Sola Scriptura: What Does the Bible Say? #solascriptura #protestant #reformedtheology #bible

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In this video, Eli explores some of the biblical and theological foundations of the principle of Sola Scriptura.

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and today we're going to be covering a topic that is kind of, sort of, related to the previous video that I did.
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Previous video I talked about the important doctrine of justification by faith alone, and I shared why that's important, especially within certain apologetical contexts when we are sharing the gospel with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox folks and things like that.
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I talked about how essential the doctrine is and how it provides a genuine peace, or shalom, a lasting peace with God.
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Now today I want to discuss the topic of Sola Scriptura, which is related.
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Historically we've understood with respect to the Protestant Reformation that there are different ways in which we can understand the causes of the
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Reformation. We make a distinction between what we call the material cause and the formal cause of the
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Protestant Reformation, the material cause being the debate over Sola Fide, justification by faith alone, and the formal cause being an issue of Sola Scriptura, which is something we're going to be expanding upon and going into some detail with respect to what that doctrine is, what the principle is, what the principle isn't, and where in Scripture can we have a foundation for this important concept.
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And so again, we're gonna be talking about a super important topic and hopefully it will be beneficial to you guys, and I hope the way that I kind of teach and explain stuff is easy to understand.
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I am not a scholar by any means. I know that folks appreciate the stuff that I do and perhaps see me in a scholarly light, but admittedly
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I am not a scholar. I am a teacher, a Christian apologist. I try my best to be acquainted with the important issues, and then
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I try to kind of bring that down to the average person. And so hopefully
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I'm able to do that with respect to this issue of Sola Scriptura, which I think is again a very vitally important topic to address.
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Now first I want to speak with respect to this idea of Scripture being a revelation of God.
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It is a clear revelation of God, okay? This often comes up within the context of apologetic interactions with Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, you know, this issue of interpretation.
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How do you know you're interpreting Scripture correctly? And so I'm coming from a position that affirms what we call the perspicuity of Scripture, which refers to the clarity of Scripture.
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I do think that the Scriptures are sufficiently clear, that we are able to engage the text and using proper methods of interpretation and utilization of human language context, that we could know the essentials of the faith.
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That which is necessary for salvation, I think, is something that is sufficiently clear in Scripture that we can take the
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Bible, we can read it in its context, and derive those important essential features of Christian faith and practice.
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And so again, I want to clarify this and I want to talk about what we mean when we say the perspicuity of Scripture and what we don't mean.
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And so I think a very useful source that kind of gives us a good explanation of this idea of the perspicuity of Scripture is the
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Westminster Confession of Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith, it says this, and I quote, and this is
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I believe the area where it speaks of the clarity of Scripture, it says, quote, I'm going to read that again, okay?
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It says, Now, what's being said here is very important and what
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I appreciate about the Westminster Confession of Faith at this point is its clarity and its nuance. It says those things that are necessary to be known,
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I think the context here is with respect to the essentials of salvation, I think the scriptures are clear, such that a learned person and an unlearned person, using the ordinary means, can have a sufficient understanding of these issues.
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That is not to say, and this is important, that is not to say that all of Scripture is equally clear.
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I want to repeat that again. This is not saying, nor do Protestants claim, that all parts of Scripture are sufficiently clear.
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Like, yeah, you know, everything, you know, look at the book of Revelation. Clearly we know what's going on there.
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Of course not, okay? We would make a distinction between that which is essential, I think is sufficiently clear, and there are other things that are important.
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Obviously, 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 says that all Scripture is inspired, so that includes the sufficiently clear aspects and the parts of Scripture that don't seem sufficiently clear.
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But we are not ignoring the fact that there are parts of Scripture that are really difficult, and there is understandable disagreement within the
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Church on those, in those areas. Let's consider, for example, 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 16, where the
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Apostle Peter writes, it says here, with respect to Paul, he writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters.
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His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction.
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I'm going to read that again. 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 16. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking of Paul, speaking in them of these matters.
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His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction.
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Okay? And so you have the Apostle Peter admitting that there are things that are hard to understand in the writings of Paul. And of course he calls
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Paul's writings the other scriptures, affirming the authority of the writings of the
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Apostle Paul, that his letters are on the same level of scripture. But some of it is difficult to understand.
