Sola Scriptura?
And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were
written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain
the books that would be written. Amen. John 21:25
Although God's word has never stated that the place and position in the
church of Jesus Christ today of Apostles, prophets and gifts of the Spirit,
including miracles, healing and tongues, has ceased because the church has
not ceased, fallible false men have dispensed with such things. Then these
same fallible men or church fathers (The Romans Church sees the Fathers as
the successors of the apostles, the closest source to the apostolic teaching
and tradition, and therefore authoritative) canonized the scriptures and
they became what we know as the bible. (Mind you the Protestant Bible has
fewer books than the Catholic Bible.)
For some Christians the Church Fathers are a wonderful source of rich and
rewarding material. But they cannot be read uncritically. It is obvious from
the New Testament that doctrinal confusion, legalism, sacerdotalism, and
gnostic error found their way into the church even before the canon was
closed. The writings of the Church Fathers were not free from such
influences. Moreover, the next three centuries after the original apostles
died there were a long chronicle of doctrinal conflict, and these men whom
we call Church Fathers did not always agree with one another. Yet these men
canonized the infallible scriptures and we can trust them with our lives?
(Mind you while Jesus taught us to trust the Old Testament Scriptures and
the person of the Holy Spirit, He never told us to trust the New Testament
or that He would cause one to be written?)
Sola Scriptura is Latin for "Scripture alone" or "only Scripture." The
doctrine carries with it approximately two connotations. First, by way
imposing the least controversial feature, it is that the Bible is materially
sufficient (totum in Scriptura) for guiding all matters of doctrine and
religious practice. The doctrine of sola Scriptura suggests that the
Scriptures are formally sufficient. The Bible serves as the (i) exclusive
source of infallible doctrinal material, and (ii) the sufficient source of
infallible doctrinal material. At this point it is incumbent upon me to
qualify this definition so that no misunderstanding will result. Sola
Scriptura is temporally contingent in that it is a post-Apostolic doctrine
following the era of inscripturation. (3)
The Bible affirms that Scripture is the sufficient and exclusive source of
infallible doctrinal material.
(a) In the much celebrated passage in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 we find the Apostle
Paul's dynamic words to Timothy about the nature of written revelation:
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work" (NIV).
All those who are born again and filled with the Spirit of God are an
epistle of Christ, ministered by others, written not with ink but by the
Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh,
that is, of the heart. So Paul's epistles to specific church are not
unique nor outstanding nor are they to be used as a general prescription to
make general doctrines. Rather we are all to be dependent on the Holy Spirit
who created us to be epistles, empowered Paul to write his epistles and
empowers us to do the same!
"What does the Bible is inspired mean?" is a question theologians and bible
scholars have debated for centuries. The problem lies in what we know
experientially by human reason apart from divine revelation. As Christians,
we look to the Scriptures for truth and understanding, but always with
dependence on the Holy Spirit and not our own reasoning and intellect.
Some believe that God dictated to the individual writers what they should
say, but that His Holy Spirit so guided and controlled the writers that what
they wrote was true and was the particular truth that God wanted to be
communicated to His people. God allowed the writers to use their own
intellects, language, and style, but when they wrote, His Holy Spirit
supernaturally kept their writing free from error and rendered it the exact
truth which God wanted conveyed down through the ages. The Bible thus
becomes a unit, parts of which cannot be cut off without irreparable injury
to the whole.
Hence we have in Christianity fundamental Christians who advocate the
"Divine plenary Verbal Inspiration" of scriptures. "Plenary" means full and
complete, "ALL scripture" (2 Timothy 3:16) - that is all scripture that can
be called "scripture", critically careful to include minute details.
"Verbal" means that the very words of the scripture were given to the
writers, and not just the ideas they convey.
In other words in theory the writers were not left to choose the words. At
the same time God did not destroy or ignore their different personalities.
The writings of Paul may differ in style from the writings of John or James.
However the Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth with the
words of his mouth gave his words through men, using their individual
personalities and traits without changing the doctrine or the truth that
these are the very words that proceedeth out of his mouth. "Man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God." (Matthew 4:4)
But in reality did the words that Paul write proceed from God? The problem
with 'Verbal Inspiration' of scriptures is that it sounds wonderful in
theory but in fact we do not have any original manuscripts to show what the
very words of the scripture were given to the writers of the New Testament.
Clement testified that the Epistle was written by Paul in the Hebrew
language and was translated by Luke into Greek. Origen regards the thoughts
of the Epistle as Paul's, but the language as that of a disciple of the
great apostle, and finally comes to the conclusion that God only knows who
wrote this letter. [i] If Paul wrote his epistles in Hebrew and Luke
translated them into Greek it's a fact that things always get lost in the
translation process. However we are told we have to accept all of this by
faith? But the reality is that both the Greek and King James versions of the
bible have words that mean different things to different folks, leaving only
the Holy Spirit to convey to each person the ideas that He was conveying
through the scriptures?
