The Perspicuity of the Scriptures

by    Charles Hodge                                                                                                                                 Vol. VIII, No. 2, February 1995

Charles Hodge was born on December 27, 1797 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating from the College of New Jersey in 1815 and the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1819, Hodge spent his entire professional life teaching at Princeton. He began his teaching career as an instructor in 1820. Then in 1822 he was appointed professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature, and in 1840 he was appointed professor of theology, where he continued to serve until his death on June 19, 1878. It is estimated that Hodge helped train some 3,000 American clergyman during his time at Princeton. An American Presbyterian clergyman, Hodge was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in 1821. He was a man who demonstrated true Christian love and character in his life and who held the Word of God in the highest regard. A solid conservative in his theology, Hodge is widely considered by many to be the greatest American theologian since Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). A very capable and gifted teacher and Bible exegete, Hodge was also a prolific writer who edited the "Princeton Review" from 1825 to circa 1860. His most important and enduring work however, was his three-volume set entitled" Systematic Theology", first published in 1872-73 and still widely available today. The following excerpts have been taken from Hodge's "'Systematic Theology". Editor [of Christianity Today]

The Bible is a plain book. It is intelligible by the people. And they have the right and are bound to read and interpret it for themselves, so that their faith may rest on the testimony of the Scriptures and not on that of the Church. Such is the doctrine of Protestants on this subject.

It is not denied that the Scriptures contain many things hard to be understood; that they require diligent study; that all men need the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to [come to] right knowledge and true faith. But it is maintained that in all things necessary to salvation they are sufficiently plain to be understood even by the unlearned. It is not denied that the people, learned and unlearned, in order to [come to a] proper understanding of the Scripture, should not only compare Scripture with Scripture and avail themselves of all the means in their power to aid them in their search after truth, but they should also pay the greatest deference to the faith of the Church. If the Scriptures be a plain book and the Spirit performs the functions of a teacher to all the children of God, it follows inevitably that they must agree in all essential matters in their interpretation of the Bible. And from that fact it follows that for an individual Christian to dissent from the faith of the universal Church (i.e., the body of true believers) is tantamount to dissenting from the Scriptures themselves.

What Protestants deny on this subject is that Christ has appointed any officer or class of officers in the Church to whose interpretation of the Scriptures the people are bound to submit as of final authority. What they affirm is that He has made it obligatory upon every man to search the Scriptures for himself and determine on his own discretion what they require him to believe and to do.

The most obvious reasons in support of the right of private judgment are as follows:

1. That the obligations to faith and obedience are personal. Every man is responsible for his religious faith and moral conduct. He cannot transfer that responsibility to others; nor can others assume it in his stead. He must answer for himself; and if he must answer for himself, he must judge for himself. It will not avail him in the day of judgment to say that his parents or his church taught him wrong. He should have listened to God and obeyed Him rather than men.

2. The Scriptures are everywhere addressed to the people, and not to the officers of the Church either exclusively, or specially. The prophets were sent to the people, and constantly said, "Hear, 0 Israel," "Hearken, 0 ye people." Thus, also, the discourses of Christ were addressed to the people, and the people heard him gladly. All the Epistles of the new Testament are addressed to the congregation, to the "called of Jesus Christ;" "to the beloved of God;" to those "called to be saints;" "to the sanctified in Christ Jesus;" "to all who call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord;" "to the saints which are in (Ephesus), and to the faithful in Jesus Christ;" or "to the saints and faithful brethren which are in (Colosse);" and so in every instance. It is the people who are addressed. To them are directed these profound discussions of Christian doctrine, and these comprehensive expositions of Christian duty. They are everywhere assumed to be competent to understand what is written, and are everywhere required to believe and obey what came from the inspired messengers of Christ. They are not referred to any other authority from which they were to learn the true import of these inspired instructions. It is, therefore, not only to deprive the people of a Divine right, to forbid the people to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves; but it is also to impose between them and God, and to prevent their hearing his voice, that they may listen to the words of men.

3. The Scriptures were not only addressed to the people, but the people were called upon to study them, and to teach them unto their children. It was one of the most frequently recurring injunctions to parents under the old dispensation, to teach the Law unto their children, that they again might teach it unto theirs. The "holy oracles" were committed to the people, to be taught by the people and taught immediately out of the Scriptures, that the truth might be retained in its purity. Thus our Lord commanded the people to search the Scriptures, saying, "They are they which testify of Me." (John 5:39) He assumed that they were able to understand what the Old Testament said of the Messiah, although its teachings had been misunderstood by the scribes and elders, and by the whole Sanhedrin. Paul rejoiced that Timothy had from his youth known the Holy Scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation. He said to the Galatians (1:8,9), "Though we, or an angel from heaven, – if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." This implies two things first, that the Galatian Christians, the people,

had a right to sit in judgment on the teaching of an Apostle, or of an angel from heaven; and secondly, that they had an infallible rule by which that judgment was to be determined, namely, a previously authenticated revelation of God.

The principle laid down by the Apostle is precisely that long before given by Moses (Deut.l3:l-3), who tells the people that if a prophet should arise, although he worked wonders, they were not to believe or obey him if he taught them anything contrary to the Word of God. This again assumes that the people had the ability and the right to judge and that they had an infallible rule of judgment. It implies, moreover, that their salvation depended upon their judging rightly. For if they allowed these false teachers, robed in sacred vestments, and surrounded by the insignia of authority, to lead them from the truth, they would inevitably perish.

If every man has a right and is bound to read the Scriptures and to judge for himself what they teach, he must have certain rules to guide him in the exercise of this privilege and duty. These rules are not arbitrary. They are not imposed by human authority. They have no binding force which does not flow from their own intrinsic truth and propriety. They are few and simple.

1. The words of Scripture are to be taken in their plain historical sense. That is, they must be taken in the sense attached to them in the age and by the people to whom they were addressed. This only assumes that the sacred writers were honest and meant to be understood.

2. If the Scriptures be what they claim to be, the Word of God, they are the work of one mind and that mind Divine. From this it follows that Scripture cannot contradict Scripture. God cannot teach in one place anything which is inconsistent with what He teaches in another. Hence Scripture must explain Scripture. If a passage admits of different interpretations, that only can be the true one which agrees with what the Bible teaches elsewhere on the same subject.

3. The Scriptures are to be interpreted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which guidance is to be humbly and earnestly sought. . The ground of this rule is twofold: First, the Spirit is promised as a guide and teacher. He was to come to lead the people of God into the knowledge of the truth. And secondly, the Scriptures teach that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor.2:l4) The unrenewed mind is naturally blind to spiritual truth. His heart is in opposition to the things of God. Congeniality of mind is necessary to the proper apprehension of Divine things. As only those who have a moral nature can discern moral truth, so those only who are spiritually minded can truly receive the things of the Spirit.

The fact that all the people of God in every age and in every part of the Church, in the exercise of their private judgment, in accordance with the simple rules above stated, agree as to the meaning of Scripture in all things necessary either in faith or practice, is a decisive proof of the perspicuity of the Bible, and of the safety of allowing the people the enjoyment of the Divine right of private judgment.

Reprinted from Christianity Yesterday, Sep/Oct 1994, pp 8-10. [Editorial Comment: Christianity Yesterday is an excellent magazine and highly recommended for laymen and clergy alike. See ad in this issue.]