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So the Protestant doctrine of this perspicuity of scripture is not to say that all scripture is equally clear in in every single jot and tittle.
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There are areas of scripture that are sufficiently difficult to understand.
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And of course that takes study, that takes consideration of context, that takes the life of the
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Church and interacting with the Word of God and trying to understand it better as we try to come into a fuller understanding of what the
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Word of God says. So when we speak of the principle of Sola Scriptura, we are also assuming the perspicuity of scripture, but more specifically with respect to essential salvific issues and things that are essential to the
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Christian faith. So I think that's important to clarify. Now, what does the Bible have to say about this?
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This is typically a response that people who are against the doctrine or the principle,
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I keep calling it doctrine, I do apologize, I think it's more appropriately called a principle, but the principle of Sola Scriptura we often see kind of objected to by our
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Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends, and the question typically is put forth, where is the doctrine of Sola Scriptura taught?
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Scripture itself doesn't teach the principle of Sola Scriptura, therefore the principle is self -defeating, right?
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Now again, I'm not going to get into answering the objections to the principle of Sola Scriptura, I will save that for another video.
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I think I might have had, I think I've had Ken Samples on some years ago talking about Sola Scriptura.
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I got to double -check the catalog, but if you look, type in Revealed Apologetics, Ken Samples, Sola Scriptura, something might pop up.
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But if you want to look for that, I'm sure you can find it. But nevertheless, I'm not going to be addressing specific objections at this point,
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I want to kind of just talk a little bit about the scriptures themselves, where in the scriptures is this principle laid out for us.
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Again, the Bible is not a systematic theology, so we want to be very careful and simply just using proof text that we think support our view.
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I talked about this with respect to free will, and libertarian free will, and compatibilism, and categorical and conditional abilities to do otherwise, and I talked about the danger of simply quoting a scripture assuming that it means what you think it means, right, where there needs to be more digging and more study into why the particular scriptures we use support the ideas that we're putting forth, so we want to keep that in mind.
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But I want to begin by considering the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15, and we're going to read verses 1 through 7, or 1 through 1 through 9.
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And I think this particular part of scripture presents to us a very interesting situation in which
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Jesus is coming head -to -head with the Pharisees and the scribes of his day, and then there is a dispute over the traditions of the elders and the commandments of God.
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And so I want to kind of talk about this scripture passage as a foundation for our discussion, and then we'll move on and into some other areas that are related to this idea of Sola Scriptura and its biblical basis.
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All right, so Matthew, chapter 15, verses 1 through 9 says the following, if you're reading along, Then the
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Pharisees and the scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.
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He answered them. And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, Honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
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But you say, If anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.
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So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God, you hypocrites. Well did
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Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. All right, so a couple of important things here
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Jesus says here, and I just love the way Jesus responded. He's just in your face, right? He didn't pull any punches here.
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He often called the scribes and the religious leaders of his day hypocrites, because they did not do what they told other people to do with respect to Scripture.
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And so Jesus says with respect to the traditions of the elders, which can be seen in, if you look in terms of the modern context of disputes between Protestants and Roman Catholics, you could kind of see the tradition of the elders as a sort of sacred tradition that many in those days believed that sacred tradition was something that was passed on by Moses.
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It carries authority. And what is Jesus doing here? He is responding to the fact that it appears to be in this context that the
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Pharisees are placing a tradition over the teachings of the Word of God. You're gonna see this consistently, that when
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Jesus and the Apostles are responding to error, where do they go? They do not simply appeal to tradition, they appeal to the
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Word of God. And Jesus says that you are making void the Word of God, and he calls them hypocrites.
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Okay, so again this is an interesting kind of situation where we see tradition and the
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Word of God, the role of the Word of God, come head -to -head. And so in this context I want to now define what we mean by sola scriptura and then kind of expand from there.
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And so it's kind of related to Matthew 15, we'll talk a little bit about that along with some other scriptures as well.
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But sola scriptura, let's define this, and I think defining our terms is ridiculously important.
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There are a lot of misconceptions and mischaracterizations of what this principle means, and the mischaracterization often is two -way, right?
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There's a mischaracterization from Protestants to Catholics, and then from Catholics to Protestants, we want to make sure that we do our best.
