Preached on Reformation Sunday 2005 at St Johns Church Bournemouth
Our message this morning is going to differ slightly from the normal approach of taking a single Bible passage and considering how we should live it out. Instead we are going to look at an important doctrinal theme, and dip into several Bible passages as we go. I have been asked to preach on the subject Sola Scriptura which means scripture alone.
At the Reformation a key question arose: where do we find divine truth for the people of God? How can we know how to be saved and how to live the Christian life? And two very different answers were given.
- The Roman Catholic church insisted, and insists to this day, on a threefold answer. That the Bible is God's word but is not enough on its own to reveal a knowledge of God's will to Christians without the addition of church tradition, with both Bible and tradition being authoritatively interpreted by the Roman Church through popes and Church councils. Roman Catholic theologian John Eck said, "The Scriptures are not authentic, except by the authority of the church." Pope Pius IX took this to its logical conclusion saying of himself: "I am tradition." Or in other words, the pope alone is the final authority on interpreting and communicating the word of God. Many held, and still hold, that the church wrote the Bible and therefore has primary authority over it.
- The protestant reformers gave a very different answer. John Wycliffe and, later, Martin Luther, insisted that the Bible on its own reveals everything that is necessary for salvation and is the only infallible and absolutely authoritative rule of life and faith for the church of Jesus Christ. In other words, everything that we must believe to be a Christian is in the Bible. And that means that the Bible is the touchstone by which any other authority is evaluated.
Rather than God's word being obscure without the Catholic Church interpreting it, through the pope, the reformers said that the Bible is the living Word of the Holy Spirit and that while tradition, teachers and wise leaders of this or previous generations are of great benefit to the church, they all sit under the authority of the Bible, not the other way around.
To summarise,
- The catholic answer to "how does God reveal himself through the Bible and govern the church" is: through the teaching authority of the pope in present and past tradition.
- The evangelical answer, to quote John Stott, is that "Christ rules his church through scripture." Article 6 of the 39 Articles of the Church of England puts it very well:
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may not be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith, or thought to be requisite or necessary to salvation.
All this leads us to two questions:
- Why is scripture sufficient for salvation and the Christian life on its own?
- Why is the answer to this question important?
The reason the Bible is sufficient for salvation and the Christian life on its own is because of what the Bible actually is. It is God revealing Himself, through the message about Himself, inspired and illuminated by the Holy Spirit of God Himself.
1 Peter 1:12 says "it was revealed to the [Old Testament prophets] that they were not serving themselves but you when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven."
So the apostolic gospel was preached by people but given and undergirded by the Holy Spirit. And because the Bible is the voice of the Spirit it is alive and effective:
Hebrews 4:12: "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."
Because the Bible is the voice of the Spirit God accomplishes salvation through the word:
1 Peter 1:23: "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God…and this is the word that was preached to you."
And because the Bible is the voice of the Holy Spirit God uses it to equip for every eventuality in the Christian life:
2 Tim 3:15: "[the Holy Scriptures] are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
The Bible is sufficient because it is the Holy Spirit speaking. It isn't the only way the Spirit speaks, but it is the pre-eminent one by which all other words and prophecies must be tested. Church of England Article 20 says it is "God's word written." It is the only way God has promised to reveal himself clearly and understandably, and he does whenever we come to it, humbly and with faith. That is why the Psalmist could say that he trembled at God's word. It is mighty and powerful. It is God-breathed, God-exhaled. His words, coming on the breath of His Spirit, bringing life, causing faith to rise in our hearts, leading us to worship and exult in him.
The Bible says in John's gospel that we are cleansed by the word, sanctified by the word, that we believe through the word and we have life through the word. And we don't get those things, and many other blessings, without the eternal word of God. People don't get to know God without the word.
I hope you can start to see why this doctrine of Sola Scriptura, scripture alone, is so important. There have always been those who would like to put God's word in second place or alongside other things, or who think that the Bible is less interesting that religious practice or experience. I would be the first to admit that I have led some boring Bible studies in my time, and if people have a perpetual diet of boring stuff it might explain why they want to elevate other things above getting into God's word. One of my mottos now is "no more boring Bible studies." Taking God's mighty, eternal word and making it dull is abominable.
Nevertheless there are all sorts of things that clamour for first place in the Christian life above God's word. At the Reformation and in the Roman church today it is the place of the teaching that you have to have a priest to tell you what God is saying and to mediate with God for you. You don't have direct access. You can't hear the Spirit speaking through the Word as you open it. And the heart and power are ripped out of the Christian life.
In liberal theology it is not the church but the individual who has authority over the Bible. The Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold proudly said recently "the Episcopal church has certainly gone beyond scripture." and bishop Bennison of Pennsylvania said "because we wrote the Bible we can rewrite it." I hope that hearing that kind of comment from the mouths of bishops shocks you to the core. It should.
To give another example. A little while ago someone said to me: "surely if the Bible says one thing but I deeply feel the opposite then my feelings are the only really reliable thing I have to go on?" That person was a Christian but had started to believe that she can't approach the Bible with confidence that it speaks any more truthfully or reliably than our feelings, or than anything else. For that person her own internal thoughts and desires had become the only thing she believed she could trust. That is very common in our day. We live in a feelings first society where God's word is under suspicion just for claiming to be true.
The Reformers would say to that woman not to put her confidence for living the Christian life in anything plus the Bible. Not feelings plus the Bible (only when the Bible happens to affirm what she already feels), any more than priesthood and pope plus the Bible. Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone. We don't need any more special revelation. I believe strongly in contemporary prophecy but God is not giving inerrant words any more. In the Bible we have everything we need for judging all other knowledge.
2 Corinthians 3 teaches that when we come to Christ the veil that separates our hearts from knowing and seeing the glory of God is removed. We can gaze on his glory and when we do we are transformed by the Holy Spirit from one degree of glory to another with ever increasing glory. The gospel is transformational by the Holy Spirit.
And that tells me what my task as a preacher is – that I have to so open up the Bible that you see Christ there and apprehend his glory. And 2 Cor. says that when that happens there is going to be gospel transformation. That is what sermons and Bible messages and home groups are for. But it all depends on gazing on Christ and seeing his glory in the Word given us by the Holy Spirit. No Bible, no revelation. No revelation, no glory. No glory, no transformation. Take the Bible away as the rule of faith, replace it with other things, and we cease to hear God speak. The glory dissipates and the power seeps out of our Christian lives. No knowledge of God, no power for victory over sin, no ethical response to the good news of Jesus, no transformation.
Dear friends, let's be utterly committed to the Bible together at St Johns. Lets love sitting under biblical teaching, lets urge and spur each other on to live out the glorious gospel, let's regularly ask each other what God is teaching us through it and how we are being changed from glory to glory through the living and enduring word.