Westminster Confession

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Westminster Confession was meant to be a complete treatment of the major issues of Christian theology. The authors strove for clarity and logic, as befits what was meant to be a definitive doctrinal statement, not a piece of speculative theology.

Chapter I

One of the fundamental principles of the Protestant Reformation was sola scriptura—the Bible as the sole source of Christian truth. This principle denied the Catholic belief that the “tradition of the church,” independent of the Bible, supplemented it as a source of truth. The Westminster Confession supports this principle by dealing with the Bible first of all, even before God. The first chapter also defines exactly what the Bible is by listing the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments and explicitly excluding the Apocrypha, which Catholics viewed as divinely inspired, but to a lesser degree than the canonical books.

Chapter II

The definition of God was one of the most difficult issues with which the Westminster Assembly grappled. What resulted emphasizes, as the Reformed tradition tends to generally emphasize, God’s absoluteness, sovereignty, and utter independence of the created. The doctrine of the Trinity, central to Christian theology, appears almost as an afterthought in this chapter. The Westminster Confession’s trinitarianism is in the western Christian mainstream, endorsing the “double procession” of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son, as opposed to the belief of the Eastern Orthodox Churches that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

Chapter III

Predestination is the subject of chapter III. God chose those men and angels who are to be saved and those who are to be damned in eternity, not at a specific moment in time but “before the foundation of the world was laid.” This chapter’s placement before the chapter on Creation dramatically exemplifies “supralapsarianism,” the doctrine that God chose the saved and damned preceding the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. (The idea that God chose the saved and damned as a logical consequence of the Fall is called “sublapsarianism.”) Its early appearance in the Confession also indicates its overall importance to the writers.

Chapter IV

In chapter IV, Creation is described as a means of expressing God’s glory. The first humans were made with the law of God “written on their hearts,” meaning that they needed no Bible or other external source for the law. Unlike later humans, the first humans had the power to obey God’s law but also the freedom of will to choose not to obey.

Chapter V

Chapter V deals with God’s providence, or government of the universe. The concept of providence was central to seventeenth-century Puritan thinking, and the smallest events could be treated as the evidence of God’s divine care. The Westminster Confession emphasizes that God’s providence can work both within and without what we ordinarily think of cause and effect. Even the Fall of Man was a working out of God’s providence, although this in no way transfers the blame from Adam and Eve to God. The idea that God’s omnipotence made him the creator or “author of sin” is one the Westminster writers are very concerned to reject. God’s providence is exemplified in exposing both the elect and the regenerate to the temptation of sin, the former to teach them humility and their utter dependence on his grace, the latter to render them still more worthy of damnation. The Confession also points out that the Church is the object of God’s particular care.

Chapter VI

After addressing the subject tangentially in the preceding chapters, the Confession here comes to grips with the Fall of the human being and human bondage to sin. The Fall was caused by the temptation of Satan (one of the devil’s few appearances in the Confession) but was ultimately ordained to God’s glory. In line with Reformed thinking, the Confession emphasizes humanity’s utter bondage to sin following the Fall, as we all inherited the “Original Sin” of our first ancestors, completely unable to do that which is good by our own efforts. Everyone, even the elect, remain subject to sin, and each sin, however trivial it seems, is justly punished by eternal death—the Reformed tradition knows nothing of the Catholic distinction between venial sins (which do not alienate the sinner from God completely) and mortal sins (which deprive the sinner of all grace, figuratively “killing” the soul).

Chapter VII

This chapter introduces a key concept of Reformed theology as it developed—the Covenant. There are two Covenants governing the relation between God and humanity. With the original Covenant of Works, humans could be granted salvation by their obedience and conformity with God’s will. The Covenant of Works was abrogated by Adam’s sin. In its place stands another Covenant, the Covenant of Grace, divided into two dispensations, one between God and the Jews in the pre-Christian era and one between God and the Christian Church. In the Covenant of Grace, God offers salvation to those who have faith in Christ. However, salvation is still utterly dependent on God’s grace—only the elect, predestined by God, will receive the grace to have faith.

The Covenant of Grace worked differently in the time of the Old Testament and before Christ’s coming to earth—the “time of the law.” The elect among the ancient Jews were saved not through explicit faith in the historical figure of Jesus Christ, of whom they knew nothing, but through faith in Jewish ritual practices, all of which prefigured the Messiah, Christ. However, this does not mean that there was a separate covenant operating before Christ; there was one covenant working in two different ways. The coming of Christ ended the earlier operation of the Covenant of Grace. (Chapter X deals with practitioners of religions other than Christianity in the present time, implicitly including the Jews, and states that it is impossible for them to be saved.)

Chapter VIII

This chapter deals with the central tenet of Christianity—the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ. The Confession’s Christology again is in the Western mainstream, describing Jesus as fully man and fully God in the position established by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Christ’s mission on earth is viewed as a redemptive sacrifice in satisfaction of God’s justice, although the Confession avoids the legalism of some interpretations of Christ’s redemptive work, such as that of the eleventh-century theologian Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo? (“Why God Became Man”). Christ’s sacrifice applies not to all humankind but only to the elect, “those whom the Father hath given unto him.”

