Sola Scriptura

Samuel Lindsay
Five Solae  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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A short recap of the Doctrine of Sola Scriptura and its Reformation origins

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What are the Five Solae?

Today we start our new series on the Five Solae! This is part of our way of remembering and celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
It’s easy look back with sadness at the division and upset of the Reformation, and to feel like it was pointless when you look around at some of the stupidity and chaos in the Church today. So why is the Reformation worth celebrating? Was the debating, divison, and often bloodshed, worth the gains of the Reformation? Well, I hope that this 5 part series will answer that question with a resounding “Yes!”
You see, the Five Solae, or “Solas”, is a summary of what was fought for and regained by the Protestant Church. As we look at each Sola over the next few weeks we will see another key element of our faith explored, and you will walk away saying, “yes, the reformation was needed, because we need the Solae”
These five distictives are the hallmarks of Evangelical Christianity. They are summaries of what the Bible explicitly or implicitly teaches. These key teachings, or doctrines, are not essential to salvation, but we tend to think they are very important. Important enough to stir up trouble and get kicked out of churches because of them.
So to begin our look at the Solae, we’re going to start with Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone for us who don’t speak Latin. And to do that, we need to start with a story!

Reformation

Back in the day there was only one institutional church. You didn’t go down the street and see a Baptist Church, then a Pressie Church then a Roman Catholic Church. There was one denomination, one church for every area and when there was religious disagreement all the big wigs in church got together and sorted it out at a special meeting, such as the Council of Nicea where they nailed down some teaching on the Trinity.
Anyways, after a thousand years or so the Greek speaking (or eastern) side of the Church said to the Latin speaking West; “We’re not really vibing with the direction you guys are heading. We still want to be friends, but we don’t think the Bishop of Rome (also known as the Pope) should be our Boss (amongst other things). So east and west part of the Church parted ways. It was like they used to be housemates, and then one of them had to move out, but only down the street; so they bump into each other and have chats, but they’re not best mates anymore.
So the east and west split up. We now know them now as the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Each are doing their own thing. And they take different directions, and their theology went different ways. And different practices were introduced.
So 500 years after the East & West split, there was a fellow called Martin. He lived in Germany, which was in the domain of the Roman Catholic Church. He was training to be a lawyer, but to his Father’s disgust he quit Law school and chuffed off to Bible School. There he tried to be a super spiritual Christian, and learned as much as he could and eventually became a Uni lecturer on Theology.
As Dr. Martin was doing his thing, teaching and studying Theology he noticed some practices of the Romon Catholic Chruch of the day that seemed a bit out of place with Scripture and History. Specifically, he was not real happy with the practice of selling Indulgences where you could do a good work (like giving money to the church) to receive time off punishment in Purgatory. In Martin’s day, the system was being abused to raise money for the church.
So Martin did a bit of digging around and discoved not only was the sytem being abused, but that the sytem itself was problematic. So he prepared a document called the 95 Theses where he laid out some propositions mainly in relation to the indulgences. He wanted to have a good old fashined academic argument and get the issues sorted out. What Martin didn’t expect, was that he would stir up so much trouble!
As Dr. Martin got more and more into the issues he was facing he became more and more aware of other problem areas in what the Chruch beleived and practiced!
As he studied his Bible more and more he saw that alot of the church’s teaching was not only absent from scripture, but in some cases opposite to what the Bible said!
Martin had inadvertantly started the Reformation. He started the process by which people like himself would seek out the scriptures and history in the hope of reforming the Church into what God said it should be.
Eventually Dr. Martin Luther ruffled enough feathers to be called to the Diet of Worms, where he was intesley interviewed infront of a bunch of powerful people. They basically thought he was off his rocker and tried to get him to recant.
They asked him essentially, “Give us a straight answer; will you recant your teachings or not?”
He responded with the famous quote;
Unless I am convicted of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.
On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me.
This quote is often acredited with being the first appearance of Scripture Alone during the Reformation. Here we clearly see Dr Luther response, in the face of the most powerful men in his country, and with his fate hanging in the balance, he said the Scripture was his guide. He didn’t care what Pope or Councils said; he sought what the Scriptures plainly said. That would be the marker between true and false teaching.
Now at this point, the Aussie in us says “yeah, stick it to the entitled self-righteous religious folk”. But that’s not what Luther was doing. He wasn’t trying to express independance or take down a religious heirarchy or follow his heart or start anything new. Luther simply wanted the Church to turn to the Scriptures! And he was willing to take the fight to the top dogs.
Unfortunatley, the Roman Catholic church was unwilling to be Reformed from within, so they kicked out Luther.
Over the years that followed, many folks would be kicked out, or willingly leave the Roman Catholic Church to pursue Biblical Christianity. Some of their names are remembered to this day because of their contribution to the Reformation.
Names such as Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, John Knox and Thomas Cranmer might ring a bell because of the role they played in their region to Protest the Roman Catholic ways and Reform the Church.
Amogst other things, these fellows all have one thing in common. They all saw the Scripture alone as their rule of faith and practice. They didn’t go to the Pope, or history, or tradition, or anything else to as their final authority. Instead they turned to God, and God speaks through His word, and that Word is Scripture.

