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Consonance in the English Bible · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Today we're doing a deep dive
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  into something that really sits at the heart of how we read the
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  Bible. It's this question of how 66
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  different books written over centuries can possibly function
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  as one single unified message. It's a massive question.
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  It is, and for you, the listener, this isn't just
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  theory. It changes everything about how
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  you handle difficult passages, how you see the Old and New
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  Testaments connecting, and you know how you trust the God who
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  is speaking through it all. It really is a vital topic.
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  We're looking at the deep structure of the Canon.
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  I mean, you have all these human authors, different cultures,
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  different genres. How do we get from that
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  diversity to the conviction that this all speaks with one voice?
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  That's the mission for today. We're going to look at the
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  theological guarantee behind that unity.
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  Our sources layout three key ideas that all locked together.
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  First, this principle called consonance.
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  Second, a specific phrase from the Westminster Standards, the
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  consent of all the parts. And then third, the practical
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  rule that flows from that, which is the analogy of faith.
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  We want to get past the definitions and really see the
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  implications here. And if we do this right, you'll
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  see that the Bible's unity isn't something we invent.
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  It's rooted in the very nature of God himself.
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  And that completely changes how you come to the text.
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  You stop reading with suspicion, wondering if one part
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  contradicts another, and you start reading with expectation,
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  looking for the harmony you know has to be there.
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  OK, let's start there. Then let's unpack this idea of
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  consonants. The basic definition from the
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  sources is, you know, a harmonious agreement of
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  different parts in a whole. We get that from music.
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  Two different notes make one chord.
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  But this is so much more than that, isn't it?
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  Oh, absolutely. That distinction is the only
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  place to start. Consonance isn't just something
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  we find in Scripture, it's what our sources call the theological
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  fruit of the doctrine of inspiration.
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  The. Fruit of inspiration.
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  OK, Yeah. We confess that the Bible is
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  breathed out by God, so even though it came through many
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  human writers, it all proceeds from a single divine mind.
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  That single origin is the absolute guarantee of its unity.
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  Which brings us right to the nature of that divine author,
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  the Triune God. So what does a classical view of
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  God tell us about how his message has to be coherent?
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  Well, it's guaranteed by two things, God's simplicity and his
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  truthfulness. The sources describe God as one
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  in being simple, true and unchanging.
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  Now that word simple. It's a bit of a theological.
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  Term right doesn't mean easy to understand.
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  No, not at all. It means God isn't made of
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  parts. He's not a composite being.
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  His justice and his mercy aren't 2 separate things that could
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  ever be in conflict. His will is his being.
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  So if God himself has has no internal conflict, then what he
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  speaks can't have internal conflict either.
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  Exactly, being made of parts could, you know, potentially
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  have internal contradictions. But God is simple and he is
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  true, so he can't contradict himself.
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  His word, His message has to have that same steady, reliable
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  voice all the way through the different human voices.
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  Moses, David, Luke, Paul are all coordinated by the Spirit.
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  It's not chaos. So the 66 books aren't just, you
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  know, a library of religious documents that got collected
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  over time. They're one consistent
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  testimony. They.
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  Have to be it's one coherent testimony from God.
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  So even when we see different styles or different historical
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  angles, we have to understand that the one divine author is
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  using human diversity to reveal himself, but the truth system
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  underneath is 1 and the same. This sounds like it connects
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  directly to the doctrine of inerrancy.
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  Our listeners will know that term, but how does consonants
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  kind of broaden our view of inerrancy?
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  That's a great question. Inerrancy often gets focused on
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  the truth of individual statements.
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  You know, are the historical facts right?
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  Are the names correct? Consonance takes that and
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  applies it to the entire system of truth.
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  It's not just that the facts are correct, it's that the whole
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  body of scripture presents a consistent, non contradictory
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  revelation of who God is, what his purposes are, and how he
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  saves. So we move from just verifying
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  individual data points to affirming the coherence of the
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  whole theology. Yes, and because of that,
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  consonance demands that when we see what looks like attention,
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  we have to treat it as a problem in our own understanding.
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  Maybe we lack historical context, maybe it's just a hard
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  doctrine. But the problem isn't a defect
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  in the text itself. The truth system is unified
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  because the author is unified. That's a really important
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  distinction. The problem is with me, the
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  reader, not with the text. That changes the whole posture
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  of how you study. It requires patience and
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  humility. We come to those hard passages
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  knowing that the agreement is there, even if our finite sinful
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  minds haven't figured it out yet.
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  And there's a real pastoral comfort in that, because it
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  tells us God hasn't changed his mind.
