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Sola Scriptura
I. Introduction
A. When God from heaven gave his Word His Word was all-sufficient; It needs no words I may have heard To add to or be in it. So I will take God’s Book and read, To learn what God desires; The Bible gives the strength I need To do what God requires.
B. Culture and the Church
1) Secularism. How can we preach when people no longer believe in God or anything other than what science is able to see, weigh, and measure—when people find “God-talk” meaningless?
2) Humanism. What should we talk about if not God or the soul or eternal life or judgment or salvation? Many answer that we must make mankind the substance of our message.
3) Relativism. Because our contemporaries no longer believe in truth or absolutes, we do not proclaim truth anymore.
4) Materialism. Because we live in a materialistic age in which everything is regarded as a product to be sold, we also try to sell the gospel.
5) Pragmatism. In response to pragmatism we have made “if it works” the only criterion for truth. Testimonies to business success, marriages turned around, and depression overcome, as well as personal good feelings, are supposed to prove the truth of Christianity.
6) Mindlessness. We live in a rapidly changing world, and one of the indicators of the turbulence is that we are constantly inventing new words to describe what is happening.
C. In other words, in the sixteenth century the battle was against those who wanted to add church traditions to Scripture, but in our day the battle is against those who would have us use worldly means to do God’s work.
D. Sola means “Alone” or “Only”.
1) Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.
2) Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone.
3) Sola Fide (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ.
4) Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.
5) Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone.
E. Application
1) to repent of our worldliness;
2) to recover the great salvation doctrines of the Bible as the Reformers did five hundred years ago; and
3) to live a life trans-formed by the essential truths of the gospel.
F. Paul concludes this section with an appeal to Timothy to remain loyal to all the teaching he had received. On his mother’s side, Timothy was a Jew, although his father had been a Greek (); and it is clear that it was his mother who had brought him up.
G. We’re committed here at First Baptist Amelia to a biblical ministry, to an expository preaching method because we believe this to be the Word of the living God.
H. God has revealed Himself in His book. When you read the words of your Bible, you’re reading the words out of the mouth of God. That is a tremendous reality.
I. That gives confidence to everything we do. It also binds us to obedience and submission to everything the Scripture teaches.
J. Let’s talk a little bit about what it means that all Scripture or every scripture is inspired by God.
II. Promise of the Writers’ of Scripture
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,
A. Thiessen in his work, Lectures in Systematic Theology, writes “Are they also verbally inspired and infallible and all that they say?”[1]
1) When it is said that the Bible has authority, this means on any topic, issue, and question.
2) The Bible speaks to authority of God but out of the authority of Scripture comes the inerrancy and infallibility of the Word.
3) How do we define inerrancy?
4) Inerrancy is defined by B.A. Demarest in Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology as “Inerrancy is the view that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to social, physical or life-sciences.”[2]
5) Boice and Thiessen provide similar definitions in their theological work on inerrancy.
B. The Doctrine of Inerrancy is a critical doctrine of the Church.
C. When we begin with Paul statement to his young apprentice, Timothy, Paul writes, “ All Scripture is breathed out by God
D. Paul begins his writing with one very important belief, that God is the author of the Bible.
E. The main reason the Bible holds so much authority is because God is the author.
F. Theopneustos-God breathed- hand in front of mouth feel breath
G. God spoke in the Old Testament to the fathers by the prophets in many ways and in many portions. God has spoken in the New Testament by His Son in the gospels, and then about His Son in the rest of the New Testament.
H. The process by which God gave us that revelation is inspiration. Inspiration was God putting His revelation in, as it were, the hands of men to be written down.
I. First, to be spoken and proclaimed, and then written down as they were energized, carried along by the Holy Spirit. Men were used, and yet no Word of God was ever violated.
J. The totality of Scripture pasa graph, all Scripture, every Scripture is theopneustos, God-breathed. It is the breath of God, the writing of Scripture.
K. This provides the Biblical Argument for inerrancy.[3] God cannot err because that is not a part of God’s Character. We know that logically, the argument is valid. So, if the premises are true, the conclusion is also true.
1) If an infinitely-perfect God exists, then the first premise is true.” Several passages point us toward this conclusion, , “it is impossible for God to lie.”, : “He is a God who, even if we are faithless, “remains faithful; he cannot deny himself”, , Jesus said to the Father, “Your word is truth,” , “The entirety of Your word is truth.”
2) The second points is made by the correspondence, this was the Prophets and God's Messages. Prophets and God's Messages were both verbal and written.
