Our previous article on the necessity of Scripture addressed the modes, purpose, and limits of general revelation. In general revelation, God freely and objectively reveals Himself in the light of nature in man and the works of creation and providence so that He might manifest his goodness, wisdom, and power. This manifestation of God was not intended to reveal mysteries of faith that are received with but undetected by reason. Further, God’s will and plan for salvation cannot be discerned through general revelation. Relations of origin and opposition are not made known in the stars. Adam would not have known which tree to avoid in the Garden of Eden nor would we know that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ unless these truths had been revealed by God’s word revelation.
For this reason, the Confession reads, “Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in divers manners to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.”
Note the phrase, “It pleased the Lord.” Our discourse concerning the necessity of Scripture must be shaped by these brief words that reveal God’s gracious intention and describe how Scripture is necessary. Scripture is not an absolute necessity that could not be otherwise regardless of prevailing conditions, such as the existence and essence of God or mathematical and logical truths. Scripture’s necessity is more like the necessity of food for life (John 6:68) or fire for warmth on a cold night. Apart from God’s speech, the Church would not know God’s will for eternal life. These necessary words come from God’s gracious intention to reveal Himself rather than the pleasure of the human author, as John Gill states, “neither Moses, nor David, nor Isaiah, nor Jeremiah, nor Ezekiel, nor Daniel, nor any other of the prophets, prophesied when they pleased, but when it was the will of God they should; they were stirred up to prophesy, not by any human impulse, but by a divine influence,” (Gill, An Exposition of the New Testament, III.594).
God, by his good pleasure, revealed these necessary words progressively and in a pluriform manner. From the Garden to the island of Patmos, God’s revelation comes through theophany, prophecy, and miracles, making Himself (John 17:3) and His will (Micah 6:8) known to the Church (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, I.326-339). These distinctions allow the Reformed to acknowledge that neither the Protestant Canon as a whole nor the written word in part were always necessary, as it is now, while affirming that God’s word revelation was always necessary for man.
Turretin expresses the importance of these distinctions when he says, “Hence arose the distinction of the word into unwritten (agraphon) and written (engraphon), a division not of the genus into species (as the papists maintain, as if the unwritten word were different from the written), but a distinction of the subject into its accidents, because that it was formerly not written and now is written are accidents of the same word. It is therefore called ‘unwritten’ (agraphon), not with respect to the present time, but to the past when God saw fit to instruct his church by spoken word alone and not by writing,” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, II.ii.4). The promise of salvation through the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 was first given in unwritten form and later provided to the church in writing by the Holy Spirit through Moses. For this reason, Bavinck states, “Modern theology therefore rightly made a distinction between divine revelation and Scripture. But this theology often fell into the opposite extreme. It is so completely detached revelation from Scripture that it became no more than an accidental appendix, an arbitrary addition, a human record of revelation, which might perhaps still be useful but was in any case not necessary,” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, I.381). Thus, the distinctions within the Confession allow us to accurately handle the progressive and pluriform nature of God’s revelation without affirming a necessary and unwritten tradition alongside Scripture or divorcing revelation from Scripture, avoiding Roman Catholicism and Liberalism/Neo-Orthodoxy.
The Confession continues to pay close attention to the unfolding history of redemption with the words, “afterward” and “now.” God’s revelation progressively came to humanity in written form so that the truth would be preserved and propagated for the Church that she might be sanctified from within and protected from external forces seeking her destruction. At the closing of the Canon, the other forms of revelation have ceased but God continues to reveal himself in the completed written revelation. Scripture is now most necessary as these words, and these words alone, are God’s revelation to man.
The Confession begins with the necessity of Scripture. Already, the framers understood that the Confession served a ministerial role. Scripture alone is the “sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.” God’s speech has always been necessary for creatures because we are finite and fallen. Although general revelation manifests God to us, knowledge of the Trinity and God’s plan for covenant union with Him come through God’s speech. Scripture’s necessity is not absolute, nor must it have always come in a written form since revelation is distinguished from Scripture without being divorced from this form of revelation. As history progressed, God’s people were to test all things by the law and the testimony (Isaiah 8:20). Upon the completion of the Canon, Scripture is now most necessary for it is God’s revelation of Himself and His will to the Church. May we humbly receive these necessary words, knowing that “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord,” (Deut 8:3).