Sola Scriptura

Today I would like to start a series of messages to go along with the “Why we believe” or “What we believe” or “Why we believe what we believe” series. This, God willing, will be a five part series on the five Solas of the reformation, and as you can see from the title this is part one and in this first part I would like to cover the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. We will be visiting several passages in the bible but the main focus today will be on 2 Timothy 3:16. Please turn there, we will also be surveying several other scriptures so you may want to have a notebook and jot down the other scriptures we will be referencing. Before we get into the message lets pray.

Now before we get into what Sola’s are and what Sola Scripurua means let us read 2 Timothy 3:16

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

This series will be covering the 5 Sola’s of reformed theology, first what is a Sola? Sola is a Latin adjective that means alone or by oneself. The 5 solas, or the 5 reformed alones are:

The 5 Solas

Sola Scriptura, which we are going to cover today, it translates to scripture alone, or by scripture alone.

Sola Fide, by or through faith alone.

Sola Gratia, by or through grace alone.

Solus Christus, through Christ alone.

and Soli Deo Gloria, for the glory of God alone or to God alone be the glory

I know I said the 5 Solas and two of them do not start with Sola, but Solus is the masculine form of sola, which is feminine, and soli is the dative form of sola, which is the Latin grammatical case to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, just some Latin language things. All of them mean the same thing though, alone, only or by oneself. Why Latin, because at the time when the terms were conceived, starting around the 14th century the bible was predominantly written in Latin.

Today we are going to look at Sola Scriptura, I will go over when and where the term and the idea originated from, and why we are starting the series with sola scriptura. What it means and does not mean, and I do not mean the literal translation but what is the meaning behind the phrase and what is not the meaning of it, we’ll look at some Old Testament proof, some New Testament proof, and what Jesus says about it. Then we will try to tackle what it means for us.

Sola Scriptura Forefathers

So we will start with when and where sola scriptura originated from.

In the 14th century an Italian scholar named Marsillo da Padova wrote a political treatise, or an essay, called Defensor pacis, which is Italian for The Defender of Peace. While this essay is political in nature most of it is devoted to theology. In it Marsillo wrote that the pope did not have absolute authority, rather the scriptures were above the pope and the church.

Also in the 14th century an English philosopher, theologian, seminary professor, Catholic priest, and reformer named John Wycliffe, who is credited with translating the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into Middle English so that the people who could read would be able to read the Bible argued for the Scriptures to be the authoritative center of Christianity instead of the papacy. A brief historical side note, John Wycliffe died on New Years Eve 1384 and was declared a heretic by the Catholic Church on May 4th 1415 by the council of Constance and retroactively excommunicated him, banned his writings and ordered them to be burned and that his remains be dug up and removed from consecrated grounds.

Johann Ruchrat von Wesel a German theologian in the 15th century who objected to the system of indulgences, which is the Catholic teaching that works performed by man could reduce the punishment for your sins, he also argued that Scripture was the sole rule of faith.

Johannes von Goch a 15th century Augustinian friar who’s writings advocated a return to what the Bible actually said as the only true source of religious truth.

I mention these men because some articles and writings leave out the forerunners to whom I’m going to mention next, Martin Luther. Luther is widely credited for being the father of the reformation and I am not trying to take anything away from what Martin Luther did, he was a great pillar of the reformation, I just wanted to show that the Holy Spirit was moving many hearts and minds before and after Luther to bring God’s people back to solid doctrine. Martin Luther was born in 1483 in what is now Germany and died in 1546, he was a priest, theologian, author, hymn writer, the Hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is a Martin Luther hymn, Luther was also a very important figure in the Protestant Reformation, again being called the father of the reformation by many. In 1517 he wrote “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” which became known as the Ninety-five Theses , in these theses, or collection of ideas, Luther argued against the teaching of purgatory and the practice of indulgences of the Catholic church, he also challenged the authority and office of the pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge.

