Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura

Typically, our pattern is to preach passage by passage through books of the Bible—something that’s often called expository preaching. So, as many of you know, we just spend this past year going through all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah. And we’re about to spend this next year or so going through the book of Acts. That’s the next book we’ll be working our way through. But before we do that, I’d like to take five weeks and do something a little bit different and preach a series of sermons that’s actually more topical in nature. I once heard topical preaching compared to camping. You wouldn’t want to do it all the time, but it can sometimes be nice to do on occasion. And the topic we’ll be looking at for these next five weeks is what are often called the “five solas” of the Protestant Reformation. You see, this month marks the 500th anniversary of a very important event in the Protestant Reformation know as the Diet of Worms. 

Basically, here’s how it went down. You’ve probably heard of Martin Luther, right? Not the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.—I’m talking about the original, vintage Martin Luther. This Martin Luther was a German monk in the 1500’s who was the key catalyst that got the Reformation started. And at that time, the only church that existed in Europe was the Roman Catholic Church. So, of course, Luther was Catholic. And following the teachings of the church leaders of his day, Luther exhausted himself in his efforts to purge himself of his sinful tendencies and thereby earn a right standing with God. He reportedly spent up to six hours a day confessing his sins to a priest and also engaged in a variety of ascetic practices such as fasting for prolonged periods of time and going without sleep and enduring severe cold without a blanket and even whipping himself as discipline for his sins. He did it all. As he would later write, looking back on his own life, “If anyone could have earned heaven by the life of a monk, it was I.” And yet, Luther still sensed that all of his efforts and rigorous spiritual exercises and rituals weren’t enough to remove the stain of sin from his heart or to gain the favor of God. No matter how hard he tried, he could never measure up to God’s standard of perfect righteousness. But then, as he studied the Bible—especially Romans and Galatians—Luther discovered that a right standing with God doesn’t come from our own efforts or religious practices but rather through faith in Jesus. And that was the central discovery—or, we might say, re-discovery—of the Protestant Reformation. Eternal life is a gift given by grace and through faith. 

Now, not surprisingly, this didn’t really sit well with the church leaders of Luther’s day. And since there was no such thing as the separation of church and state back then, Luther was put on trial. And that trial is known as the Diet of Worms and took place 500 years ago, in 1521. At the Diet, Luther was basically given two options: either recant his scandalous teachings that went against church authorities or refuse to recant and face the consequences—which would likely involve being burned at the stake as was often done to those who were deemed heretics at the time. In response to being given these two options, Luther declared, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures, or by evident reason (for I put my faith neither in popes nor [church] councils alone, since it is established that they have erred again and again and contradicted one another), I am bound by the scriptural evidence adduced by me, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot, I will not recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one’s conscience. God help me. Amen.” 

Now, believe it or not, that didn’t really go over very well with the church authorities. So they declared Luther a heretic and an outlaw and issued a warrant for his arrest. However, one powerful ruler was on Luther’s side and actually stole him away and hid him in a castle and protected him. That enabled Luther to carry on the work of the Protestant Reformation, and the rest is history. Instead of Europe being dominated exclusively by Roman Catholicism, other denominations now arose—denominations that held biblical views about how we can be rescued from our sin and enjoy eternal life. 

And of course Luther wasn’t the only one who carried forward the work of the Protestant Reformation. He was joined by others like John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli—men who, like Luther, risked their lives for the sake of the true, biblical gospel. And these Reformers emphasized five key principles—five pillars or rallying cries, if you will—of the Reformation. These are commonly known as the “five solas” and are what we’re going to be covering in this five-week sermon series. Here’s what they are, very briefly:

• Sola Scriptura is Latin for “Scripture alone” and means that the Bible alone is our ultimate authority. Although it can certainly be helpful to study church traditions and creeds and things like that, the Bible stands above even the greatest of these and tells us definitively what to believe and how to live. And this is the one we’re going to be talking about today—sola Scriptura. 
• Then, just so you know what’s coming in future weeks, we have sola fide, which is Latin for “faith alone.” This means that we’re saved simply by faith in Jesus. We’re not saved through baptism, good works, church involvement, or anything else like that but rather through faith alone. 
• Third, sola gratia is Latin for “grace alone” and means that we’re saved purely by God’s grace and not by any merits or achievements of our own. It’s not even by a mixture of our efforts and God’s grace but by grace alone that we’re saved. 
• Then Solus Christus, as you can probably guess, is Latin for “Christ alone.” It means that Jesus alone is the one who saves us from sin and brings us into a relationship with God the Father and gives us the gift of eternal life. Our hope is in him alone to save us on the basis of his death and resurrection. 
• Then finally, we have soli Deo gloria, which means “to the glory of God alone.” And this sola is really the result or the consequence of the other four. If Scripture alone is our authority and teaches that salvation is through faith alone and by grace alone and mediated by Christ alone, then God naturally gets all the glory. 

