Article 1. The ground of our Religion, and rule of faith and all saving truth is the word of God contained in the Holy Scripture.
This is the first in a series brief reflections on the James Ussher’s ‘Irish Articles of Religion’.
One of the first things that strike you about the articles is that they begin not with God but with the Scriptures. Where modern doctrinal statements prefer to begin with God as trinity, Ussher brings us first to the Bible… but why? Won’t that lead to accusations of ‘Bibliolatry’ (the idolatrous worship of the Bible)?
This is of course not the case because while the starting point may (at first) jar a little, after some reflection you start to appreciate that beginning with the Scriptures clears the path and sets your course through the rest of the Articles.
Instead of walking cautiously though dark water, Ussher pulls the mossy boulders out of the way and gives us a sure footing on what he calls ‘The ground of our Religion’ .
This glorious assertion reminds us that before we can come to weighty doctrine like the Trinity or Justification we must come humbly to where God has revealed himself in such a way that we might be made “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15)
The Scriptures are the sure and true foundation on which our faith rests precisely because God himself is sure and true and the divine author of the 66 books of our Bible. As John Piper puts it, “[The Scriptures are] a rock to stand on when the terrain of ideas feels like quicksand”.
Or in the words of the great hymn but John Keith:
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
