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CHAPTER 13
THE LIBERTY FOUND ONLY IN THE LORD AND HIS WORD
His Spirit Awakens, His Word directs.
In Chapter 4 of Why Not Believe ? the issue of the relation of Confession to biblical text arose, and a brief review of action within the PC of Australia was given as below. In this Chapter, the position is reviewed overall, its importance and its significance.
INTRODUCTION FROM WHY NOT BELIEVE CH. 4
Changes in Mind
re The Westminster Confession,
where some paring or extension may make it more helpful.
The Confession does
not in principle allow itself to be a standard, but
insists it is a help to the biblical standard itself,
which alone judges and determines doctrine.
. As time has
passed, some revision
has been attempted, by various parties, for this or that Church,
and here a minimal one is given, in case its proves to be of help, to any.
Such a project has in part been suggested, in a Church setting,
and it has seemed worthwhile to extend the revision to other parts of the
Confession.
This provides for many the liberty of the Bible more readily,
and if it helps any, then its mission is partly fulfilled.
The other objective, is simply to glorify the Lord
as we all, under the head, from generation to generation,
seek to serve both Him and His people as He enables.
The Presbyterian Church of Australia in its 1901 Constitution has an acceptable statement on doctrine, the substance of the Westminster Confession required, with a carefully sensitive Declaratory Statement added, in terms of which the Confession has to be read. This supplies grounds of flexibility and faith alike, and sadly there has been an implicit nullification of the DC by the 1991 ruling that it has nothing not already in the Confession, which removes impact from what the Confession does not mention, but the DC does.
Leaving aside this move, to which was added a new Confessionalism, made binding, the original 1901 Constitution was and is generally a splendid presentation, and in that spiritual sense The Australian Bible Church is a continuing member of that Church. We have not changed.
In Chapter 4, the introduction to which appears above, the text of the parts of the Westminster Confession given some refinement for the present, appears. Below the position as one whole, and its significance is reviewed.
REVIEW FOR THE CURRENT CHAPTER
WESTMINSTER CONFESSION AND LIBERTY
The Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) makes provision for non-substantial variations from the Confession in terms of adherence to the supernatural, the mine of salvation and various emphases, such as the necessity to read together with the sovereignty of God, also the fact that He is not willing that any should perish, in the context of the entirety of time and persons, from II Peter 3:9; and of which type of verses, there are many in the Bible (as for example seen in SMR Appendix B and the 7 volume set*1 on these topic areas).
The Declaratory Statement (DC) is the constitutional basis for such emphases, and requires that the Confession be read in the light of itself, not itself in the light of the Confession. The Church there made a constitutional decision as to which should come first, the DC or the Confession. It was concerned to ensure no error, and so made its own statement the source, the Confession to be read in the light of that DC. The order is important. That is the special status of the Confession, formally violated in 1991 by making it the practical determinant, and the DC a nullity, adding nothing, which is far from the reality of what is in it, and what is in the Confession.
In terms, however, of the Constitution as in 1901, without such suppression and Confessionalism, there is provision for some variation, which is one of the main contributions of Presbyterianism, the facility to think on the Bible for yourself, always assuming, as does the Confession and the Constitution of the PCA, that it is infallible and perfect in its parts (the BIBLE and NOT the Confession)!
This was GROSSLY breached from 1935 to 1974, and a Church paper in the earlier part of the 1970s noted the 40 years which the PCA had spent in the doctrinal wilderness. It was worse than that: it led to irrational persecution, when a Professor challenged the second year Class in seminary to accept his gross degradation of the book of Daniel, or else compromise their "intellectual integrity."
When one student (and only one!) pointed out with reasons, that that anti-biblical theory being touted by the Professor was itself in conflict with the accepted evidence, so that the challenge did not make sense, this was deemed a horrible thing to say, and one worthy of the expulsion of that student. It was an easy way out for the distressed professor, but a shameless shambles of bad logic, bad ethic and intolerance allied with rebellion against the standards of the Church, not only in dismissing the integrity of the book of Daniel, and using vile language concerning it, but attempting to subvert others, even students, even with professorial intemperance, even such as had not already been subverted.
If one failure in one area. to make sense of a situation meant that the party or person concerned was senseless, the implication falsely drawn and turned against the answering student, then what of Einstein and his famous and important error about division by zero on one occasion! Did he too become senseless because of an error, and would anyone even dream of such a charge!
THE REVOLT LEADING TO THE ABSURDITY
OF TRANSMUTATION OF TRUTH
The Professor's personal assault was argument ad hominem, an untenable imposture, a false generalisation, and a nullification of the answer as challenged and met, a breach of procedure and a failure to answer a counter-challenge, all in one. The counter-challenge meant of course, if allowed to stand without the elision of the student in the seminary, that the whole illicit process of overturning the authority of the biblical text would be exposed. That was not officially desired since the Church was being moved from its basis to what at last became the Uniting Church, absorbing two thirds or so, of the original.