On the heels of Luther, John Calvin born 1509 in France and died in 1564, furthered the reformation movement and wrote commentaries on every book of the bible, Calvin is another great pillar of the reformation of God’s church back to doctrine based in God’s own revealed word after the deformation that occured from the teachings of the Catholic church. The reformation movement did not stop with Calvin and it continues on today. All of the solas have their beginnings in early church reformation but were not grouped together into the common five I listed earlier until the 20th century. As the so called main stream of church theology strays away from the true word of God, reformationists spring forth and work, through the Holy Spirit, to pull the flock back to what God has said and not what the pope declares, or when other false teachers make subtle changes and not so subtle changes to the Word in the name of going with the flow of “modern thinking” or say they are making the bible relevant for today. God does not change, he cannot change, and neither does his Word, nor does it need too.

So Sola Scriptura literally means scripture alone and this is the reason I would like to start the series here. Scripture alone is the basis of our faith, all of what we believe is contained in our Bible, in scripture, so when we defend or explain anything about God, about our faith we must use scriptures as our source of knowledge. The following parts of this series will be rooted and based in scripture, so we start with scripture alone.

Now what does Sola Scriptura mean in practice for us. Lets read 2 Timothy 3:16 again “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”

What is Scripture

Now before we go any further we need to talk about and agree on what scripture is. 2 Timothy says that all scripture is breathed out by God, or God breathed. This means that the scriptures, our bible, was written by God, God used humans as the scribes and through the Holy Spirit directed them on what to put down and record. This is the key on which everything hinges, and relies on. Do we have faith and believe that God himself is the mastermind and the author of our bible? Not a man writing what they think God is or what they believe God wants, but God himself guiding, inspiring, directing, controlling, or to quote our passage breathing out His words. Is this God’s word, or is this man’s word? If we think that this is just men, even holy special men putting these things down on record then we are lost and without hope brothers and sisters. Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” This is mankind, all of us, every single one of us, has fallen short of the Glory of God, all of our hearts, every single one of them are deceitful, and desperately sick. We are not and can not be the authors of anything that can be remotely described as Holy or inerrant, out of the sick comes sickness.

I believe, and I hope you do too that these are the revealed words from our Holy, omniscient, sovereign God, and that he has given us these words so that we may know him, know who he is, so we can know ourselves, know that we need a savior, and to know who that savoir is and what he did to save us.

Now, hopefully we all agree on the author of the bible and that it is God’s word there are several places in the bible that confirms this, I’ll have the verses up on the screen, if you want to write them down for review because I’ll be going through several from the Old Testament and New Testament somewhat quickly:

From the Old Testament:

From the Old Testament:

2 Samuel 22:31 “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.”

2 Samuel 23:2 ““The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue.”

Psalm 19:7 “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;”

Psalm 119:130 “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”

Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Isaiah 55:11 “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

There is a plethora, a great many passages in the Old Testament that makes it very clear that the law, or the word is directly credited to being from the Lord, from God, and except for the ten commandments in Exodus and the warning to Belshazzar in Daniel 5 where the very hand of God wrote the words on the two tablets for Moses, or on the wall in Belshazzar’s palace, all of the law, the prophets and Psalms, all of the Old Testament was given to men by God to record, either by direct revelation or by divine inspiration. Now here are several examples from the New Testament.

From the New Testament:

2 Peter 1:20-21 “knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’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 Holy Spirit.”

1 Corinthians 2:13 “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

1 Thessalonians 2:13 “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

Romans 3:1-2 “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.”

1 Corinthians 14:37 “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.”

1 Thessalonians 1:5 “because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.”

Scripture is from God, it is the words of God. It is not words from men, not words from ment that God agrees with or were approved by God, God breathed out what was to be written and men wrote it down, sometimes God told these men exactly what to say, many of the prophets begin these messages with something like “Thus says the LORD”. The rest of the time God uses the men’s minds and directed them through the Holy Spirit what to write. Each man had his own style of writing, the words of Paul differ in style and structure than Peter or Mark or Moses, but there is no contradiction in the content, all of scripture is of and from God.

