Confession = Scripture

[bookslover]

Lee Irons has an interesting post with the above title at his blog (www.upper-register.com/blog). It sounds like some of the discussions we've had around here. Scroll down just a bit.

 

[MW]

Lee Irons has an interesting post with the above title at his blog (www.upper-register.com/blog). It sounds like some of the discussions we've had around here. Scroll down just a bit.

Interesting. So "confession doesn't equal scripture." Instead, "confession doesn't equal scripture" equals scripture. In other words, he replaces the church's confession with his own.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

So do you think our beloved Green baggins is actually putting the Confession on par with Scripture or is he saying something different?

I think this person is misrepresenting our dear Greenbaggins.

Considering the oath that all ordained ministers take in the PCA that the Westminster Standards contain THE system of doctrine taught in Holy Scripture (BCO 21-5, question 2, emphasis mine), is it not fair to state that if one is considering the Confession’s teaching on certain issues that one is also considering the Scriptures?

I don't think for a minute Pastor Keister is saying that the Confession is on the same level of Scripture but that when you consider the Confession you are also considering what the Scriptures say. The Confession is a reflection of the Scriptures. He is twisting Pastor Lane Keisters words and thoughts In my humble opinion. Read Greenbaggins blog first before you read this persons critique.

http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/response-to-reggie-kidd-part-1/

Context helps.

 

[SEAGOON]

Lee Irons and I agree on many things but this is not one of them. His post removes all meaning from Confessional Subscription and reduces it from the level of a solemn vow to a limited agreement on certain principles. Additionally, it reduces the Confession to the level of a commentary on the bible which we can privately agree and disagree with as we see fit. Ultimately, not only would this view have little or no value in conforming ministers to a uniform testimony and practice, it would actually bind ministers not to a relatively unchanging constitution but to the ever changing theological opinions of the majority in the GA and thus remove the value of a constitution in safeguarding the rights of the minority. This is because whenever there was a doctrinal disagreement, we would need to form a study committee, have them create their own theological study of the subject and then we'd decide the matter based on what the majority at the moment thought of the study. Under this system, discipline cases would become few and far between simply because of the enormous effort involved with each one.

Instead, the greater wisdom of our forebears was that we should have a Constitution that we agreed was an accurate summary of the doctrines taught in scripture. Thus in a matter of discipline all we had to do was compare the teaching of the officer to our fixed standard. If we come to feel that the Confession was no longer accurate on a point, we change the Confession, not have a Confession that we hold to be no more binding on officers than say a copy of Calvin's Institutes.

Or as Thornwell put it:

Thornwell On the Subject of Subscription
From: The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, D.D., LL.D. Richmond, .VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1871-75

But it seems [some say] that our Standards are only inferences from the Word of God. This, we confess, is news to us. When we assented to them upon our admission to the ministry, we verily thought within ourselves that we were assenting to the very doctrines and precepts of the Word, and not to the ratiocinations of men. We should like to know what are the original doctrines and precepts, if these are only inferences at second hand. If these are not the identical things which the Scriptures teach, but only conclusions which our fathers deduced from them, we would like to have the premises in their native integrity . . . The Constitution is, with Presbyterians, the accredited interpretation of the Word of God. It is not an inference from it, nor an addition to it, but the very system of the Bible . . . That Word has to be interpreted. If the Constitution is what we profess to believe, we have the interpretation to our hand - we have already wrought out for us the only result we could reach, if we made the interpretation anew in every instance. . .