Subversion concerning the Bible is like having your lungs subverted for breathing, and has no appeal to the one for whom the Word of God is his bond, and the work of God is his commission, and who follows the stipulations of the Bible concerning itself (cf. SMR Appendix D). Consequently, this student would not because in integrity and faith, he could not apologise for the utterance in its content, and NEVER did the answer to the counter-challenge he had made, receive any answer from the persecuting Professor or any other (cf. Highway of Holiness, Path of Peace, Way of Truth Ch. 8).
The Church however continued in this rash and irrational infidelity toward God and the Constitution, for many years, even though the student, the present writer, was in a grand triumph for faith, received back into the Ministry through the General Assembly of Australia on appeal to it heard and accepted in 1964 in Sydney (A Time to Praise God Ch. 4 as marked).
It then lost something like two-thirds of its body to a non-Presbyterian body, a due penalty for its faithlessness and indiscipline, and persecution of so many in such various ways for so long, both those who paid the penalty of three years of pollution in training, and those who paid the other penalty of listening to results of their now so debased training, whenever it might be allowed to arise in pastoral life (one student indicated that the congregations would not be 'ready' for such 'advanced' teaching, showing the shocking dishonesty of the whole mutually corruptive procedure, far from the Constitution, the Bible, the truth and the need of the people. Thus a move towards an artificial famine of the word of God was not the special prerogative in ancient Israel alone! .
That was a price of disobedience and rebellion, tolerated for decades, just as Israel in the north, was lost and only Judah continued, the rest replaced in a major way by a new population, brought in as the others were punished. The United Church, to which the two-thirds largely were lost, does not even claim to believe in the Westminster Confession's teaching on the Bible, and appears to consider it a privilege to reject plenary inspirationism, given by the grace of God who is by no means less sure in communication that the swards of sinners who seek to dismiss, extend or contradict His word, by their own might and main, remands, jousts and moods. Thus, and not in that alone by any means, you have a body of ecclesiastical sinners in the 20th and 21st Century (all men are sinners) and the Bible in uneasy company making together a doctrinal hotch-potch, violating and openly contradicting the Bible even in the most practical issues, such as sexuality, even amid the ministry.
Thus the PCA tolerated for decades a rash and intolerable, irrational substitute for the word of God as its theological norm, lost two thirds of itself for a divine punishment (judgment DOES begin at the house of God), a biblically illustrated process to what WILL NOT LISTEN to correction, and then reacted.
REACTIONS TO REACTIONS
Politically and ecclesiastically this is always a danger. In the case of the Bible, of reactions against its teaching, and then reactions against those negative reactions. First the assault in a given Church is characterised in terms of contrast, as between their own words and those of the Lord in Matthew 5:17ff., I Cor. 2:ff. (cf. SMR Appendix D), a rousing rebellion, an enterprise which, by the very word of God, is worse than witchcraft (I Samuel 15:22-23). Then it moves to fixing some other words of men as the rule over the Bible, the mode of the Pharisees, following on from that of the Sadducees. Meanwhile, the first rebellion continues, going from depth to depth.
But there is one answer. "WHY," asks Jesus Christ, "do you call Me Lord, Lord and not do the things that I say!" (Luke 6:46). Excuses vary; the result is the same from the day of Samuel to the present.
Thus the loss of so much so dedicated for so long for so much biblical work, was subverted because the Church would not listen. It was a privilege to seek to keep the commission for a Minister in it to seek the purity of the Church. As in a Hospital, it can make a large difference in a short time, if disregarded; even in the latter, to the point of scurrying rats.
The reaction to gross rebellion against the Bible in the case of the PCA, was Calvinism. As referred to elsewhere, two of us, a Minister and an elder, had an interview with one of the most respected persons in authority within the PCA, and were told that after the time in the wilderness (referred to above), for so long, he and others though not believing in Calvinism, could see no other way for the Church to reform. The concept of returning to the Constitution did not seem to hold sway. Nor is there any evidence that it was altered. Instead, it came to be transgressed.
In process of time, the Church was then imprisoned in a Westminster Confession to which you must hold unless it liberates you (Possess Your Possessions Volume 10, Ch. 6 as marked). This changed the whole nature of the Church, and ruined one of the high points of Presbyterianism that had recommended it: a willingness to be reasonable and not force to the entirety of the work of another generation, but to keep abreast of the situation, and apply the Bible as required for any new development. Christian life did not cease 400 years ago, nor did its challenges.
Again, those who made the liberties AND the limits still present in the Constitution, were not wild miscreants; far from this were the founders of the PCA. They thought, they agreed, they formulated and made the Constitution with its considerable liberty.
