ordering of creation, Romans 1, yet without the written word of Scripture and the ministry of the spirits, we will go on suppressing the truth. Just as Christ only comes to us, dressed in the robes of Scripture, so we come to know the world as God's creation only through the spectacles of God's written word. While God's revelation and creation certainly precedes His revelation and Scripture historically. The latter, Scripture, is the essential point of entry for us concerning revelation. Now this indispensable role of Scripture was what the Reformers were so eager to protect. And here we enter into a discussion of Solus, Scripture alone. This phrase, Solus, Scripture has sometimes been misunderstood. It does not involve any suggestion that revelation comes to us only in the Bible. It does not say that only the word coming to us in Scripture, the redemptive word, is revelation. It does say, however, that only the word coming to us in Scripture can open us up to the fullness of God's revelation in our lives. Luther, Calvin and the other Reformers held that God reveals His ways and His will, not only in Scripture, but also in that general revelation that we spoke of last week. Solus, Scripture was a commitment that we must begin with Scripture. It was a commitment that the one unimpeachable standard by which our faith is to be evaluated is Scripture. It was a commitment that we don't begin with human reason, scientific testing, religious phenomena, or anything else. Our starting point is Scripture. That's what the phrase, the formula, Solus, Scripture means. It is not the only norm. It is the norm of norms. It is the norm that tests all else. All things must be evaluated by the Bible. Now in light of that Reformation, starting point is high position of Solus, Scripture. The Church has come to speak of the marks of Scripture, or sometimes the perfections of Scripture, and usually under four categories, namely its necessity, sufficiency, perspicuity, and authority. I'm going to just very quickly say something about these, and I'm going to return to them later this evening. First of all, over against the Roman Catholic Church's emphasis upon the necessity of the Church, as the dispenser of salvation. The Reformation proclaimed the fundamental necessity of Scripture in illuminating the way of life. That's the necessity of Scripture. Second, the word in Scripture is fully sufficient for a knowledge of salvation. The light of tradition is not necessary. It's not a necessary element in our coming to know God and His redemption. All tradition must be tested high, Scripture. That's sufficiency. Third, where Rome made the clarity, that is the perspicuity of Scripture, dependent on the teaching of the Church and the Magisterium. The Reformation held that under the leading of the Spirit, the redemptive message of Scripture is unmistakably clear to the body of Christ. If it will help you here, the word perspicuity, what it is, it's an unclear way of saying clarity. Fourth, or finally here, authority. Given that Scripture is necessary for salvation, as a light for all of life, given the fact that it's sufficient and perspicuous, that's got the word wrong. Perspicuous, I threw out a syllable there. In its redemptive revelation, it is also fully authoritative. We are submit humbly and obediently to its redemptive message. Seeing your outline here, creation, revelation, or, should say, general revelation and Scripture in dynamic revelation. Now while the Bible enjoys a corrective function for our seeing of general revelation, we must say that both general revelation and particular Scripture revelation are truthful and even authority. It's not that general revelation needs to be corrected, but our interpretation of that revelation certainly does. In fact, the matter is, general revelation and particular revelation inform one another. Now by saying that, I don't mean to devalue Scripture in the slightest. Giving general revelation its proper due is actually an elevation and a protection of Scripture because it conforms to the Bible's own witness concerning God's word in creation, providence, and conscience. Given our fallen natures, we can't understand creation's revelatory word apart from Scripture. Again, our discussion from last time. So due to the fall, our blindness, if you remember Calvin's imagery, Scripture enjoys a preeminence. It is those spectacles that we wear. Yet we must also recognize that Scripture does not come to us in a revelational vacuum. As Scripture is indispensable for a proper understanding of creation, and for a proper understanding of God's word in creation and providence in all the rest, so Scripture itself cannot be understood apart from its creational context. Yes, the Bible has a creational context. So the fact of the matter is, the Bible does not give us an alternative revelation to creation. There is a continuity between Scripture and creation. And Scripture and God's more general means of revelation. You see in Scripture, as in all of Revelation, God makes His ways and His will known through the creaturely. Recall our discussion about