Any who are concerned about the changes that may be coming to the Chicago Statement should also take some time to consider whether its statement on biblical authority was sufficient in the first place. We suggest that it was not and invite the reader to return to a more classic expression of Protestant bibliology.

The Gospel Coalition posted an article on March 15, 2022 titled “Updating the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy: A Proposal” and, as probably expected, some conservatives have already begun to voice concern.
Concern is certainly warranted due to the editors’ admission that the goal of the proposed update is to “clarify arguments in light of new hermeneutical and cultural arguments.” There is, as the Preacher said, “no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), so any attempt to contemporize classic confessions of faith should be held suspect.
That having been said, the Chicago Statement is technically not a classic doctrinal standard. It is a modern one (1978), and this proposed update provides an opportunity to ponder the question: What if the statement was, in fact, doomed from the start? We suggest that it was and offer the following proof:
WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original (Chicago Statement, Article X).
This particular article affirms a distinction that is actually easy to read past. When the statement speaks of the “autographic text” of Scripture, it is referring to those documents that were originally penned by the Prophets and Apostles. These documents obviously no longer exist, and all biblical scholars readily acknowledge that.
When the statement then speaks of what scriptures the church has access to today (i.e., “copies and translations”), it intentionally stops short of applying the term “inspiration” to them and explains that they can only be considered accurate “to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.” This is an alarming admission because it effectively leaves today’s church without an inspired Bible.
Pastors who subscribe to the Chicago Statement are technically not able to hold up any printed edition of the Hebrew Old Testament, or the Greek New Testament, or any vernacular translation, and declare to the congregation, “This is the inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word of God,” because they have no way to verify it by comparing it to the permanently lost originals.
True, they can speak of a general “providence of God” that has led to “great accuracy,” but that affirms far less than earlier statements of the Protestant faith.
For example, those who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith also acknowledged that the inspired originals had been lost, but they allowed their faith in God’s promises (Psalm 119:89, Matthew 5:18, etc.) to lead them to a better conclusion concerning the copies they possessed: That God, by his singular care and providence, had kept his Word pure in all ages, so that the Bible they held in their hands could be regarded as inspired and authentical (WCF, I.8).
Any who are concerned about the changes that may be coming to the Chicago Statement should also take some time to consider whether its statement on biblical authority was sufficient in the first place. We suggest that it was not and invite the reader to return to a more classic expression of Protestant bibliology.
Christian McShaffrey is Pastor of Five Solas Church (OPC) in Reedsburg, WI and stated clerk of the Presbytery of Wisconsin and Minnesota. His church hosts the Kept Pure in All Ages conference on the text of Holy Scripture.

Individuals, corporations, and governments all condense their positions into slogans, preferably the socially acceptable ones. Therefore, the narrative around the facts is formed of the puzzle-like pre-made constructs, further limited by the constant virtue signalling. And if the narrative does not offer enough flexibility, our perception of reality is forced to compensate. In the end, it appears that the facts actually do care about your feelings, or at least about the feelings of the crowd.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
So wrote George Orwell, describing the dystopian system in which there is only one correct opinion, and if reality disagrees with it, then reality is wrong. Fortunately, we do not live in such a world, but the alarming trend is that our agreement over the facts are becoming less and less stable. Every side has its own truth. It may initially seem that this situation is the opposite of Orwell’s, but the current situation is, in fact, nothing but the result of one of the contestants’ victory. The principle is the same: each fact has its certain meaning, and each action speaks of a certain character feature. Everyone should support the current thing, else they are deemed bigots, racists, sexists, and oppressors. Alternatively, they may be named traitors. And should the current thing change, everyone must update their opinions accordingly.
The problem is that the leading narrative can no longer be questioned. There can only be one interpretation of events and only one judgement. Once it is established that a particular event has taken place, the case is all but closed; if a man has killed, he must be a murderer, and nuances do not matter. At the same time, the smallest of details is enough to condemn, regardless of its relevance or importance. This is a simplistic approach of a town square mob conquering governments and courts. Moral outrage replaces debates, and facts are sacrificed to avoid it.
This becomes evident in the controversies such as the teaching of critical race theory or propagation of queerness at schools. While the conservative camp insists that such topics are, at the very least, inappropriate for children, the progressive one often claims no such things take place at all, accusing its opponents of spreading conspiracy theories but somehow being extremely upset when CRT and LGBT propaganda gets banned from the state education.
This is evident in the British Labour Party’s inability to define a woman and their treatment of John Cleese, who dared to utter a great heresy of calling London with its 43.4% of native white British population “not really an English city any more.”
This is evident in the infamous CNN coverage of the Kenosha, Wisconsin riots in 2020 when the correspondent was filmed in front of the burning vehicles, while the banner on the bottom read “fiery but mostly peaceful protests.”
Finally, this progressive hegemony  is evident in COVID-19 information policies: whatever the doctors employed by the government said was automatically true, even if their opinions have changed back and forth during the two years of lockdowns.
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Our hope and confidence is the heavenly calling that we share because Jesus shared in our humanity to bring us to glory with Him as the captain of our salvation. Our boasting is in love and might of our great Savior and that He is our merciful and faithful high priest who is able to help us whenever we are tempted.

