Sola Scriptura and the Authority of the Church

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

The Dividing Line is brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries, the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and Bethany House Publishers. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

With today's topic, here is Dr. White.

The Sufficiency of Scripture and Sola Scriptura

The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. That's what the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith says as it begins to discuss Scripture and specifically to present the sufficiency of Scripture to function as the sole rule of faith for the Christian Church.

That is the doctrine of sola scriptura, a subject we've been discussing now for a couple of weeks. A doctrine under attack, a doctrine very often misrepresented, and we've been looking at some of those misrepresentations, looking at some things sola scriptura is not, before getting around to defining specifically what sola scriptura is.

Well, last time we were together, we were looking at some of the bad arguments and bad misrepresentations that are made in regards to sola scriptura. This week, we'll finally get around to looking at some positive passages in the Bible that present the doctrine, but we still have a couple of other misrepresentations to look at.

For example, it is very common for people to present the passage in Matthew 18 where you take a brother to the church and the church brings discipline as an issue where that passage allegedly is presenting the church as a final authority in regards to being added to Scripture and the Roman Catholic concept that the church is infallible, so on and so forth.

Matthew 18 is misused to make the church the final source of truth. Instead, we find in the Scriptures John, the apostle, writing to the church at Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2, for testing those who claim to be apostles and find that they were not, just as the Bereans had done in Acts chapter 17.

How did they test those who claimed to be apostles? They tested those people on the basis of the Scriptures. In Matthew chapter 18, we are not told there that the church becomes a source of revelatory information.

We are not told there that the church becomes infallible in and of herself, and in point of fact, the only way that Matthew 18 could work is if the church is organized as the way that Protestant churches are, at least my church is, and that is local bodies of believers with elders and deacons who are presenting and teaching the Word of God to the people.

The Church as the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth

You know, one of the saddest things I've ever read was one of the conversion stories found in a book called Surprised by Truth, of a woman who left the Reformed faith and became a Roman Catholic. And in her conversion story, she speaks of how she read 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 18, and how reading this one passage totally shook her view of Scripture and her view of the church.

Let me read beginning in verse 14 so you have some context. 1 Timothy 3, 14, I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long, but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.

Supposedly, by reading that passage, this particular individual came to the conclusion that the church was much more than Protestants believed it to be. Well, there is some element of truth in regards to what that woman said.

For many Protestants, the church is not the pillar and foundation of the truth. In fact, for many people in our culture today who have imbibed the, how do I put this, the consumer culture that surrounds us, church has become something that you consume as well.

You shop around for churches, you look around for churches, comparing one with another as to what options, for example, they may present to you. Who has the nicest worship center, the prettiest music, maybe the most programs for the kids?

The idea that the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, that the primary function of the church is that it is to be presenting God's truth in an unadulterated fashion, well, that's not really popular these days.

You know, the large church with the big programs, there's not necessarily anything wrong with a large church, but I would like to say to anyone that if programs get in the way of God's truth, the church has lost sight of what the church is supposed to be.

And if you think that a church is defined on the basis of how big its worship center is, how many programs it has, how many teenagers show up for a lock-in, well, you're not really looking at the church in a New Testament fashion at all, so it's not really overly surprising that a person could come along and disrupt the faith of someone who has that view of the church on the basis of the Bible, because the Bible doesn't present the church that way.

Instead, I believe very firmly exactly what 1 Timothy 3 teaches, the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, and I'm saddened, as I said, that anyone who could have been reformed in their theology could ever be surprised by 1 Timothy 3 .15.

Certainly someone somewhere along the line didn't do the teaching they were supposed to do, because the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. Now notice, when you say that something is the pillar and foundation of something else, you are, by saying that, making it very clear, very understandable, that the church itself is not the truth.

You see, I'm in a building right now, it's a multi-story building, and there are, down in the parking garage down there, these big, large pillars that are holding this building up. Without those pillars, I would not be suspended up here in the air like I am.

A pillar and a foundation hold something else up, they give support to something else. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, that is, the church holds up and supports the truth. As such, her mission is vital, and as such, I agree with many, that there are many Protestants who have a sub-biblical view of the church, but the result of that, the way of the church is, the way of fixing that, I should say, is not by then exalting the church beyond the position the Bible gives her.

