Making Men Lords

Westminster Larger Catechism 105

Q. What are the sins forbidden in the first commandment?

A. The sins forbidden in the first commandment are . . . making men the lords of our faith and conscience. . .

J.G. Vos:

1. What is meant by “making men the lords of our faith and conscience”?

This means making; mere human beings our authority in religion, so that we believe and do what they tell us to believe and do, not because of the teachings of God’s Word, but merely because of the influence or instruction of men. . . .

1. Are members of Protestant churches ever guilty of this sin?

Yes. Undoubtedly there are multitudes of careless Protestants who can give no better reason or higher authority for their faith and practice than the customs or teachings of their church, or the statements of their minister. To accept and obey the customs, teachings, and rules of a church, or the statements of a minister, without satisfying ourselves that they are in accordance with the Word of God, is wrong, for it amounts to making churches and ministers the lords of our faith and conscience. It is every Christian’s duty to search the Scriptures for himself, to learn whether the statements of his church and minister are true or not.

1. Are there Protestant churches that try to exercise authority over people’s faith and conscience?

Yes, there are. It is one of the evil signs of our times that some large and influential denominations which formerly regarded God’s Word as the only authority over men’s faith and conscience now are coming, more or less, to regard the voice of the church as equivalent to the voice of God. Such denominations are coming to demand of their ministers, officers, and people an absolute and unquestioning obedience to the decrees of conferences, General Assemblies, church boards, and agencies, and, it would even appear in some cases, to the utterances and orders of individual men who hold high positions in the denomination’s organization. . . This whole tendency is thoroughly perverse and wicked. As the voice of the church becomes more and more important, the Word of God is regarded as less and less important. In reality the voice of the church has weight and authority, to be believed and obeyed, only when it is in accord with the written Word of God.

—Johannes Geerhardus Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary (ed. G.I. Williamson) loc. 3695-3712