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  He hasn't revoked his promises. He's steadfast.
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  Right. So from that theological
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  foundation, consonance, the Reformed tradition gave this
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  belief a very specific name, a formal expression.
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  We did. We now turn to the phrase the
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  consent of all the parts. This phrase shows up in the
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  Westminster Confession of Faith as one of the internal proofs
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  that Scripture is the self authenticating word of God.
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  And that's a big deal. The unity of the Bible isn't
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  just a helpful idea for reading it.
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  It's listed as a marker of its divine origin, right alongside
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  things like the majesty of its style.
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  Why did the Westminster Assembly feel it was so important to put
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  that in the confession back in the 1640s?
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  You have to think about the historical context, the
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  Reformation that happened, but now you had all this theological
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  fragmentation. Sectarian groups were popping up
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  and they would often just grab one verse, you know, a line from
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  a prophecy or something from Revelation, and build an entire
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  bizarre theology on it that contradicted everything else.
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  Right. So the consent of all the parts
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  was a direct pushback against that kind of fragmentation.
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  Precisely to confess this is to say that this unity is an
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  inherent property of Scripture. It's not something the Church
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  creates or imposes, the confession says it's already
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  there, wrought by the Spirit. The agreement is organic, like
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  in a living body where every part supports every other part.
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  So what does that unified testimony actually require us to
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  affirm doctrinally across the whole Bible?
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  What has to be consistent from Genesis to Revelation?
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  Well, at its core it requires A consistent view of God, of man's
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  fall, and of Christ's work. The sources are clear on this.
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  The God we meet in the prophets of the Old Testament has to be
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  the same triune God we meet in the apostles of the New.
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  And the way of salvation can't be different.
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  That's the ultimate test case. You can't have a Genesis that
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  preaches salvation by works and a Romans that preaches salvation
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  by grace. The covenant of grace is 1 plan,
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  one story just revealed progressively over time.
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  But across all those different historical situations, you find
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  the same God, the same problem of sin and Adam, and the same
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  solution of grace in Christ. It's one coherent drama.
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  It really is remarkable when you step back and think about it.
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  I mean, you have a shepherd, a doctor, a tax collector, a king,
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  all writing parts of this, and yet they all testify it to the
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  same core truth. It's a powerful apologetic
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  point. And the consonants isn't just
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  the illogical, it's also literary.
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  You can actually hear the unity. The Bible sounds like one book.
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  What do you mean by that? How does the writing itself
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  communicate that coherence? Think about the recurring
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  structures in the Old Testament. You have Hebrew parallelism in
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  the Psalms and Proverbs. The second line doesn't say
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  something new, it echoes or intensifies the first line.
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  It's a built in confirmation. It's like a system for
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  reinforcing the message right in the poetry.
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  Exactly. Or think about the prophets.
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  The constant repetition of thus says the Lord.
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  That phrase marks the words that follow as having the same divine
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  source, whether it's Isaiah or Amos speaking.
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  And you see that carry over in the New Testament.
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  You do with Christ's sayings, He so often begins with truly,
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  truly. I say to you, it's his
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  authoritative formula that echoes the prophets, but, you
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  know, elevates the authority to himself.
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  All these consistent patterns and phrases, they create a
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  shared idiom. It makes the Bible sound like
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  itself and confirms that all the parts are in agreement.
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  OK, so the unity is a theological fact, the consent of
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  all the parts. But theology has to lead to
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  practice. So if the Bible is unified, how
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  are we supposed to handle it? This brings us to the actual
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  rule for interpretation, the analogy of faith.
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  The analogy of faith, or analogy of fidei is the practical
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  outworking of all this. It's the how to.
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  If the parts all agree with each other, then it follows that they
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  have to be interpreted in light of each other.
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  And the confession has a very direct statement about this
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  rule, doesn't it? It calls it the infallible rule.
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  It does. The Westminster Confession says
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  the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is
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  the Scripture itself. This is the heart of Reformed
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  hermeneutics. It's grounded in the idea that
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  since the Bible has one author, one part of Scripture is the
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  best tool for interpreting another part.
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  Scripture interprets Scripture. So you're never allowed to just
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  read a verse in a vacuum? How does this guide a reader
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  when they hit a really difficult passage?
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  It works in two main ways. First, it just forces you to
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  bring the whole Bible to bear on one verse.
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  But second, and this is key, it establishes a hierarchy of
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  clarity. Clearer passages must shed light
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  on more obscure ones. Clarity over obscurity.