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And even now, if I speak and say something that is not accurate, please check what
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I say, and I'm more than happy to be corrected in that regard. So sola fide, the
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Latin for scripture alone, it is one of the five solas of the Reformation. We have sola fide, sola gratis, sola scriptura, solos cristos, sorry,
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I'm like Spanish in there, right? And then you have soli de gloria, sola scriptura refers to scripture alone.
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Now the term there can be very misleading because it can give the impression, if you do not know the historical context in which the term is being defined, it can give the impression of the
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Bible alone, all by itself, completely independent of anything else, and that's going to be an inaccurate view of what sola scriptura is, okay?
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Sola scriptura could also be misunderstood as suggesting that the Bible is the only authority for the Church, and that's not what sola scriptura is either.
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And so to clarify, sola scriptura is the idea that the scriptures and the scriptures alone are the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the
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Church. I'm gonna say that again. The principle of sola scriptura is the idea that the scriptures and the scriptures alone are the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the
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Church. Now notice the language I'm using here. It is the sole infallible rule of faith.
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That does not mean that Christians who hold to the principle of sola scriptura deny or reject other rules of faith or other authorities that are relevant to faith and practice for the
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Church. We do not. We affirm confessions, we affirm confessions and creeds, and they are vitally important, and in some sense they are authoritative.
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For example, if you're a Reformed Baptist and you hold to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, right, or you hold to the
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Westminster Confession of Faith, those are authoritative confessions, and a Protestant who holds to those confessions will hold them in very high regard.
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But when we say that the scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith, what we're saying is that, for example, the
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London Baptist Confession, the 1689 Westminster Confession of Faith, or any confession you want to insert there, while those confessions and the creeds are authoritative, they are only authoritative in as much as they are grounded in and reflective of the scriptures themselves, right?
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So they are not infallible, and so when we say the scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith, we acknowledge other rules of faith, but the scriptures are the only infallible, irreformable rules of faith.
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Confessions can be reformed and expanded upon. The scriptures are the Word of God, and they are as such perfect as they have been given to us by God, to His prophets and His apostles.
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We do not change the scriptures for any reason, but rather, creeds and confessions are going to be based on the greater authority, the infallible authority, of the
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Word of God. So I hope that distinction is super, super clear. That's what we mean by sola scriptura.
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We do not reject other authorities, but we do affirm that the scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith.
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And this is very important, too, because we live in a world where there are many voices that are vying for our minds and our hearts and our souls.
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You have the cults, for example, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Islam, you know,
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Mormonism has Joseph Smith and the prophet, the living apostle, that's the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day
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Saints, and you have the living apostle, the prophet, the words of Joseph Smith and those who are leaders in the
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Mormon Church. You have those teachings that are voicing their views as to their authority.
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You have the Jehovah's Witness, who will function through the lens of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, okay?
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You have Islam, which is functioning through the lens of the Quran and Muhammad, and you know, various authoritative voices within Islam.
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You have the voices of culture, which are telling us that we should view things in a certain light.
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We should view man in a particular way, we should, you know, issues of, let's say, abortion, we should view life in a particular light.
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And so with all these competing voices of authority, what is going to be the sole infallible authority that we are to listen to?
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For the Christian, it is going to be the only sole infallible rule of faith and practice that is going to be the
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Word of God and everything else that flows from that will be valuable in as much as it is reflective and grounded in Scripture itself.
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So what Sola Scriptura is not saying is that what we're not saying is that there aren't other rules of faith that are possible, okay?
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We do not believe that we are, as they popularly say, that we, you know, that we believe that we take our
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Bible and we sit under a tree and it's just me and the Bible and that's it, okay? That's not what we're affirming.
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There are other rules of faith that we affirm. Also, we are not saying that we can't learn from church history, for example, okay?
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When we take a look, for example, at Jesus Christ, what is Jesus established for us?
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Jesus established the church, and in the church he has gifted us with pastors, with teachers, with people who are able to study the
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Scriptures in great depth and provide understanding of difficulties in the
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Bible and kind of expand our understanding of God's divine revelation. Those are gifts of God, and so we do not believe that the
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Bible, although it is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the church, it is not given to us of God in complete isolation from a body, the body of Christ, the church.
