The Authority of Scripture

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Welcome back. In this session, we're going to look at the different views of Scripture held by the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformers. Now, when Luther began his protest just over 500 years ago, he was addressing a church in Rome that affirmed Scripture's authority and inspiration.

So what was it about Luther's thought that was so different, so offensive to the Roman Church? Well, Luther had the audacity to say that Scripture alone is the supreme and inerrant authority. While popes and councils err, Scripture alone does not. And so what distinguished the Reformers from Rome was their claim that as important as tradition is, and they thought tradition was very important, tradition is not without error.

Only God's Word is. And because Scripture is the entirely trustworthy Word of God, Scripture alone is the church's ultimate authority, sufficient for faith and practice. Now, the question of authority was critical in the Reformation. So critical, it was the very heart of Luther's early key debates in the very first years of the Reformation. So round one of the Reformation, Sylvester Prierias was the Dominican theologian appointed by Pope Leo X to make the first response to Luther's theses.

And Prierias quickly saw the location of final authority was the real issue at stake. And so Prierias wrote in his dialogue concerning the power of the pope, he said, he who does not accept the doctrine of the church of Rome and the pontiff of Rome as an infallible rule of faith from which the Scriptures to draw their strength and authority is a heretic. Round two, Cardinal Cajton then weighed in arguing that Scripture must be interpreted by the pope who is above not only councils, he argued, the pope is above Scripture itself. Luther replied, his holiness abuses Scripture.

I deny that he is above Scripture. And that was very much the early debates of the Reformation in a nutshell. Roman theologians insisted on the infallibility of the papacy. And the more they did so, the more Luther relied on the authority of Scripture. And Luther summed up his position when he said, the saints could err in their writings and the sin in their lives, but the Scriptures cannot err. And that establishes and outlines the reformational theological method in contrast to the Roman Catholic method. For still today, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, both Scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.

In contrast, the heirs of the Reformation hold, the Bible is our only chief, supreme, and ultimate authority. And that is the meaning of sola scriptura. Sola scriptura is not the same thing as nuda scriptura, that we should have no creed but the Bible. Now, sola scriptura acknowledges there are other important authorities for the Christian, authorities who should be listened to and followed. We respect the authority of church elders, of great theologians, creeds and confessions, but Scripture alone is the authority that rules over and governs all other authorities. All other authorities are to be followed only insofar as they are subservient to Scripture, which alone is our supreme authority. Scripture alone is supreme and Scripture alone is a sufficient authority.

The Bible provides believers with all the truth they need for faith and godliness. And there would have been no Reformation without this truth. And you can see that when you compare Erasmus with Luther. Erasmus was the great scholar who'd provided the Greek New Testament through which Luther had been converted.

But Erasmus wasn't considered the first reformer. He was the man who'd made the Scriptures available. But while providing the coals for the Reformation, his possession of the Scriptures and his deep study of the Scriptures changed little for the man himself because of how he treated them. Erasmus buried the Scriptures under convenient assertions of their vagueness, and he accorded the Scriptures little practical, let alone governing, authority. And the result was that for Erasmus, the Bible was just one voice among many, and so its message could be tailored, squeezed, and adjusted to fit his own vision of what Christianity was. And to break out of that suffocating scheme to achieve any substantial change and Reformation, it took Luther's view that Scripture is the only sure foundation for belief. The Bible had to be acknowledged as the supreme authority and allowed to overturn and overrule all other claims or else Luther saw it would itself be overruled and its message would be hijacked. In other words, a simple reverence for the Bible, an acknowledgement that Scripture has some authority, would never have been enough to bring about the Reformation.

Solar scriptura was the indispensable key for change. But how can you know that the Bible is this trustworthy word of God? How can you be sure? Is it that you need to turn to the pope who can assure you that this Bible is trustworthy? Is it that you need to turn to scholars? Well, according to the Reformers in the Reformation tradition, you can know that the Bible is this supreme trustworthy authoritative word of God first and foremost because it authenticates itself as such. There are other supporting reasons why you can have confidence in it as the word of God, but first and foremost you can because it proves itself to be what it claims.