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  Let's dig into that. How do we know which passages
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  are the clear ones? That should be our lens for the
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  others? Well.
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  Generally, the clear passages are the ones that state a
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  doctrine directly, systematically, and repeatedly.
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  Think about the book of Romans on justification or the Gospels
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  on the person of Christ. Those big central texts have to
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  frame how we understand a passing more obscure comments
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  somewhere else. You don't build a major doctrine
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  on a single debatable verse in, say, Zechariah.
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  It stops us from making a mountain out of a molehill,
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  theologically speaking. Right.
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  The analogy of faith is a guardian.
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  It tells you what kind of interpretation is simply off
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  limits. Any reading that makes scripture
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  contradict itself has to be a wrong reading.
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  That's a very high standard. If my interpretation creates a
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  conflict, the assumption has to be that my reading my exegesis
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  is flawed, not the text itself. That is the necessary starting
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  point. If my reading of 1 obscure verse
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  seems to deny what is plainly taught in a dozen other places,
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  then my reading is the problem. The job of the interpreter is to
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  discover the harmony that's already there, not to impose it.
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  And this idea isn't new, is it? The reformers relied on this
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  heavily. Always foundational for them,
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  they were up against centuries of church tradition that had,
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  you know, become detached from the Bible.
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  Their principle was scriptura socracy.
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  Ipsius interprets. Holy Scripture is its own
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  interpreter. They were rejecting the idea
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  that you needed some external authority, like a magisterium to
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  tell you what the Bible meant. They argue that the same Holy
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  Spirit who inspired the text also clarifies it through the
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  rest of the text. So the analogy of faith is what
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  gives the ordinary believer confidence to read the Bible for
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  themselves, trusting that it's coherent and clear enough on the
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  main things. And that confidence changes
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  everything. You go into the text, you
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  believe that God is not divided, His Word is not divided.
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  And so your hope which is built on that word is not divided
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  either. It's important, though, that we
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  don't downplay the difficulty. The Bible does have passages
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  that really seem to clash on the surface.
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  We can call it parent dissonance.
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  How does this rule help us wrestle with those, honestly?
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  We have to distinguish between attention and a contradiction.
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  Attention can arise just from the difficulty of talking about
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  an infinite God in finite human language.
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  Think about divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
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  Scripture affirms both strongly. The analogy of faith forbids us
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  from just picking one and ignoring the other.
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  So we have to hold them together, even if we can't fully
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  resolve them in our minds. We do.
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  We wrestle with them inside a unified system of truth.
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  The dissonance comes from our own limitations, not a flaw in
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  the text. And this is where the rule
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  pushes us to read more carefully, more precisely, to
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  find the underlying consonants. And the classic example of this,
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  the one everyone comes back to, is the supposed conflict between
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  Paul and James on justification. Yes.
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  This is a huge one. Let's walk through it.
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  Paul in Romans and Galatians says over and over that a person
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  is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
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  Seems pretty clear. It is crystal clear Paul's
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  fighting against illegalism that says your obedience is the basis
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  for your right standing with God.
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  And he concludes, no, you're right.
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  Standing is a declaration from God received by faith alone,
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  based on Christ's work alone. But then you get to James
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  chapter 2 and he says you see that a person is justified by
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  works and not by faith alone. I mean, if you just put those
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  two verses side by side, it looks like a direct
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  contradiction. And historically, that was the
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  main text used to argue against the reformers.
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  So this is where the analogy of faith becomes absolutely
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  critical. It forces us to ask, OK, what
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  question is Paul answering and what different question is James
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  answering? Are they even using the word
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  justify in the same way? So how does a more precise
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  reading show they aren't actually rival theologies?
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  They're talking about justification in two different
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  senses. Paul's addressing the forensic
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  sense. That's a legal term.
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  He's talking about God's one time legal declaration that a
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  Sinner is righteous in His sight.
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  It's about your legal standing before God.
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  And Jones is dealing with a different problem entirely.
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  A completely different problem. James is addressing the
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  demonstrative sense. He's fighting against people who
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  claim to have faith, but it's a dead faith that produces
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  nothing. There are no works, no love, no
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  fruit. So James is arguing that real,
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  saving faith will always show itself.
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  It will be demonstrated by works.
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  He's talking about the evidence of justification, not the basis
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  of it. So Paul is explaining how you
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  get justified, and James is explaining what a genuinely
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  justified person looks like. Exactly.
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  Paul says justification is by faith alone as the instrument.