So again, these are the five rallying cries of the Reformation that distinguished the Reformers from the Roman Catholic Church and that charted out the contours of the true biblical gospel. So today, we’re going to be talking about sola Scriptura—which is the foundation of the other solas. While soli Deo gloria is the culmination of the solas, sola Scriptura is the foundation of the solas. We might say it’s the seed out of which all of the others grow. 

And listen: my purpose in talking about sola Scriptura this morning isn’t just to help you be more informed about church history or biblical teaching or even to give you some fancy-sounding Latin phrases so that you can sound really smart when you talk. My purpose and my hope for this time is that God would get ahold of your heart and give you a love and a longing for his Word. In my prayers, I’ve found myself continually coming back to Psalm 19:10, where David writes, Speaking of God’s words in the Bible, “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” That’s my desire for this sermon—that we would come to regard God’s words as more precious than gold and as sweeter than honey. So I’m going to be sharing a lot of information with you this morning—a lot of history, a lot of facts, a lot of ideas. But just know that I’m sharing all of this with the hope that it will help you have the same kind of regard for God’s Word that David exhibits in Psalm 19. If this sermon doesn’t cause us regard the Bible as more precious than gold and sweeter than honey, I’d have to wonder whether we really accomplished anything today. 

Now, as I mentioned, sola Scriptura means that Scripture alone is our ultimate authority. We might say it’s the authority over all other authorities. Now, there are other sources of insight that can be very helpful to us such as church traditions and doctrinal statements and godly leaders in the church, but Scripture is the ultimate authority—the authority over all of those other authorities. I’ve heard it said that while all of those other things play a ministerial role, Scripture plays a magisterial role. And that simply means that all of those other authorities should only be followed to the degree that they align with Scripture and are consciously recognized as subservient to Scripture. Scripture alone is our ultimate authority. And you can see this view of Scripture quite clearly in the story of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms that I shared. Luther told them, straight up, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures, or by evident reason [that is, reason drawn from Scripture], I am bound by the scriptural evidence adduced by me, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot, I will not recant anything.” So, essentially, Luther was declared a heretic and an outlaw because of his stand for sola Scriptura. That was the chief grievance that the church authorities of the day had against him. 

You see, the Roman Catholic Church had the view—and actually still has the view—of a trifold authority structure—that is, an authority structure that consists of three components: Scripture, church tradition, and something called the Magisterium. And it’s really helpful to understand these three components in order to understand sola Scriptura and the historical context in which sola Scriptura arose and what kinds of beliefs it was formulated to combat. So, looking at these three components, I think we’re all pretty clear about what Scripture is, so that doesn’t require much explanation. Then we have church tradition, which is actually regarded by Catholicism not just as something that you have alongside Scripture but as the very thing that gave birth to Scripture. Basically, Jesus transmitted certain truths and observances to the apostles, who in turn transmitted those truths and observances to the next generation of church leaders, who in turn transmitted them to the next generation, and on and on right down to the present day. And that transmission is called “tradition,” or sometimes, more formally, “Sacred Tradition.” And part of that tradition is found in the Bible, but not all of it. There’s still plenty of tradition that carries the full authority of God that’s not recorded in the Bible and that’s instead manifested in church creeds and observances and other church teachings. So we might say that, according to Roman Catholicism, tradition is like the mother of this family and that it had several different babies, the most important of which is Scripture. So Scripture comes from church tradition and is a part of church tradition. 

And then, the third component of this trifold authority structure is the Magisterium. And the Magisterium is a fancy word, but it simply refers to the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church. And the central component of that teaching office is the pope. The pope is understood to be the successor of the Apostle Peter and has the ability to make official pronouncements that are regarded as the very words of God himself—words that do not err and that carry full divine authority. These official pronouncements are referred to as the pope speaking ex cathedra. And that’s the core feature of the Magisterium. And there are other examples of the Magisterium as well, such as official church councils and the universal teaching of church bishops who are in alignment with the pope. But it all basically revolves around the pope. And, just to be clear, the Catholic Church wouldn’t say that the pope invents new doctrines—they’d say he gives further explanation to church tradition. So how do we know what church tradition teaches? How do we know what Scripture teaches? Well, basically, it teaches whatever the pope says it teaches—and that’s the end of it. The pope will be preserved by God from any error at all and is able to speak with the authority of God, according to Catholicism. 

