Sola Scriptura #1

I want to cover the five solas of the Reformation. Sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria. And we want to look at here is this doctrine of Scripture alone.

Sola Scriptura. Out of the Reformation came what we've come to refer to as the five solas. From them we can accurately summarize the foundational tenets of our Reformed Christian faith. And today on The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green begins a series looking at those.

Hi, I'm Bill Wright. And Don, what ground will you be covering in this series? Well, Bill, I suppose that every series we air is one that I consider important. But my friend, this series on the five solas is especially critical for the establishment of your heart in the Christian faith. Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. All of those matters are established in Scripture and have come to define what the Reformers meant when they were disputing with Rome about the reality of the true Gospel.

It's our privilege to be able to bring you this series. I trust that you'll have Bible open and pen in hand as we study God's Word together today. Okay, Don. And friend, let's join our teacher now as he continues in his ministry of teaching God's people God's Word from The Truth Pulpit. What we want to kind of look at here is this doctrine of Scripture alone, sola Scriptura. And we're going to break this down and help you by just kind of building this concept around two basic principles of Scripture. The authority of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture.

Both of those aspects of the doctrine of the Bible are implied by this term sola Scriptura. And so let's look first at the authority of Scripture and why we would believe in the authority of Scripture alone. Okay, the authority of Scripture for your first heading if you're taking notes here, what is authority?

By authority we mean in this context that, oh, this is so basic and so very important. You know, it's when you get tired of the basics that you're vulnerable to spiritual error. When you get tired of the basics, you're vulnerable to doctrinal error. When you get tired of the basics, you are vulnerable to sin in your life. You know, that we are meant to go back just as you drink water or you have some kind of liquid refreshment day by day by day.

You go back to these things and you drink from them repeatedly again and again, because just as liquid water is necessary for the health of your body, so things like this are necessary for the regular intake for the health of your soul. Authority in this context means this. The Bible alone is the standard by which all truth claims are measured. The Bible alone is the standard by which all truth claims are measured. And so when we say the authority of Scripture, what we mean is this. Scripture alone is to determine what we believe and what we do. Scripture alone determines what we believe and what we do. We believe everything that Scripture says, we do not go beyond it. Why would we be so dogmatic about that? What makes you think that you could call yourself truth community church?

On what basis would you say those kinds of things and name yourself by that? Well, beloved, what we need to understand and recognize is this, is that we are building our doctrine and what we teach and what we believe, we root that in Scripture. It's not our own idea. We are responding to, we are explaining something that is outside of us, something that is given to us, something that is independent of our minds, of our thinking, something that existed and that was true before you and I were born, something that will exist and will be true after we are gone if the Lord tarries. We are talking about things that transcend time and that are independent of our own opinion. And so the authority of Scripture, what we want to understand is this, is that it derives from its own very nature. It is independent of the judgment of men.

How can we say something like that? Well, it's the Bible's own claim. And here we've got a couple of sub-points that I want to make. The authority of Scripture is based on this fact, that Scripture is inspired.

Scripture is inspired. Now, we've talked about these things often over the course of time, but let's ask and answer the question once again. You know, I pause on these things because these kinds of questions are so fundamental. Get this right and you set the right trajectory. You understand that if a plane gets off course by just five degrees, the immediate difference isn't too great, but as you go along, it's further and further off course until it's nowhere near its intended destination. But if you set the trajectory true and right from the beginning, then you're going to end up at the proper destination. Here, the proper destination is to arrive at truth as God has revealed it, to believe it, and to obey it. To believe the truth about Christ so that our souls are safe and secure in Him, rather than believing in falsehoods that cannot save our soul, trusting ourselves to things that are not true, and finding that we are damned in the end.

That's not a good outcome for life. And when we say things and ask questions like, Where did the Bible come from? What is its source? We are asking fundamental questions that put us in the right direction. With all of those things said, turn in your Bible to 2 Timothy 3, verse 16. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

We want to zero in on that word inspired. The Greek term is theopneustos. It means God breathed. The Bible originated from a divine activity. It is not the doctrine of Scripture that men wrote words of their own ability and of their own insight, and then God came along and breathed a divine quality into them after the fact. That is not the biblical doctrine of inspiration. It has the idea that God breathed out Scripture from within his own essence, from within his own knowledge, from within his own perfect intention. He breathed out what Scripture was to say. The Bible proceeds from God, from inside God and out, you might say, and therefore we rightly call it the Word of God. God initiated Scripture.

God so worked through the human authors of Scripture that the Bible says exactly what God wanted it to say, and he did this in a voluntary act of self-disclosure. God, in other words, who is spirit, God who is invisible, God who is unknowable by the fallen human mind, except in a very basic way that you can observe his power somewhat in nature, to know him as the saving God as he is revealed in Jesus Christ is outside human comprehension. We are blind and we are dead to those things. We cannot discover them on their own because they are spiritually discerned, and we, in our unsaved state, are spiritually dead.

