Give Me Liberty
The Westminster Confession of Faith is an amazing document. Ever since I first read it, it has been a great source of rich theology pointing me to the truths of God’s word. When I discovered it, I was among a few in my circles who shared confessional Reformed convictions. During the time of the young, restless, and Reformed movement. My journey began by surrendering my own interpretations of certain verses, letting the Bible speak for itself, and using a principle I would later understand as Scripture interpreting Scripture. Through this surrender, I became convinced of God’s sovereignty over all things, the beauty of Christ in all of Scripture, and other things. I was encouraged and amazed when I first read the Westminster Standards and realized I was not alone; the doctrines I found in Scripture were beautifully written and centuries old. Since that time, I have been amazed by this man-made document, which teaches the truths of Scripture.
While the Westminster Confession is a great document, few chapters of the Confession are more frequently appealed to, or more frequently misunderstood, than Chapter 20 on Christian liberty. In this article, I hope to engage with the whole chapter 20 of the Confession and challenge a broad interpretation that treats Christian liberty as either individual autonomy or ecclesiastical veto power.
Section 1
To begin with, we need to understand the Christological foundation the Divines use to teach this important doctrine. We often think of applying this in many ways, but the reformation was vitally important to the freedom of the Christian who is purchased by Christ. Many people might know of Martin Luther’s work, “The Bondage of the Will”; however, one of my favorite writings of Luther is “The Freedom of the Christian.”1 This small work sums up the important truth of the reformation that the Westminster Divines summarize in Section One: Christian liberty consists in freedom from sin’s guilt, God’s wrath, the curse of the law, bondage to Satan, and eternal damnation. It includes free access to God and joyful obedience as His children. Under the New Testament, this liberty is enlarged by freedom from the ceremonial law, greater boldness in prayer, and fuller enjoyment of the Spirit. Chapter 20 actually begins in chapter one of the confession, expressing that the Word of God is the only rule of faith and life. You could sit and ponder chapter 20, and its connections to the whole Westminster Standards, for a whole year and be moved to a more reverent, grateful thankfulness for what Christ has done for us, purchasing our liberty from our own sin and now gladly bound to him as the Lord of our conscience. He has redeemed us from ourselves, our sin, Satan, and the ceremonial law. Christ purchased our freedom.
Section 2
Section two, although 80 words, packs a big punch. The doctrine of Christian liberty begins with the doctrine of God. God alone rules over all things; therefore, no one can usurp authority over a Christian to bind their conscience. This principle was one that many Puritans knew all too well, with the Church of England binding their consciences in worship through its ceremonies and rites, vestments, additional forms of worship such as holy days, candles, and more.2 Not only godly ministers but congregants in the pew, who came to be able to worship the living and Triune God, had their consciences bound with doctrines, commandments, traditions, and imaginations of man. The chief end of man, to glorify God and enjoy him forever, was seared but by these imaginative ceremonies and rites.
Because of God’s supremacy over all things and His word as the supreme rule of faith and practice (WCF 1.9), God alone is Lord of the conscience. Neither man nor the church can bind the consciences of others, for anything contrary to his word or beside it (Cf. WCF 1.6), in matters of faith and worship. Interestingly, when the divines write, they always use the twofold terms faith and life (WCF 1.2, 1.6), obedience (WLC 3), and the Catechisms follow this pattern in what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of Man (WLC 5; WSC 3). The WLC explains that the first commandment forbids “making men the lords of our faith and conscience” (WLC 105). Even using this pairing in other portions of faith and repentance (WCF 16.5), faith and reverence (WCF 21.5). WCF 20.2 ensures that faith and worship are not to cause another’s conscience to be bound, apart from what Scripture explicitly taught or good and necessary consequence (WCF 1.6). Particularly through the addition to Scripture in faith and worship. Circumstances fall under the general principles of the word but can be understood through the light of nature and Christian Prudence. Christian liberty, therefore, does not grant a right to impose one’s private interpretation upon the church, nor does it give license to restrain others as a matter of conscience where Scripture has not spoken (WCF 1.6).
The Westminster Confession carefully applies a two-fold principle to Christian liberty. On the one hand, it places responsibility upon the individual Christian; on the other, it imposes a solemn duty upon those who exercise authority in the church. As the Confession explains, “to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience.” In this sense, the believer is accountable before God for what he believes and obeys. Yet this liberty also requires that those entrusted with authority, particularly within the church, recognize their obligation to guard, rather than burden, the consciences of others (cf. the Fifth Commandment). Therefore, the divines warn that “the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.” Church authority, therefore, is not absolute, nor may it demand submission apart from or beyond the Word of God.
Chad Van Dixhoorn helpfully cautions that violations of Christian liberty do not always arise from malicious intent. He notes that “this sort of conscience coercion can happen almost accidentally by well-meaning people who are over-prescriptive in giving advice. It can also happen deliberately by power-hungry people who want to control and manipulate crowds in the church. At its worst, this suppression of Christian liberty of conscience has been institutionalized.”3 His warning is not an accusation, but a reminder of how easily good intentions can drift into improper authority.
Within the PCA, we should therefore seek to guard the church from any practice, whether at the denominational, presbytery, or sessional level, that binds the conscience where God has not spoken (WCF 1.6). Particularly to those in the pews. While church courts possess real authority, that authority is ministerial and declarative, not legislative or magisterial. The church is called to proclaim and apply God’s Word, not to add to it or to impose forms of worship or belief that are contrary to Scripture or beside it in matters of faith and worship. Faithful oversight, exercised humbly and within biblical bounds, protects both the purity of the church and the liberty of Christ’s people.