Now let's get some clarity here. What did the Reformers mean when they argued that the Scriptures authenticate themselves? They were going further than the claim that the Bible is the word of God. They weren't simply arguing that the Bible claims it is the word of God. They weren't making what people often dismiss as a weak circular argument that we trust the Bible is the word of God because it claims it is the word of God. No, they meant the Bible proves itself to be what it claims to be, the word of God.

Here's how John Calvin put it, and this is from the beginning of Book 1 of Chapter 7 of the Institutes. He said, Scripture's authority may be established as certain, and to banish all doubt, indeed, Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color or sweet and bitter things do of their taste. The sacred Scriptures breathe something divine.

Others in the Reformation tradition would use similar arguments. The Puritan John Owen argued, Scripture speaks of itself as a lamp and a light. 2 Peter 1.19, and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you would do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Now, says Owen, only what is not light needs light to make it known, but he says light manifests itself. You don't need to shine light on light to know what it is.

Light requires no other testimony for its evidence. It proves itself by what it is, and this belief was essential to the Reformation project. The Reformers believed they could preach the Scriptures to all because the Scriptures can be understood by all, and they were no longer then the preserve of the educated elite, for God's word brings its own enlightenment, for it is a lamp and a light. Now, of course, you could object, and people did, and say, well, if Scripture is so self-evidently the word of God, why isn't everyone a Christian? Why doesn't everyone know the Bible is the word of God?

To which the answer is 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. And so Calvin and others would speak of the need for the witness of the Spirit. Calvin wrote, even if Scripture wins reverence for itself by its own majesty, it seriously affects us only when it is sealed on our hearts through the Spirit.

Now, it's important to understand what Calvin does and doesn't mean here. This throws many into a spin, those who want confidence in the Bible. By the witness of the Spirit, Calvin is not saying the Spirit gives people some additional information that proves that the Bible is divine in origin.

We're not waiting for some voice in our heads telling us, believe it. This is God's word. Rather, Calvin is describing an internal work whereby the Spirit removes our natural blindness to see what is already there in Scripture for anyone with working eyes to see it. So the Spirit doesn't add to Scripture. He opens our eyes to see its self-evidencing light and divine quality.

But why is this important? Well, Calvin got straight to the point when he addressed the issue for his day. He said, it is a wicked falsehood that Scripture's credibility depends on the judgment of the church. Scripture, he said, has its authority from God, not from the church. Calvin saw, if the Scriptures require something else to give them their authority, then that other thing becomes the supreme authority.

And that was why self-authentication was important for the first Reformers. It was part of upholding the supremacy of Scripture and its message. In other words, I don't have to rely on the pope to tell me that Scripture is God's word. And I don't have to rely on some scholar, some apologist, or even my own reasonable arguments, like light.

Scripture does evidence itself. It enlightens me to know a glorious God I would never have dreamed of. It enlightens me to know myself.

It diagnoses me like nothing else, with a perception I never had. It makes sense of the world as only the Creator could. Now, Calvin has two related chapters on this in book one of his Institutes, chapters seven and eight.

I wouldn't normally give this detail here, but it's important how they work in his argument. In chapter seven, he argues Scripture authenticates itself. And this, he says, is stronger evidence than all external proof. In fact, he writes, they who strive to build up firm faith in Scripture through disputation, through argument, are doing things backwards. Even if anyone clears God's sacred word from man's evil speaking, he will not at once imprint on their hearts the certainty that piety requires. You hear what he said in chapter seven?

Here's chapter eight now. He goes on to say, so far as human reason goes, sufficiently firm proofs are at hand to establish the credibility of Scripture. And he lists some of them, the antiquity of the texts, their coherence, miracles, fulfilled prophecy. So how does that fit with what he said in chapter seven, that those who strive to build up firm faith in Scripture through argument are doing things backwards, when we see there are other firm proofs to establish the credibility of Scripture? Well, he writes, those arguments, not strong enough before to engraft and fix the certainty of Scripture in our minds, they become very useful aids. In other words, we'd be fools to base our trust in Scripture all on such external arguments. Firm faith can only thrive on the foundation of God's word. But having affirmed that Scripture is from God, with utter certainty, these external arguments show us we're not out of our minds.

