2LCF Chapter 1 Lesson 2 10/22/2023

Chapter 1—Lesson 2

Last lesson we dove into some of the context surrounding the 2LCF. We see that during the middle and later decades of the 17th century, England was still in an extremely tumultuous time, considering religion. England was finally free from the grip of the Roman Church, but as we saw, not free from its influences. If we go back to the response of the Roman Church’s response to the Reformer’s desires to get the Bible into the hands of even the ploughboy, they were indeed right about their estimation that there would be opened a floodgate of iniquity. I believe Satan, the master deceiver and deliverer of half-truths had his influence here. Though a desire of purity in the understanding of Scripture is a good thing, the written word of God must be given to man in such a way that he can read and understand for Himself. With that, as the Bible made it into the English language and to others, the written word of God did indeed by God’s providence, make it into the hands of even the commonfolk, there has been incredible abuse and twisting of the Scriptures to teach not the doctrine of God, but the doctrine of man. So, when we go to the confession in its context, we must see that this is first, a polemical document. Meaning, this confession by declaring the beliefs and understanding of the whole counsel of God of those who confess it, it is first and foremost is criticizing the false and heretical beliefs of others, and simultaneously reasoning with the truth. If we look at this method of thought, it’s seen throughout the ages in all creeds and confessions of the Catholic (universal) Church of Christ. We see this in the Nicene Creed which is a polemic against Arianism. The Chalcedonian Creed which is a polemic against Monophysitism and Nestorianism. And the Athanasian Creed which was a polemic against anti-trinitarianism and heretical views on the incarnation. So the orthodox confessions such as Westminster and 2LCF, do just that. They refute the heresies of their day and confess what is doctrinally sound.

The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

Rule­­– an accepted principle or instruction that states the way things are or should be done, and tells you what you are allowed or are not allowed to do.

First and foremost, the purpose of beginning the confession with this one sentence is to establish a foundation for the later chapters. There is a grand purpose that the men who wrote the WCF and the 2LCF as to how to formulate the confessions. Scripture tells us that it is wise to build upon firm foundations (Matt 7:26). This is how the confession is structured as a whole—the truths that are confesses in the later chapters, are all built upon the firm foundation of the Word of God.

· Sufficiency – The Scriptures are sufficient meaning that in what they teach on any particular doctrine and topic, they are sufficient in and of themselves to exhort, to reprove, and to correct. What sufficiency does not mean, is that it speaks to every aspect of everything from the science of the human body, what elements make up planets and stars, or the speed of sound and light. The three aspects of what the Scriptures succinctly teach, is that of saving faith, knowledge, and obedience. To that end, they are sufficient in and of themselves. Now, that does not mean that outside materials such as preachers, and teachers, books, documentaries, creeds, confessions, and professors, cannot teach us truth. What the writers here mean, is that the Scriptures are our ultimate authority and are the ultimate means of God’s special revelation to us. Like the Bereans searched the scriptures to test Paul’s teaching against them, so we test everything we intake according to the same Word of God.

· Certainty–The word here means determined, fixed, reliable, sure, established, true, beyond doubt. The Scriptures are unchanging. They are what they are and there is no going back. There is a dependency here on the immutability of God—His unchangeable nature. His character is fixed and unchanging and He is sure. Therefore, His words are fixed, and determined. ‘Thus sayeth the LORD.” Another theological word we could use here to reinforce the writer’s use of the word certain, would be the word inerrancy. Inerrancy, or the doctrine of inerrancy, means that God’s word does not error. Meaning, that in the original languages the word of God does not error. There is a possibility of error in translating these languages into others which would be human error. But, principally, the Scriptures do not error in what they teach.

· Infallibility – This means that that the Scriptures cannot error. Again, this is founded upon the character of God. He is the source of all knowledge and all truth. He is unchanging in His nature. He is ideal and the epitome of perfection—so when He is the author of Holy Scripture, the words of Scripture reflect His very character and there is an impossibility of these words of Scripture to error. So long as they θεόπνευστος theopneustos or God breathed. This speaks to the fact that the words in Scripture are divinely inspired by God the Holy Spirit.

o Saving knowledge – Only scripture can tell us how we can be saved. General revelation tells us about God and His glory, but only special revelation can reveal the means by which we can be saved. Creation and conscience bear witness to our guilt and need for a Savior, special revelation tells us who that savior is and how he can save.

o Faith – the means by which scripture tells us we can be saved. Creation and conscience alone gives man a bent towards self-righteousness, but Scripture tells us that by faith we are children of God.

o Obedience ­– The scriptures tell us how to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. The knowledge of the difference between description and prescription is key here. God’s word, contains all necessary prescriptions to live an obedient life that pleases our Creator.

Prooftexts

1. 2 Tim. 3:15-17 “and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

2. Isaiah 8:20 “To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”

3. Luke 16:29, 31 “29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.””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.”

4. Ephesians 2:20 “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone...”

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation.

