What is Reformed?

One could be excused for imagining that only those who adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) and its theological siblings are the truly reformed people of today, given the inordinate emphasis that is put on that albeit excellent human document.  

These same people also hold the Canons of Dort in high regard despite it teaching a doctrine of the atonement that is different in emphasis from that of the WCF.  They honour and believe the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, and accept these as reformed documents.  Some even accept the reformed character of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion as teaching reformed truth.  These all teach a variant, and may I say so, a more biblical doctrine of the atonement than does the WCF.

Yet there is an anomaly here because while these other confessional standards are regarded as reformed by many reformed men, they tend to cast aspersions on those who prefer the teaching of the other reformed confessions and catechisms to the WCF.  It is not simply a matter of personal preference; it is based on careful biblical exegesis and on taking the teaching of Scripture in the round.  They accept the other documents as reformed, but secretly they doubt the orthodoxy of those who have difficulties with the WCF.  Quite unbrotherly, is it not?

Why is this?  Is it because of a deeply ingrained partisan spirit that motivates those who disenfranchise their brothers in Christ?  Is it just ignorance of the truth and content of these other reformed documents that motivates them?  If it is ignorance, then this can be remedied by coming afresh to these documents and looking at their teaching objectively and thus addressing the ignorance issue.

However, if it a deeply ingrained partisan spirit that motivates them, then there is a serious problem.  To believe as the gurus tell us to believe is sheer credulousness, gullibility.  Why learn from second hand sources when the original and primary documents are readily available to them for study?  Second hand sources have the tendency of incorporating the prejudices of those who are thus regarded.  The primary sources have only the thinking, the prejudices, of their author.

It is so sad that those who shout loudest about the truth are often those who steadfastly refuse to consider the truth.  It is incredible that men who pride themselves in being men of truth are also prepared to spin what other documents say in order to keep in with those who hold those other man-made documents sacrosanct.  This is nothing less than the fear of man which brings a snare.  It demonstrates an uncertainty about what a man believes.  Take him out of his theological comfort zone and he is at sea.  Challenge his theological position, especially if that position is also held by the reformed gurus, and he goes to pieces.  He shows that he cannot handle the truth when he resorts to personal insults and ridicule and mis-representation.  How pathetic such creatures really are.

What makes all this infinitely worse is that the doctrine of Scripture as held by these men is called into question.  If the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only infallible rule of faith, worship and practice, and the Supreme standard of the church, why do reformed men defer continually to the WCF in order to assess a man's orthodoxy?  What is wrong with Scripture?  Do they not really understand it?  Have they their own secret doubts as to the final authority of Scripture implanted in their minds by their imbibing of theological liberalism?  And they do not have to have been taught at a liberal college for this to happen!  But these doubts seem to have appeared in their minds.  

Let me 'cut to the chase' as we say: is Scripture your final authority in all matters theological and practical, or is it not?  Do you turn instinctively "to the Word and to the testimony"?  Do you rest your beliefs for time and for eternity on the clear teaching of Scripture, or do you not?  These other documents are fine so far as they go.  But they were composed by fallible human beings, therefore cannot be regarded as the final authority.  We ought to be deeply thankful to our theological forbears for ensuring that Scripture alone is the supreme standard for all things pertaining to life and godliness.  Use the writings of men, even of the very best of men, but as someone so wisely said, only follow a man so far as he follows Christ, and no further.

This, I think, is the best counsel available in this as in many other areas of Christian life and doctrine.  Follow this dictum, and you will not go far wrong.