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The church plays a significant role in how we understand the Scriptures. Indeed, I would even argue that there is a great danger when
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Protestants are disconnected to the church in our current times, and there's a great danger in being disconnected to the broader church of history.
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We need to be familiar with what the church has taught. There is great insight in the writings of the early church fathers and those who have come after them.
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These are things that we need to be familiar with, and they are, in fact, gifts from God to the church, okay?
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Now that being said, that is not to say that these gifts are infallible in their expressions and teachings and things like that, okay?
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They are useful. I've been heavily influenced by many thinkers throughout church history, people who are dead, people who are alive.
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I've been heavily influenced by a lot of people, okay? And I've learned a lot about what the
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Bible says with respect to various issues, but I do not understand these people as being infallible, okay?
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Because it's all the Scriptura, right? The same thing when people say, you know, Martin Luther, when he was trying to expand on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, comes across the book of James, and he is popularly known for calling the book of James an epistle of straw.
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And so people say, well, you know, the father of the Protestant Reformation, he rejects the book of James, right? What's up with that, right?
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Well, again, for the Christian who holds to the principle of Sola Scriptura, that's not going to matter very much because our standard is not
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Martin Luther. And in fact, I think Martin Luther would most likely agree with the idea that we test
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Martin Luther's words against the Word of God. I am very, very much confident that that would have been his position, okay?
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Whether you agree with him or not, ultimately, with respect to what he was doing, okay? So we're not saying that there aren't any other rules of faith possible.
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We're not saying that we can't learn from church history. In fact, church history has been vitally important in understanding scripture, especially with respect to the clarification of scriptural concepts.
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For example, the development of heresy throughout the history of the church has been a very important and key central feature of the development and clarification of Christian doctrine.
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For example, when we have our confessions, we have the various creeds and things like that, you know, the
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Nicene Creed and the the Chalcedonian Creed, or the
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Chalcedon, however you like to pronounce that. These creeds were developed because they were responding to heresy.
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And so the existence of heresy allowed and provided the occasion for the church to clarify what they believed was biblical teaching, okay?
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So I hold to the creeds and I hold to the confessions in as much as they clarify and are grounded in and reflective of what the
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Word of God says. But that's not to say that they're on the same level as scripture. They're only at the same level of scripture in as much as they accurately reflect what the
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Bible teaches, okay? And so this is very important. Now, we learn from the early church, and I think it's important to be familiar with their writings and their ideas and their interactions with various groups that were something that helped with the development and the clarification of doctrine.
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But with time comes clarification. I think, for example, there are certain things in the writings of the Church Fathers which are greatly profound, and we can find them to be of great benefit.
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But there were some issues that were not as clear, and it was only through later developments and the need to respond to various things that were developing historically that certain doctrines were expanded upon and clarified.
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When I say expanded upon, I don't mean they were added to the Bible. What I'm saying is that biblical principles, things that are taught in scripture, are expanded upon for the purpose of clarification, and how the
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Church expanded and clarified would itself be in submission or should be in submission to the
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Word of God, okay? Because there are people who desire to clarify and expand, and in so doing, they go outside the boundaries set by the scriptures themselves.
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And so I think this is a very important thing to keep in mind. Now, what Sola Scriptura does say, it really reflects the importance of the nature of Scripture itself.
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The nature of Scripture itself. Let's turn, for example, to a very well -known passage. Okay, let me pull it up here.
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I should know this by heart. I'm sorry that I—let me see here. Let's get the—let's use the
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NASB. I like the NASB. 2 Timothy 3, 16.
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So let's go there. All right. Okay. So there you go.
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All right. So 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 says famously and popularly—we all should be familiar with this.
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Actually, you know what? Let me pull it up over here. I do apologize. Let me see here. This would be easier for me. 2
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Timothy 3, 16. All right.
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2 Timothy 3, 16 says—this is from the ESV, all right? I'll use the ESVs here.
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All Scripture—all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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I'll read that again. All Scripture—all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, and for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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Okay? So the principle of Sola Scriptura is predicated upon the idea that God has spoken. The nature of Scripture itself is that it is
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God -breathed. The origin of Scripture is rooted in God Himself. Okay?
