Walking Through Westminster, WCF 1.2

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.2

"Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament, which are these: 

Of the Old Testament

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. 

Of the New Testament

The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, The Acts of the Apostles, Paul's Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians I, Corinthians II, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians I , Thessalonians II , To Timothy I , To Timothy II, To Titus, To Philemon, The Epistle to the Hebrews, The Epistle of James, The first and second Epistles of Peter, The first, second, and third Epistles of John, The Epistle of Jude, The Revelation of John. 

All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life."

Summary

This word of God, which He ordained to be written down as explained in section 1, is fully contained in the 66 books of the Old and New testaments. These books are given by God's divine inspiration and are the rule of faith and life. For these books to be the rule is the same as to say that they are the only rule. This means that, while other books are potentially edifying and good for the soul, they are in no way to be viewed as a rule of faith or life, (including this very confession!) The confessional standards are helpful summaries of what the Bible teaches, but they are not the Bible. Any appeal to the standards as an authority must be only an appeal to a derived authority. We must ultimately strive to be called "people of the Book" not "people of the standards". Having said that, if the standards are faithful and accurate summaries of what the Bible teaches, then a person must submit to their derived authority, because by so doing they ultimately are submitting to the Bible. This is similar to the call for people to submit to the civil authorities that God chooses to set up over people. Their authority is not absolute, but derived from God and His Law. However, we are still called to submit to them because of their derived authority. When we submit to them, we are ultimately submitting to God. In the same way, we submit to the derived authority of the confession, inasmuch as it is an accurate summary of what the Bible clearly teaches.

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