A Westminster Confession Commentary: A Review Article by Roy Middleton

Chad Van Dixhoorn is the Associate Pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia, and Associate Professor of Church History at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington DC. He is the principal editor of the five-volume Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly (1643-1652) published by Oxford University Press in 2012. His doctorate at Cambridge University was on the minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly, and as editor of these documents it is probable that no person, other than the Divines themselves, has spent more time on, and devoted more attention to, the minutiae of the Confession.

In several interviews he has given about this commentary on the Confession he complains that the authors of many earlier commentaries use the Confession as a vehicle to propound their understanding of systematic theology, whereas his purpose is to expound fairly a seventeenth-century text. However, in the reviewer’s opinion, what distinguishes Dr Van Dixhoorn’s commentary from those that have preceded it is that he has sought to explain the teaching of the Confession by expounding the proof texts that the Westminster Divines have provided as the scriptural authority for their formulations.

In the foreword to the volume Carl R Truman, a Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, makes this claim for the commentary, “In short, this guide is a true gem. It deserves to be the standard reference book for any pastor seeking to use the Westminster Standards in his ministry. It should be the first volume for which any Sunday school teacher reaches when asked to do a class on the Confession. It should be the constant companion of all elders. Indeed, it should be on the bookshelves of anyone interested in learning more deeply about the Reformed and Presbyterian Faith” (p x).

Whilst the reviewer has appreciated Dr Van Dixhoorn’s approach of expounding the teaching of the Confession by exegesis of the proof texts, he does not concur with Dr Truman’s assessment for the following reasons:

1. Printed side by side with each section of the original 1640s text² is the English Study Version of the Westminster Confession of Faith published in 1993 by the Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in America (OPC). The wisdom of many of the changes introduced by this modernisation must be questioned. In addition, as noted below, in several places the OPC version differs from the original text of the Confession. In our view the printing of another version of the Confession in a double column format with the original introduces an element of confusion that is hardly suitable for use in a Sabbath school class.

2. Besides the modernised OPC text, in a number of places a third column of text appears detailing other American Presbyterian modifications to the Confession. These revisions were made because of their disagreement, in such places, with the doctrine taught by the Westminster Divines. In most cases both the OPC modernised text and Dr Van Dixhoorn’s commentary agree in principle with these revisions.

3. As some of our readers will be aware, the American Presbyterian Church modified the Confession as early as 1788. Further revisions were made in the Declaratory Act era in 1887 and 1903. In 1936 the Orthodox Presbyterian Church retained all the revisions made by the American Presbyterian Church prior to 1903 but rejected most of the 1903 revisions. The OPC did, however, agree with the 1903 revision that removed the reference to the Pope as Anti-christ. The revisions advocated by both the OPC and Dr Van Dixhoorn are in the following sections:

   • Sections 20:4, 22:3-4, 23:3, 31:1-2. These revisions remove from the Confession the Establishment Principle – the duty of the civil magistrate to promote the true, biblical faith. In Section 22:3 this goes so far as to remove the statement that “it is a sin to refuse an oath touching anything that is good and just, being imposed by a lawful authority”. In Section 20:4 they remove the statement that the civil magistrate has the right to proceed against those who publish opinions contrary to the light of nature and the known principles of Christianity. These changes are defended at length by Dr Van Dixhoorn (pp 312-318).
   • Section 24.4. The statement is removed: “The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own; nor the woman of her husband’s kindred nearer in blood than her own”. This removal would permit marriage to a deceased wife’s sister or a deceased husband’s brother. The changes in society that drove this modification were contrary to Scripture and were specifically condemned by the Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church in November 1907, at the time Parliament passed the Deceased Wife’s Sister Act.³ Van Dixhoorn sees nothing wrong with marriage to a deceased spouse’s sibling (See p 329).⁴
   • Section 25.6. Here the statement that the Pope is the man of sin and son of perdition is removed. Defending this deletion, Dr Van Dixhoorn comments, “Confessional standards need to reflect the clearest, and not the most controversial, interpretations of Scripture” (p 348).

4. Dr Van Dixhoorn asserts that, for the Westminster Divines, the term Psalms includes uninspired hymns, on the basis of Colossians 3:16, Ephesians 5:19 and James 5:13. It is little short of incredible that such a bland statement could be made without interaction with the extensive literature on exclusive psalmody. Readers of The Free Presbyterian Magazine should be aware that the terms “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” in the Colossians and Ephesians texts refer to divisions within the Psalter, not to uninspired hymns.

