Thoughts on Westminster Confession of Faith, articles I.9-10, which you can find here.
Our final appeal in debating and interpreting the Bible is to
the original text. We interpret
Scripture by Scripture. The highest
standard and rule we have is the Bible, not the church or our reason. This is a weakness we have today. When we run into a question or problem in the
Bible, our tendency is to consult our study Bible, or favorite online teacher,
or commentary, or book, or the church fathers, etc. These can help, but the ultimate authority on
the Bible is the Bible. If the Bible is
hard to understand on Levitical laws and sacrifices, there are other places
that more clearly explain what it was all about (Hebrews). If we aren’t sure if a character in a story
is doing the right thing, there are verses elsewhere that teach ethically if he
is being faithful or not.
The confession makes a side comment that the meaning of
Scripture is singular, not manifold.
This was a rejection of the medieval system of finding four meanings in
every text. Some misinterpret this and
assert that there is only one application of any text, or only one right way to
articulate and summarize a text. No, there
is one basic sense of the passage, which can (and should) be stated variously,
and applied in several ways.
The confession is often enlightening when you take out all
the subordinate clauses. “The supreme
judge… [is] the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.” Note the pointer not to the Bible ultimately,
not even to Jesus, ultimately, but to the Spirit, whom Jesus has poured out
upon us to lead us into all truth.
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