accommodation. God's condescension to us. In the case of Scripture, God reveals His will, His redemptive word through creaturely language. Thus we understand Scripture only in the context of our daily experience of creation. We relate to the Bible in the context of our prior experience in creation. Fact is, we can't do otherwise. Scripture communicates through words and historical and culturally shaped images that are intelligible, only in their reference to the Creator order. When we read in Scripture of male and female, camels and horses, swords and spears, slaves and princes, we know what those things mean, not because they're given a self-contained meaning in the pages of Scripture, but because they relate to the phenomenal world around us that is bounded by God's creation law. Our understanding of, our appreciation of God's creation revelation does inform our reading of Scripture, and it can't help but do that. Now by giving general revelations to do, again, I'm not devaluing Scripture. What I'm actually arguing for here is that Scripture and general revelation do not and cannot stand in opposition to one another. Both are true and both have an authority. Now one area in which this is particularly pressing today, it has been for some time, is the so-called debate between science and faith. There's no here. I'm not for a second suggesting that science is as authoritative as Scripture. Science is not the same thing as creation revelation. What is science? Science is an interpretation of creation, it's not the same thing as creation, and we must recognize the fact that as secularist science refuses to acknowledge the fundamental dependence of the universe upon its creator, secular science is wrong-headed from the get-go. But that does not mean that all science is misguided, or that scientific inquiry is somehow opposed to faith or Scripture or revelation. Now the Christian community has traditionally responded rather negatively to certain trends in secularist science, and often with very good reason, but we need to be careful here. We must not throw out the creation baby with the secularist bathwater, rather than simply say that Scripture teaches A equals B, and that if science teaches A equals C, then the Bible is wrong, and so much the worst for science, or the Bible is right, and science is wrong. We must realize that wherever we have a conflict, what we're actually witnessing is a clash of interpretation, an interpretation of Scripture on one side, and an interpretation of creation on the other side.
Now if a believing interpretation of Scripture does say A equals B, and a responsible scientific interpretation of creation says that A equals C, in such a way that C equals not B, then obviously there is an error in interpretation taking place. The error may be one of our interpretation of the Creator, but it may also be one of our interpretation of Scripture. Our experience of creation has, does, and will, revise our interpretations of the Bible. We have just one example here, it's a famous one, early in the 17th century. The Roman Catholic hierarchy judged Galileo's heliocentric theory of the solar system to be heretical. The heliocentric theory was what, that the sun is the center of the solar system. They judged it heretical because it clearly contradicted the geocentric worldview that was held by the medieval church, and I thought it was taught in such texts as Joshua chapter 10 verses 12 through 13. In that conflict, the scientific interpretation of creation was right, and the medieval church as interpretation of Scripture was wrong. And today, none of us questions the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than the sun revolving around the earth. I almost got the moon in there somewhere. Now, don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to make room for an evolutionary interpretation of the emergence of life or any such thing. It's not my concern, I'm not an evolutionist. What is at stake here is the integrity of revelation, both scriptural and creational. Let me state it this way. If the Bible is true, it must describe realities that really is. If it doesn't describe reality as it really is, then the Bible simply is not true. It is a collection of myths. We believe the Bible does describe reality as it really is, or at least gives us the materials that we can see the world as it truly is. If God is the Creator, there's no conflict between a proper interpretation of creation and a proper interpretation of Scripture. In other words, creation and Scripture hang together. It's interesting, the apostles create, the first two articles go together. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator, maker of heaven and earth. And I believe in Jesus Christ, here's the sun. Every word which proceeds from the mouth of God is true. Well, that's where we end our discussion of the organism of revelation. I want to turn here to, more particularly, the issue of Scripture. And as we do that, let me pause and entertain any questions that you might have, even though it's fairly early in the evening. Speaking of particular revelation as being mediated by time and space, how then do we guard from it being merely bound to time and space so that it's purely relative. Let me suggest that there are many truths which come to us, as matter of fact most of the truths we really hold dear, that we really see as important. Come to us, dress in history. That doesn't relativize them for us. There's an old saying that everyone who was alive in November of 1963 knows where they were in the 22nd day of that month. There's no way to go back. You can't undo it. It's true from then on to forever. And as a matter of fact, it has changed our lives. And you can do that over and over and over again. I think there's a sense here that we have that somehow historical reality is negligible in some way. That it's optional in some way. In fact, as a matter of fact, it isn't. Again, all the truths that I think that we hold precious for us are historic. I have a three and a half year old son. I can't go back to before he was born. I can't imagine that happening. And it's true for my life, for my reality. I don't have one son. I have two forever. So that'd be one way I'd respond to that. Does that make sense, Camille? I'm sure we can say more about that and we will in days ahead. Let me just give you a hint here where I'm going to be going with this since we're talking about God and his word. God demonstrates Himself and wants to demonstrate Himself and reveal Himself in Scripture in utterly personal, historical, particular terms that doesn't relativize Him at all. It's the only way to know a person, the only way. There's no other way. I've been thinking about that this very issue this last week in dealing with gender issues and some others. If we could somehow subtract God's personhood from Him, you know what we'd have left? Nothing. Everything. Everything. False. Sometimes, and we're going to talk about this when we get into attributes and all that, we sometimes just list God's personhood as one of His attributes. No, no. You don't do that. You start there. And those attributes are His attributes. The attributes of His person, the attributes of who He is. His personhood is not negotiable anyway, it's not optional. My persons are only know, can only be know, in the midst of following Him around, in the midst of experiencing their lives as they disclose themselves to us. Other questions before we proceed, good question. Then, let's start taking up the issue of the doctrine of Scripture, and I need to turn to the page here myself. It's a widely held opinion among theologians that John Calvin was the monster of the 16th century. By monster, I don't mean something bad. I mean, something good. He was the greatest mind of that century. When I was a student at Harvard, my mentor there was Richard R. Nieber, and Nieber said, there's one man in the history of the Christian Church. You don't want to get into a theological argument with it, because you lose it, and that man is John Calvin. He was quite simply a person without peer. However, Calvin was a pale shadow of Martin Luther, in at least one respect. We might call it the sound bite. Luther had an amazing ability to sum things up in a word, a person without peer, an exegete, with absolutely amazing abilities, and the output of this man, who only lived to be 56, anyone else during the period. I know I've been gushing about Calvin for two weeks now. It's okay, I'm reformed. This is a reformed seminary. I'm allowed at some point to do that. However, Calvin was a pale shadow of Martin Luther, in at least one respect. We might call it the sound bite. Luther had an amazing ability to sum things up in a word, in a phrase, seems like Calvin did all the hard work, or the heavy thinking for the reformation, not all of it, but a good chunk of it. But Luther seemed to put them all into the nutshell. Let me get to one of these. After admitting in a public debate that he thought it possible for the Pope to err, and for a church council to be wrong, Luther was summoned before the died of worms to face very serious charges of heresy. When he got there, he was called to recant his views, and he stood before the diet, and he said this, quoting him here, unless I'm convinced by sacred scripture or evident reason, I will not recant. My conscience is held captive by the Word of God, and to act against conscience is not the right, nor safe, and quote, I am held captive by the Word of God. Now what has the power to so bind the conscience? What has the authority to command belief and action? Luther's answer is only the Bible. The Bible alone has that authority, has that power, the written Word of God. And with that, the reformation becomes a movement. It is typified by the slogan, Soluscriptura. Now the principle of Soluscriptura was used by the reformers against the Roman Catholic Church, and its commitment that the authority of Scripture stands under the authority of the Church and the Church's tradition. The medieval church said, yes, the Bible is the Word of God, but the ecclesiastical tradition is also revelatory. And the Church's tradition is the authoritative interpreter of Scripture. By the use of