You don't go running off some other direction to try to fix an alleged problem. Instead, we need to call Protestants to a biblical view of the church in the same way that we call a Roman Catholic away from the false view of the church that is so clearly presented in Roman Catholic theology regarding Rome.

So, the church is indeed the pillar and foundation of the truth, and let me say, and I'm not going to get up on my high horse and preach too much more about this, but let me say something to those of you in the audience who are not a part of a local church that has elders and deacons where the Word of God is the central aspect of what is going on and what is being preached.

Let me say something to you. You are in rebellion against the Bible. Now, you may dislike me for telling you that, but the simple fact of the matter is the Bible tells us not to forsake the gathering together of the saints.

Now, if you're in some way, shape, or form, you can't go, you're bedridden, something along those lines, if you're out in picking this radio transmission up in an orbiting space station or in Siberia someplace, okay, I can understand that, but you know what I'm talking about, and you know to whom I'm speaking.

If you claim to believe the Bible, then you need to believe all of it, and you need to believe the fact that it teaches that God in His wisdom has given us the church. It is the pillar and foundation of the truth.

Christ promises to be with His church, with His people, and you need to be a part of those local bodies, as you had the church in Ephesus, you had the churches in Galatia, you had the church in Rome. They were local bodies with elders and deacons.

Those elders were charged with the proclamation of the Word of God, and you need to be in a church where that is taking place. There is no such thing as a lone ranger Christian, and one of the misrepresentations that people use to attack Sola Scriptura is that what that means is it's you and your Bible under a tree in the forest and that's it.

The idea that the church is vital to God's program, that it's vital in God's decree, that this is how we are to learn, that the Word is to be preached within the context of the church, that other men are to be used to teach us things about God, teach us His truth, hold us accountable, that idea of the church presented in the New Testament, they don't want you to hear about that.

They want you to think there's only two possibilities, either it's you and your Bible under a tree in the woods, or it is the infallible magisterium and the bishop of Rome, there's nothing in between.

Well, there is something in between, it's called the church. But you need to be a part of it if you're going to be obedient to the Word of God, and you have no business complaining about what Rome teaches if you're not obedient to what the Bible teaches to you about the church.

Now, I guess I'm an equal opportunity offender, I just offended a number of folks, that's okay. I stand on what the Word of God teaches, the Apostles went about establishing local bodies and establishing elders in those bodies to teach and preach the Word of God, that's the wisdom of Christ, you cannot tell me that Christ does not know what is best for His church.

And the very fact that Protestants have been so willing to do this church-hopping business, well, I'll go from this church to that church, and I'll go from that church to that church, and I'll go from this place to that place, the willingness of Protestants to do that kind of thing is one of the reasons that we see Roman Catholic apologists having success today.

It's because of our own unwillingness to believe all of Scripture, that is, since we're inconsistent in applying Sola Scriptura and believing what it says, we leave doors open for this kind of thing to take place.

Well, I wasn't going to spend quite that much time there, but I think it is a vital, vital issue. And I have made decisions in my life, in regards to career, in regards to opportunities, based upon the fact that I believe that when God places you in a local body, you stay there until you are forced to do something else, because you move someplace else, whatever the situation might be, but you don't be a church-hopper, nor can you be a Lone Ranger Christian.

You say, but I can't find a perfect church. Well, congratulations, neither can I. My church is not a perfect church. That is what we deal with in this world, and part of Christian maturity is dealing with the fact that the church is made up of sinners who still have sin in their lives, who still struggle with things.

The elders aren't always going to say hi to you every morning the way you'd exactly like to be said hi to. They're not going to preach exactly the way you'd like them to preach. The point is, God says, be a part of the church, be under the ministry of the Word.

We need to be there. We need to be obedient. And we have no basis for complaining about what somebody else is doing if we are not being obedient ourselves. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, but that doesn't make the church God-breathed.

That word, God-breathed, from 2 Timothy 3, where all Scripture is God-breathed, it is theanustos, extremely important. The church is never described as being theanustos. The church is not inspired. Instead, the church has an inspired revelation from God that ensures and guarantees that the voice of God will always be heard within her, within her fellowship.

