1.
“The Authority of the Word”
To
the Church, and to the world through the proclamation of the Church, Scripture
bears witness to Jesus Christ. Scripture does this by the power of the Holy
Spirit. By his power, those who hear Scripture hear Jesus Christ and those who
hear Jesus Christ do so by listening to Scripture.
God’s revelation became objectively real when the divine Word became flesh in Jesus Christ. God’s revelation becomes subjectively real by the outpouring of God’s Spirit. The reality of the Bible as God’s Word is like this. Objectively the Bible, as the Word of God by the Spirit of God, is the concrete authority which is the source, center, and goal of all authority in the Church. Subjectively the Bible is the concrete freedom which is the source, center, and goal of the freedom of the Church. It is because of this authority and freedom of the Bible that the Church comes to have authority and freedom under the Bible.
The
Church is Church only in daily and faithful obedience to Jesus Christ. The
prophets of Israel lived like this in relation to Yahweh, as did the apostles
in relation to Jesus Christ. But their relationship was uniquely direct. Our
time differs from their time in this respect. To stand in the same relationship
of obedience to the Word of God as they did, we need to obey Scripture as the
Word of God for us. Any attempts on our part to bypass Scripture and appeal
directly to the Holy Spirit are false.
The
Church only exists as Church when it willingly submits to the authority of the
Bible. It usurps this authority whenever it subjects the Bible to its own
teaching authority, to its own historical consciousness, or to personal
experience.
Jesus
Christ, however, spoke to his prophets and apostles, called and enabled them to
be his witnesses through their written words, and through them confronts his
Church with a concrete authority that as such cannot be absorbed by it. We
relate obediently to our Lord, then, when we listen to the prophetic and
apostolic witness which he himself commissioned. In the 1500s, reformation
meant a return to Scripture as the ultimate norm for the Church’s talk about
God. In our day, a return to Scripture would likewise mean a commitment to
reform the Church. This points to the final significance of our recognition of
the authority of Scripture: it is our acknowledgment that we do not live
without God and without hope in the world but that God is both with us and for
us in full concrete authority.
2.
“Authority under the Word”
Under
Scripture, the Church exercises humble yet genuine authority. Its authority is
humble, not claiming to speak directly for Jesus Christ or by direct
inspiration of the Holy Spirit but hopefully in conformity with the biblical
witness to Jesus Christ. Its authority is genuine, following the commandment
that we should honor our father and mother, as a sign of the Church’s
subordination to God’s Word and as a reflection of God’s authority over all human authorities.
The
Church is established as Church through our common obedience to the Word of
God. This Word is not spoken to individuals in isolation but to individual
members of the Church for the sake of the Church. Confession is the act by
which we acknowledge our common hearing and receiving of God’s Word in the
Church through Scripture. In confession we share and debate with the Church our
resulting understanding of faith in Jesus Christ. We are responsible for doing
this and the Church is responsible for hearing us and responding.
Before
sharing and debating, we are responsible for listening to the confession of the
Church, for listening respectfully to those before us and beside us in the
Church. In this responsibility we recognize the relative superiority and
genuine authority of the Church. In this way the Church is a sign and
reflection of Christ’s authority which we honor when we honor the sign of it.
Of course, Christ is Lord among sinners. So Church confession may well contain
mistakes. But we may first trust and respect the people of the Church because
we first trust and respect the Lord who saves both them and us from sin and in
doing so is the foundation of all faith.
The
life of the Church under Scripture is an ongoing debate, a mutual
accountability, concerning the Word of God we proclaim. Unity in proclamation
requires a shared confession of our faith. This confession is our provisional
agreement with others on points critical to the life of the Church. The
authority of the Church varies with the truth of its documented confessions. A
confession of the Church is always a documented agreement in matters of faith,
believed to be made in obedience to Scripture, which both expresses and demands
a decision.
Copyright © 2019
by Steven Farsaci.
All rights
reserved. Fair use encouraged.