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We see that God used people to write the Scriptures, but they find their source in God Himself.
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Let's consider, for example, 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 16.
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2 Peter 1, verse 16.
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Very important passage here. And the Apostle Peter says, For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to the power and the coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of His majesty, for when He received honor and glory from God the
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Father, and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain.
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This is in reference to the Transfiguration, where you had appearing Elijah and Moses. Verse 19,
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And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from Scripture's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
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Holy Spirit. And so the principle of Sola Scriptura recognizes the nature of Scripture as that is
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God -breathed, and it finds its source not in man, although man was moved by the Spirit, it is found in God Himself.
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And Peter speaks here of the more sure word of prophecy. The word of God is more sure than anything else, because of the nature of Scripture itself.
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The Bible is also understood as to be the infallible rule of faith, okay?
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God speaks with self -attesting authority, and we believe it as His people, and we shouldn't be ashamed of having this starting point.
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This is very relevant, for example, in presuppositional apologetics, is affirming the self -attesting nature of Scripture, given the nature of its authority.
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So Sola Scriptura, while affirming that it is the sole infallible rule of faith in practice, it recognizes the nature of Scripture and what implications flow from the fact that Scripture has the particular nature that it does, being the self -attesting, authoritative
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Word of God. And this is one of the reasons why the doctrine, or the principle, of Sola Scriptura is relevant to all aspects of life.
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As I mentioned before, that there are many voices in the world today, and we need to consider what
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God has said, right? We believe that God has spoken clearly, and that we need to ask ourselves that question when we are confronted with various cultural challenges and competing religious authoritative claims and things like that.
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We need to ask the question, as we, as good old presuppositionals would say, by what standard?
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And that standard must be the Word of God. And this is what the Apostles appealed to, this is what
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Jesus appealed to, this is what we should appeal to—the Word of God. Now, as a quick aside, we talk about the
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Word of God, we talk about the canon of Scripture, this is not the topic of this particular program, but I think it's important to understand that we do not believe, as Protestants, that the
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Church created the canon by a declaration of—an authoritative declaration of which books would be in the
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Bible, okay? As Protestants, we believe that the Word of God created the Church. The Church is the passive recipient of God's revelation, okay?
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And the voice of the Master is recognized by His people, okay?
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Now, we do see, as I think a very important and fundamental issue here, is that really the conflict of Sola Scriptura reaches all the way back to the beginning of the
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Bible. You take, for example, the book of Genesis, and let's turn there real quick, Genesis chapter 2, let's go to Genesis chapter 2, verse 15.
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Genesis 2, 15. Now, the Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it, and the
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Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
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Okay? In Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, we have God giving the command, okay?
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Notice that the command comes with the authority of God, He does not expand upon this, you know, you need to eat, you could eat from all the trees, just not this one, because, and then fill in the blank.
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Now, He gives the consequences for disobeying the command, but the command itself comes with the self -attesting authority of God, and man's responsibility was to obey the command, okay?
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Now, we do see that the voice of God is coming into conflict now in Genesis chapter 3 with the voice of the serpent, okay?
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Now, let's turn there, here, in Genesis chapter 3, we have, if you guys want to read along, Genesis chapter 3.
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Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say,
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You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said,
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You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman,
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You will surely not die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
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So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was there, and he ate.
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Sorry, guys, oftentimes we joke around, you know, it's women's fault that we're in this mess, right?
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But don't get it twisted. Eve gave the fruit to her husband who was there, okay?
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He was there. He was probably just, you know, just chilling out, you know, picking his nose or whatever, and oh yeah, sure, let me have this fruit that I know the
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Lord our God told us not to eat of. Now, but there you go. Verse 7,
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Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
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Now again, very interesting thing we have here in this story in the garden. One of the key things that the competing voice of the enemy does is causes us to doubt
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God's Word. You really have three elements here going on that I think is important. If you're taking notes, you might want to jot this down.
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One of the first things that the enemy tries to do is he tries to bring doubt upon God's Word. Has God said?
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Did God really say that? Right? God said that we could eat from all the trees. Did he though? Is that what he said? Right?
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The enemy brings doubt into God's Word. He then distorts.
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He distorts God's Word, right? You know, notice what the serpent said, right? Has God said?