the Soluscriptura formula, the reformers did intentionally mean to deny any revelational status to tradition, but they did not mean to reject any and all authority outside of Scripture. The authority of the Church and tradition were not rejected, but they were subjected to the authority of Scripture. They will, if I can put it this way, they were relativized in reference to the Scripture. And it's proof of this. It can do this quite easily. Both Luther and Calvin affirmed the Apostles Creed, and both of them started writing catechisms in Confessions, the early 16th century, and the early 17th century, saw the production of almost two dozen Lutheran and reformed confessional documents. So clearly, the lines of religious authority were not limited to Scripture alone, but whatever authorities that are out there that might exist must be brought under the rule of Scripture, must be tested by this one unimpeachable norm. So Scripture is preeminent in the Reformation mind. It alone bears the authority of God. Only Scripture carries the authority of the Seyatholoch, no creed, confession, church, pastor, philosophical, perspective, theological, school can make such a claim. It's crucial that we understand the centrality of Soluscriptura because the real problem of any confessional tradition, and I believe that there's no such thing as a non-confessional tradition, the real problem of any confessional tradition, is the risk of confusing confessional authority with biblical authority. Let me just say this. The creed and the confession may be superb summaries of the Gospel. They may give us clear insight into the foundations of our faith and give us good direction as to how to walk in the world, but they are human creations. Thus the Westminster tradition itself tells us they are all liable to error. Creed, confession, catechism may be inspiring, I believe they are, but they are not inspired. Coming under the rule of Soluscriptura, they must be judged and interpreted by Scripture. If the Bible is that central, if it's the judge of all, if it's the one unimpeachable norm, then it's necessary that we understand the nature of its authority. It's been common throughout the history of the church to refer to the Bible as an inspired book. The classic text here is 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, and if you have your Bibles with you and you should, you want to take them out and turn to that text. All Scripture is inspired and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. At the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped in every good word, excuse me. Now Paul uses the word Theo Nostas here, is that in your outline, Theo Nostas, meaning God breathed, and we have translated Theo Nostas as inspired. But the fact of the matter is, our English word expired rather than inspired would better capture the idea of Theo Nostas. You see, Paul is not saying that the Bible is inspired, in the sense that God breathes his imprimatur into the text after the fact. But rather, that Scripture is inspired and that it comes from God, who is its very speaker, its author. So, I think it's a better image, it makes better sense of the text, and what Paul's after think of the Bible as the word of God expired, breathed out from God, rather than, let's say God coming up and saying, oh, gospel of John, looks pretty good, I think I'll inspire it. That's not the vision we have here. But when we talk of inspiration, what we're doing is talking about nothing less than the authority of Scripture. As the inspired word of God, it is the authoritative word of God. It is the thus, sayeth, the Lord. Now, inspiration has usually been thought of as a process, a process by which God moved the human authors to write a word which was also his word, thus Moses and John were agents of revelation through the process of inspiration. And the Westminster Confession is representative of this idea, when it says this, under the name of Holy Scripture, or the word of God written, are now contained all the books of the old and new testaments, all which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life. Now, this use of the word inspiration is referring to the manner of production, confirms, conforms to Paul's use in 2 Timothy 3, 16, and it also captures Peter's thoughts in 2 Peter 1 verse 21. For prophecy never had it's origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were killed wrong by the Holy Spirit. Over the years, however, this has been a lot of debate. What actually is the mechanism by which this inspiration takes place? How does the Holy Spirit move men to write the very words of God? Is inspiration verbal? Is it dictational? Is it mechanical? Back to the matter is, the Bible doesn't tell us. It does not tell us the mechanism. And quite frankly, it seems to me that much of the discussion has lost sight of the point. The point is the character of Scripture as an authoritative word. The point is not so much the method of Scripture's generation, but its authority. In a article that appeared in a book by Harvey Comas, the editor, the title of Inherency, a bit like your