What does “Scripture Alone” mean?

From this little story we start to see the historical context out of which the teaching “Scripture Alone” comes. This is where the Five Solae start to take shape. But like all the Solae, it is a summary of a Reformation idea, but it’s not new. Each Sola is the summary of Biblical principles of old. They are biblical teaching that had been misplaced or twisted throughout the years before the Reformation. It’s kinda like when you mispronounce a word wrong for ages, and you end up telling others the wrong way to say it.
I thought a word for coffee was “expresso” for ages! I thought people were mispronouncing and mispelling the word as “espresso”. I would correct people, thinking I was doing them a service, when in fact I was leading them astray in my own misunderstanding. Eventually I learned that it was indeed pronounced “espresso” and coffee lovers everwhere rejoiced! Now, I can help others learn like me, how to correctly pronounce “espresso”.
The thing is, the phenomena works with Christianity too. One person misapproriates something, then they teach somone else, then before you know it, something is widley accepted before it has ever been tested. How many times have you seen something go viral on social media before some smart cookie looks into it it and discovers it was fake to begin with?
When it comes to matters of faith, we need something to test ourselves by. We need something, or somone that is reliable, trustworthy and authoritative to guide us.
We need somwhere we can go to ask the big questions “How can I have eternal life?” “What must I do to be saved?” “Who will save me from this body of death?”
We know that the person to ask about these things is God! He is our trustworthy, reliable and authoritative place to go for these answers. But the problem is, I can’t just waltz into the throne room of God and ask him a bunch of questions. Instead God in his kindness and sovreignty has prepared and preserved for us an earthly source of His answers to our greatest questions.

Scripture is the Word of God

To understand what “Scripture alone” means, we must first comprehend what the scriptures are. Now for any Christian in the room, we don’t need to be told what the scriptures are, we take it for granted! We know that we’re talking about the Bible; those 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. But, bear with me a minute, I want to talk about the idea of scripture. Why is it we value these writings as Scripture?
It’s because it is the word of God!
You see, our God is a speaking God. From the begining God has been speaking!
Genesis 1:3 ESV
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
God began the world with a word, and he didn’t stop there. The scriptures trace God’s interactions with the human race from there out, following the pattern of seeing what God says, and then noting how the people of God react to it.
Throughout Biblical history there has been also pattern of God speaking and his words being recorded. Even at his own request! We see in Exodus and other places that God asked Moses to write down the information he had received...
Exodus 34:27 ESV
And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
And to pass it on to the next generation...
Deuteronomy 11:18–19 ESV
“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
God expected His words to be collected and treasured; used as a guide and rule.
Scripture is that collection of writings that are God’s Words. They include quotations of stuff God said, oracles that he put on the mouths of prophets, historical narratives of God & His people, letters about Him and even poetry that he inspired.
All of this was written and collected by God through the Holy Spirit. And it contains all we need to know about God. It tells us what we need to know about ourselves. It tells us how we can receive eternal life. It tells us how we ought to live. God has prepared and preserved for us an earthly source of His answers to our greatest questions.