That is where she draws her authority. That is where she draws the truth that she teaches to the world. Now, some people would like to claim that tradition is inspired as well. And what they mean by tradition is really hard to find out.

Tradition, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, and the Gospel

I have done numerous debates against the leading Roman Catholic apologists in the United States on the subject of Sola Scriptura. I've debated Jerry Matytix three times on this subject, once in California, once in Omaha, Nebraska, once on Long Island.

I've debated Patrick Madrid on this subject once in San Diego. And I've debated Tim Staples, also in Fullerton, California, also on the subject of Sola Scriptura. And I don't think any of the people that I've debated on this issue actually hold the same position as to what tradition is.

It is one of the most frustrating elements of dealing with this particular subject, is the fact that you can't find out what they mean by tradition. But they all like to reference 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 15, for whatever their view of tradition is.

2 Thessalonians 2, verse 15, Let me read that to you again, 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 15. And hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter, from us. And this is the normal interpretation presented.

Well, you see here, you have two sources of revelation presented. You have traditions that are passed on by word of mouth or by letter from us. Now, letter from us would be the written traditions, which would refer to the Scriptures.

And the word of mouth traditions are the oral traditions, which are passed down from generation to generation in the Episcopate, within the hierarchy of the Church. And so there are many who believe that what this passage is presenting to us is two forms of revelation being passed down to us.

Now, there are other Roman Catholics who say, no, no, no, no, no. No, not two forms of revelation. There are those who believe in what's called the material sufficiency of the Scripture. This is not the viewpoint that was held by the majority at the Council of Trent.

It was held by a minority there. But this is just another one of those examples. We're on a very important definitional issue. Rome has not chosen to speak as yet and to define infallibly what the truth is.

So it's interesting. I simply point out to anyone who thinks you can find absolute certainty within the dogmas of Rome on many important issues, you cannot even there find that. You're looking for something that does not exist.

But at the Council of Trent, the majority said, anyways, that what you have in a passage like this is the oral traditions passed down through the Church. The written traditions are the Scriptures. You need to have both or you don't have all that God would have for you.

Well, is that the case? I don't believe that's what the passage is saying at all. In fact, if you'll read it in context, you'll read the following. 2 Thessalonians 2, beginning at verse 13. Any text without a context is a pretext.

This text has a context. What's the context? The context is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When Paul says, hold to the traditions, he says there is only one body of truth in view here. It was delivered in two ways.

By letter, which would be 1 Thessalonians, and by preaching. Paul had preached amongst the Thessalonians. And did he preach different things to them that he wrote to them about? No. He was delivering the gospel to them, which was delivered to them by two means.

By the living apostles who preached to them and by the written letter. Now, since Rome does not claim to have living apostles anymore, then the immediate application of this passage cannot be relevant to their claims.

There's nothing here about two sources of tradition. There's nothing here about some oral tradition that contains different elements of revelation being passed down through history. Paul is simply saying, we've preached this to you.

We've taught it to you by letter. Hold on to our teachings to you. Also, please notice, the entire church at Thessalonica had already been taught these items. These are not then teachings that are limited to the bishops, but they are teachings that are generally known to every person in the church.

Everyone in the church in Thessalonica knew and believed the things that Paul is referring to. Hence, any claim that the oral component contains anything other than what is found in the written component requires the defender of such a position to prove from the writings of the early church itself that these things were generally known and believed by the Christian people.

That, of course, is where the Roman Catholic position falls apart. Why? Because if you look at the doctrines and dogmas that have been defined on the basis of tradition within Rome, you discover that these doctrines are uniformly utterly unknown in the early church.

Utterly unknown in the early church. They weren't passed down through the Episcopate. No one knew of these doctrines like the bodily assumption of Mary or the Immaculate Conception. In fact, the first person, just to give you an idea, in 1854, the Immaculate Conception was defined as a dogma of the Christian faith in Roman Catholicism.

The first person that we know of to believe in the Immaculate Conception the way that it was defined as dogma was a British monk by the name of Edmer in the 12th century. For 1100 years, Christians got along just fine without ever even having heard of the doctrine.

So, obviously, it was not something that the Apostle Paul delivered to the Thessalonians. And therefore, anyone who uses this passage, 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, as a cover, shall we say, for presenting the idea of Roman Catholic tradition simply is misrepresenting the truth of the matter.