3) Demarest writes, “Both were instruments of divine communication, and in both cases the human element was an essential ingredient.”[4]
4) The third point is Jesus’ use of Scripture. Demarest relates two critical passages for this point, and .
i. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
ii. 34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, “I said, ‘You are gods” ’? 35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),
5) St. Augustine, “I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely from error.”[5]
6) Then from Martin Luther, “But everyone, indeed, knows that at times they [the Fathers] have erred as men will; therefore I am ready to trust them only when they prove their opinions from Scripture, which has never erred.”[6]
III. Wisdom and Guidance
16 (b-e) and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
A. Scripture alone. When the Reformers used the words sola Scriptura (“ Scripture alone”) they were expressing their concern for the Bible’s authority, and what they meant to say by those words is that the Bible alone is our ultimate authority—not the pope, not the church, not the traditions of the church or church councils, still less personal intimations or subjective feelings, but Scripture only.
The inerrancy of the Bible is a critical doctrine.
and is profitable for doctrine
A. The word here for teaching (didaskalia) does not refer to the process or method of teaching but to its content. In this context, as in most others in the New Testament, didaskalia refers specifically and exclusively to divine instruction, or doctrine, given to believers through God’s Word, which included not only the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the teaching of Jesus during His incarnation but also the inspired teaching of the apostles and New Testament authors.
B. When it comes to godly living and godly service, to growing in “the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (), God-breathed Scripture provides for us the comprehensive and complete body of divine truth necessary to live as our heavenly Father desires for us to live. The wisdom and guidance for fulfilling everything He commands us to believe, think, say, and do is found in His inerrant, authoritative, comprehensive, and completed Word.
C. Even after conversion, trust in one’s own wisdom is a severe hindrance to correct understanding of Scripture and to full usefulness in the Lord’s service. The counsel to “trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” () is every bit as valid for Christians as it was for Old Testament saints.
D. It is impossible to believe, understand, and follow what you do not even know. It is completely futile, as well as foolish, to expect to live a spiritual life without knowing spiritual truth.
E. Biblically untaught believers, especially those in biblically untaught churches, are easy prey for false teachers. They are spiritual “children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” ().
F. 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
for reproof
A. A second work of the Word in the life of believers is that of reproof. Elegmos (reproof) carries the idea of rebuking in order to convict of misbehavior or false doctrine. As with teaching, Scripture’s work of reproof has to do with content, with equipping believers with accurate knowledge and understanding of divine truth, in this context divine truth that exposes falsehood and sin, erroneous belief, and ungodly conduct.
B. Regular and careful study of Scripture builds a foundation of truth that, among other things, exposes sin in a believer’s life with the purpose of bringing correction, confession, renunciation, and obedience.
C. Using the same Greek word as Paul does in , the writer of Hebrews speaks of the Bible as a divine sword that exposes sin in a believer’s life.
D. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
E. Quote: On the nature of Reproof, Vance Havner said:
I thank God for the Unseen Hand, sometimes urging me onward, sometimes holding me back; sometimes with a caress of approval, sometimes with a stroke of reproof; sometimes correcting, sometimes comforting. My times are in His hand.(Vance Havner, Fourscore (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1982), 23.)
for correction
A. Epanorthôsis (correction) is used only here in the New Testament and refers to the restoration of something to its original and proper condition. In secular Greek literature it was used of setting upright an object that had fallen down and of helping a person back on his feet after stumbling.
B. After exposing and condemning false belief and sinful conduct in believers, Scripture then builds them up through its divine correction. Correction is Scripture’s positive provision for those who accept its negative reproof.
C. 4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
D. In order to make His people obedient, useful, and effective in His service, the Lord has to trim away not only things that are sinful but also things that are useless. He may take away things that are perfectly good in themselves, even things that seem necessary, but which He knows are a hindrance to our spiritual growth and service.
for instruction in righteousness,
A. Training translates paideia, which had the original meaning of bringing up and instructing a child (paidion), but it came to be used of any sort of training. It also is rendered “correcting” () and “discipline” (; , , ).
B. In the context of verses 16–17, it clearly refers to training in the broader and probably more positive sense, since the negatives are covered by reproof. It is directed at the ideas of instruction and building up. Until the Lord takes us to be with Himself, His Word is to continue training us in righteousness.
C. 11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.
D. “Training” (“education”; paideia) “in righteousness.” Paideia was a dominant concept in Greco-Roman culture. It was to result in the attainment of the virtues (self-control, piety, uprightness, seriousness, etc.), which amounted to “civilization.” (Towner, P. H. (2006). The Letters to Timothy and Titus. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (591–592). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)
IV. Conclusion
A. Application
a. to repent of our worldliness;
b. to recover the great salvation doctrines of the Bible as the Reformers did five hundred years ago; and
c. to live a life trans-formed by the essential truths of the gospel.
[1] Henry Clarence Thiessen. Lectures in Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981.62
[2] Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001. 156
[3] Ibid., 157
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 158
[6] Ibid.