Perspicuity of Scripture (8)
In a word, if the Scripture be obscure or ambiguous, what need was there for its being sent down from heaven? Are we not obscure and ambiguous enough in ourselves, without an increase of it by obscurity, ambiguity, and darkness being sent down unto us from heaven?
Martin Luther
Bondage of the Will, Section 36 The Bible is clear in the sense that it leaves us no excuses for our disobedience. If God's Word were unclear and we did something wrong, we could go back to God and say, "God, you didn't speak clearly to us, you didn't speak the Word so that we could understand it. So naturally we went our own way. There was no other way to go." Well, that would be foolish. That would be itself a very disobedient response to God's Word. But God speaks His Word to us and speaks it as the one who is authoritative, as the one who judges our behavior, and as the one who leaves us without any excuses.
All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened to some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of themWestminster Confession
The clarity of Scripture means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it seeking God's help and being willing to follow it.systematics theology 108
The doctrine of the clarity of Scripture is not a wild assertion that the meaning of every verse in the Bible will be patently obvious to everyone. Rather, the perspicuity of Scripture upholds the notion that ordinary people using ordinary means can accurately understand enough of what must be known, believed, and observed for them to be faithful Christians.(Taking God at His Word, pg. 59)
in any faithful translation, is sufficiently perspicuous (clear) to show us our sinfulness, the basic facts of the gospel, what we must do if we are to be part of
the family of God, and how to live. Legitimate Hermeneutics in Inerrancy, ed. by Norman L. Geisler (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980) 128.
For example, one does not need to be 'learned,' when reading the Gospels or hearing them read or proclaimed, to discover that they intend to teach that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, performed mighty miracles, died on the cross 'as a ransom for many,' and rose from the dead on the third day after death. These things are plain, lying on the very face of the Gospels. A New Systematic Theology (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998) 88.
Thus the Holy Spirit has magnificently and wholesomely modulated the Holy Scriptures so that the more open places present themselves to hunger and the more obscure places may deter a disdainful attitude. Hardly anything may be found in these obscure places which is not found plainly said elsewhere.On Christian Doctrine, trans. by D. W. Robertson, Jr. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958) 38
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