Scripture is the Rule of Faith & Practice

Right. So Scripture is the Word of God, so what?
Well, This means that for us, who cannot yet speak face to face with God, Scriptures is the place that we must go for all our answers on God; what we must believe about him and what we must do in response. There is no where else to go for authoritative answers!
But what about the Church, ancient writtings or other Christians? Sureley they can give answers on these matters? Yes, they can. but only in so far as they are relying on what the scriptures say.
It’s kinda like this; You might want to know my birth date. Now, you can ask me my birthdate, and I can give you an accurate answer. But! I am not the authority on my birthdate. As much as it is dear to me, and part of my life and taught to me from a young age, I am not the arbiter of my birthdate!
Actually, what I need is somone who was there, who witnessed my birth to record down the day I was born and have it certified into a birth cerficate. Now, I can refer back to that certificate as the authoritative document that establishes my birthdate. It is the document that the bank wants when I go for a homeloan. They couldn’t give two hoots what I say it is, they need the certified record. The passport office too, they need to see my birth certificate as the authority on my birthdate so they can issue a passport.
The thing is with scripture, it is our authoritative document on what we beleive, and how we ought to live. We weren’t there on the day, so we needed somone to write it down for us to refer to.
People throughout history can say all kinds about Christian Faith and Practice but unless it matches up with the authoritative document, the Bible, we don’t need to take it seriously.
This is the position Luther found himself in. He was not willing to dump the origional message in favour of what other people said about Christianity. He wanted the real deal. He wanted to see the Birth Certificate of Christianity to be the illuminator, not what other people said about the Birth Certificate.
Unsurprisingly, Jesus gives us a fantastic example of what it looked like to use the scriptures as the rule of faith and practice. When he was tempted in the desert, he reponded three times “It is written...” and quoted the Old Testament to push back against Satan’s temptations. The scriptures informed how he responded and what he beleived.
Jesus also challenged the Pharisees with Scripture. Jesus often used the scripture to show the Pharisees how their religiosity was in fact in opposition to God. They should have been living by the scriptures instead of adding to them and manipulating their meaning.
Another example is when Paul was travelling around on his mission trips, he was preaching the Gospel. One group he went to was the Bareans, and these folks were commended because they wanted to make sure the message they were receiving was the real deal!
Acts 17:11 ESV
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.
They went back to their authoritative source to check if what they were being taught was true! And I hope you feel free to do the same even today as I teach you these things. We want the true message of the Gospel to go out faithfully from what God has said, so check that the message preached from this pulpit, and every other pulpit, is inline with the Word of God.
Scripture alone is the rule, guide and standard of Christianity. It is what is binding on this earth. We must obey it as the words from God. It can be trusted where broken and sinful humankind cannot.

Scripture is clear

Scripture Alone is our rule of faith and practice, but it must also be said that scripture is clear. It’s no good to us if scripture is our binding guide but we can’t understand it!
Sometimes it is said of the Gospel
It is shallow enough for a child to swim in and deep enough for the theologian to flounder.
The message of scripture is understandable, anyone of sound mind should be able to read the Scriptures and come to see the message that Jesus saves sinners through repentance and faith. It is simple enough, and clear enough for even a child taught the scriptures receive faith, like Timothy in the New Testament;
2 Timothy 3:15 ESV
and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Yet, this doesn’t mean it is clear at every point. The essentials of faith and godly living are clear, but there’s other stuff in here that is still confusing people to this day! Yet the complexity, and depth of the scriptures cannot hide the fundamental message away from the ordinary man or woman.
One of the Confessions of Faith that come out of the Reformation puts it this way:

VII. All things in scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.q

In Summary, we have asked the question “What does Scripture Alone mean?” and we have established that the scriptures, being the record of God’s word to us, is the ONLY authoritative guide on Christian faith and living, and not only that, it’s essential message is clear.