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.Hebrews 3:1-6 ESV
In our study of Exodus, we have noted repeatedly that the events of that book are the most important in all of the Old Testament. Genesis is a theological prologue, written by Moses so that Israel always remembers that Yahweh is the one, true God and the great promises that He made to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. From Leviticus onward, the Old Testament is all about God’s faithfulness to Israel despite their repeated failures to be the kingdom of priests that He established them to be. The entire Old Testament is the story of God redeeming a nation out of slavery in order to be His own treasure possession.
And Moses was the mediator of that deliverance and that covenant. The LORD worked through Moses to rescue His people from their slavery and then similarly worked through Him to give His laws and commandments to His people. Even though (or perhaps, because) Moses was very meek, God exalted Moses in Egypt, making him like God to Pharaoh with Aaron serving as his prophet (Exodus 4:16). And before the tenth plague, we were told: “Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people” (Exodus 11:3).
Even though the Israelites repeatedly grumbled against Moses, they also revered him. At his death, God Himself buried Moses’ body, likely to prevent the idolatrous Israelites from worshiping Moses’ bones, and we are then told:
And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.Deuteronomy 34:10-12
Indeed, Moses seemed to understand something of his uniqueness in the history of redemption, for one of the chief prophesies given to him about the coming Messiah is found in Deuteronomy 18:18: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” Only the Christ would be a prophet like Moses, who governed God’s people like a king, gave them God’s word like a prophet, and mediated between God and His people like a priest. Abraham, David, and Elijah are similarly towering figures of faith; however, even they do not bear the gravitas of Moses.
Since Moses is a prophet without an equal in the Old Testament, it makes sense that the author of Hebrews would establish Jesus’ superiority to him next. If the original recipients of this sermon-letter where indeed Jewish Christians being tempted to revert back to Judaism, the author is warning them here against returning back to Moses whenever we now know the One of whom Moses spoke and foreshadowed.
Consider Jesus—Verse 1
Because Hebrews contains some the sharpest warnings of the whole New Testament, it can be tempting to let those warnings dominate how we view this marvelous first century sermon. Yes, the warnings found in Hebrews are particularly startling; however, the authors words of encouragement are equally as comforting. And we are greeted with some of those comforting words at the beginning of our passage: Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus…
The command, of course, is to consider Jesus, but we should not lightly pass by what the author calls his readers. There are three items to note here.
First, just as Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers, so does the author call his readers brothers. This indicates that, despite all the warnings that the author will give, he believes his readers to be fellow Christians, members of the household of God alongside him, and part of his eternal family.
Second, he calls them holy. As we have noted before, holiness is properly understood as an attribute of God. He alone is holy, for there is none like Him. Our holiness is secondhand because it means that we belong exclusively to God. Having been redeemed by Christ, we are made holy in Him because we are adopted into God’s people.
Third, he says that they share in a heavenly calling. This calling is God’s ultimate design for redeemed humanity to inherit salvation and reign in dominion over creation under Christ our King. It is heavenly but not in the sense of being ethereal or abstract, as we might use that word today. Rather, throughout Hebrews, the author repeatedly points to the heavenly realities as being more real than those of earth. This life is the vapor; the life to come is substance. Thus, to share this heavenly calling is to partake in that which is most true.
This threefold description applies to all who are in Christ today as well. You may not feel holy. You may not feel worthy to be called a brother or sister in God’s family. You may think that you are unfit to share in that heavenly calling. And if so, you are right. In one of my favorite scenes in the Narnia books, Aslan asks the young Prince Caspian:
“Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?”
“I-I don’t think I do, Sir,” said Caspian. “I’m only a kid.”
“Good,” said Aslan. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.”
Something similar should be present whenever we speak of our salvation. Just like claiming to be wise is one of the surest indications of being a fool, thinking ourselves worthy of such marvelous truths is strong indication that we do not yet understand the gospel. Instead, as Dennis Johnson notes: “they ‘share’ in this glorious calling because the Son came to ‘share’ their fragile flesh and blood (2:14), and thus they are ‘companions’ of the Anointed One (1:8-9; cf. 3:14).”[1] It is only by Jesus’ sharing in our suffering under the curse of sin that we are able to share in the honor and glory with which He has been crowned. Even on the last day when we judge angels in our glorified and sinless bodies, we will forever give Jesus all the glory for working our redemption and glorification. Thus, our hearts should not swell with pride to hear such things said about us; instead, such beautiful truths should set our eyes with renewed wonder at Jesus, which is precisely what the author intends for us to do.
Looking at verse 1 in its entirety, we read: Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession… The command to consider Jesus is at the heart of this verse, and I would argue that it is at the heart of the entirety of Hebrews. This really is the great purpose and aim of the letter. Yes, the author repeatedly emphasizes that Jesus is greater than every aspect of the old covenant; however, all of those comparisons are subservient to this supreme command: consider Jesus. But what does the author mean by consider? Robert Paul Martin explains:
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