· General Revelation – general revelation is that gives to all men through creation and providence. Everything in the universe attests to the fact that there is a God, and that He is wise and powerful. Special opens this up with true understanding of the extent of His power and wisdom, but nonetheless, creation and providence are enough to leave man without excuse to believe that there is a God. Scientists, while aiming to find the wheres the whys and whats and the hows without accepting the possibility of a divine creator, only further prove that there is indeed a creator and not just that He created, but it is by grand design and purpose. Science affirms that the universe was created ex nihilo (out of nothing). Only one who has existed eternally could be responsible for such a thing. Nothing can merely come out of nothing spontaneously. There must be first a primary cause. It is easy to see that all there is before us, was created by One who is all wise. Every atom, every molecule points to a grand designer. Evolution claims to find the commonality between species and concludes that there must be some correlation between them­—which they are correct to point out—but the similarities point to a single designer or creator does not affirm some evolutionary processes of change from one form to another. God has placed His mark on all that he’s made. The fool trusts in coincidence as the foundation for all things, but his conscience is always in opposition to this notion. He finds comfort in spontaneous creation, but his conscience places doubt in his heart. Every man has the law of God written on his heart. He knows that there is a Divine creator. He knows he is obligated to give praise and thanks to that Creator, but sin blinds and numbs the conscience. Sin suppresses the truth. He is utterly depraved and must have a change of heart to see the truth. Divine intervention must happen in order to bring him from darkness to light. To do so, man needs special revelation.

· Special Revelation ­– This is God’s direct communication to man in a special, rather than general, way. Since man cannot know his Creator personally through general revelation, special revelation gives to man what creation and providence cannot. Since the law oof God is written on man’s heart, he has a general morality endowed by the Creator. He knows the basics of what is right and what is wrong, but the extent of his depravity is unclear to him and the remedy for his guilt is not known. Special revelation (Scripture, direct revelation through theophonies, christophonies, signs, wonders, voice, divine presence, etc.) reveals the depths of man’s sin, and points to the Savior who can save him. Even the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked, “what must I do to be saved”, knew this. Since signs and wonders and direct revelation to man as the prophets of old received, after the advent of Christ and His ascension into heaven, He was the last prophet to speak on behalf of God as Heb. 1:1 says. Now, we estimate that Christ died around 33A.D. And if we look at the writings of the New Testament, all were written years after Christ’s works on Earth. So what are we to do with this? Well, all the writers have one thing in common—they were witnesses of the resurrected Christ. When they penned their words by way of divine inspiration, they were communicating directly the words and teachings of Jesus Christ. This is the prerequisite for the New Testament canon. By this rule, it is easy to lay aside things like the Apocrypha and not consider them Scripture or divinely inspired. We’ll see this in paragraph 2.

Prooftexts

1. Romans 1:19–21 “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. 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.”

2. 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 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

3. Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

Therefore it pleased the Lord in sundry times and in divers manners to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church;

· Covenant Theology—one thing that we must note while reading through the Confession is that Covenant Theology is baked into the understanding of every doctrine contained in the 32 chapters of the 2LCF. Covenant theology is the lens by which these men understood the Scriptures to mean. Now, what is Covenant Theology? Covenant Theology is the school of thought that points out that by covenant God reveals His will unto men. Covenant Theology highlights the progressive revelation of throughout the ages. It helps us to understand that God, dispenses His revelation to man in diverse manners to His one people throughout redemptive history. John Calvin puts it this way, “The covenant of all the fathers is so far from differing substantially from ours, that it is the very same. Only the administration varies.” “If the subject still appears involved in any obscurity, let us proceed to the very form of the covenant, which not only satisfy sober minds, but will abundantly prove the ignorance of those who endeavour to oppose it. For the Lord has always covenanted with His servants. “I will be to you a God, and ye shall be to me a people.” This will the writers of the confession are speaking of is the will of God to save for Himself, a people. This is according to the covenant of Grace. A covenant made between the Father and the Son in eternity past, to save man from his sin and bring him into everlasting life. If you recall, Nehemiah Coxe is believed to be one of the two men responsible for this document. Coxe was a huge proponent of Covenant Theology. This school of thought permeates the confession and in Coxes’ own book on the subject, reveals this to us. There he says, “So in all our search after the mind of God in the Holy Scriptures we are to manage our inquiries with reference to Christ. Therefore the best interpreter of the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the new. There we have the clearest light of the knowledge of the glory of God shining on us in the face of Jesus Christ, by unveiling those counsels of love and grace that were hidden from former ages and generations.” Therefore, when the writers use the word church, they are speaking to all believers of all ages who belong to god by faith and have known His will by way of covenant. This proves that the confession is not narrow in the sense that it is exclusive. The confession is absolutely inclusive. It provides us with purity but not for the sake of unity. Both are interweaved throughout.

Prooftexts

1. Heb 1:1– “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,”