present book, but there's something more to the title, I don't recall now. Sinclair Ferguson had an article in the book called, How Does The Bible Look At Itself? And in that article, Dr. Ferguson suggested that the theological issue is not the process of writing, but rather the source and character of what's written. So it's not the manner of production that's an issue when we talk about inspiration. It is the character and the source of what is written. While using the realities of creation and history, God is the source of revelation. The Bible is, if I can put it this way, an extension of God's own character. Therefore, it is fully authoritative and it requires no external structures. Be it a reason, experience, a person or the church to license it. The authority of Scripture is the authority of God Himself. I think that makes good sense. I think it's a good argument. And it certainly comports well with 2 Timothy 3.16's affirmation of the fact of inspiration. Yet I need to admit here that traditionally, the church has usually meant something closer to a mode of production when it is spoken of inspiration. The Westminster Confession Fates says this, under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament. All which are, here's the phrase, given by inspiration. The inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life. So we see that the Westminster tradition is affirming inspiration as a method or means of production. Second example here is the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, a statement that it made in 1959. Inspiration is that mighty act of God, there's the manner of production, whereby he spoke his words in the word of man and made them effective and final. Third Archibald Alexander from 1836, he said this, the true definition of inspiration then is such a divine influence upon the minds of the sacred writers as rendered them exempt from error, both in regard to the ideas and the words. And B.B. Warfield in 1878, this is from his book The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, which is still in print, he said this, inspiration is that extraordinary supernatural influence exerted by the Holy Ghost on the writers of our sacred books by which their words were rendered also the word of God and therefore perfectly infallible. And finally, from the modern day, J.I. Packer in his book Fundamentalism and the Word of God in 1958 said this, inspiration is to be defined as a supernatural, providential influence of God's Holy Spirit upon the human authors, which caused them to write what he wished to be written for the communication of revealed truths to others. Now, whether one keys upon the process as these citations have or the product, all of these sources would agree with Dr. Ferguson that the point of inspiration is, first of all, that God is the source of biblical revelation and second, that the character of that revelation is an extension of God's own character. It is fully authoritative. Let's move on to B in our outline here, the extent of inspiration. Even before the Reformation period, the church commonly spoke of the Bible as not only inspired, but it's planarily inspired. They spoke of the plenary inspiration of Scripture. And by that, what they meant is that all of Scripture is inspired, not merely part of it, not merely some books within it, but inspiration. The authority of the text extends to all its parts. After the beginning of the Reformation, a stronger view was developed over. And they're good, historical, and kind of logical reasons for this. What has the Reformation done? It has said the authority is not the church. It's the Word of God, right? So they now need a very clear statement of the nature of its authority. And they actually move to a strengthening of their statement. And thus, beginning about the 1580s, they began to speak of verbal inspiration. Verbal inspiration claims that the influence of the spirit extends not merely to the ideas of the human writers, but to the very words of Scripture as well. The resulting product is such that it is comprised of the very words God intends his people to hear. Remember G.I. Packer's statement there in fundamentalism and the work of God. Thus, the Bible is the verbal, the very words God wants to speak, thus, say, of the Lord, and plenary that authority extends to the entire of Scripture, the verbal, plenary word of God. Yet we should note here that this view of inspiration has had its detractors. And I have a whole bunch of quotes here. I'm not even going to bother with them actually. There's no need for them. But it is the fact that many people in the history of the church and many people present today have found something to complain about regarding verbal inspiration. And usually it's simply a denial of it. Let me see if I can get to this statement without going through all those quotations. I'm just going to make it as a general propositional statement. When the verbal inspiration of the text is held, when we hold that the Bible is the verbal, plenary word of God, it makes disagreeing with the Bible difficult. Does that make sense? If I