Scripture is Clear & Understandable
by Francis August Otto Pieper
Doubts disappear like mist before the sun, as soon as you hear the clear testimony of Scripture, which she witness to herself. The word of Scripture, she simply calls the word of the Holy Spirit, Heb. 3:7; Acts. 28:25. She says (2 Pet. 1:2), especially in relation to the Scriptures of the Old Testament (v. 20.): “The holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” From the Scriptures of the Old Testament, as we have it written to us in words, she says (2 Tim. 3:16.) “All Scripture is God breathed.” That this writing may not be “broken” (John 10, 3:5.) is an inviolable truth, especially in terms of a few individual words, and seemingly incidental remarks, as Psalm 82:6 says. “Ye are gods” (John. 10:34.). One should search and investigate this Scripture, but no one should dare to examine it in order to stand as a critic over the Scripture and want to weed out alleged errors; instead let them stand in every word they hear and believe her, “because I tell you truly, till heaven and earth pass, the smallest letter will not dissolve, not even a tittle of the law,” Matthew, 5:l8, “They have Moses and the prophets, they hear sameness,” Lk. 16:29., “And if someone takes away words from the book of this prophecy, God will dismiss his part in the book of life, and from the holy city, and of that which is written in this book,” Rev. 22:19. Truly, it is not the fault of the Scripture, if any man doubts what he is to think of the Scripture, whether it is God’s infallible word, or whether fallible human opinion is to be found in her.
Let us take another example from the present. In dispute was the doctrine of the conversion of a man to God. The Scripture calls man “dead in sin,” and describes his conversion as a resurrection from spiritual death, Eph. 2:5: “Since we were dead in sins, He made us alive together with Christ.” The Scripture speaks about the natural man, not just any ability to understand spiritual things, but anything, to will and to act: “What is born of the flesh is flesh,” John 3:6., “The natural man receiveth not the spirit of God, it’s foolishness to him, and he can not recognize it,” I Cor. 2:14. But it also describes the natural way of human beings as such, according to which they only oppose this same God: “To be fleshly minded is enmity against God” Rom. 8:7. When faith in Christ, through the creation of the conversion is done (Col. 2, l2.), according to Scripture it is a gift from God for Christ’s sake: “To you is given for Christ’s sake… That you… To him that believeth” Phil 1:29, an effect of the almighty power of God which says: “We believe after the working of his mighty strength, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and on his right hand in heaven,” Eph. 1:19-20. Col. 2:12. What else is there to be held up against all the errors of Pelagius to our present time!