But all of this simply involves a gross misreading of 2 Thessalonians 2 anyways. Paul is in no way talking about some extra scriptural revelation in this passage. Instead, when we read the passage in its own immediate context, we find he is talking about something much more easily defined, and that is the Gospel itself.

Paul taught the Thessalonians the Gospel both in person as well as by his first letter to them. This can be seen easily by the fact that the term Paul uses when exhorting us to stand firm in these traditions is also used by him in 1 Corinthians 16 .13 when he says to stand firm in the faith.

Paul is not giving us a command here to hold to oral traditions. He is giving us a command here to hold to the Gospel. And it is ironic indeed that it is Rome itself that has compromised on the very Gospel itself so seriously that I would assert that the Gospel is no longer taught in the official documents of Roman Catholicism.

The Gospel and Authority in Roman Catholicism

Now, you may say, that's a pretty harsh determination. Well, I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to write a book for Bethany House Publishers called The Roman Catholic Controversy. Catholics and Protestants to the differences still matter.

This book is available from Alpha Omega Ministries. It's available from Bethany House Publishers. And the thesis of the book is we need to examine the Gospel. And when we examine the Gospel itself, we discover that what Rome teaches on the subject of the Gospel is fundamentally and foundationally different than what the New Testament teaches on that same subject.

And since the Gospel is the power of God and the salvation, that is the issue that we must discuss. You may say, well, then why are you discussing Sola Scriptura? Well, for the same reason that I did in the book The Roman Catholic Controversy.

Because you can't get around to really discussing that particular issue of the Gospel until you establish the issue of authority. You see, when I stand to teach or to preach at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, I do so on the basis of the exegesis of the text of Scripture.

The Gospel that we present is not defined for us by some document, not defined even by the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, no. The Gospel is defined by what the Scriptures teach. We exegete those passages.

We examine them in the original languages. We examine their context. We allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. And the Scriptures only present one truth, not many different truths. And so, when we present the Gospel in our church, we do so on the basis of the Scriptures.

But when you deal with Roman Catholicism on that level, that's not their ultimate authority. And in fact, when you examine even books that have been written recently attacking the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, attacking the doctrine of justification by faith, you discover that those Roman Catholics who attempt to make it look like they're doing fair, scholarly exegesis of the text of Scripture to substantiate their points, every time what you discover is that there is an ultimate authority operational beyond the Scriptures that determines what the result of that examination of Scripture is going to be.

And that is the Magisterium of Rome. A Roman Catholic cannot consistently do meaningful exegesis of the text of Scripture without running into a conflict between what the Scriptures teach and what the Roman Catholic Church teaches.

Local Church Commitment and the Safety of God's Word

Since I've made mention of it, we'd like to invite you to the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, to our Sunday school services at 9 .30 in the morning on the Lord's Day on Sunday, the worship service, Sunday morning worship service, begins at 10 .45 a .m., the evening service at 6 .30 p .m.

And we also gather for prayer on Wednesday nights. We do so at 7 p .m. And you are invited to attend at 3805 North 12th Street, that's just south of Indian School, on 12th Street, north of Osborne, but south of Indian School.

There are two churches along there. We are the southernmost church of the two, and we would certainly invite you to be a part of our services. Let me close this week with a quotation from a man by the name of John O 'Brien, a Roman Catholic.

He specifically asserted for us that the Scriptures are not a safe guide as to what we are to believe. Instead, from his perspective, you need to have the authority of the Roman Catholic Church to guide and direct you to be safe in what you believe.

I would like to say to you that true safety exists in believing only what God says and all of what God says. So where do you find that? Where do you find God speaking? That really is the issue today. Where do you find God speaking?

I submit to you that all Scripture is God-breathed. All Scripture is God-breathed, and therefore you find God speaking in His Word. That is where you find true safety. That is where you find His truth.

The Dividing Line is a presentation of Alpha and Omega Ministries. You can contact us at 602 -973 -0318, or you can write us at P .O. Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. We are easy to find on the World Wide Web at www .aomin .org.

That's www .aomin .org. You can also find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks on our website. We hope you will join us again next Saturday afternoon at 1 .30 p .m. for The Dividing Line.