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And then look what he expands on. He says you can't eat from any of the trees. That's not what God said. God said you could eat from all the trees except the tree that's in the midst of the garden.
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So you have the enemy bringing doubt into God's Word, distorting God's Word, and then he offers a reinterpretation.
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So we have a three -pronged attack upon God's truth. You have the doubting of God's Word. You have the distortion of God's Word, and then you have the reinterpretation of God's Word.
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You will not die when you eat. Your eyes will be opened, right? This is what the serpent says. And so we have, in competing voices in our world today, the attempt to bring doubt upon God's Word, distort
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God's Word, and reinterpret God's Word. The proper response of Eve should have been to obey
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God's ultimate authoritative self -attesting commands, okay? And this,
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I think, is where sola scriptura, this conflict, begins. These competing voices of authority.
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You have the voice of God, and you have the voice of the devil. In our culture today, you have the Word of God, you have the
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Word of the culture. When you have the cults, you have the Word of God, and the Word of the cults, and their prophet, and their system, and their lens that they are attempting to have us see the scriptures through, okay?
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This is very important to keep in mind. We need to recognize the voice of the Master because of the nature of that voice, and scripturated in the
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Word of God, the nature of its authority, and things like that. Very, very important. Now again, we see in terms of more
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Old Testament application, if you turn to Deuteronomy's, I just made up a book of the
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Bible. Here you go. Deuteronomy chapter 13. Deuteronomy chapter 13, and this is a portion of scripture where we give, we're given a test of a true prophet.
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And Deuteronomy chapter 13, it reads, and this is ESV if you're following along, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and a sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.
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For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
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You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.
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But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your
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God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery to make you leave the way in which the
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Lord your God commanded you to walk. And then it concludes there, so shall you purge the evil from your midst.
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Okay? Now, interesting that even if a false teacher comes with miracles, what is the ultimate test for the truthfulness of the message of that particular person?
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The test is the Word of God. We are always brought back to the Word of God. Why? Because the
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Word of God is the ultimate authority. The Word of God is that by which all things are tested. Okay?
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How will people know if something is truly of God? Well, if that message gives us a different message that God has already revealed, then we know that is a false message.
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Okay? Miracles do not necessarily prove the trustworthiness of the prophet or the person or the system or whatever.
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Everything must be tested by the Word of God. This principle is one of the foundations of the principle of Sola Scriptura.
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Okay? Now, interestingly enough, the role of tradition is also very important, but it's interesting to note that what is said of Scripture is never said of tradition.
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I'm going to say that again. What is said of Scripture is never said of tradition. There is a clear distinction between the
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Scriptures and the role of tradition. If you consider, for example, Paul's writings in Romans chapters 4 through 5,
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Paul defends his points not by appealing to his own authority, and he did have a level of authority as an apostle.
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He did not appeal to his authority. Simply, he points to the Old Testament. What does the Scripture say?
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This is important. Scripture teaches, and therefore we are to believe what
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Scripture teaches. It is a constant appeal to the authority of the Word of God. And so when you take a look, for example, at the the
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Apocrypha, for example, you will notice that neither Jesus or the apostles ever quoted from the
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Apocrypha in the particular way in which Scripture is appealed to.
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It is never referred to as something that is theionistas, something that is God -breed, something that finds its source and authority in God Himself.
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You never see this, okay? When Jesus had a conflict, you know, with the religious leaders of his day, he easily could have pointed to his own authority, and sometimes he did, but where does he typically go?
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He typically goes to the Scriptures. We see this in Matthew chapter 15, right? As I said before, the dispute between the religious leaders over the tradition of the elders could easily be seen as a parallel, a good parallel, between the role of sacred tradition and the
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Bible, right? Protestant, you got the Protestant who affirms Sola Scriptura, which I think is a biblical principle, then you have this idea of the traditions, okay?
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And what does Jesus do? He goes straight to the Scriptures, right? You make null and void the
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Word of God for the sake of your tradition. That does not mean all traditions are bad, it just means that tradition must be in conformity with the
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Word of God, okay? Very important. Now, let's take a look, for example, at another situation you have in Matthew chapter 19.
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Let's take a look, Matthew chapter 19. Let's see here. Alright, you have the situation where there is a dispute over the nature of divorce, okay?