Chapter IX

The Westminster Assembly here endorsed a fundamental Calvinist tenet, the inability of the fallen human being to will anything spiritually good. This does not mean that human beings are unable by their own efforts to will anything “ethically” good but that these things are irrelevant to salvation. The ability to will the spiritually good, lost by the Fall of Adam and Eve, can be restored only by the grace of God. This is one benefit God gives, but only to his elect. Although their ability to will the spiritually good is restored, even the elect retain the corruption inherent to all humanity and will continue to will evil as well as good. Only in heaven will the saved will only good.

Chapter X

A common Reformed belief was in a calling—a time when God made an elect person’s status known to him or her. The moment of “calling” was central to the spiritual autobiographies of many Puritans. Calling comes only to the elect, and even for them it comes only at the time of God’s choosing---there is nothing the elect person can do to prepare himself or herself for the calling. Even the ability to respond to the calling is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The chapter also speaks of persons who die in infancy (an important issue in early modern societies with a high infant mortality rate), the elect among whom God will save in a way of his choosing. The discussion of infant deaths contains no mention of the sacrament of baptism, in line with the generally secondary role the sacraments play in Reformed theology. (A discussion of the Sacraments does not occur until chapter XXVII.) This chapter also answers the question of whether virtuous persons who are non-Christian can be saved with a firm no.

Chapter XI

Chapter XI reaffirms the fundamental Reformation doctrine of justification by faith. There are several important qualifications. Faith is a gift from God to the elect for Christ’s sake and not something that can ever be attained by a person’s own efforts. Faith is accompanied by other graces, even though these graces are irrelevant to salvation. Once they are saved, the elect can never lose that salvation, but God might still punish them for particular sins.

Chapter XII

This chapter describes the glory of the elect in heaven through the metaphor of “adoption,” which had a long Christian history. The idea of the elect becoming children of God and his love for them helps soften the stern and arbitrary image of God that is common in Reformed theology.

Chapter XIII

Although the Reformed tradition proclaims that works do not matter in salvation, that does not mean that there is no distinction between the saved and unsaved in terms of their behavior. “Sanctification” is the process whereby the elect are changed in this life through the infusion of God’s goodness and holiness in them. Although Grace frees the elect from the bondage of sin, in this life they are never entirely freed. The ability to struggle against sinful nature and sometimes to win comes not from one’s own strength or virtue but solely from the power of God.

Chapter XIV

This chapter discusses the origin and impact of saving faith. The Confession is careful not to limit the ways in which faith comes into the hearts of the saved but emphasizes the most common routes by which it enters and is strengthened—preaching (the “Ministry of the Word”) prayer, and sacraments. True faith is followed by obedience to God, though not all the saved are obedient to the same degree. “Strong” and “weak” faith, however, are both saving faith.

Chapter XV

Saving faith is also followed by repentance. Since everyone is a vile and filthy sinner, everyone with faith should also be struck by horror at the sins they have committed. The article suggests that while in itself repentance cannot save, it should be felt by every saved person. Confessing one’s sins is appropriate, but the article is careful not to follow the Catholic model of treating confession to a priest as a sacrament. Confession should be made to God or to the person or community offended or to the Church at large, but the ministry is not mentioned as playing any role in hearing people’s confessions.

Chapter XVI

This chapter deals with the complicated topic of good works. The Westminster Assembly, like other Reformed Christians, had to thread a narrow passage between the “Catholic” idea that good works contribute to salvation and the “antinomian” idea that good works are completely irrelevant to the saved. The writers emphasize the importance of good works in glorifying Christ while insisting that the ability to do good works does not come out of our own strength but is instead a gift of God. Once again, they declare that good works are irrelevant to salvation. However, only the saved can do truly good works; even what seem to be the virtuous deeds of the unsaved are not inspired by the right motives or done in the right way and are therefore not truly good works at all.

Chapter XVII

The “Perseverance of the Saints,” one of the Five Points of Calvinism, is the belief that God’s decree of election will never be undone—that the saved person is saved forever. This doctrine could be a powerful source of spiritual comfort for those who thought themselves children of God. However, saved people could still sin grievously, thereby meriting some kind of chastisement from God delivered in this world.

Chapter XVIII

The assurance of salvation was often a difficult problem for Puritans, who wanted to be assured of their own salvation but also wanted it to be the right kind of assurance, caused by knowledge of God’s grace rather than vain hope or overconfidence. In fact, being too certain of one’s own salvation could be viewed as evidence that one was not truly saved. The Westminster Confession describes the process by which the elect come to be convinced of their salvation while assuring its readers that doubts and occasional weakening of one’s assurance do not mean that one has “lost” it.