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2 Peter 3:15–16
“Count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
We have been studying what is often referred to in systematic theology as theological prolegomena, which concerns matters such as divine revelation. God has revealed His plan of salvation in special revelation—Scripture—and His plan of salvation is a special focus of what we call the clarity of Scripture.
The clarity of Scripture, also known as the perspicuity of Scripture, means that while not everything in the Bible is equally clear, “those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in 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 them” (Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7). Scripture is not a book that can be understood only by professional scholars or the clergy. Instead, biblical teaching on issues central to faith and life can be discerned by all those who prayerfully put in the work to read and understand the Bible in dependence on the Holy Spirit.
God has spoken in Scripture, and He has spoken clearly. This does not mean, as 2 Peter 3:15–16 recognizes, that no passages in the Bible are difficult or perhaps obscure to us. Yet God gave us His Word to make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15), so He has made the basic gospel and requirements for pleasing God plain. He did not fail when He spoke through the prophets and Apostles to communicate His plan of salvation.
This does not entail that every truth related to salvation and pleasing God is effortlessly discerned. We must, as the Westminster Confession says, make “due use of the ordinary means.” The truth of the Bible comes to us only if we read it and hear it preached and if we ponder its explicit teachings and the necessary implications of those teachings. An advanced education is not required, though teachers with formal training can be of great assistance to us in comprehending Scripture. Nevertheless, to discover what God has plainly revealed, we must pay careful attention to the words and grammar of Scripture, how one passage of Scripture interprets another, and more.
Our Creator expected ordinary Israelites who had no seminary training to be able to teach His Word to their children (Deut. 6:4–9). Such an expectation makes sense only if the Bible is essentially clear on all that we must believe and do for faith and life.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Augustine of Hippo writes that “among the things that are plainly laid down in Scripture are to be found all matters that concern faith and the manner of life.” Confidence in the clarity of Scripture on the essentials of salvation has always been evident in the Christian church. If we reject the clarity of Scripture, we are basically saying that God is incapable of communicating the message of salvation to His people.
For further study
- Deuteronomy 29:29
- Psalm 119:105, 130
- Luke 18:15–17
- Romans 10:5–10
The bible in a year
- Genesis 49–50
- Matthew 15:1–20