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And you have two schools of thought here, traditionally, culturally, within the first century, you had the those who followed the rabbinic tradition of Hillel and the rabbinic tradition of Shammai, and of course
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Hillel popularly held to the idea of any -cause divorce, and so you should be able to divorce your wife for any cause, and there's a dispute there as to what's up with divorce, what are we allowed to do?
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And so there was a discussion there that is kind of the background music in the context of what's going on here.
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So let's take a look at Matthew chapter 19, which reads, now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the
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Jordan, and large crowds followed him and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?
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This is coming from the perspective of the Hillel rabbinic tradition. He answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh.
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What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Okay? Now notice what Jesus does here.
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Does Jesus appeal to the traditions? Does he expand upon the Hillel perspective or the
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Shammai perspective and share his view as to which one he agreed with more? No. But what he says, he says in verse 4, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?
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What did Jesus do? He appealed to the scriptures, right? Because the scriptures is that which is theanoustos.
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It is that which holds the authority of God himself. That is the nature of scripture.
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And because the nature of scripture is what it is, it has the authority that it has. And there is nothing else that is equal to that same authority.
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Okay? Tradition is never said to be theanoustos, and therefore tradition is never said to have that nature that scripture has.
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Very, very important. Now, the quotation or the use of non -biblical sources in the teachings of, say,
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Jesus and the Apostles, does not mean that those sources that are being quoted from are on par with scripture themselves.
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You see this even in the Apostle Paul, when he quotes the Greek philosophers, you know, Eratos and Epimenides, to make his point, he's not quoting them to suggest that they are of equal authority to scripture.
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Or rather, all truth is God's truth. If someone made a truthful statement and it's useful to expand on a point that he's making, yeah, take a quote from it.
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Or to make some point. That's not to say that these other sources are in equal authority, because it is the scriptures that are only said to be the sort of thing that holds that sort of authority.
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Okay? Now, if we expand here on 1
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Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6, I think is an important scripture to go to as well. Let's go there here.
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1 Corinthians 4, 6.
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Okay? Verse 6, 4, I meant to say 1 Corinthians 4, 6.
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Sorry, I went to chapter 6. Verse 4, 4, verse 6.
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The Apostle Paul says, I've applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.
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There you go. So we are encouraged, pardon, not to go beyond what's written.
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Now again, at this time, scripture is being written, but when scripture that is being written is established and recognized as scripture, then we are not to go beyond what is written, which entails the entirety of the
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Word of God, which we know the 27 books in the New Testament are the Word of God, and the church is the passive recipients of this divine revelation, and we are not to go beyond what's written.
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You have Acts 17, 11, which I think is another important scripture to consider in this discussion.
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Acts chapter 17, verse 11. I'll read 10 and 11.
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Let's see here. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the
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Jewish synagogue. This was Paul's typical practice, by the way. And now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica.
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They received the Word of God with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
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Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men, and then it goes on to the rest of the narrative there.
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Notice that the Bereans are called noble. They did not accept the authority of Paul just on his authority.
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Rather, they examined the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying is true.
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And so the Apostle Paul, as an Apostle who has authority, was not above testing.
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I want to say that again. The Apostle Paul, who is an Apostle who had authority, was not above testing.
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And indeed, when he is tested, the Bereans are called noble for doing this.
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And like fashion, when you have, for example, the sacred tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, we need to test those things.
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It is noble of us to test the claims of Rome. It is noble of us to test the claims of the
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Eastern Orthodox Church or anyone else who is making claims, right, that seem to not jive with the scriptures.
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And if they do jive with the scriptures, we need to read the scriptures and test them by the scriptures. Very, very important.
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Now, I think this entire issue of the authority of scripture, the nature of scripture, and how these things are foundations of the principle of sola scriptura,
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I think it's important just kind of from a theological and philosophical and even biblical perspective, it's very important to recognize that the
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Bible is God's Word. It is His self -attesting, authoritative Word. It is our necessary epistemological starting point.
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If we do not start with the Word of God, we lose the foundation of everything else, unless we are not resting on the shore rock of God's revelation, epistemologically we are lost at sea, okay?