hold that the Bible has the authority of God himself, then my saying, well, the Bible is wrong here, there, or another place, becomes a problematic issue and problematic indeed. I don't like slippery slope arguments, so I'll try not to use one. However, it does seem to me that truly high view of scripture is to be located right here with the conception of verbal inspiration. Not only am I falling into that slippery slope argument, I don't like, but I also used a way of speaking that I don't like. I said, a high view of scripture. You ever know anyone who said they had a low view of scripture? Anyway, a truly high view of scripture does begin with the issue of verbal inspiration. What we see in modernity with its rejections of the inspiration and authority of scripture are views which not only do not comport with the Bible's own view of itself, but do not comport with the historic church's view. When we accept the verbal inspiration of the Bible, I believe we are accepting the Bible's view of itself and Ferguson argues that way in the piece that I alluded to. Now, when we accept the Bible as authoritative, as verbally inspired, there are another, a number of other affirmations which appear to be the natural concomitants or products of that conception. And here we move to Roman numeral, what's 75?
Two? Yeah, two, Roman numeral two. Let's do that. Is that right? Yeah, okay. We've already said something about the marks of scripture or the perfections of scripture. I want to return to those here if we may. We're not going to break this evening. It's about a quarter-acre. First of all, the necessity of scripture. As I've already kind of indicated, in many ways, both tonight already the last time we're together, the Bible is necessary for redemption, but I need to be careful there. It is quite possible that people have been redeemed without the mediation of scripture. What we really mean by the necessity of scripture is the necessity of the gospel. And that gospel comes to us in scripture. Certainly, there are people who have been witness to and have accepted the gospel and have been regenerated without the direct mediation of scripture. But as Jesus comes to us only dressed in the robes of scripture, our knowledge of the gospel is only known through scripture. So the Bible is necessary as it mediates the gospel. Second here, in our outline, infallibility. And you see here two different definitions. The first one, the Bible is about truthfulness. And notice the Oxford dictionary definition here. Not liable to be deceived or mistaken in capable of airing. This definition is fairly close to what most Presbyterians would affirm as infallibility. However, you see a second definition here, which is closer to faithfulness. Infallibility means that scriptures, diverse illocutionary forces will invariably achieve their respective purposes. Now, I realize that you have a definition there that you need to use a dictionary to find out what the words mean. Illocutionary forces means forms of discourse. Within the Dutch tradition that I come from originally, there are many folks who really don't like the term in erancy, who don't like thinking in those terms and would rather deal with or think in terms of faithfulness. I list both of these here simply so that you realize that there is no one absolute privileged definition of some of these terms. There is some slop here, even within reformed Presbyterian evangelical circles. That's all I'm going to say on infallibility immediately because if you skip ahead and turn to an erancy, why don't you do that? It's going to be interesting here. Go to Romeo and Mold 3 in erancy, under B there, definition. This is the Oxford dictionary, again, the same dictionary, exempt from error, free from mistake, infallible. Notice what the Oxford dictionary has done. Under infallible, it said see an erancy, and under an erancy, it has said see infallible. So probably from this point on, to get to an erancy, we're traveling in a circle, coming back to the same issue and getting at the truthfulness of scripture. But let's look at sufficiency and perspicuity real quick first, and then we will take a break before we pick up the issue of an erancy. Sufficiency. The sufficiency of scripture, the old and new testaments, as the divinely inspired word of God, means that they contain everything necessary for the purpose for which they were written to lead us to Christ and to guide us in our response to Him. In short, the Bible is a complete and infallible revelation of that knowledge of God and his will, which is necessary for salvation and for a holy obedient walk. Now the text, again, which bears most directly on this, is a text we've just quoted once. Second Timothy might broaden it to not just verse 16, but second Timothy 315 through 17. Also relevant are texts which speak of the purpose of scripture, such as John chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, and Romans 154. These texts imply a kind of a twofold sufficiency. First of all, the knowledge of God and his saving work, and second, a directional knowledge of God's will for our lives. But