We recently had a new driveway poured at our house. Of course, this meant getting rid of the old one first, which we assumed would be a bit of a task. As it happened, however, a mini-forklift made short work of it, leveraging great chunks of cement out of their resting places and, in a matter of minutes, piling them up to be disposed of.
God forbid we ever have to pull up the new driveway,but if we do, it won’t be nearly as easy. This time, the workers laid down steel rebar before they poured to reinforce the concrete and increase its tensile strength. It’s not going anywhere without stiff resistance.
As in driveways, so in theology, not all foundations are equal.
Zanchi begins the first chapter of his Confession of the Christian Religion (CCR) by addressing revelation, which he calls “the foundation (fundamentum) of the whole Christian religion.”
Five-hundred pages of theology is a heavy load—both physically and metaphorically!—so, how did Zanchi lay the foundation for it in such a way that the project didn’t collapse under its own weight? The answer is, he started with Scripture… and with God.
It was standard fare for Reformed confessions to begin with Scripture, so it’s no surprise to see Zanchi follow suit. He calls it “the foundation (fundamentum) of the whole Christian religion.” But there’s more going on here than a naive biblicism or what some have labeled solo Scriptura (Scripture only; in contrast to the Reformation position of sola Scriptura, Scripture alone).
When we actually look at how Zanchi enters into this topic, we see that he doesn’t just run in and tag the Bible or even revelation more broadly. Instead, he begins with the foundation that lies beneath the foundation of all revelation. Here’s what he says:
With regard to God and the divine matters that pertain to Christ’s kingdom and our salvation, we believe that no one can teach us better or with more certainty than God Himself, who can neither be deceived nor deceive. “No one has ever seen God; the Son, who is in the Father’s bosom, He has expounded Him to us (Jn. 1:18).”
Jerome Zanchi, Confession of the Christian Religion, §I.i
In other words, Zanchi begins his discussion of revelation by talking about God, who is the source of revelation. This makes all kinds of sense. In order for us to say anything about God, we have to have (true and intelligible) revelation—whether general revelation (in nature, for example) or special revelation (in visions, dreams, writing)—that tells us something about the God making himself known. Otherwise, at best, we’re just guessing or, more likely, making stuff up.
This is why Reformed scholastic theologians (like Zanchi) often talked about Scripture as the principium cognescendi theologiae externum, the external cognitive foundation of theology, which reveals the principium essendi theologiae, the essential foundation of theology (that is, God). I’ll quote Richard Muller here:
Without [Scripture], theology could not know the truth of God—without [God], there could be no theology, indeed, no revelation.
Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 2:151
In special revelation, it’s God himself who does the revealing. And we can trust his revelation because, being who he is, God never gets mixed up or hoodwinked and he never lies or obfuscates. He reveals the truth precisely as he intends to. Following the lead of Ambrose, the 4th century bishop of Milan, Zanchi emphasizes that no one communicates better than God, because he maintains complete control over the flow of information.
So, divine revelation is a foundation of knowledge built upon this essential bedrock: It is God who reveals himself. So far, so good. But Zanchi has one more big move left to make. The purpose of revelation isn’t primarily to teach biology (how does a dorsal fin work?) or sports trivia (who won the Series in 1919?) Rather, the special subject of revelation is “things pertaining to religion” (as the paragraph’s heading puts it).
But, when it comes right down to it, even that is too broad, because “things pertaining to religion” doesn’t actually address the glaring problems that stand before us: a broken world and sinful hearts. It’s not enough that everything points to God generally. What we really need to hear about is “Christ’s kingdom and our salvation.” Does God have any good news for us sinners and sufferers (as Dane Ortlund recently put it)?
Zanchi’s response is, “Yes, he does,” which may not be a big surprise but is a big deal. It turns out that God doesn’t reveal himself to us so that we can learn theological trivia, as if what our hearts really craved was abstruse metaphysical speculation about who God really is. As if the thing that kept us awake at night was whether (to be really silly about the whole thing) God was blue or green. Who cares?
Scripture doesn’t answer those sorts of questions because that’s not what it’s for. Instead, it provides critical answers to life and death questions, need-to-know information. This is why Zanchi naturally turns our minds to the first chapter of John’s Gospel. The Son, who alone knows his Father fully, is the great Revealer. He made his Father known not by shouting down from heaven but by becoming incarnate for us and for our salvation. The divine Word became flesh (Jn. 1:1, 14) in order to proclaim and accomplish God’s saving work on behalf of his people. Divine words and divine works go hand in hand and are aligned in purpose.
Zanchi begins his confession with a dual commitment to the revelation of the self-revealing God and to the God who self-reveals. It’s the sturdy double foundation upon which everything else gets built precisely because we—each one of us—can only have eternal life if we know the God who supplies it and who made himself known to us in his Son (Jn. 17:3).
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