Scripture Alone

Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Hi and welcome to Renewed Mind. I'm your host, Romul Ghussein, and today we have with us Dr. James White, who will be discussing with us the very interesting subject of Scripture alone.

The Reformation Recovery of Justification by Faith Alone and Sola Scriptura

First of all, welcome to the show, James. Good to be with you. Now please tell us, what were the two great principles that were rediscovered in the period of the Reformation?

Well, you know, the Reformation is a tremendous period in church history and world history, in fact. And during that period of time, many different influences came together to form a period of time where there was great study of the Word of God and a great freedom that was granted to the people of God.

And two particular issues came out from that great struggle, and it was a struggle as Europe came out of the medieval period and entered into the modern period. And the first was the belief in justification by faith alone.

This was the great thing that moved Martin Luther, that he recognized that there was nothing that he could do. It was not by his penances and by his works that he could make himself right before God. But, of course, that immediately became attacked.

And so he, in defending that concept, which he had found in Scripture, began to realize that it was outside sources that were being used as the foundation for attacking his belief in sola fide, or faith alone.

And so he was forced to think through the issue of authority. What is the Christian's authority? Is the Bible just one part of the Christian's authority? An important part, but just one part. And are there other parts that are equal to the Scripture in authority?

And maybe even superior to the Scripture in authority? In the sense that there are some, even to this day, who believe that the Scriptures are so unclear and so difficult in and of themselves that you need to have an inspired and infallible interpreter of the Scriptures for them to have any use, even to the point of where I've heard people basically saying that to read the Bible without such an infallible interpreter is dangerous for your soul.

And so he had to deal with the question, what is the relationship of the Scripture to all other claimed sources of authority? And from that came, really, it's not the first time this had been enunciated.

When you go back to the early church, you will find that many people spoke of Scripture in such a way as they recognized its ultimate authority. Even when they recognized lesser authorities, they recognized Scripture as having the ultimate authority.

But what came out of that is a doctrine that is associated with the Reformation because it became so central called sola scriptura, which does not mean the Scripture by itself without the Holy Spirit.

It does not mean the Scripture outside of the church, as if the church is irrelevant, as if there's no importance of teaching authority in the elders of the church or anything like that. It is not a claim that the Bible is an exhaustive encyclopedia of everything you could ever want to ask about anything in the universe.

There are some people who think that sola scriptura means it is the sole source of truth. Well, no, if you want to rebuild the automatic transmission on your car, you better not be looking to the Bible for the instructions on how to do that.

But I would say that what makes the world make sense so that we can have regularity of nature so that I can repair my automatic transmission is found in the principles found in Scripture, but not the specifics.

And people like to say, well, the Scriptures can't be the... sola scriptura can't be true because it doesn't address this question directly or that question directly. That's not what sola scriptura is about.

Scripture as the Sole Infallible Rule of Faith

What is it about? The proper definition of the phrase is, the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith for the church. Now, that might mean that there are lesser rules of faith. I'm an elder in a Reformed Baptist church, and we have a rule of faith called the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, which means we are stuck in the Puritan age and are frequently referred to as Puritans, and we take that as a badge of honor, even when it's not meant that way.

But we have a statement of faith that anybody who wants to know what is it that you believe, what defines your worship and your proclamation, they can go to this document, and here it is. Now, is that equal to the Bible?

No. It is less than the Bible, and when we say sola scriptura, what we're saying is even if we have a rule of faith, it must be corrected on the basis of the greater authority of what Scripture itself says, and it all goes back to what we believe about Scripture.

You see, the Apostle Paul, when he wrote to Timothy, wasn't telling Timothy something Timothy didn't already know, when he said in 2 Timothy 3 .16 that all Scripture is theanoustos. It is God-breathed.

And this is a very high term, very important term, that expresses to us the very nature of Scripture as being God-speaking. And sola scriptura is basically saying there is no other example that we have in any writing, whether it be, say, post-biblical writings, even writings of the early church fathers that were very close to the time of the New Testament, such as Clement's letter to the Corinthians, or Ignatius' epistles, and things like that.

In no other writing, or in church councils, or in St. Augustine, or whatever else it might be, in nothing else do we find an example of that which is theanoustos, that which is literally God-speaking to us.

And so sola scriptura is saying Scripture is the only theanoustos, God-breathed revelation that has been entrusted to the church, and therefore it has an absolutely unique authority in and of itself.

So does that mean that the authority of Scripture is to judge all matters?