we should note, there are some things that the sufficiency of scripture does not mean. First of all, sufficiency does not mean that we can do without everything else. It does not mean that we can do without the empirical sciences or the phenomenal world about us, even as we seek to live lives that are glorifying to God. The farmer is obliged by scripture to learn from creation the principles of good farming. Those principles are not listed in the Bible. Part of our moral obedience is the Kabadis, but not all that's useful for knowledge of health care is found within the pages of scripture. There's no list of poisons in the Bible, nor is the Bible give us precise scientific definitions as such important events as conception or childbirth. Secondly, sufficiency does not mean that everything a person may need to know, even though theologically is found in some biblical text. Let me read it as you have in your notes there. Not all true theological propositions are necessarily predicated upon some biblical text. We will have to do some synthetic thinking later on in this course in connection to the doctrine of God. We will be looking at such things as the trinity. You cannot cite one biblical proof text for the trinity, the doctrines of concurrence, and parapheresis. I'm not going to bother to try to define those now. We'll take them up in course. But again, these are issues where we'll have to think through several texts and synthesize them. Perspectuity. To protect the church from the administrations of a priesthood or a priestly class, the confessions of the Reformation period spoke of the perspicuity of scripture. And see here chapter one of the confession, paragraph 7 through 9. That revelation, which is necessary for salvation, is available in scripture by due use of ordinary means. And as such, it is available to all. However, the doctrine of perspicuity does not mean that the Bible is so clear that anyone can immediately understand everything within it. There's much in the Bible that will require intense study and expertise of diverse fields, sometimes fairly special fields, geography, biology, history, so on, and so forth. Perspicuity does mean, however, that as to its central message, Jesus Christ died for sinners. Jesus Christ is the Lord. Jesus Christ is the Savior. On those things, the Bible is plain. So plain that not even the new world translation can corrupt them.
Finality, I should say something about this as well. It'd be a good place to break after finality. So, the traditional Protestant view here is called cessationism. And it claims that the gift of prophecy became redundant with the completion of the biblical text, the canon.
As the purpose of Old Testament prophecy was to proclaim the promise of redemption, the purpose of New Testament prophecy is to proclaim the fulfillment of redemption in Jesus Christ. Including all that was necessary for us to know in the interim about the future consummation. Once that has complete, once that proclamation has complete, the gift of profitism in the sense of being a mediator of revelation is now obsolete in the history of redemption. We have a completed scripture. However, there are people, and I've given you a couple of texts there, if you want to look those up, 1 Corinthians 13 verses 8 through 10, which speaks of that, which is perfect, has come, and Hebrews 2 verses 3 and 4, which intimates that prophecy and other special gifts existed for the purpose of authenticating the apostolic witness. However, throughout the history of the church, there's also been tradition of continualism, and two varying degrees. I don't want to press this too far. Some folks have actually gone as far as Thomas Moonser during the Reformation period. Moonser said that the Bible is about a bunch of stuff that happened a long time ago to no one I ever met. Therefore, it's irrelevant to me where I lived, and what Moonser wanted was new prophecies. He was saying yes to the Spirit, but no to the Bible. That's a kind of radical position in continualism, that new revelations of the Spirit will arise, which will render the old ones, even their testament obsolete. Much more, I think, Orthodox notions, and I'm not sure I even call them continualism, is that the Bible is the final redemptive word of God, yet God still does speak to his people. I think that sometimes we want to take that reality and call that illumination rather than revelation. I want to argue here about terms, but we need to realize that there is some broad spectrum here in terms of continualism. Much of what I hear people talk about the Lord revealed X to me. I go, yeah, okay, I can believe that. What we see throughout the New Testament period is God doesn't fact speak to people. I'm not sure we need to think of that as having been done away with. If the Lord places it upon your heart that you need to speak to another person, either about the Lord or about their behavior or whatever it is, it seems to me that is legitimate. However, if Lord places upon your heart that you are the new Messiah or that the rest of us should pay our tides to you directly or something.