“My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).
In our midweek
study through the Belgic Confession, we were looking last Wednesday at this confession’s stress on what is
called the self-authenticating (autopistic)
nature of the Bible. Why do we believe the Bible’s authority? The Belgic Confession
says, the Holy Spirit witnesses to our hearts that the Scriptures are from God,
“whereof they carry the evidence in themselves.”
Here is what John
Calvin (1509-1564), the great Reformer in Geneva, Switzerland, had to say
about Scripture’s testimony to itself:
Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated [autopiston]; hence it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning. And the certainty it deserves with us, it attains by the testimony of the Spirit. For even if it wins reverence for itself by its own majesty, it seriously affects us only when it is sealed upon our hearts through the Spirit. Therefore, illumined by his power, we believe neither by our own nor by anyone else’s judgment that Scripture is from God; but above all human judgment we affirm with utter certainty (just as if we were gazing upon the very majesty of God himself) that it has flowed to us from the very mouth of God by the ministry of men. We seek no proofs, no marks of genuineness upon which our judgment may lean; but we subject our judgment and wit to it as to a thing far beyond any guesswork! This we do, not as persons accustomed to seize upon some unknown thing, which, under closer scrutiny, displeases them, but fully conscious that we hold the unassailable truth! Nor do we do this as those miserable men who habitually bind over their minds to the thralldom of superstition; but we feel that the undoubted power of his divine majesty lives and breathes there. By this power we are drawn and inflamed, knowingly and willingly, to obey him, yet also more vitally and more effectively than by mere human willing or knowing! (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.7.5).
May the Spirit continue to affirm the self-authenticating nature
of the Holy Scriptures to his people.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
1 comment:
This is really good. Thank you for sharing. I can see many are flocking back to Rome, but the Scriptures are all we need!
Post a Comment