Incidentally, I'm not arguing that the WCF is inerrant but I also agree with Rev. Winzer (and others) that something communicated by man can be without error in terms of the principles it conveys. Were this not so it would make the communication of the Gospel impossible.
I've been trying to note how people treat their own reading of Scripture as functionally inerrant in many cases. They convince themselves that by reading the Scriptures they have now come to an understanding of the Truth by which they can roundly dismiss all error. What they don't reckon, however, is the deceptiveness of their own heart. This Proverb captures some of that truth:
Quote:
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Prov 11:14 Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
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I think there is far too much confidence among many to assume that they have not been deceived or that, by studying for themselves that they'll be in a place to reform the Church.
The real irony is when such men expect others to listen to their teaching on the Word. Shouldn't they enjoin people not to listen to them as they are merely re-expressing and explaining what the Word says? As soon as they begin to explain the proper interpretation of a passage then, according to their standard of "trust nobody but yourself" they need to realize that they have nothing to say to anyone but themselves. Thus, a Church like this would include no expository preaching but simply the reading of the Word with everybody deciding for themselves what seems right in their own eyes.
But the irony goes further because Churches are never like this. Such men typically gather a following around themselves and even as they disdain those that read a
man-made Confession {emphasis added to note disgust}, they hang on every word of their leader who is, after all, "...just telling us what the Bible says."
In the end, the real question is not whether or not a person is going to make eternal life and death decisions on the basis of a creed. The question is the creed they are going to choose.