And is this not how God uses all of his people even today? Are we not commanded to go out and spread the Gospel to all peoples and nations? God uses us to spread the word, his word, but salvation is from God. We throw the seed everywhere we can but we do not determine in whom the seed will sprout and take root, that is of God. God used men to record His true and living word, and this we call scripture.

Sola Scriptura in Practice

Lets go back to 2 Timothy now and discuss what Sola Scriptura means to us, because it is the rest of the passage is that tells us much more about Scripture in practice.

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Lets take this one by one, I’ve already gone over what Scripture is and who it is by so now lets talk about whats next, being profitable for teaching.

Profitable for Teaching:

God’s word is profitable, the Greek word Paul uses here is ophelimos, which is also used by Paul in Titus as profitable and it is used in 1 Timothy translated as value. The word can be translated as beneficial, useful, serviceable, and advantageous as well as profitable and value. The bible is valuable, profitable, useful, or beneficial for teaching, we teach out of the bible, most of the time Pastor Isaac preaches, or teaches verse by verse or verses straight out of the Bible, we include multiple verses to support everything we teach you, and there is a reason we are called Jackson Bible Church. I will not attempt to do any better than to quote from the preface of Jackson Bible Church’s own doctrinal statement: “The Bible itself, as the inspired and infallible Word of God that speaks with final authority concerning truth, morality, and the proper conduct of mankind, is the sole and final source of all that we believe.” We teach from the bible and it is most certainly profitable.

Reproof and Correction:

2 Timothy continues and says that the scriptures are profitable for reproof, what is reproof? Reproof is a rebuke or a criticism for a fault, an expression of blame or disapproval. Reproof and correction are similar but correction refers to the action or process of correcting, the setting of something right. If we see or hear someone, especially a fellow brother or sister in Christ sinning in some way, contradicting something in the Bible in word or deed, reproof is our displeasure at the sin, and saying you are wrong or you are sinning. Correction would be the instruction, the first and foremost instruction would be to repent, and then instruction on what should be done or said instead of whatever was done or said. But the key to biblical rebuke and correction is, is what was said or done against something taught or said in the Bible. I also need to add this, there is a biblical process for rebuke and correction in the church, I am not going to go too much into that, because that deserves its own multi week teaching, but it is laid out in Matthew 18:15-17 please write that scripture down and read that passage.

Training in Righteousness:

All scripture is profitable for training in righteousness, at first glance this may seem like a duplicate of teaching, and in some ways they are the same. But I would make this distinction, the specific mention of teaching leans more to the instruction others, a sermon, a bible study, children’s church, one person instructing another or several others on the scriptures. Training in righteousness would be the bible providing instruction for more of a personal nature of Godly behaviour. The two are very similar but differ in application, just like reproof and correction are similar.

Let me also add this personal opinion on the order of what 2 Timothy 3:16 says, if teaching and training are similar, just like reproof and correction are similar why is teaching and training separated by reproof and correction? Teaching is listed first, then reproof and correction, because no matter who is standing right here, Pastor Isaac, me, a visiting pastor or a visiting missionary, if anyone is here teaching anything that is not in the bible or contradictory to what the bible says, you have a duty to reproof and correct the teacher, and how do you do that? From training in righteousness from the scriptures. I know both Isaac and myself spend a great deal of time crosschecking, looking up supporting verses, making sure that everything we say is biblical and correct because we will have to stand before God and give an account of everything we taught and how we led the portion of God’s flock that was intrusted to us. This is why Sola Scriptura is important, we must use the scriptures alone for all biblical teaching, instruction, reproof, and correction, not the words of any man, no matter his qualifications that he has on this Earth, not even heavenly angels are to be listened to if what they are saying contradicts the bible. Listen to Paul’s instruction to the Galatians about false teachings, Galatians 1:8 “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” If an angel from Heaven comes and starts trying to teach you something contrary to what the true and living word of God says, that is not and angel any more, that is a demon.

