Saturday, October 18, 2008

Be God-taught

"The Holy Spirit (the supplier by whom believers should be God-taught, Jer 31:34:Jn 6:45; 1 Jn 2:27) does not render the Scripture less necessary. He is not given to us in order to introduce new revelations, but to impress the written word on our hearts; so that here the word must never be separated from the Spirit (Is 59:21).

The former works objectively, the latter efficiently: the former strikes the ears from without, the latter opens the heart within. The Spirit is the teacher; the Scripture is the doctrine which he teaches us."

The distinguished
Francis Turretin
Institutes of Elenctic Theology

2 comments:

Alan W. Richardson said...

Spot on. That was written in the 1600's? Amazing. I suppose it would be too much to expect that the domination of "inner voice" approaches today is anything new.

Beyond Zaphon said...

You stated something recently along the lines of "I am not learning and discovering some new layer of doctrine that has not been thought about by great Christian men to the past." I agree with the spirit of your comment. It is truly amazing to see men like Turretin, 400 years ago, addressing heresies that people like you and me are all to familiar with.

Dave