By Morgan Cates

Deuteronomy 30:14 – But the very word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart 

God is omniscient. He knows all things. Every question you could ever have, He knows the answer. Every philosophical thought that perplexes the greatest scholars in history are understood by God. Since He knows all things, He also knows how to properly communicate with His creatures. Although He is infinite, He knows how to communicate in terms that out finite minds can comprehend with clarity. This does not necessarily mean that every Biblical passage is easy to interpret, or that everything in the Biblical context of a passage is easily understood. What it does mean though, is that when studied in the proper historical context, what the Holy Spirit is trying to convey through the human author is clear and can be read with clarity. The Bible clearly states what God wants it to say. 

Although God has clearly stated His Word, that does not mean that everything in the Bible is easily understood and interpreted. This makes sense in light of the fact that the Bible was inspired by God who is infinite, compared to humans who have finite minds. The Westminster confession defines clarity as, 

“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 in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” 

The Bible is not blatantly obvious in all that it means, but it is clear about what is needed to know for an orthodox Christian life. All things that Christ followers need to know pertaining to salvation and obedience for the Christian life are plainly stated in Scripture. 

This doctrine is most commonly denied on the basis that the Bible is an, “outdated book;” that the Bible was written so long ago that it is not applicable to our current lives or culture. People often think we have outgrown the Bible, but this is not true. The Bible was inspired by the one and only perfect and immutable God. God’s immutability simply means that He never changes, in fact He is incapable of changing. If God never changes then that also means that He never changes His mind, and if He never changes His mind then what He commanded us at any point in the past will never change. 

As we stated at the beginning of this series, all Scriptural doctrines stem from the inspiration of Scripture, clarity is no exception. The Bible is clear because it is inspired by a perfect God. This doctrine is important for us to affirm because it keeps us from becoming cynical about the Bible. This doctrine keeps us from thinking that the Bible is either inapplicable to us, or that we cannot read it because it is clearly written. When the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the Bible, He inspired them to write exactly what was meant to be in there, and did it with clarity. 

Brothers and sisters, read Scripture, study those things that are not easily comprehendible, and obsess over God’s breathed-out Word.