So, in Martin Luther’s day, the institutionalized church—the Roman Catholic Church—essentially held a monopoly on theology. Kind of like a corporation today might monopolize a certain industry by eliminating all competition. Whenever that happens, people basically have no other choice but to use that corporation. That corporation has a monopoly in that it dominates everything. And that’s the way it was with the Catholic Church in the 1500’s and how Roman Catholic leaders still view the Church today. No other group or individual is allowed to “do” their own theology. Instead, everyone just needs to listen to Catholic Church leaders and believe whatever they’re told to believe and do whatever they’re told to do. 

Now it’s important to understand that the Reformers like Martin Luther and the others I mentioned weren’t rejecting the idea that church traditions are important or that church leaders are important. They weren’t just advocating some kind of theological free-for-all. They had a very high view of church traditions and the need for godly church leaders. However, they believed that Scripture alone is the supreme authority—the authority over all other authorities. All other traditions and all other teachings have to be judged by their correspondence to the Word of God in Scripture. So according to the Reformers, church tradition didn’t give birth to Scripture. Rather, Scripture stands over church tradition. That’s what’s meant by sola Scriptura. 

And very briefly, there are four aspects of sola Scriptura that I’d like to go over with you. I really wish we had the time to dig deep into each one of these, but we don’t, so we’re just going to have to cover them very briefly. 

First, the inspiration of the Bible. And inspiration simply means that every word of the Bible comes from God. I believe 2 Timothy 3:16 says it best when it states that “all Scripture is breathed out by God.” Another translation says, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” Everything you read in the Bible comes from God himself. 2 Peter 1:20-21 puts it this way: 20 …no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So it’s true that people wrote the Bible. But as they wrote, they were “carried along by the Holy Spirit.” And that’s why the Bible’s our ultimate authority. It gets its authority from God himself. And because there’s no authority higher than God, that also means there’s no authority higher than the Bible. 

We can see this pretty clearly in Acts 17:11, which says this about the Jews in Berea: “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” So understand what’s going on here. The great Apostle Paul—capital “A” Apostle Paul—was teaching the Jews of Berea certain things about Jesus. And the Bereans were examining the scriptures themselves to see if Paul’s teachings did indeed line up with the scriptures. They were evaluating him in light of the Bible. Now, if sola Scriptura weren’t true, that wouldn’t at all be a commendable thing to do. It would be highly inappropriate—because remember that Paul was an Apostle, right? But we see here that the Bereans viewed the Bible as their final authority and judged the teachings even of the great Apostle Paul in light of the Bible. And they’re not criticized for doing that—they’re commended. It says that they’re “noble” for doing that.  Also, Jesus presupposes that the Bible is authoritative over religious leaders and traditions when he rebukes the Pharisees in Mark 7:9. He says, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” Then a few verses down in verse 13, he tells them that they’re “making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.” Why is Jesus rebuking them for doing this? It’s because he’s presupposing sola Scriptura—that Scripture alone is the ultimate authority. And the reason it alone is the ultimate authority is because it alone is inspired—or breathed out—by God.

Then, not only is Scripture inspired, it’s also inerrant, which means that it’s without error. And this idea of the inerrancy of the Bible is a natural and unavoidable consequence of the inspiration of the Bible. Because God inspired every word of the Bible and because he never lies or says things that aren’t true, then we can be confident that the Bible is 100% true and trustworthy. It’s truth without any mixture of error. We can see this clearly taught in Psalm 19, where it says that “the law of the Lord is perfect” and that “the testimony of the Lord is sure” and that “the rules of the Lord are true.” We can see this also in Matthew 5:18, where Jesus states unequivocally that “Scripture cannot be broken.” We can see it also in his high-priestly prayer to the Father in John 17:17, where he tells the Father, “Your word is truth.”

So we have the inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the Bible, and then third we have the sufficiency of the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church would say that the Bible needs to be supplemented with various teachings and traditions not found in the Bible. In other words, the Bible is incomplete. Yet the Reformers argued that, even though there are obviously many truths that aren’t in the Bible—such as truths about science and history and math and things like that--everything we need to know in order to be saved and live a healthy Christian life is contained in the pages of Scripture. We find decisive evidence for this in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which states, 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Did you hear that? “complete, equipped for every good work.” Not partially equipped—completely equipped. If we need to know it, the Bible teaches it to us. If we have the Bible—and of course the Holy Spirit to give us insight into the Bible—then we’re not lacking in anything we need in order to live the life God’s called us to live. 