Scripture, the Lordship of Christ, and Everyday Life

All matters of life and godliness. And, of course, then we would say that because the nature of Scripture, the patterns, the principles that are laid down for us, then become the basis upon which we interact with, well, the rest of the world around us.

I mean, let's face it, one of the problems that people have about Christianity, as they say, it's the 21st century. You're wedded to a book from the 1st century. How can that have relevance for us today, when you continue to insist that it's actually God-breathed and all the rest of this stuff?

How can you deal with all the scientific advancements and the changes in society and science and genetics and things like that? And what we're saying is God doesn't have to re-inspire His Word. He doesn't have to come up with a new revelation.

He's the one who made us. He knows what is right for us in any situation, and He gives to us guidelines that become the foundation from which we reason in a godly fashion under the Lordship of Christ to respond to all of these issues that come to us today.

That might mean that on application issues, Christians might disagree with one another on certain things. But let's face it, in the vast majority of instances, when you look at the churches that seek to apply sola scriptura, say, this is God's Word, it was true when given, it remains true to this day, and we are going to do everything in our power to live in light of its revelation.

When you compare the conclusions they come to, will there be differences amongst them? Let me give a good example. Some of my closest brothers in the Lord are Presbyterians. I am a Reformed Baptist. We agree on so many things.

We agree about sola fide. We agree about sola scriptura. We agree about the nature of the Gospel. We disagree on the proper subjects of baptism. And we even have debates about it. They are brotherly debates.

We still have areas of disagreement. However, we have complete agreement on who God is, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the deity of Christ, the person of the Holy Spirit, the nature of the Gospel, justification by faith.

All these things we have complete union on. When you look at groups that reject sola scriptura and say, oh, you can't trust the Bible, you need to have an external authority, is there almost anything they agree on?

I mean, let's face it. The Mormons reject sola scriptura. They end up with other books of Scripture. The Jehovah's Witnesses reject the historic application of sola scriptura because they have a group called the Governing Body that has total authority, not only the translation of Scripture, but the interpretation of Scripture.

And they end up believing completely different things. So while many people would say, well, if you believe in sola scriptura, it results in all these different churches, that's just not the case. I would submit to you, it is the rejection of sola scriptura that is at the foundation of the vast majority of differences that exist between Christians who believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

Even to this day, where people will say, well, the Lord told me this, rather than going to the Word of God to look at it, almost claiming latter-day revelation, how does that fit in with sola scriptura?

And does that not lead to so many of the divisions we have today?

Ultimately, I mean, if we reject the Word of God completely, not even just partially, it would lead to atheism, it would lead to a complete rejection of God. And I know what you're saying here is that if you reject the authority of Scripture and if you include other things, tradition or other books, then definitely you're going to be led astray in so many different areas.

Not only that, you're also not going to be able to honestly look at someone and say, this is what the Word of God says. Because when you take your tradition and make it the norm, and it's the means by which you interpret the Bible, that's your ultimate authority.

No longer God speaking in His Word, it is now this tradition tells me that this is what this says. It in essence is doing what D .A. Carson in his famous book, the title of which was The Gagging of God.

It is, if we really want God to speak, then we have to take seriously what His Word said in its original context. When we don't do that, we may say that what I'm saying is, thus saith the Lord, but we really don't have any authority for doing that.

So what you're talking about is the interpretation of Scripture. If you have another means, okay. Now, how does that connect with also the 95 Theses and Martin Luther with what he did?

Martin Luther, the 95 Theses, and the Printing Press

Well, you know, on October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther walked up to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany, and he nailed the 95 Theses up. Now, most people think this was a great act of protest, and no one had ever thought of doing this.

I mean, if someone nailed something to the front door of my church, what are you doing messing up the door of my church? But actually, there was already all sorts of stuff there because that was the community bulletin board.

He wasn't doing anything unusual. What he was doing, he was simply a professor at the church at Wittenberg, at the University of Wittenberg, and he was challenging someone to debate the subject of indulgences.

Now, what he didn't realize was that God had brought all these things together so that at this time, in this place in history, when he did that, some enterprising young guy came along, read them, and went, ooh, this is juicy.

And now you had a thing called the printing press. And so he grabs these things, he copies them off, and he starts distributing them. And overnight, Martin Luther becomes a celebrity because he has given voice to what, look, the concept of indulgences, buying God's grace, even the people of the land who didn't have much theological education realized this was a gross abuse of the Christian gospel.

