First, in relation to God’s control: God is fully in control of his communications to human beings. When he intends to communicate with a human being, he is always able to do it successfully.

Second, let us consider the clarity of Scripture in relation to God’s lordship attribute of authority. To say that God’s Word has authority, as we have seen, is to say that it creates obligations in its hearers: obligations to believe what it says, to do what it commands, to write it on our hearts, and so on. The clarity of God’s Word means that we have no excuse for failing to meet those obligations.

This emphasis on the personal dimension of Scripture’s clarity leads us to relate it to the third lordship attribute, God’s personal presence. In Deuteronomy 30:11–14, God through Moses speaks thus to the people of Israel:

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

God’s Word is near to Israel, present to them. This is literally true, for it is located in the “Book of the Law” (v. 10), the written document to be placed by the ark of the covenant, God’s literal dwelling place. The Levites are to read the law to the people in an assembly every seven years (31:9–13), so that they and their children might hear and obey (cf. 6:6–9). Thus the law is to be written on their hearts (6:6).

Figuratively, too, the Word is near. The questions of Deuteronomy 30:12–13 (“Who will ascend to heaven?” and “Who will go over the sea?”) assume that the Word cannot be appropriated without great efforts, that without strenuous pilgrimage we cannot understand and obey it. God denies this assumption. To Israel, he says, you do understand. You can do it. So the clarity of Scripture is the presence, the closeness of Scripture.

The power of Scripture corresponds to God’s control, its authority to his authority, and its clarity to his presence.

Discussions of Scripture in Reformed theology have often included reflection on certain “attributes” of Scripture, particularly necessity, authority, clarity (or perspicuity), and sufficiency. Reflecting the general plan of the Theology of Lordship series, I have tried to line these attributes up with God’s lordship attributes of control, authority, and presence

The power of Scripture corresponds to God’s control, its authority to his authority, and its clarity to his presence.

The WCF formulates this doctrine as follows at 1.7:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

But Scripture itself (as in Deut. 8:3; Pss. 19:7; 119; Matt. 4:4) says that God’s written Word is for everybody. We live by it.

Nevertheless, there is a legitimate distinction to be drawn within Scripture between what a person is required to know for salvation and what he is not. Nobody would claim, for example, that a person will go to hell if he does not understand the difference between guilt offerings and trespass offerings in Leviticus.

According to Rome, Scripture is unclear (Ps. 119:34, 68; Luke 24:27; Acts 8:30; 2 Pet. 3:16). Also, in the things that pertain to faith and life, it is not so clear that it can dispense with interpretation. It deals, after all, with the deepest mysteries, with God, the Trinity, the incarnation, predestination, and other truths. Even in its moral precepts (e.g., Matt. 5:34, 40; 10:27; Luke 12:33; 14:33), it is often so obscure that misunderstandings and misconceptions have always abounded in the Christian church. Essential to a correct understanding of Scripture, after all, is a many-sided knowledge of history, geography, chronology, archeology, languages, etc., knowledge that is simply not attainable by laypeople. Protestants themselves, accordingly, write numerous commentaries, and in the case of even the most important texts they differ in the exegesis.

Why, then, do people fail to understand God’s word? The ultimate answer is that God did not intend for them to understand. Note again God’s commission to Isaiah, in 6:9–10.