Then the fourth and final aspect of sola Scriptura is, I believe, the most encouraging—that that is the clarity of the Bible. So we have the inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the Bible, the sufficiency of the Bible, and now the clarity of the Bible. And the clarity of the Bible doesn’t mean that the Bible’s always easy to interpret in every area. That’s obviously not true. Rather, the clarity of the Bible means that the Bible’s written in such a way that it’s possible for the average person to understand its basic teachings. Contrary to the claims of Roman Catholicism, you don’t need trained clergy or church authorities tell you what the central teachings of the Bible are. If you just read the Bible yourself and put a little effort into it, you can discern its central teachings without too much difficulty. You can read it and learn what you need to learn in order to be saved. Now, obviously, church leaders who have received training in this area are still very important. The Bible itself talks about how important church leaders are and how critical it is for Christians to receive solid biblical teaching from their leaders. But at the same time, the simple fact is that God’s spoken because he wants to be heard. He wants to be understood. And so, he’s communicated in such a way that the average person can understand what he’s saying. We can see this in the Bible in the several different instances in which Jesus rebuked people—and even rebuked untrained people at times—for their failure to understand what had been written in the scriptures. He expected them to be able to understand what was written. Also, the Apostle Paul wrote most of his letters not just to church leaders but to whom? Entire church congregations, right? He expected ordinary Christians to understand the things he was saying. 

And by the way, this teaching of the clarity of Scripture is a pretty big deal historically. It’s why no small number of Christians leading up to the Reformation and certainly after the Reformation have risked their lives and, in many cases, given their lives in order to translate the Bible into the common vernacular—the common language. For example, I think of William Tyndale, a man who lived in England in the 1500’s. And you have to understand that back at that time in England, reading the Bible in English was actually a capital offense—meaning that you would be killed if you were caught doing it. But William Tyndale dared to defy this law and bravely attempted an English translation. Not surprisingly, he was persecuted and found it necessary to relocate to Germany and work on his English translation there. Yet even in Germany, his life was still in danger since the English authorities had discovered what he was doing—despite his best attempts to be secretive—and had sent agents to harass him and have him arrested. 

But Tyndale nevertheless managed to complete his translation and actually translated the Bible not from Latin but from the original languages the Bible had been written in—Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament. Then, he used the printing press to print a bunch of these new English Bibles and have them smuggled into England. Naturally, of course, the English authorizes were furious and did everything they could to keep these Bibles from getting into people’s hands, seizing and burning as many as they could. Yet many of the Bibles did get distributed and for the first time, thousands of people were able to read the Bible in their own language. However, the English authorities did finally manage to catch up with Tyndale and have him arrested, and in August of 1536, he was formally condemned as a heretic and eventually burned at the stake. And get this, guys: the reason William Tyndale risked his life and ultimately gave his life was because he believed in this doctrine of the clarity of Scripture. He believed that ordinary people could understand the Bible and should therefore have access to the Bible. He believed in sola Scriptura. 

And I hope that the story of William Tyndale and really all of the things we’ve learned this morning about sola Scriptura are a great reminder for us of how precious the Bible is. Again, as Psalm 19:10 says about God’s words, “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” God’s Word is so precious that it would be worth doing what Tyndale did and giving your life so that people could read it. 

And yet, when you hear the story of men like Tyndale, I hope you see the irony of our present situation. Unlike those people in history who didn’t even have the Bible available in their language, we now have unprecedented access to the Bible. We have dozens of translations available in the English language along with more study tools than we even know what to do with. And these are available not only in print form but also in apps on our phones—which means that it’s all available at our fingertips wherever we go. Yet it seems as though the more access we have to the Bible, the easier it is for us to take the Bible for granted. It seems as though the more convenient studying the Bible becomes, the less we’re inclined to actually do it. So in a twist of tragic irony, we end up being in a place that’s not all that different from the people in England before William Tyndale—only our access to the Bible is hindered not by corrupt church authorities but by the unrelenting barrage of distractions and forms of entertainment that so often pull us away from any serious engagement with the scriptures. Oh that God would set us free from that—and use these teachings of sola Scriptura to remind us of our how precious his Word really is and motivate us to stop making excuses and start reading the Bible on our own every single day—letting God’s Word soak into our minds and shape our hearts and transform our lives. 

As John Wesley famously stated, “I want to know one thing,—the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. For this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri”—the Latin phrase for “a man of one book.”

And of course, the reason why the Bible’s so precious is because it does indeed show us, as Wesley said, the way to heaven. It shows us how we can have a relationship with God. You see, the doctrine of sola Scriptura is valuable because it sets us on a certain trajectory—a trajectory of looking to the Bible to see what it says about God and how we can know God and how we can be saved from our sin and enjoy a relationship with God for all eternity. And that message is encapsulated as well as anywhere, I suppose, in  1 Timothy 2:5-6, which tells us that, 5 [T]here is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all…. That is the central message of the Bible. Even though you and I are alienated from God because of our sin, Jesus is our mediator—our only mediator. And the reason he’s able to be our mediator, this verse says, is because he “gave himself as a ransom for all.” Jesus died on the cross to suffer the punishment for our sins and thereby make it possible for us to be reconciled to God. Then three days after he died, Jesus triumphantly resurrected from the dead so that anyone who put their trust in him can enjoy the free gift of eternal life.