5. In several places in the commentary, Dr Van Dixhoorn casts doubt on the Received Text of Scripture. He critiques the Assembly for citing 1 John 5:7 in support of the doctrine of the Trinity due to its weak manuscript history (p 40). And he comments in a footnote: “It is ironic that one of the least controversial of all the Confession’s statements (that believers are to be baptised) leans on the most doubtful pair of all the Confession’s proof texts: Mark 16:15-16 and Acts 8:37,38” (pp 372-373).

6. On the question of Sabbath observance, Dr Van Dixhoorn warns about being over-prescriptive in defining the structures and activities of that day and then oddly adds, “We do not need to call a walk in the park an act of worship or a deed of mercy to legitimise it” (p 295).

7. We disapprove strongly of Dr Van Dixhoorn’s use of language on a few occasions. Whilst we, along with him, deplore those who deny the doctrine of the Trinity, it is entirely inappropriate to condemn such heresy in the terms he uses on page 38.

8. It might have been thought that the Scripture references in a volume designed to expound a seventeenth-century text would be from the same version of the Bible as the Westminster Divines. This is not the case. In addition to the Authorised Version, Dr Van Dixhoorn uses the NIV, ASV, ESV and NASB.

Having made these negative comments (and more of a similar nature could be added) it would be a serious mistake to conclude that this volume did not contain some very useful and valuable material. He rightly stresses that it is the Bible that is inspired, not the penmen; he faithfully expounds God’s decrees and helpfully comments that section 3:6-7 excludes all the seventeenth-century forms of hypothetical universalism.⁵ His clear exposition of the doctrines of creation, justification, sanctification and the Lord’s Supper are most helpful.

We are in Van Dixhoorn’s debt for editing the minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly. However, this volume is not the first place to which Free Presbyterians should go for an exposition of the teaching of the Westminster Assembly. Either the commentary by Robert Shaw of Whitburn originally published in 1845⁶ or the one by A A Hodge⁷ are to be preferred. What we eagerly anticipate from Dr Van Dixhoorn’s pen is an exposition of the debates that took place in the Westminster Assembly. His papers on the “New Taxonomies of the Westminster Assembly (1643-52): The Creedal Controversy as Case Study”⁸ and on “The strange silence of prolocutor Twisse: Predestination and politics in the Westminster Assembly’s debate over justification”⁹ are excellent, and indicate what awaits us were he to turn his attention to this topic. In consequence of his extensive research on the Assembly’s minutes and papers, no one is in a better position than Dr Van Dixhoorn to enrich both the Church and scholarship with a historical analysis of the debates at the Westminster Assembly.

¹Confessing the Faith: A Reader’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith, by Chad Van Dixhoorn, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, hardback, 484 pages, £17.50, obtainable from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
²The commentary is actually based on a more accurate text of the Confession painstakingly reconstructed by John Bower and shortly to be published by Reformed Heritage Publications. Bower’s work builds upon the sterling work on the Westminster documents by both Frederick and Samuel W Carruthers in the early part of the twentieth century. The edition of the Westminster Confession published by Free Presbyterian Publications is based on the Carruthers’ text of the Confession.
³See The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 13, pp 68-69.
⁴The position of the Westminster Divines is ably defended by John Murray in his Principles of Conduct, Tyndale Press, 1957, Appendix B, pp 250-256.
⁵Hypothetical Universalism and Amyraldianism both assert, contrary to scripture, that the atonement was made for all mankind and that the death of Christ made salvation hypothetically possible for all mankind if they believe in Christ and repent of their sins. However, seeing that sinners cannot of themselves believe, they assert that God elected some to faith in Christ, and by His grace brings them to salvation. This notion thereby preserves the doctrine of unconditional election but denies the effectiveness of the atonement. Amyraldians have normally placed the decree of election after the decree that Christ would die for all men whilst Hypothetical Universalists usually reverse that order.
⁶Robert Shaw, The Reformed Faith: An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith, is currently kept in print by Christian Focus Publications. In the preface Shaw writes of those who study the Confession, “Their scriptural knowledge will be enlarged, and they will be satisfied that every truth set down in the Confession is ‘most agreeable to the Word of God’. Of this the author of the Exposition is so completely convinced that he has not found it necessary to differ from the compilers of the Confession in any one single point of doctrine.”
⁷A A Hodge, The Confession of Faith, Banner of Truth reprint, 1984. Whilst Hodge also takes the 1788 American Presbyterian Church position on the Establishment Principle, his exposition does not have the other problems attaching to the book under review.
⁸Reformation & Renaissance Review: Journal of the Society for Reformation Studies, vol 6, issue 1, April 2004 pp 82-106.
⁹The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol 40 (2009), pp 395-418.