Gillespie provides biblical support for using good and necessary consequences, first by citing Christ’s appropriation of the burning bush passage (see chapter 1), as well as by giving several more examples of the way in which the New Testament authors used the Old Testament. Second, the law of God in the Old Testament was designed to be a summary of principles from which other applications should be derived by “good and necessary consequence.” Third, since the opinions of men are often refuted by showing them the consequences of their words, we must assume that the all-wise God is fully aware of the consequences of His words. To deny that the consequences of God’s Word represent His will is “blasphemous,” for, according to Gillespie, “This were to make the only wise God as foolish man, that cannot foresee all things which will follow from his words. Therefore we must needs hold, ’tis the mind of God which necessarily followeth from the words of God.” Fourth, if we deny the legitimacy of good and necessary consequence, then many absurdities will result, such as denying that women may come to the Lord’s Supper. Fifth, in reality, no one is able to avoid using necessary consequences in theological discussions. All people must deduce conclusions from Scripture if they intend to make any assertions regarding what the Scriptures teach. Every controversy in the history of the church has been over “the sense of Scripture” rather than over its express statements. Sixth, even civil magistrates deduce consequences from civil law in order to prove that a particular offense is in violation of the law, and “[we must not] deny to the Great God that which is a privilege of the little gods or magistrates.”

RYAN M. MCGRAW, BY GOOD AND NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE, 32-33.

When a necessary doctrine or application is legitimately drawn from the text of God’s Word, then that doctrine or application has the very power of the authority of God to enforce it.

RYAN M. MCGRAW, BY GOOD AND NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE, 30.

Reformed principles of biblical interpretation were both a correction and an expansion of earlier methods. Typology was retained in Old Testament exposition based upon the example of Christ and His apostles, but careful rules were established in order to prevent abuses and outlandish allegorizing. Scripture was compared with Scripture (analogia scriptura) in order to harmoniously understand the mind of the single divine Author of the Bible. Clearer passages were used in order to understand more obscure ones and passages that seemed, at first glance, to conflict with one another were woven together into theological formulation, often balancing two sides of the truth.

RYAN M. MCGRAW, BY GOOD AND NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE, 27-28.

A definition of good and necessary consequence is already implicit in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Good and necessary consequence is distinguished from matters concerning God’s glory, man’s salvation, and faith or life that are “expressly set down in Scripture.” This includes direct precepts, prohibitions, statements of truth, and clearly approved examples. According to this statement, the term “good and necessary consequence” refers to doctrines and precepts that are truly contained in and intended by the divine Author of Scripture, yet are not found or stated on the surface of the text and must be legitimately inferred from one or more passages of Scripture. As the phrase indicates, such inferences must be “good,” or legitimately drawn from the text of Scripture. In addition, they must be “necessary,” as opposed to imposed or arbitrary.

RYAN M. MCGRAW, BY GOOD AND NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE, 11-12.

A close relationship exists between the widespread distrust of systematic theology and the neglect or denial of the statement found in Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) 1:6 : “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture ” (emphasis added). Exegesis and biblical theology tell us what the words of Scripture mean or what distinguishes a particular biblical author from others, yet both often stop short of drawing theological conclusions from Scripture that show us what the Bible teaches as a whole. This is the task of systematic theology, which depends heavily on deducing divinely intended consequences from the text of Scripture. Without such deductions and the conclusions that are based upon them, we lose the ability to ask important questions of the Bible, such as what it teaches about the relationship between the persons of the Holy Trinity.

Ryan M. McGraw, By Good and Necessary Consequence, 6-7.

In Luke 22:28–30, Jesus says to His disciples, “But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” In verse 28, Jesus sets His comments in the context of His own “trials,” a clear reference to His incarnate ministry and sufferings. From what has been seen in Isaiah 53, the Son’s experience of these trials was specifically His obedience to the will of His Father. In verse 29, Jesus proceeds to speak of the Father “bestow[ing]” a kingdom upon Him. In light of what Jesus has said in verse 28, the clear implication is that this bestowal has come through His obedience in His “trials.” Because the Son has obeyed the Father, the Father has “bestowed” upon Him a kingdom. Here is the same, familiar obedience-for-reward dynamic. However, the word that Jesus uses to say that His Father has “bestowed” a kingdom upon Him is incredibly significant. The word that Jesus uses (διατίθημι; diatithēmi) is the verbal form of diathēkē and speaks specifically and narrowly of a covenantal conferral. To diatithēmi something is to confer it in accordance with covenantal terms. In Luke 22:29, then, Jesus explicitly declares that because of His obedience, the Father has bestowed a kingdom upon Him by covenant.

In light of both scriptural analogies and direct statement, the character of the obedience-for-reward relationship among the persons of the Trinity comes into clearer focus. The rewarded obedience of the Son occurs within a covenantal framework.

STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 129-130.

In fact, it was these general commands of the creation ordinances that were the most formative in shaping the daily lives of Adam and Eve as they lived in communion with their Creator. It was obedience to these commands that shaped the patterns of their days and lives and that worked to make Adam and Eve increasingly like the God whose image they bore. Indeed, in observing the creation ordinances, Adam and Eve would reflect the character and activity of God. In subduing and keeping the Sabbath, they would mirror God’s own work in the creation week. In marriage’s plurality within unity, they would reflect the plurality within unity of God Himself.

Footnote: Again, to be explicit, this does not imply that roles within marriage are based on the relationships among the persons of the Trinity. They are not. Such an implication is nowhere in the biblical text.

STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 102.

Certainly, Christians have, and are to cultivate, private fellowship with God. But if that is all we have—if we do not worship with God’s people and become actively engaged and involved in the lives of God’s people, simultaneously allowing them to become engaged and involved in our lives—then we are obscuring the image of God that we bear. God’s purpose is not met by a large group of individual Christians. God’s purpose is met by the church—a community of people bearing God’s image, bearing it in fellowship with each other, and worshiping the One who made them. So often, Christians feel an impulse to separate themselves from the church, whether that impulse arises from self-absorption, or from an insistence upon personal preferences, or from the retention of old grudges. But true and full humanity is found not in seclusion, but in communion. True and full worship occurs not as an individual distances himself or herself from the church, but as that person seeks to fold himself or herself ever more into the church.

STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 112.

While God’s covenant with Adam is properly called the covenant of works, that covenant nonetheless was suffused with grace. But it was a very specific kind of grace. Theologically, it is important to distinguish between redemptive grace and condescending grace. Redemptive grace is that grace which overcomes demerit and redeems God’s people from their sin. There was no redemptive grace in the covenant of works. Indeed, there was no logical place for redemptive grace since sin and demerit themselves were absent. Condescending grace, on the other hand, operates without regard to demerit and stoops to bestow something that has not been deserved.

STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 108.

The book of Scripture, however, by the supernatural revelation of the Holy Spirit alone, conducts the Christian faith to that profound secret of piety about the one God who is threefold in persons — which cannot be comprehended by reasoning, nor be perceived by senses, nor be expressed in words, nor be taught by experience, nor be explained by example.

Disputation 7. 35 in Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 74.