It was actually a tax. The money was being used to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. And it was going out of Germany to do it, and the Germans didn't like it. And so though Luther then eventually did have a debate on that subject against a man by the name of Johann Eck, it was at that debate that Luther was pushed to really begin to understand that if he rejected indulgences, then he had to reject the authority upon which the indulgences were being promulgated, which was the authority of the papacy, which then forced him to go, well, what's the foundation of that, which forced him to go back to the scriptures, which then people said, but you can't go back to the scriptures without an infallible interpreter, which is what then led to his understanding of sola scriptura.

So it was the practical, pastoral thing. I mean, Luther was a priest in a parish, and he saw people abusing these indulgences. So it was a very practical thing that he saw in conflict with the Christian life that then forced him to think through all the traditions that had built up over time until he got back to the bedrock and realized, we have to go with what scripture has taught us.

And hence, a few years later, he's at the Diet of Worms, and he's standing before the emperor, and he's told, you must recant of these things. And tradition says, whether he said it with a bold voice or anything, it's not probably the case.

But tradition says that Luther said, I cannot go against conscience. Unless you show me from scripture where these things are wrong, I cannot go against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.

And that really is taking a stand on sola scriptura against the authority of an established ecclesiastical hierarchy at that time.

And then basically after that, there was a great rift between those who were seen as the lower class and those who were seen as clergy. I mean, we lived in a period in which the Bible really was chained to the pulpit.

And so people were unable to freely read the Word of God so that they could see what God wanted them to do. Simply what was happening is that it was being interpreted to them through the clergy at the time.

And so they really didn't know. But what they were teaching really had a lot to do with the traditions rather than what scripture said. Because, I mean, Luther himself was quite surprised, wasn't he, when he was challenged to read the scriptures, what he found in there.

Is that right? Well, he was already a scripture scholar. But the real change here was the idea that the plowman and the woman at her washing should have direct access, unmediated access to the Word of God.

The church found that, the Roman church, they found that to be an incredibly dangerous thing. And, of course, only a few years later, the Peasants' Revolt broke out in Germany. And Luther was horrified that people were blaming him for all of this.

And, as you know, there were a couple of hundred years' worth of civil unrest and war in Europe that resulted from the breakdown of the medieval culture. And a lot of it came back to this granting of freedoms to the plowman, to the farmer, to the non-clergy person, to have direct access and to even have an opinion on matters of faith, rather than just simply top-down, here's what you believe, you don't even need to have the Word of God, you don't even need to have access to the Word of God, just believe what we have to say, we will interpret it for you.

And so, as a result, translations had been done into what are called vulgar languages before this, but they were not designed to be distributed widely. It was the Protestant movement that really lay behind the mass distribution of Scripture and the mass instruction of the peoples in what the Scriptures actually said.

Scripture, the Early Church, and Access for Every Believer

So, was that the intent of God? Does God want every person to have access to His Word or to at least be able to hear it?

Well, I don't think there's any question that when you look at the history of the Church, one of the most important things to remember in the early Church is that when you had a copy of... almost no one had a New Testament back then, because the New Testament was being written.

So, if you had a copy of Paul's letter to the Church in Rome, was the Christian idea to keep that in, and to know who are you, are you the proper person to copy this or to read this, or this is sort of our book?

No, the attitude was copy it, distribute it, spread the Word all over the place. There's very important ramifications for that in the accuracy of the transmission of Scripture. It's one of the reasons we can honestly say no one ever edited the Scripture and put things in or took things out.

That's a whole other area. But it does demonstrate that the early Church had the attitude, everyone is to have access to the Word of God. It is not to be hidden away in a clergy class and just sort of doled out as we see fit.

And so the Reformation really was a return to that primitive idea that you can trust the Spirit of God to work in the hearts of the people of God to bring about His truth. Now, does it result when you grant religious freedom?

Will there be an abuse of that? Will there be falsehood and errors? Let me ask you a question. Was there falsehood and error in the early Church? If there wasn't, why in the world were they writing most of those letters?

So, you know, we really do see in the Reformation return to those early principles.

And so without the Scriptures, people would not know how to approach God. They would not know how to worship God. They would not know how to be saved. And so my question would be is that if people choose to live apart from Scripture, I mean, one thing that I face today, and I'm trying to bring this into the practical element of a believer, of a Christian, is that there are many tendencies to read so many other books, spiritual books, yet we forget to read the Bible, God's Word.

And sometimes we need to understand the importance of Scripture alone. Because, I mean, whilst these other books are helpful and wonderful, yet we need to test them by the plumb line or the weight of Scripture to ensure what they're teaching and saying is true.

