The Power and Authority of the Word
Believing the Bible is God's Voice
Good Morning,
If there is anything that rubs people the wrong way in today’s culture, I don’t care if you are conservative or liberal or somewhere in between, it is to insist on authority. Everyone is at least a little bit egalitarian. Some of that is the still rippling effects of the French Revolution, where the cry was to strangle the last nobleman with the entrails of the last priest. We spend a lot of time and energy bewailing the breaking of the seventh commandment (and we should), but really all of that is downstream from our failure to give honor to whom honor is due and to recognize the natural law of superiors and inferiors. Again, just writing those words out is likely to cause some heartburn. However, there is no escaping that not everyone is allowed to do whatever they want.
There are rules and procedures established by the Lord which are good and holy, and that are given by reason of His wisdom. In the days of the Reformation there were a sect of protestants who desired that all people, regardless of age or sex, would have the right to preach, teach, and distribute and oversee the sacraments of the Church. We sometimes think these ideas were born out of the Nineteenth and Twentieth century feminist movements, but they have been with us for as long as there has been opportunity to engage in preaching and teaching.
Concern over who is allowed to read the Scriptures publicly in the Lord’s Day worship service is part of the reason why the two catechism questions before us today are in the WLC to begin with. Sometimes we tend to think that these ideas are new, but they are not. To confirm that only those set apart by God through the keys of the kingdom given to the Church are to read the Bible in front of the congregation of Christ’s sheep is to step on some toes. The logical end of that is to say that only ordained men (and students licensed and approved by the Presbytery), not women or children, are authorized by the Lord to feed His people with the word as they gather together on Sunday to praise His name. That’s what the first clause of the opening Q/A is saying, and anyone who confesses the Standards of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church should be able to say yeah and amen. Let’s read the two questions for today and come back:
Q. 156. Is the word of God to be read by all?
A. Although all are not to be permitted to read the word publicly to the congregation, yet all sorts of people are bound to read it apart by themselves, and with their families: to which end, the holy scriptures are to be translated out of the original into vulgar languages.
Q. 157. How is the word of God to be read?
A. The holy scriptures are to be read with an high and reverent esteem of them; with a firm persuasion that they are the very word of God, and that he only can enable us to understand them; with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them; with diligence, and attention to the matter and scope of them; with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer.
As you look at what the catechism is saying it is interested in helping us to see two vitally important things about the Holy Scriptures. 1) That it is God’s word. 2) We should always treat it as such. It is a violation of the third commandment to mishandle or misappropriate any portion of the Bible. One of the ways we do that according to the catechism is to deny its authority to us, including what it has to say about who is by virtue of Christ’s command, are then to proclaim it authoritatively to the people made in His image.
However, of course the WLC doesn’t stop with that it does do something that is equally as instructive to the contemporary issues around when the Westminster Standards were written. The call to have the Bible translated from Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT) into the common language was of course quite a statement, even a hundred some odd years after Luther’s German bomb exploded in Europe. It is good for Christians to support the work of ministries like the Trinitarian Bible Society as they diligently seek to bring the word of God to as many tongues as possible. It is good that we not forget how much of a new thing it was for men to have right and privilege of owning their own personal copy of the Scriptures. To be able to read and hear from your Savior every day, and anytime you want, is a pox on us in our lethargy to do so today. There is some sad irony that we have more access to the Lord, yet we have never lived in a more biblically ignorant church than we did before Gutenberg revolutionized book making. It comes back again, in my opinion, to this question of authority.
Notice how Q. 157 says that we are to approach the Bible with an attitude that expresses, . . . a firm persuasion that they are the very word of God. Let’s take a second to allow this to marinate a bit in our soul. The Bible is the very word of God. That means the one who made the Heavens and the Earth speaks to us in His word. I’m not keen on repeating terms, but I think it apropos at this point. God speaks to you in His word, and applies that word to your soul, to the very inner part of your being as a human. We can almost not overstate how radical that is, and how much we sin against Him by not coming to the Bible with a humble heart, born out of love and grace.
In closing, if these two catechism questions are teaching us anything it is the simple truth that if we treat the Holy Scriptures as just another text, as just another book, then we are condemned already. The honor we show to the word is equal to the honor we show to the Word, the one who has raised us from the spiritual dead, and granted us ears to hear His voice as the preacher reads His testimony as recorded by the Prophets and Apostles. In two weeks we’ll see more from the WLC about how the word of God is to be received by all men, but especially Christians.
Here is another take:
https://www.reformation21.org/blog/the-divine-word-of-god
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church