Imagining that because John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or John Wesley were greatly used in removing various evils which oppressed Christendom in various ways in their day, does not constitute them or their doctrines, as the last word, or the first for that matter. Dealing with deformities is great, rectifying gross impositions on the word of God, is most helpful; but to elevate such persons or programs as did this in one phase, major though it undoubtedly was in the case of the Reformation, even a matter of moving from darkness to light in central issues, is dangerous. To raise their contributions, or the essence of them on every application to equality with the word of God EVEN IN PRACTICE, is nothing less than making a new set-up: another Bible-Plus synthesis, this time a Protestant one.
This is just as unacceptable as the one of Rome. As with Rome, we ask, Who is this bishop of Rome for pre-eminence! (Matthew 23:8-10). He is in advance disallowed by the Christ he is there to serve. So now, Who is this Calvin or Luther, great as both undoubtedly are in much of theology, that we should follow their systems in all things, or even assuredly in anything, except it be indisputably derived from the Bible. Gratitude must not descend to virtual idolatry.
In the Constitution, the Church guards against misuse of liberty, but one form of misuse is its removal!
Such unconstitutional limits on liberty make of the Church a kind of prison; and it is only the word of God which should have that power, though that power does not have this debased result, since to be in and with the word of God is not prison, but the recreational delight of sharing with one's Maker, of which, the Trinity, there is only one.
Since many are the issues in a Confession the size of the Westminster, and many have been the concerns about some of its fundamental elements over history, there are places of note for consideration, in the due use of the liberty provided, for the purposes provided, including concern for tender consciences which do not like cavalier treatment of searching issues, outside or withering within, the text of the Bible.
Various revisions of the Westminster Confession have therefore been attempted by various bodies for various reasons, since in its broad coverage of many things great and small, it was first written.
THE LIBERTY OF THE LORD AND HIS WORD
Within the stress on liberty and fidelity in doctrine, in theory and in practice, to the sole operational authority of the Bible, there are small changes to the Westminster Confession which can make big differences to the conscience of many, such as one meets from time to time, in literature or in life. This is what has been addressed in the presentation made on this site on that topic, as one of the usages of the liberty given, partly in the area specifically stressed by the DC, and partly in others in its general thrust of liberty, which become more important as time moves, and issues arise. This is one example of the freedom given by the Constitution of the PCA, amid the substance of the Confession, the thing in view for due care. It is not one's own version of the Westminster Confession, as one prefers the presentation in the Constitution of the PCA on this matter (that of the unadulterated 1901 agreement for Union). It may however be of help to many of zeal and tender conscience, at least as an illustration, providing relatively small variations provided for within the DC outline.
Outside the main doctrinal issue, II Peter 3:9, aroused inside the DC itself , as just noted, these variations are minimal but they remove aspects readily interpretable outside the biblical text, as in the case for example of oaths and vows and James.
Oil prevents shrieking in some mechanical situations, and grace can prevent injury in spiritual life. It would be shame indeed to compress the people of the Lord into unconstitutional and unbiblical sovereignties of the flesh, when a larger provision has been in place from the first (in this case, 1901). While action against the decades of actively false teaching is more than understandable, however, and zeal should prevent its recurrence, yet to go to the opposite error, and bind a Church to the word of man in so many topics, past their special contributions, is close to idolatry, far from liberty, and unwise, for it puts a gallant height to the sails of some who did much, like some of the kings of Judah, for truth, but did not for that reason become a sort of oracle.
One presentation, then, in the mode of preserving biblical commitment entirely and limiting confessional displacement or refinement, is what has been presented*2, in part by request. If this, or any part of it, helps some, then it is simply an illustration of what the Constitution of the PCA provides. If some find it unnecessary, fine; but it is better by far than making the Confession impervious to any adjustment, an instrument binding by its say so, and limiting the thought of the members, to its own authority, unless it relaxes it at any point. Such a presentation as here noted, does not emasculate the Confession of its undoubted excellencies on major issues, but it does avoid that relaxation into spiritual entropy, which does not ceaselessly seek to serve, whether in 400 AD, or 2100 AD, wherever the call is, advancing as others have done, but not transgressing at the same time the word of God.
There is a difference between having an axe to grind, and using the word of God, that sharp sword, to deal with evils. If it is not easy to be a serviceable child of God, or Church of God, this is scarcely a ground for not doing using the utmost endeavours to be so. Taking up your cross has no noticeable pads, and it is a thing to grapple with, not hard to see, but hard to lift. Purity in the Church has one sure feature, keeping to the word of God, as written, not in slavish conformity to all the aspects of what others have done, nor in utter disregard of what has gone before; but with an infinite preference for the words given in the Book of the Lord (Isaiah 34:16), by the definitive grace of God in the Bible, over any other words given by man at any other time or in any other way.
NOTES
The set is entitled:
ON
PREDESTINATION and FOREKNOWLEDGE,
LIBERTY and NECESSITY,
RESPONSIBILITY, DUTY and CREATIVITY
*2 That is, as in Why Not Believe ? Ch. 4, as noted as the commencement of this present Chapter.