We truly have the privilege of having direct access to communion with God and communication with God by His Word. The Reformation principle was that it is the Scriptures and the Spirit together. The Scriptures without the Spirit's working, a dead letter.

The Spirit without the Scriptures leads to emotion, but not to the revelation which the Spirit Himself gave. It is the two that must be united together. And we have a tremendous privilege as believers.

There are certain books that I've read that have had a huge impact on my life, huge impact on my life, but nothing in comparison to the meditation upon the Word of God. And especially, Rommel, in my experience as an apologist over the decades, seeing the harmony and consistency of the Word of God being challenged by, I've had the opportunity of being challenged by the best in many, many areas.

And really having to dig into the Word of God and to find those golden threads that are woven through the tapestry of Scripture. I know that's a very commonly used illustration, but it's a good illustration.

It's a very good illustration, because it really does point you to how you can find these threads that start in Genesis, and you find them again in Isaiah, and they come out in Matthew, and then they're found in Paul, and they peak out again in Revelation.

And it's beautiful to see that. And no book that you can read will ever get you close to the kind of intimate communion that takes place between a believer and his Lord when we approach the Word of God, realize it is God speaking to us, and we come to it obedient and humble, desirous to hear from God and His Word.

The Church, the Spirit, and the Proper Use of Authority

So some churches have claimed to themselves the right to be able to interpret Scripture. And so they say that specifically that the Holy Spirit works through them. Now we understand from Scripture that the Holy Spirit gives illumination to the Scriptures and also gives guidance or interpretation to the Scriptures.

And so is it true that the Holy Spirit only uses one particular church or one particular group of people?

Well, I would say yes, as long as you define what church it is, because there are true believers in a wide number of churches. Now I obviously believe there are certain churches that are firmly opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so if you have other scriptures, if you bring in that type of thing, that's a whole other issue. But what we're talking about here is what is the proper biblical balance when it comes to the individual believer, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, the interpretation of Scripture, and the church.

I am a churchman. I cannot read the New Testament without seeing the centrality of the body of Christ to God's purposes in this world. And the apostles who taught me Sola Scriptura went from town to town establishing churches and appointing elders in those churches.

And those same apostles said, be in subjection to those who have the rulership over you in Hebrews 13 and 17. I've got to take all that together. I can't take just one part of it over here or just one part of it over there.

So I have to take Sola Scriptura, the ultimate authority of Scripture, but I also have to recognize that God does not want us to be lone ranger Christians out there under a tree with our Bible and not in communion with other believers.

Because, let's face it, it's easy to sit in your easy chair and say, I love the brethren, as long as you don't have to have anything to do with them. But when you have to live with them, when you have to interact with them, when you have to minister with them, that's when you become conformed to the image of Christ and get sanctified.

Because all of a sudden there is this need to put up with, well, to extend forgiveness to others and to seek forgiveness from others and all these other things that humble us and make us more like Christ.

So there's this beautiful balance that I find, and I believe the balance is to be found in the fact that we have the church, that there are elders in the church that are gifted and are called to teach and preach the Word of God, and that the individuals in the church are called to support that ministry and to learn and to grow, and we get to learn from other people.

I have learned from so many others. I don't start from scratch. I'm not a tabula rasa, an empty tablet that God has to start from nothing and totally rebuild the church from. I've learned so much, not only from other men in my own lifetime, teachers and professors and things like that, but from those in the past.

We stand on the shoulders of giants. Now, does that mean they had to have been inspired? Does that mean we cannot critically examine them? I cannot think of a single theologian of the past, no matter how great they were, that I am in 100 agreement with every single thing they said.

In fact, one of the greatest things I've learned to do, and one of the things that I hope gives me a sense of historical humility, is I look back at men, and in certain areas, just absolute brilliance and insight that I've benefited so much from.

But then in other areas, wow, how did I not see that one? Well, if that was the case with them, it's probably the case with me too. And so I need to be humble, and I need to recognize I've probably got my blind spots too.

And that keeps you from going overboard, shall we say. And that humility in the face of the Word of God, I think, is a very important thing.

It's a real liberty to be able to see and privilege that God has allowed us to discover His Word, and to be able to understand the mind of God through His Word. And so He wants us to be able to go to the authority of Scripture.

And I think you've reminded us once again of the importance of Scripture. Thank you. Thank you. To our viewers, we really hope and pray that you found this episode to be immensely challenging. The authority of Scripture is for every person's life.

If you don't know what Scripture is, and if you don't know God's mind through Scripture, we encourage you and challenge you to open up God's book and to read it. Please stay in tune for the very next episode of Renewed Mind.