Spiritually dead, lifeless, undiscerning, unable to know these things. And so the inspiration of Scripture is the means by which God revealed himself in the written Word of God. How did that happen?

What was that process like? Look over at 2 Peter 1. 2 Peter 1. And here we have another very key text that helps us understand the doctrine of Scripture. 2 Peter 1, verse 20 says this. It says, Know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will. No writing of Scripture ever came as a result of human intention originating in the human will, he says, but, by contrast, men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. What the Bible says about itself is that the writers of Scripture were moved by the Holy Spirit, a power from God outside of them, outside of their own ability, outside of their own and beyond their own will.

A power from God came upon them and moved them in the writing of Scripture so that what they wrote was the very Word of God. Now, one of the things, one of the objections that is raised against this doctrine of inerrancy, the inerrancy of Scripture, is this, and it sounds superficially plausible. It sounds superficially like a serious objection. It's not, but if you haven't thought it through, at first it sounds like it.

They'll start with this premise. All men are fallible, right? Men are subject to error, right? Right. The Bible was written by men, right? True, right. There were human authors to the Scripture, and they think, when they lay out that little logical progression, they think they've got you.

Well, you see it, don't you? All men are fallible. Scripture was written by men. Therefore, Scripture itself is fallible. Scripture itself is subject and full of errors, and therefore you cannot trust it. You cannot believe it in an absolute sense. What's our response to that?

How do we think through that? Well, we come back to this doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, and we say, no, you're leaving out the most important aspect of the nature of Scripture. Scripture is inspired by God.

God is omnipotent. The Holy Spirit is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit came upon these men in a way that directed what they wrote so that what they wrote was the very word of God. And what you're forgetting, my objecting, unbelieving friend, is this, is that God the Holy Spirit has the power to override the fallibility of men so that they produce what God wanted them to produce, what God wanted them to write. There is a supernatural dimension to the authorship of Scripture that preserved it from error in a way that a merely human production could not claim. God is a God of truth. Scripture says in Titus chapter 1 verse 2 that it is impossible for God to lie. He is omniscient. He does not make mistakes.

He is perfect in every way, and that has implications for the kind of book that He would produce. And that leads us to our second aspect of the authority of Scripture, and we say this. We say that Scripture is inerrant. Scripture is inerrant because God is the God of truth, because it is impossible for God to lie, because the Bible is inspired by God in the way in which we have described earlier. Because the Bible has been supervised down to its very words by the God of truth, we can be confident that it is free from error, that there are not mistakes in the true teaching of Scripture, that there are not factual errors.

As we've pointed out in the past, there's so many different directions you could go on this. As we've looked at Scripture in the past, we have seen that Jesus Christ, who is Lord, who is the supreme authority in the universe, affirmed the Old Testament and pre-authenticated, you might say, the New Testament. All of the Bible comes under the authority and the affirmation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ Himself is the ultimate guarantor of the truth of Scripture.

Now, and I'm glad you young people are listening, I can tell that you're listening, and I love you for it, and I just pray that God would seal these things deep into your heart, and that you would become lions for the kinds of truth that we're talking about here tonight and in the days to come, that you would roar, as it were, on behalf of Scripture, roar on behalf of the God of this word, even when it is unpopular to do so. Jesus said in John chapter 17, verse 17, He said, as He was praying for His people, He said, Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth.

It is truth. In other words, Scripture says things and declares things the way that they really are. Scripture tells us what really is, the way things actually happen, what is really true, and what will really happen in the end. From beginning to end, from Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22, verse 20, you have that which is true, that which is accurate, that which is the way that things really are, and that is rooted in the fact that Scripture is inspired by God, and God is a God of truth.

These things go together. They are welded together in a perfect, unbreakable harmony, and there can be no divorce put between the attributes of God and the attributes of Scripture. That is vital for you to understand. We build our lives on that basic truth. Now, what does that mean when we say Scripture is inerrant? Scripture never affirms anything that is contrary to fact. Scripture never affirms a falsehood, whether it is speaking to spiritual realities concerning the nature of God and the nature of sin and the nature of Christ and the nature of salvation, whether it is speaking in the moral realm, whether it is speaking to facts of history, whether it is speaking to facts of science.

Wherever Scripture speaks on these issues, wherever it touches on matters of scientific or historical fact, Scripture is correct. Scripture is right. Scripture is true. It never affirms anything that is contrary to fact.

The theologian Robert Raymond says it this way. Scripture is incapable of teaching error. Now, sometimes Scripture will record men who are speaking lies. Scripture will record men who are saying inaccurate things, but Scripture is not affirming what those men said.

Rather, it is simply accurately reporting what they said. And so we distinguish between what Scripture actually affirms and what it merely records in the course of the human history that it describes. Scripture is without error. Scripture is trustworthy in whole. Scripture is trustworthy in all of its parts.