[T]he very reason why the Church exacts an assent from Ministers and Elders to these formularies of faith, was that she might have a reasonable guarantee, that in their public instructions they would teach nothing inconsistent with the Word of God. We have always heretofore regarded subscription as a security for the sound dispensation of the Word of God. It is for the sake of the people, whom the Church wishes trained to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not simply for the sake of the officers, that she inquires so particularly into their life and doctrine. The things which they profess to believe she requires them to impress upon the faithful. Hence, our Standards are obviously a guide, a rule, a measure of their teaching. They contain exactly what the Church wants all her children trained to understand and to practice. Hence, she reduces them to a form in which they can be most conveniently used in the offices of instruction. We do not require young Christians, upon their admission to the Church, to adopt them, for we regard them as pupils to be taught, and pupils are not ordinarily supposed to be familiar with the science which they are appointed to learn. But we do require, and peremptorily require, that all the teachers shall teach only according to this summary, and we do expect that the knowledge in which their hearers are to grow will be precisely the knowledge embraced in these symbols....

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

Awesome Pastor Webb

 

[MW]

The Constitution is, with Presbyterians, the accredited interpretation of the Word of God. It is not an inference from it, nor an addition to it, but the very system of the Bible.

Now THAT'S a Presbyterian speaking Presbyterianism.

 

[RamistThomist]

Lee Irons and I agree on many things but this is not one of them. His post removes all meaning from Confessional Subscription and reduces it from the level of a solemn vow to a limited agreement on certain principles. Additionally, it reduces the Confession to the level of a commentary on the bible which we can privately agree and disagree with as we see fit. Ultimately, not only would this view have little or no value in conforming ministers to a uniform testimony and practice, it would actually bind ministers not to a relatively unchanging constitution but to the ever changing theological opinions of the majority in the GA and thus remove the value of a constitution in safeguarding the rights of the minority. This is because whenever there was a doctrinal disagreement, we would need to form a study committee, have them create their own theological study of the subject and then we'd decide the matter based on what the majority at the moment thought of the study. Under this system, discipline cases would become few and far between simply because of the enormous effort involved with each one.

Instead, the greater wisdom of our forebears was that we should have a Constitution that we agreed was an accurate summary of the doctrines taught in scripture. Thus in a matter of discipline all we had to do was compare the teaching of the officer to our fixed standard. If we come to feel that the Confession was no longer accurate on a point, we change the Confession, not have a Confession that we hold to be no more binding on officers than say a copy of Calvin's Institutes.

Or as Thornwell put it:

Thornwell On the Subject of Subscription
From: The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, D.D., LL.D. Richmond, .VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1871-75

But it seems [some say] that our Standards are only inferences from the Word of God. This, we confess, is news to us. When we assented to them upon our admission to the ministry, we verily thought within ourselves that we were assenting to the very doctrines and precepts of the Word, and not to the ratiocinations of men. We should like to know what are the original doctrines and precepts, if these are only inferences at second hand. If these are not the identical things which the Scriptures teach, but only conclusions which our fathers deduced from them, we would like to have the premises in their native integrity . . . The Constitution is, with Presbyterians, the accredited interpretation of the Word of God. It is not an inference from it, nor an addition to it, but the very system of the Bible . . . That Word has to be interpreted. If the Constitution is what we profess to believe, we have the interpretation to our hand - we have already wrought out for us the only result we could reach, if we made the interpretation anew in every instance. . .

[T]he very reason why the Church exacts an assent from Ministers and Elders to these formularies of faith, was that she might have a reasonable guarantee, that in their public instructions they would teach nothing inconsistent with the Word of God. We have always heretofore regarded subscription as a security for the sound dispensation of the Word of God. It is for the sake of the people, whom the Church wishes trained to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not simply for the sake of the officers, that she inquires so particularly into their life and doctrine. The things which they profess to believe she requires them to impress upon the faithful. Hence, our Standards are obviously a guide, a rule, a measure of their teaching. They contain exactly what the Church wants all her children trained to understand and to practice. Hence, she reduces them to a form in which they can be most conveniently used in the offices of instruction. We do not require young Christians, upon their admission to the Church, to adopt them, for we regard them as pupils to be taught, and pupils are not ordinarily supposed to be familiar with the science which they are appointed to learn. But we do require, and peremptorily require, that all the teachers shall teach only according to this summary, and we do expect that the knowledge in which their hearers are to grow will be precisely the knowledge embraced in these symbols....

Thanks for the Thornwell quote!