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  James says the faith it justifies is never alone, it's
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  always alive and active. The analogy of faith brings them
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  together perfectly. They're giving 2 perspectives on
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  one gospel, Paul on the root of salvation and James on the fruit
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  of it. Without that commitment to
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  consonance, you'd be forced to pit them against each other and
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  the cannon just falls apart. It does, and that is exactly
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  what many modern critical approaches end up doing.
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  Liberal theology, for example, often just denies consonants
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  from the start. It treats the Bible as a record
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  of, you know, evolving and conflicting human ideas about
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  God. So their goal isn't to find
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  harmony, it's actually to find the conflicts.
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  Right. They love to talk about Paul
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  versus Jesus, or the angry God of the Old Testament versus the
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  loving God of the New. They portray Scripture as this
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  noisy clash of competing voices. The Reformed tradition insists
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  on hearing all the voices together as a Symphony directed
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  by 1 conductor. Because if the text contradicts
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  itself, at the end of the day you're questioning the character
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  of God himself. You are and you're undermining
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  the believers hope. If God can't speak straight, how
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  can you trust His promises? So all of these principles apply
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  to the original Greek and Hebrew texts, but most of us are
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  reading the Bible in English. How does this unity, this
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  consonance, make it through the process of translation?
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  That's a critical question, and the philosophy of translation a
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  church or a person chooses really matters.
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  It can either make that unity clear, or sometimes it can
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  accidentally hide it. The goal is to let that one
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  coherent voice of God be heard as clearly as possible in
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  English. The sources point to a specific
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  translation philosophy as being the best for this.
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  They too the preferences for an essentially literal or word for
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  word translation philosophy. This approach really tries to
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  keep the key terminology consistent, even if I'm more
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  stylish or contemporary phrasing is available.
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  Why is that consistency so important for seeing the unity?
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  Because so much of the theology is carried in the specific
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  words, a literal approach creates a stable vocabulary.
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  In English, covenant is always translated as covenant.
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  Justify is always justify. Kingdom is always Kingdom.
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  And when a reader sees that same English word pop up again and
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  again, it helps them make the connection between, say, the Old
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  and New Testament. It lets them see the threads.
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  When you read the word seed in Genesis, and then you see Paul
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  pick up that exact same word in Galatians and apply it to
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  Christ, the consistency of the vocabulary makes the connection
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  pop. It makes the harmony of the
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  Bible visible to someone who doesn't know the original
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  languages. And you can see this in the
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  history of English Bibles like the Lion from Tyndale to the
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  Geneva Bible to the King James, they created a kind of stable
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  theological language in English. That's right.
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  And that stability trained people for generations.
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  They learned to hear those key phrases and trace them through
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  the whole Canon. That consistency invites you to
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  compare scripture with scripture.
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  When the English words are stable, it helps keep the
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  doctrine stable. So what's the danger with other
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  translation philosophies like dynamic equivalents or
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  paraphrases well. The danger is that in aiming
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  for, say, stylistic freshness or easy readability, they often
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  vary the key terms. They might translate the same
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  Greek word in three or four different ways depending on the
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  immediate context, and when they do that, they can accidentally
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  blur those visible lines of consonance.
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  Can you give us an example of how that happens?
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  Sure. Think of the Greek word
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  dikaisen, which is almost always righteousness.
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  It's a massive theological term. It's in Genesis 15 with Abraham.
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  It's all over Paul. A literal version will stick
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  with righteousness every time. A dynamic equivalence version
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  might render it as doing what is right here, being in a right
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  relationship there, or justice somewhere else.
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  And if the same Greek word is in Leviticus, a Psalm in Romans,
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  but the English reader sees three different English words,
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  they lose that thematic link. They do.
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  The thread gets broken for the English reader.
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  The underlying truth is still there, of course, but that
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  audible unity that invites you to make the connection gets lost
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  on the surface. So when a church promotes
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  translations that preserve that consistent vocabulary, it is
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  actively guarding people's access to the Bible's unified
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  testimony. OK, we've laid out the theology,
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  the history, the rule. Let's bring this all home now
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  and focus on the practical benefits.
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  This isn't just an abstract idea, it's a real safeguard for
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  the church and for the individual believer.
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  It absolutely is. It protects the integrity of our
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  preaching, our theology, and our own personal walk against all
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  kinds of errors that pop up when you start isolating texts.
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  Let's start with the Church in preaching.
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  How does a conviction about consonants shape what a pastor
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  does on Sunday morning? A pastor who believes this won't
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  treat the Bible like a book of quotes.
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  He won't just dip in for an inspirational verse.