The 66 books of the Bible originated with God, and he used a process according to his infinite power, his infinite ability, his infinite knowledge, his infinite understanding that guaranteed the final absolute accuracy of Scripture. No exceptions. No exceptions. None. Zero.

Nada. Nein for German. Not the number nine. That would contradict what I just said. And so what does that mean, beloved?

It means this. We reject any effort to marginalize inerrancy. People will marginalize inerrancy by saying, well, yes, Scripture is inerrant, but only in matters of faith or morals. You can't trust it in matters of history or other matters of human endeavor.

They leave open the possibility for errors in other matters. First of all, Christianity is a historical faith. Jesus Christ really came in time and space. God revealed his truth. His people lived in time and space, and his word was given in time and space. History.

To undermine the history is to undermine the very platform on which it was delivered to us. And not only that, beloved, think about it this way and understand this, that what does that ultimately do? Rather than having the Bible over us and sitting in judgment on us, as is the truth and reality of the matter, this puts Scripture below us and says, I will stand in judgment of Scripture. I will determine what is true and what is false. And the locus, the basis of authority, is now rooted in the mind of man who declares what is true and what is not.

That can't possibly be correct, and it's not correct. It places man in judgment of the Bible, and you're left with a man to tell you what will or will not be believed. What are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to just wait until the scholars finish their tennis match back and forth, and they decide over the course of several decades or a few centuries, and they come to some kind of an agreement about what is true and what is not? Do we have to wait for surety for the security of our soul until men have finished their endless debates as unbelievers inject their opinions, as they distort and twist the Word of God so that it conforms to their image rather than conforming their soul to the image of Christ?

Out on the thought. Under no circumstances is that what God gave to us in the Scripture, as if He had given us fodder for our own discussions and debates back and forth while God sits on the sideline waiting for man to determine what's true in His Word and what is not. Out on the suggestion, go home, go away, we say to those who want to take that kind of an approach to the Bible.

I'm not saying that to you in this room. That is not what Scripture is, and that is not the response of man to it. God inspired all of the words so that everything that Scripture says and affirms is true, it is right, and it will bear the test of time and examination. There's one other observation to make about this from the words of Scripture itself. Look at John chapter 3.

The course of my preparation of this series brought me to an interesting perspective that, honestly, I hadn't seen before, hadn't considered before. Remember, we're addressing the idea here in this portion of the message. What we're arguing against and rejecting are those who would hold to a partial inerrancy. Say, faith in morals, the Bible is inerrant, but in earthly matters of history and other things, Scripture is subject to mistake and error. Look at John chapter 3 verse 12. Jesus said, If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? If I cannot be trusted, Jesus says, if you can't believe me when I tell you matters of lesser consequence that pertain to the things of the earth, on what basis would you possibly believe when I tell you heavenly things that are outside your experience and that you cannot see or experience with your human senses? How can you believe the greater thing if you won't believe the lesser thing? To question the lesser things is automatically to invoke doubt and suspicion upon the greater things.

No. No, we believe God here. We trust God here. We trust His Word here. If God has said it in His Word, we believe it.

We trust it. Now, that doesn't mean that there are no difficulties. It doesn't mean that there aren't challenges in some of the matters of interpretation which we face. We can recognize those. We can acknowledge those.

We can work through those. But we do so from a position of trust and belief. If our judgment seems to differ with the Bible, we say the problem can't be with the Bible. I must be missing something. Maybe I need more information. Maybe my interpretation of the verse is wrong.

Maybe I'm distorted somewhere. But we place our confidence in Scripture and we doubt our judgment if it would lead us to be opposed to the words of Scripture. There is no other book like the Bible.

It stands alone as the authority. That's why we hold to Sola Scriptura. Well, we've only just begun a very important series titled The Five Solas and today's message called Sola Scriptura, Scripture Alone. But Pastor Don Green will have part two for you on our next broadcast. Keep studying with us here on The Truth Pulpit where we teach God's people God's Word.

Right now, though, Don's back here in studio with some closing thoughts. Friend, one of the things that I'm always mindful of when I'm here in studio is I'm mindful that there are people out in the audience that are like I used to be, thinking that they were Christians but not really having the life of God in their soul. You've perhaps read the Bible or gone to church, but you've never really turned your life to Christ in repentance and saving faith.

I was like that. I know what it's like to be self-deceived. I just encourage you, if you've just viewed Christianity as something kind of casual and not all that important, my friend, examine yourself.

See if you're truly born again and let that work of God in your heart lead you to truth, lead you to the Scriptures so that you would enter into the profound life that belongs only to those who are true Christians. Thanks, Don. And friend, we hope you'll visit TheTruthPulpit.com soon to learn more about our ministry and about how to get free copies of this series plus so much more. That's TheTruthPulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time as we teach God's people God's Word on The Truth Pulpit.