What Jesus Christ says about the scriptures:

I told you earlier about a few of the forefathers of the reformation but I would like to say a few words about one of the most important and biggest proponents of Sola Scriptura, Jesus Christ. When Jesus was confronting those that were questioning him or trying to set a trap for him what did Jesus say?

Have you not Read:

Matthew 12:3 “He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him:”

Matthew 12:5 “Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?”

Matthew 19:4 “He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,”

Matthew 21:16 “and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “ ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?””

Matthew 21:42 “Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

Matthew 22:31 “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God:”

Mark 12:10 Mark 12:26 Luke 6:3 When Jesus wanted to rebuke or correct what did he do? He went back to the Bible and He asked the Scribes, or the Pharisees, the very Jews that claimed to be the scripture experts, He asked them have you not read your bible. That is what Jesus did and that is the model for us, knowing biblical sound doctrine so we are informed, able and prepared to teach, reproof, correct and train ourselves and others.

Next I would like to go over a few things that Sola Scriptura does not mean:

Does not Mean we don’t need Church

Does Sola Scriptura mean that as long as we have our bible and are reading it then we don’t need to be part of a local church? Scripture alone right? All I need is the bible, I don’t need to be under a pastor, I don’t need to be around other believers, I have my bible and that is all I need, right? By all means no, where do we find the argument against this? In the bible. Hebrews 10:24–25 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Not neglecting to meet together, why to stir up one another, to encourage one another to love and for good works. Proverbs 27:17 “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” We all have gifts that we can share with each other, insight and wisdom, talent in music to praise God with, we all help and help refine each other. Ephesians 3:10 “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Through the church. Being under a biblical pastor who is teaching from the bible is profitable, being around other bible believing brothers and sisters encourages us is profitable, and as I mentioned earlier rebuking and correcting one another as laid out in Matthew 18:15-17 would not be possible if we were not in regular fellowship with other believers.

Does not mean we don’t read other works

Does the doctrine of Sola Scriptura mean that the only book or document we should ever read is the bible? No, we today are very blessed with an abundance of great and solid complimentary works by past and present, solid, bible rooted pastors and authors. Charles Spurgeon said “Visit many good books but live in the Bible” But unfortunately we today are besieged at all times and by all available media, by wolves in sheep's clothing that would lead you astray, telling you that God wants you to be prosperous and happy all the time, or that God does not hate anything and that everyone is going to go to heaven. We must be very careful and very diligent about what and who we listen to, and use the bible to train ourselves in righteousness so that we are firm about what is and is not in the bible.

There are very good additional works that can help us dive deeper and help us in our bible learning, but the additional works are not to be our primary stop for bible truth, we must know what is in the bible, read all 66 books and when you are done, read them again. Use commentaries to deepen your understanding or add historical context,but we have to know what the bible says. If you want to enforce a law or statute faithfully, accurately and correctly, you first have to know what the law says.

The Bible is our Standard

If the bible is going to be the standard for our Christian lives, how we know God, how we know why we need a savior, why Christ came to save us, how we know we are saved from eternal punishment, how we are to walk in righteousness now that we are a new creature, how we know how to tell others the good news of the gospel, if we are to know all of these things and much more we are going to have to read what it says. We must believe that in its pages and I mean all of its pages, not just the red letters, not just the thus says the LORD passages, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 all of it is what the true and living God sovereignly deemed that we are to know right now. That this bible is our high and lofty standard against which we measure everything, and it is the only standard we use, not the bible and my feelings, not the bible and what I want, nothing but the true, living, inerrant, divinely revealed word from our Holy, omniscient, omnipresent, all powerful creator and God.