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  He'll feel the weight of preaching the whole counsel of
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  God. It presses him toward deep,
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  coherent, Christ centered preaching that moves through
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  books, connecting each passage to the big overarching story of
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  redemption. So expository preaching is
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  really the natural outflow of believing in the consent of all
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  the parts. It trains the congregation in
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  the analogy of faith, just by example.
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  It does. It trains them to hear that
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  harmony for themselves. They start to see how a promise
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  in Genesis is fulfilled in Matthew, or how a ritual in
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  Leviticus points to Christ. It's the complete opposite of
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  just grabbing a verse to prove a point you already wanted to
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  make. And this reliance on the whole
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  systematic truth is why we have confessions and catechisms.
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  Exactly. The Reformed Confessions are
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  basically maps of the Bible's existing consonants.
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  If they don't add to the Bible, they just gather.
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  It's unified teachings on God, man, Christ, and salvation into
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  a systematic whole. They're tools to help believers
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  recognize that unity and resist distortions.
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  Can you list a few of those specific errors that consonance
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  protects us from? Errors that really depend on
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  pulling verses out of context. Sure, Take our minion synergism.
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  It often focuses on verses about human choice and responsibility
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  while downplaying or ignoring the massive body of texts that
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  teach God's sovereign election. The analogy of faith requires
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  you to hold both truths and their proper biblical tension.
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  What about something like Prosperity Teaching?
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  It uses a lot of Bible verses. It does, but it thrives on
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  isolating Old Covenant promises of material blessing made to
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  national Israel and miss applying them today.
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  It detaches them from the overwhelming New Testament
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  witness to suffering, self denial and the value of the
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  cross. The consent of all the parts
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  points to a gospel of eternal riches in Christ, not a
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  guarantee of earthly wealth. So consonance keeps us from
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  making our own experiences or desires the lens for reading the
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  text. Yes, it guards against a lot of
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  mysticism that puts private subjective experiences on the
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  same level as the written word. If you have some revelation that
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  contradicts the unified witness of the 66 books, the analogy of
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  faith tells you to reject affected immediately.
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  And for the individual Christian, how does this
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  conviction bring stability to their personal walk?
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  It encourages you to read the Bible as one unfolding letter
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  from your covenant God, not as a grab bag of random promises.
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  That habit makes a Christian much less likely to be, you
• 21:05
  know, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
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  When you developed an instinct for the Bible's unity, you're
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  not easily shaken by some new, strange teaching that claims to
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  have found a contradiction. It's like you develop an
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  internal cross reference system in your own mind.
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  That's a perfect way to put it. As you read and memorize, you
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  start to hear the echoes. A phrase in Hebrews makes you
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  think of Leviticus. Something in Ephesians calls
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  back to Genesis. It gives you this deep assurance
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  that the God who is speaking to you today is the same God who
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  spoke to Abraham and Moses and Paul.
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  And finally, there's a deep comfort and even an apologetic
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  power in this, isn't there? There is the consent of all the
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  parts is profoundly comforting. It tells the believer that God
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  hasn't changed his mind. His promises are sure.
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  The unity of the Word reflects the unchanging nature of his
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  author. God is not divided, so His Word
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  is not divided, and your hope which rests on that word is
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  secure. And in a world that's so
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  skeptical, that internal coherence is a powerful witness.
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  It is. It's a strong sign that this
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  isn't just a human library of religious ideas.
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  The incredible unity of doctrine across all those centuries and
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  authors points convincingly to a single divine mind behind it
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  all. OK, so to wrap up this deep
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  dive, let's recap the flow. It starts with the very
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  character of God, simple, true, unchanging.
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  That leads to the theological reality of consonants, which the
• 22:28
  Reformed confessions call the consent of all the parts.
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  That reality then requires A practical rule for reading the
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  analogy of faith. Scripture must interpret
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  Scripture with the clear parts illuminating the less clear
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  parts, and we saw how faithful literal translation helps make
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  that unity visible to every reader.
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  And that rule, the analogy of faith, is a rule of reverence.
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  It's not a trick to make difficulties disappear.
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  The apparent dissonance is what forces us to dig deeper, to read
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  more carefully, and to confirm the consonance that must be
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  there. So here's the final thought for
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  you, the listener, the next time you hit a passage that seemed to
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  contradict something else you know is clearly taught in the
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  Bible. What's your first instinct?
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  Do you assume there's a flaw in the text, or do you take it as
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  an invitation to apply the analogy of faith, to wrestle
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  with it, to study and to discover the richer, deeper,
• 23:18
  more reverent understanding of God's one harmonious voice?