What does “Scripture Alone” NOT mean?

We’ve seen what Scripture Alone is. So lets briefly look at three ways that this teaching can be misused or misunderstood.
What does “Scripture Alone” not mean?

Scripture is necessary for Salvation

Sometimes, protestant Christians are accused of worshiping the Bible because we hold the scriptures in such high regard. This is not true of course, but we take it pretty seriously! SO much so that we lay upon ourselves the burden to read it every day, and we feel like bad Christians when we neglect it. The scriptures are precious to us, and we study them here in church, in our homes, at Community Group, and some of us are even crazy enough to give up our regular jobs to to this all the time.
But as much as we love and treasure the Scriptures as the Words from God to us, we know that the scriptures are both not necessary for salvation not are they salvation itself.
Jesus said to the Jews;
John 5:39–40 ESV
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
Jesus is clearly pointing out that it is not the scriptures themselves that save, rather they were pointing to the one who actually did the saving! The scriptures illuminate Jesus, and give us the words of Jesus, but it actually Jesus the God-man who is our salvation, not the book.
It’s also worth noting that reading the scriptures is not a precursor to salvation nor do you need to keep reading them to stay saved. God does not set barriers of literacy and a Bible translation in your own language. The great thing is that salvation is open to all who repent and believe the Gospel, whether you read it in the scriptures, or whether you heard the scriptures being read, or whether you heard someone else explain the message in their own words like we often do in preaching. There are also countless examples in scripture of people who come to faith without reading a word of scripture.
Treasure God’s words recorded in scripture, and share them, but don’t equate them with salvation itself. God’s word is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path to Slavation.

Scripture is our only Authority.

Now, even though the scriptures are our only binding rule on earth, we still submit to our earthly authorities; like government, spiritual leaders and family leaders.
The Scriptures themselves remind us of our obligation to submit to those in authority over us. The understanding that we obey the scriptures as God’s instruction to us, should not leave any doubt that we ought to submit to our earthly leaders. God calls us to submit to government, spiritual leaders and family leaders. Sometimes that will be hard, and even counter cultural for us Aussies, but unless like Luther we are being called to go against scripture or leave God’s word behind, we follow our earthly authorities as they follow God.
Feel free to come and chat about this further, because submitting to authority is a real hard one for us, for men and women of any age. It can be helpful to think it through with somone else.
Anyway, don’t use the excuse of God’s authority through His word to avoid earthly authorities; you still need to pay your taxes, honor your mother an father, etc.

Scripture is a life manual.

This one I think needs to be said. When we say Scripture Alone, we don’t mean Scripture alone is the guide and authority on every topic. Or to put it another way Scripture is not a life manual, or a science manual or a recipe book.
Scripture is not designed or authoritative on battle tactics for armies - even though it discusses these topics, the Bible is not seeking to instruct us on these things. Rather the scripture is our rule on Faith and Holy living. What we should believe, and how we should live.
What we believe and how we live will affect many if not all areas of our life, and it will speak to specific situations, like taking a bribe as a Judge. But, the Bible does not set out to be a “how to” on every thing it speaks about.
For instance, The Scriptures are not a diet book. Even though the scriptures speak about the eating habits of various prophets, we don’t need to follow their example, unless of course it is a command like Paul’s; “Don’t eat or drink something that causes your brother to sin.”
Scripture is not a life manual, so please don’t treat it like one. Scripture is not a guide on how to spend your money (though it will speak to that) or even a parenting manual (again, though it will mention some things in relation to parenting).
The scriptures are fundamentally about Jesus, not about whether or not you should eat Halal meat. Scripture alone doesn’t mean it alone is the authority on everything.

Jesus & Scripture Alone

This topic is one that tends to end up talking about concepts and propositions rather than about the life giving message of the Gospel itself. So I wanted to close by trying to bring these two things together.
We’re talking about Sola Scriptura, that doctrine crystalised in the Reformation that Scripture alone is our rule of faith and practice.
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