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We believe what God has said, and the worldview that the Bible provides for us, when we consider all of what the
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Bible says, creates a context, an intellectual context and lens by which to see and interpret the world, okay?
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And I think that's very, very important, because in reality, everyone has their
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Bible. Everyone has their Bible. Everyone has their ultimate authority, their ultimate lens, and what authority are we going to be standing on?
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Are we going to be standing on the Word of God, which is the sole infallible rule of faith, or are we going to be listening to other authorities that are competing for the authority of scripture, okay?
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When someone says, you know, you should believe Joseph Smith, okay? Well, there are some problems there.
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If people believe, if people are saying we should believe in the teachings of Jehovah's Witness and submit ourselves to the teaching authority of the
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Watchtower Bible and track society, that's, there's going to be a problem there, because there's a conflict with scripture.
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And what happens when someone says, when you ask a Roman Catholic, why do you believe what you believe? And they appeal to the authority of the church, okay?
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That is something that we need to address, okay? Someone says, well, I believe
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A, B, or C, because the church says. I think there's a good question we need to ask is, how do you know that the church is correct?
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How do you know that the Roman Catholic Church, the teaching magisterium, is correct with respect to various doctrines, okay?
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Because think about this, if the Roman Catholic Church suggests that the teaching authority of the church and the
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Pope and their authority structures are the only interpretive mechanism by which one can accurately represent, interpret scripture, there's a problem there, okay?
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We ask the question, how do you know the church is correct if the church is the only authority that can rightly interpret the
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Bible? And this is where, and this has been a constant criticism of Protestants towards the
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Roman Catholic authority structure and their ability to be the only ones who can rightly interpret the scriptures, this runs us into the question of sola ecclesia, okay, which is the church alone, okay?
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On the one hand, you have the idea that the authority of the church and the authority of the Bible are equal, but is that the case when the church is the only authority structure that can rightly interpret the scripture?
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Is the church, or is the church able to be corrected in their interpretations by appealing to the scriptures?
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If they cannot, then the church actually is more authoritative than the Bible itself, because it is they that interpret the scripture, and it is they that tells us what the
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Bible or what certain doctrines mean, and their authority structure is set up in such a way that there really is no way to test that, okay?
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And so again, everyone's gonna have their foundation. What is the foundation? Is the foundation sola scriptura? The Bible is the only infallible rule of faith that even creeds and councils need to submit to in terms of their trustworthiness, or is it going to be church tradition, and the
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Bible, in which what's implicitly entailed by that is that the church and its authoritative ability stands over the
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Bible. These are things that you need to consider, and this is why the doctrine of sola scriptura is so important, and applies to so many different areas of our lives, not just in our disputes and debates with our
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Roman Catholic friends and Eastern Orthodox friends. It really boils down to the authority. What is the authority for the
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Christian? And I would submit to you that the authority, the only infallible authority, is the
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Word of God. It is the only thing that is called theionistos, and it is the only thing that cannot be corrected.
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Now our interpretations can be corrected, and I think that's why it's so important to see the Bible as a community book, as well as an individual book.
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It's individual in the sense that we have a right as believers to engage the Scriptures in our personal study, but it is a corporate book in that it should be understood within the context of a community that surrounds the
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Scriptures and seeks daily and always to study and come into a more deeper understanding of what the
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Scripture teaches. But the conclusions that the church draws will always be in submission to the
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Word of God because of the nature of Scripture as God's Word and its authority that it is imbued with given the nature of what it is.
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All right? All right. Well, again, if you remember past episodes,
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I said I'm still recovering from a sore throat, so I don't know if you could hear it in my voice, but I think this is a good place to stop.
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Maybe in a future video I could address responding to common objections to Sola Scriptura, then we can kind of engage the topic from that angle.
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I'm just basically laying out some key principles that are useful and helpful in understanding the nature and importance of this principle,
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Sola Scriptura. All right? So with that said, this is all for this episode.
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I hope that this has been useful. I kind of feel a little bit laid back here. I know I talk really fast, so I apologize if I was speaking too quickly.
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Maybe you can kind of slow the audio down. I think there's a function for that on YouTube, but nevertheless, that's it for this episode in terms of the main content.
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All right. Well, until next time, that's all I got for today. Take care, and God bless.