Rev. Winzer, I've enjoyed your responses so far and have learned much. You wrote in another post some time ago [I keep track], "...“the confessing church declares what books she believes are of divine inspiration and form the rule of faith and life (WCF 1:2). This includes the gospel of Mark, that is, the complete text of the gospel of Mark as preserved by the singular care and providence of God. To maintain that the gospel of Mark has been corrupted is to exercise a magisterium over the text and to contradict the reformed confessional belief that it is authoritative in and of itself.”

Would you apply this argument to Col. 1:14?

Robert Shaw in his exposition of the WCF wrote, "We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts."

Are we still moved by the testimony of the Church that "through his blood" should be in Col. 1:14?

Thanks.

j

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Conscience may lash us, but it cannot replenish a languishing life. Conscience may be God's word and minister to you, telling you of your faults and your follies and your destitution. It may point out, but it will never supply you. Christ must give you new life. Hart has well expressed it: "He to the feeble and the faint, His mighty aid makes known; and when their languid life is spent, supplies it with His own." - J. K. Popham