This is entirely reasonable faith. But we don't have that faith primarily because some bright scholar has convinced us. We have that faith because of God's word proving itself. Scripture is the solid foundation of our faith. External arguments are not to be confused with that foundation, but they are useful in showing the reasonability of our faith. And this doctrine of Scripture's self-authentication is vital for healthy mission. Because God's word by itself, because by its nature it proves itself to be the word of God, it means we can give people Bibles in their own language. And we can have confidence God's word can prove itself.

Lastly, a bit of clarification. How is the Christian claim that our Scriptures are self-authenticating different to similar claims made by other religions about their holy books? So let me take two, the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon. First of all, the Qur'an. Like Christians, Muslims argue the Qur'an is self-evidently divine. But what a Muslim means by this is very different to what we've been speaking of. The Muslim will speak of the divine beauty of its word choice and poetry.

It is good quality Arabic literature. But that is not what Christians mean by the Scriptures. The divine quality of the Bible is not detected in the particular beauty or arrangement of the words. But multiple human authors speak in quite different genres and styles, from poetry to history to personal letters. No, it is the meaning, it is the message that is conveyed through the words that evidences itself as heavenly.

Through all those different genres, the multifaceted glory of its message shines through. And practically, as a result, this means real confidence in Scripture, such as the Reformers had, will not come through simply staring at a page or rereading a favorite Bible verse again and again. No, real confidence in Scripture will come and it will build through a broad reading of Scripture so that you see the whole more clearly, you see the glory of the whole. Second other holy book to consider, the Book of Mormon. Now, when Mormons speak of knowing that the Book of Mormon is true, it is the witness of the Spirit that is key.

But it is entirely subjective. For Mormons, the Spirit witnesses that the Book of Mormon is true when you've prayed. And you get this overwhelming feeling of happiness and you just know it's true. Again, that's very different to what Christians mean by self-authentication of the Scriptures. The Spirit does not give us assurance that the Bible is God's word through some mystical experience. What we mean when we say that the Spirit opens our eyes is that the text we are now seeing evidences itself. And because the authentication is found in the text, it means we can argue it out with the Mormon. It is the demonstrable meaning of the text that is glorious in one book and in glorious in another. It is not through confidence found in intense religious experience.

It is through the word evidencing its own nature as you read it. Now, we've only just scratched the surface, but I hope this Reformational doctrine of Scripture, its supreme authority founded on nothing else, will give you great and life-transforming confidence in God's glorious Word. That's Dr. Michael Reeves from his series Reformation Truths, and you're listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Tuesday. Thank you for being with us.

I'm Lee Webb. Dr. Reeves' exploration of the doctrines that were reinforced during the Reformation provides a great reminder for us, doesn't it? Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We're offering this series to you for a donation of any amount. You can contact us today, and we will send you the single DVD.

Our phone number is 800-435-4343, but you can also give your gift and make your request online at renewingyourmind.org. About a century after the Reformation, the Westminster Confession of Faith was written, and it says, Faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness is the alone instrument of justification. That summary really is the foundation of the gospel that we find in the New Testament. Dr. Reeves' series will help you better understand these vital doctrines. The title again is Reformation Truths. It would make a great study for your small group at home or a Sunday school class at your church. And when you're finished with the study, perhaps you'd consider donating the DVD to your church library. Well, here's a portion of what we'll be hearing tomorrow from Dr. Reeves. What Luther had seen then is that the problem of our sin goes as deep in us as it possibly could, all the way down into our hearts, shaping what we want and love. And as a result, we never naturally want God. I hope you'll join us for the message titled, The Sinfulness of Man. That's Wednesday, here on Renewing Your Mind.