The expression "Thus saith the Lord" or "The Lord spake saying" and similar
phrases occur some 560 times in the Pentateuch, some 300 times in the
historical and poetic books, 1200 times in the prophets and 24 times alone
in Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. But Apostle Paul never used
in his epistles the phrase "thus says the Lord" especially when talking
about that women are not allowed to speak or will be saved in childbearing
if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control? (1 Timothy
2:11-15).
Catholics and Protestants all agree that the Scriptures are theopneustos or
"God-breathed." This gives divine significance to the Apostolic message. But
there are two extremes about Scriptures in Christianity. The Protestant
Church today is a book-worshipper. It makes a fetish out of a book. The
Catholics are little for the Bible, and ever have. They say, "Take away the
whole book if you like, and the church will still remain in all its power.
The book is the creation of the church, not the church the creation of the
book." The Protestants, finding themselves confronted with an infallible
church, had to oppose it with an infallible book. And they made a book
infallible, which before had not been considered so. And well they might for
they were compelled to. It is commonly the case that the overthrow of one
superstition is only accomplished by the establishment of another in its
place.
The Catholics had the prestige of antiquity, and of being considered the
only true Church of God, and they threatened with eternal damnation every
man who followed Luther. The masses of the people of the North, ignorant and
superstitious, were naturally terrified by the awful threat, and the only
wonder is that they ever challenged this religious juggernaut. To meet the
challenge, Luther, Calvin, and others said that the Bible was
"supernaturally inspired." The origin of the books having been forgotten,
men, credulous and in trouble, came to think that because the books were
written of God they were written by God. The reformers declared that the
Bible and not the church was the sole source of authority. This succeeded,
and the decrees of the Vatican were answered by such reasoning by the
Protestants. The doctrine of the divine and infallible inspiration of the
New Testament spread as did the military advances through Europe. Hence we
had the following ridiculous decree, adopted by the Calvinistic council of
Switzerland in 1675 A. D.:
"Almighty God not only provided that His word, which is the power of every
one who believes, should be committed to writing through Moses, the
Prophets, and Apostles, but also has watched over it with a fatherly care up
to the present time, and guarded it lest it might be corrupted by the craft
of Satan or any fraud of men...The Hebrew volume of the Old Testament, which
we have received from tradition of the Jewish church, to which formerly the
oracles of God were committed, and retain at the present day, both in its
contents and in its vowels, the points themselves, or at least the force of
the points, and both in its substance and its words is divinely inspired, so
that, together with the volume of the New Testament, is the single and
uncorrupted rule of our faith and life, by whose standard, as by a
touchstone, all versions which exist, whether Eastern or Western, must be
tried, and whenever they vary, be made conformable to it" (Neimeyer,
Collection Confessionum, p. 730).
But nothing could be further from the truth for we have three things
indicate the grim ferocity of this dogma:
1. It says the God has guarded the Bible from corruption; yet Griesbach
collected one hundred and fifty thousand various readings in the New
Testament manuscripts alone (B. A. Hinsdale, M.A., Genuineness and
Authenticity of the Gospels, Cincinnati, 1872 ,p. 130), the greater part of
which must, of course, be corruptions, since there can be but one correct
reading for any passage.
2. It says the vowels were inspired, whereas the ancient Hebrew literature
had no vowels.
3. It says that the vowel-points were inspired; whereas they did not come
into use until the seventh century after Jesus, and were not perfected until
four centuries later. This last article is a relic of that ancient belief
that the translators, the copyists, and all the men who had aught to do with
the transmission of the Bible from century to century, were inspired.
It is to be noted that the words of Jesus were authoritative in the Church
from the first, and scanty attention is paid to the words or works of Jesus
in the earliest Christian writings, Paul's letters, the later Epistles,
Hebrews, Revelation, and even Acts have little to report about them. The New
Testament, as we have it, is much more dominated by Paul. Although Jesus
Christ is center of attention in the gospels, Paul's views and opinions
about others dominate most of the epistles. Its unfortunate the Apostle
Paul, the great propagator of the Christian faith, fails to pay more
attention to the words of Jesus and their application in the church of Jesus
Christ. As a result many Christian fundamentalists seem to worship and
follow the words of Paul rather than Jesus Christ.
One of the main problems with man is that he does not read nor know the Word
of God. Then when he does read it, he does not allow the Holy Spirit to
teach and show them the true meaning and truths in the word of God. Rather
he leans to the presumed half truths that others have taught him and which
do not work any way when tested in the fires of life. Only the Holy Spirit
who is the author, inspirer and interpreter of the Word of God is the one
who is capable for revealing truth and its true meaning. With out the Holy
Spirit insights it's not only a waste of time to interpret the word but
extremely dangerous. For as any good navigator knows off reading charts, an
inch off on the chart could have disastrous results and end up being miles
off. Jesus clearly stated that He would send the Spirit of truth to His own:
"If you love Me, keep My commandments. "And I will pray the Father, and He
will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever- "the
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him
nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
"I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. "A little while longer
and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you
will live also. "At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you
in Me, and I in you. "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he
who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will
love him and manifest Myself to him." John 14:15-21
For those who truly love Jesus and keep His words and commandments, the
Father would give another Helper the Spirit of truth who will abide with
them for ever and He will love them. For those who would abide in Him, Jesus
would also love them and manifest Himself to them and by the Holy Spirit He
will talk to them and tell them of things to come. God's word records:
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all
truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He
will speak; and He will tell you things to come. "He will glorify Me, for He
will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. "All things that the Father
has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to
you. John 16:13-15
The Holy Spirit would make the Word of God real to God's people so that what
Jesus said would be true:
But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' Matthew 4:4
Man is to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God and made
real by the Holy Spirit. It must be a Rhema word and not just a logos word.