Section 3
The Westminster divines understood the human heart; therefore, they did not stop at §2 of the chapter on Christian Liberty. It is no accident that this cluster of chapters (the Law of God, Christian Liberty, Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, and Lawful Oaths and Vows) stands together in the Confession. Christian liberty is not the freedom to believe or to practice whatever we please. Because God alone is Lord of the conscience, it is God alone who has given us His Word by which the conscience is ruled and governed. The divines were equally aware that Christian liberty may be abused, not only by authority but also by autonomy. Liberty may be used as a pretext for sin, for the indulgence of personal preference, or for the invention of religious practices not instituted by Christ. Yet Christ has not purchased His people that they might serve themselves, but that they might serve Him. As the Confession reminds us, the moral law continues to bind believers as a rule of life (WCF 19.5).
This truth is often missed in discussions of the Ten Commandments. The law does not begin with demand, but with grace. God first declares His mighty act of redemption, before He commands obedience (WLC 101; WSC 44). Redemption precedes obedience. Rowland Ward captures this balance well: “Freedom is not license; spiritual freedom is not throwing off all constraint.”4 True liberty is not the absence of rule, but joyful submission to the rightful rule of Christ. All things in the church: faith, worship, and practice, are to be brought under His authority, as revealed in His Word. This can be a great blessing: brothers and sisters in Christ can serve in a denomination they believe is faithful to the Scriptures. Within NPARC and other Presbyterian Denominations, there is much overlap but a variety of practices.
In an age in which the modern self has triumphed, this truth is easily cloaked.5 Many hold the same Bible and yet justify varying practices and beliefs; others hold the Bible while proclaiming a different gospel altogether (2 Tim 4:3–4; 2 Pet 3:16). But Scripture teaches that we have been freed from sin in order that we might “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4), “serving the Lord in holiness and righteousness before him all our days” (Luke 1:74–75).
Section 4
The divines go on to unpack what lawful authority looks like, not tyrannical authority and not self-autonomy, but God-appointed authority. Once more, we may be tempted to point only to Sections One and Two of this chapter, but we must also understand that God has given us His Word. God-ordained authority is still to be followed and obeyed as it sits under God and His Word. Notice the rule of God again: God is Lord of the conscience, but He has also ordained those whom we should lawfully obey. The courts of the church are to decide “cases of conscience” (WCF 31.2). There are situations in which those who hold erroneous or destructive opinions and practices that harm the peace, order, or godliness of the Church may rightly be corrected by ecclesiastical censures. We see this again in the vows we take as officers in the church, even where practices that harm the peace, order, or godliness of the church may be addressed through the process of discipline. Notice, it is not in holding their own opinion, but how that opinion affects the peace, order, and godliness of the Church. Not merely limited to whether they practice it or not, but the effect it has on the Body of Christ.
WCF 31.2 also says that the rulings of the courts, “if constant to the word of God are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word.” This includes circumstances in which the church courts have set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God and government of His Church. 6
Christian liberty does not require a denomination or church court to adopt a particular view, or multiple views. Liberty of conscience concerns what one is required to believe or to do, not what one is permitted to advocate or to disagree about, particularly when such views harm the peace, order, or godliness of the church (WCF 31.2). Here we see the beauty of the Confession: it does not elevate a person’s private opinions as ecclesiastically binding norms in areas where Scripture is not indifferent, nor does it permit those who are servants of God to abuse their authority by forcing belief or practice upon others against their conscience.
Excursus:
Questions concerning the church office and the qualifications for holding it are not matters of mere circumstance, but of faith and obedience governed by Scripture. God is not silent on who may hold office in His church, nor is he silent on the functions of those who hold office; these are explicitly set down in Scripture or through good and necessary consequence deduced from Scripture. As the Preface to the BCO states, Christ,
“being ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things, received gifts for His Church, and gave all offices necessary for the edification of His Church and the perfecting of His saints… Christ, as King, has given to His Church officers, oracles and ordinances.”
Christ has given His church the necessary offices.
When the church, acting ministerially and declaratively, applies the Word of God to order its government, it does not violate liberty of conscience. A violation occurs only when a man is compelled to believe or to act against what he is persuaded Scripture teaches. Because denominational affiliation is voluntary, a man bears responsibility to guard his conscience by serving within a church whose confessional commitments and practice accord with his understanding of God’s Word. It is not the denomination to shape their government from a man’s private convictions, but from the Word of God. A man may be free to hold a different view privately, but should seek to protect the peace, order, and godliness of the Church, or else submit to the lawful discipline of the church. Thus, both truths are preserved: Christ has given real authority to His church, and God alone remains Lord of the conscience.
I have written more on these topics before:
Conclusion
True liberty is found not in the absence of authority, but in submission to the rightful authority of Christ, the risen King, bestowed upon His people. All doctrine, government, discipline, and worship in the church must come under His rule as revealed in Scripture. The BCO Preface says it beautifully,
“It belongs to His Majesty from His throne of glory to rule and teach the Church through His Word and Spirit by the ministry of men; thus mediately exercising His own authority and enforcing His own laws, unto the edification and establishment of His Kingdom.”
Luther, Martin. The Freedom of a Christian. United Kingdom: Fortress Press, 2008.
Davies, Horton. The Worship of the English Puritans. United States: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997.
Van Dixhoorn, Chad B.. Confessing the Faith: A Reader’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith. United Kingdom: Banner of Truth Trust, 2014, 265.
Ward, Rowland S.. The Westminster Confession of Faith: A Study Guide for the 21st Century. Australia: Tulip Publishing, 2021, 215
Trueman, Carl R.. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution. United States: Crossway, 2020.
I have written on this principle before, you can find it here, https://pcapolity.com/2025/06/17/our-confession-of-faith-the-directory-for-worship/