Notes from our Wednesday evening study through the 1689 that we began 6/16/21. Currently we are meeting via video conferencing from 7:00- 8:00 PM, contact the church for more info.
This 1689 Text is taken from The 1689 Confession of Faith in Modern English.
Helpful resource: A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith by Samuel E. Waldron, 5th Edition, Revised and Corrected.
Helpful videos on the Sufficiency of Scripture: Why is it crucial to defend the sufficiency of Scripture?
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If it doesn't speak to every specific issue, is Scripture truly sufficient?
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Helpful video on inerrancy: Inerrancy and your church
1. The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.1 The light of nature and the works of creation and providence so clearly demonstrate the goodness, wisdom, and power of God that people are left without excuse; however, these demonstrations are not sufficient to give the knowledge of God and his will that is necessary for salvation.2 Therefore, the Lord was pleased at different times and in various ways to reveal himself and to declare his will to his church.3 To preserve and propagate the truth better and to establish and comfort the church with greater certainty against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and the world, the Lord put this revelation completely in writing. Therefore, the Holy Scriptures are absolutely necessary, because God’s former ways of revealing his will to his people have now ceased.4
1 2 Timothy 3:15–17
15 you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b]may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Isaiah 8:20
20 To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
Luke 16:29, 31
29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
Ephesians 2:20
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,[a] but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
2 Romans 1:19–21
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[a] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Romans 2:14,15
14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them
Psalm 19:1–3
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above[a] proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
3 Hebrews 1:1.
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
4 Proverbs 22:19–21
That your trust may be in the Lord,
I have made them known to you today, even to you.
20 Have I not written for you thirty sayings
of counsel and knowledge,
21 to make you know what is right and true,
that you may give a true answer to those who sent you?
Romans 15:4
4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
2 Peter 1:19, 20.
19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
“Sufficiency” must be defined by the answer to the question “sufficient for what?”
The Confession answers: “All things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life.”
They are not simply sufficient for someone to “get saved.” They are also a sufficient basis for the starting point for every scientific endeavor.
They are also sufficient to achieve the purposes of redemptive revelation without any new revelation.
Contra: Anabaptist claims to direct revelation and Catholicism with their view of the Pope’s declarations and church’s interpretation.
Points to the necessity of the Scriptures as they present “redemptive revelation.”
Not “absolutely” necessary in the same way that redemptive revelation is (i.e. someone can be saved without having a copy of the Scriptures and if Jesus or the apostles were alive today, then the Scriptures would not be necessary) but redemptive revelation comes necessarily from the Scriptures.
Paragraph 6. The whole counsel of God concerning everything essential for his own glory and man’s salvation, faith, and life is either explicitly stated or by necessary inference contained in the Holy Scriptures. Nothing is ever to be added to the Scriptures, either by new revelation of the Spirit or by human traditions.9 Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the inward illumination of the Spirit of God is necessary for a saving understanding of what is revealed in the Word.10 We recognize that some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church are common to human actions and organizations and are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian wisdom, following the general rules of the Word, which must always be observed.11
9 2 Timothy 3:15–17
Galatians 1:8,9
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
10 John 6:45
45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—
1 Corinthians 2:9–12
9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
11 1 Corinthians 11:13, 14
13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.
1 Corinthians 14:26, 40
26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up…40 But all things should be done decently and in order.
1. The Holy Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.1 The light of nature and the works of creation and providence so clearly demonstrate the goodness, wisdom, and power of God that people are left without excuse; however, these demonstrations are not sufficient to give the knowledge of God and his will that is necessary for salvation.2 Therefore, the Lord was pleased at different times and in various ways to reveal himself and to declare his will to his church.3 To preserve and propagate the truth better and to establish and comfort the church with greater certainty against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and the world, the Lord put this revelation completely in writing. Therefore, the Holy Scriptures are absolutely necessary, because God’s former ways of revealing his will to his people have now ceased.4
Some use the terms interchangeably and we would argue that was the intent of the authors of the Confession and what we would mean by this term.
The Catholic church, however, separated the two terms. They would argue that the Scriptures were “inerrant” and the Catholic Church’s interpretation of them were “infallible.”
Some today have picked up this distinction. Sometimes this can be helpful if we mean that the Scriptures are “inerrant” meaning that they are “without error in all that they affirm” and they are “infallible” meaning that they are “non-failing” – in other words, they will be fruitful in accomplishing what they were intended to accomplish- they will not return void. (Isa. 55:11; Mt. 5:17-18; Lk. 16:17; Jn.10:35).
But some use “infallibility” in place of “inerrancy” as a way of communicating the belief that the Scriptures may contain errors but they will, nevertheless, not fail to accomplish what they were intended to accomplish. Some have called this “limited inerrancy”- in other words, the Scriptures are inerrant on issues related to faith, but we don’t hold them to the same standard when it comes to matters of science.
(Unfortunately, I don’t recall where this particular definition comes from).
A couple of points to draw out of this:
· We may not ever be able to prove how certain passages are consistent with scientific or archeological data. Our human knowledge is limited and archeological data is often lost forever. We recognize this, but still believe that, in the end, there is no conflict that can be discovered between the Scriptures and any other true data.
· Inerrancy applies to all of the Bible as it was originally written. This means that we acknowledge that translations may sometimes get things wrong.
· It also is dependent upon a correct interpretation of the text. This was one of the reasons that the Reformers were so tied to the principle of letting the Scriptures interpret the Scriptures-what we call the “analogy of faith.”
· The last thing is that we’ll point out is that when we say “without error” we mean that it is “true and never false.” The reason we want to make this point is that some have tried to do a workaround the term by saying that the Scriptures never “intentionally contain errors but they were thought to be true at the time.” We would deny such an understanding.
But is this what the authors of the Confession meant by infallible?
We believe that paragraph 5 makes the answer clear:
5. The testimony of the church of God may stir and persuade us to adopt a high and reverent respect for the Holy Scriptures. Moreover, the heavenliness of the contents, the power of the system of truth, the majesty of the style, the harmony of all the parts, the central focus on giving all glory to God, the full revelation of the only way of salvation, and many other incomparable qualities and complete perfections, all provide abundant evidence that the Scriptures are the Word of God. Even so, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority of the Scriptures comes from the internal work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.8
So our understanding of the 1689’s use of the term would be to see “infallible” as being synonymous with “inerrancy.”
· 2 Timothy 3:16 refers to them as the “breath of God” which would indicate they are to be understood as being without error as our understanding of the Word flows from His character.
· In Deuteronomy (chapters 13 and 18) Israel is told that the way to distinguish a messenger from God from a false messenger is that what the messenger from God says is true and will come to be.
· Jesus taught that the smallest detail of the law must be fulfilled (Matt. 5:17-20) and that the Scriptures cannot be broken(John 10:34-35).
· The way in which the authors of Scripture utilize and quote other Scriptures indicates that they assumed them to be completely true and without error.
· We can add to the Scriptural arguments, the fact the church has consistently affirmed a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. Augustine commented: "I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error." The great reformers Luther and Calvin argued the same as does our own 1689.