So that the Word of God will be fulfilled:
"Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD
your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you
today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the
earth. "And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you,
because you obey the voice of the LORD your God:
"Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
"Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the
increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of
your flocks. "Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. "Blessed
shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
"The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before
your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven
ways. "The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in
all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the
LORD your God is giving you.
"The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has
sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in
His ways. "Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by
the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. Deuteronomy 28:1-10
Author's note:
New Testament is undeniably Hebrew in grammar, idiom, and thinking. This
opens up a whole new understanding of the essence of truth for the New
Testament believer. If the New Testament is rooted in the Hebrew Language,
then its teachings also derive from the Hebrew culture and are embedded in
the Hebrew - and not pagan Greek - view of truth. There are many linguistic
and Biblical authorities who maintain or support a belief in a Hebrew origin
of the New Testament.
Many linguists and historians now attest that the Evangels, the Acts, and
the Book of Revelation were composed in Hebrew. Early "church fathers"
validate that the Book of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew (see
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History 3:39; Irenaeus' Against Heresies 3:1;
Epiphanius' Panarion 20:9:4; Jerome's Lives of Illustrious Men 3 and De Vir.
3:36).
Hebrew was the language of Judah and Galilee in the first century. Its
sister language, Aramaic, remained the secondary tongue and the language of
commerce. Jews in this area were not Greek-speaking. Their revulsion to
the Greeks and the Greek language derives from the fact that the Maccabees
had just defeated the Greeks and driven them and their pagan defilement from
the Temple and Palestine.
According to Jerome, a renowned biblical scholar who flourished at the turn
of the 5th century and is best known for the Vulgate Latin version of the
Bible, Apostle Paul wrote his epistles in Hebrew and Luke translated them
into Greek!
We have said several times that the apostle Paul was a very educated man and
erudite at the feet of Gamaliel, who addressed the assembly in the Acts of
the Apostles and said, And now what do you have to do with these men? For if
it is of God, it will stand, if it is of men, it is ruined. [Acts 5:38f.]
While he had the holy scriptures and possessed the grace of speaking and of
different tongues - about which he boasts in the Lord and says: I thank God,
because I speak in tongues more than all of them [1 Cor 14:18f.], he could
not properly explain the majesty of the divine meanings in eloquent Greek
speech.
He, thus, had Titus as an interpreter, just as the blessed Peter also had
Mark, whose gospel was composed with Peter narrating and him writing.
Further, the two epistles, which circulate as Peter's, are also different in
style among themselves and in character, and in word structure; from which
we understand that he used different interpreters as necessary.
Matthew who is also Levi, ex-publican apostle, composed the Gospel of Christ
in Hebrew letters and words first in Judea, on account of those from the
circumcision who believed; who later translated it in Greek is not quite
certain. Futher, the Hebrew itself is still kept today in the Caesarean
library, which Pamphilus the martyr diligently assembled.
http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/ext/jerome.htm
In that last three hundred years denominationalists have made Paul's
epistles to be at the same level or above the words and teachings of Jesus
in the gospel. Paul's epistles were written for a specific date and time and
are not general epistles with general applications as applied by man. God
has others writing specific epistles for today's generation. It is a fact
that many of today's Fundamentalists and Conservative Baptists know more
about Paul's teaching than the teaching of Jesus ignoring some very
important verses in the gospels:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Blessed are the
meek, For they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. Matthew 5:3-6
Being poor in spirit means lacking the Holy Spirit and without being filled
with the Spirit no one shall have the kingdom of heaven. And that is why
Jesus stated:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19
It's a fact that many Fundamentalists and Conservative Baptist use the
canonization of scripture to deny the Baptism of the Spirit and the gifts of
the Spirit based on:
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether
there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it ill
vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. For we know in
part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then
that which is in part will be done away. 1 Corinthians 13:8-10
The PERFECT being in their carnal thinking the bible. How foolish can you
be and still breathe and deny what God has never denied but rather
confirmed?
Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. And God has
appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third
teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps,
administrations, varieties of tongues. 1 Corinthians 12:27-28
When the church of Jesus Christ ceases on earth then Apostles, prophets and
gifts of the Spirit will have ceased and Jesus Christ would have returned!
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Subject: Sola Scriptura
Thanks for sending "Sola Scriptura" to me. I appreciate what you had to
say. Just yesterday, a friend and I were discussing how dispensational
theology has done a disservice to the church by convincing people that
certain facets of church life only existed during the apostolic period.
Marv Knox
Editor
Baptist Standard