Proclaimer Blog
The clarity of Scripture
What exactly, is the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture? I think this is something that preachers need to know, and – to be honest – don't always get right. I've just been rereading Tim Ward's excellent book Words of Life (IVP). In it, he addresses precisely this issue. He presents two contemporary definitions – one from Grudem (which essentially boils down to 'the teachings of the Bible are able to be understood by all who seek God's help") and one by Mark Thompson (the essence of which is "as God's communicative act, it's meaning is comprehensible by all who come to it in faith").
This is how Tim (who, by the way, is joining the PT staff as Associate Director of PT Cornhill, early in 2013) responds:
Some individuals pick up a Bible with no one to explain it to them, and find the gospel of Christ coming across loud and clear. Others, though, ask for God's help and read Scripture with an open spirit, but find that the gospel of Christ is not especially clear to them without a teacher to teach them the gospel from Scripture and to show them how to read Scripture (c.f. Acts 8.30-35). These observations are evidence neither for nor against the clarity of Scripture, unless one starts with an overextended understanding of it. In this light the definitions of both Grudem and Thompson risk suggesting a situation that is too individualized, supposing that the primary situation in view is that of someone reading the Bible on their own who finds the meaning of most of its paragraphs to be clear. (p128)
He goes on to put into his own words an orthodox definition of clarity:
- Scripture is the written word of the living Word, God's communicative act, and the Spirit who authored it chooses to speak most directly through it
- Therefore we are right to trust that God in Scripture has spoken and continued to speak sufficiently clearly for us to base our saving knowledge of him and of ourselves, and our beliefs and our actions, on the content of Scripture alone, without ultimately validating our understanding of these things or our confidence in them by appeal to any individual or institution.
Helpful. As is Tim's book.