Sola Scriptura: Scripture Alone - The Erosion of Authority

By Pastor Dial | February 17, 2017

Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria

The five solas of the Reformation are designed to enable us to understand the theological
intentions of the Reformers. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ was ground zero in the
sixteenth century movement to rescue the gospel from its obscurity. Roman Catholic Medieval
theology had clouded the free grace of justification by faith. It had done so by establishing the
authority of tradition as equal with the Bible. The sufficiency of the atonement of Jesus Christ
was drained from the gospel by replacing it with the mediating power of the church as the
dispenser of grace. Grace was turned into a thing which could be acquired through obedience
to the sacraments. Faith was transformed into faith plus works. In and through all of the above,
human effort gets top billing in salvation rather than the glory of God.

Sola Scriptura:

We affirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which
alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our
salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.

We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christians conscience, that the
Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that
personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals,

The Cambridge Declaration

I did nothing; the Word did everything. The great Reformer, Martin Luther, said it all in these
words. He believed and practiced the truth that Scripture alone is the final authority for faith
and practice. Luther speaks for himself on this matter. In his debate in July of 1519 with the
Roman Catholic theologian, Johann Eck, a theological bombshell was dropped:

A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or council

without it. As for the popes decretal on indulgences I say that neither the Church nor
the pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from Scripture. For the sake of
Scripture we should reject pope and councils (Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of
Martin Luther, 90).
Scripture alone states the truth that the gospel stands upon the final authority of Gods Word,
the Bible. Implications of this can be summarized in the following statements.

The truth of Scripture alone was like the bright light of the sun that burns away the clouds of
false teaching. The Medieval Roman Catholic Church claimed the right to interpret the
Scriptures. The claim of the Catholic Church today is the same as it was in sixteenth century:

As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is

entrusted, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy
Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with
equal sentiments of devotion and reverence (The Catechism of the Catholic Church,
London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994, S82).

This helps us to understand the world in which Martin Luther lived. He did not see a Bible until
age twenty. In many towns in Germany only one sermon could be heard in a year, at Lent.
Images of the saints, the Virgin Mary, and painters substituted for a hearing of Gods Word.
When Martin Luther was eventually able to access Scripture in his studies and lectures,
everything began to change.

The truth of Scripture alone opened eyes to the wonders of Gods salvation in Jesus Christ. From
1513 to 1517 Luther lectured on Psalms, Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews while on the faculty
of theology at Wittenberg. It was during this time, or perhaps in 1519, that Luther had his
theological breakthrough of justification by faith alone. As he was seeing Scripture in a new way
the dominoes began to fall. Indulgences, the authority of the pope, and the gospel-obscuring-
sacramental system were challenged by the Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.). The
superiority of the Greek New Testament (published by Erasmus in 1516), Luthers translation of
the New Testament into the German language, and printed sermons and pamphlets (thanks to
the printing press), created a revolution throughout Europe. We must listen to Luthers
understanding of the changes taking place as he said, Let wretched men cease to impute, with
blasphemous perverseness, the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all-clear
Scriptures of God (Luther and Erasmus, 41).

The truth of Scripture alone was rescued from theological Bible-abuse. When the Reformers
began to study and preach the Bible they exemplified what the Bible says about its own nature
and how it interprets itself. Luthers conviction on the inerrancy of Scripture was settled,
Because we know that God does not lie. My neighbor and I in short, all men, may err and
deceive, but Gods Word cannot err (Luther, Large Catechism, in The Book of Concord, 1959,
444). But there was more than the trustworthiness of Scripture. There are the matters of
Scriptures clarity and sufficiency. The Roman Catholic Church had obscured the plain teaching
of the Bible. It claimed that the Bible needs to be interpreted by the church. Huldrych Zwingli,
the Swiss Reformer, would have none of this as he put it, When the Word of God shines on the
human understanding, it enlightens it in such a way that it understands and confesses the Word
and knows the certainty of it (Of the Clarity and Certainty of the Word of God, 75). Nor does
the Bible compete with additional revelation. The enthusiasts (God-within-ism) of Luthers
day were a pest. These were the God-revealed-this-to-me people, who in effect, created their
own authority, namely their subjective impressions.

The truth of Scripture alone is in danger of becoming eclipsed in our own day. The Reformation
is not over. In some sense it is to be a continuing mind-set. Attacks upon the authority of
Scripture and the gospel are as numerous as there are demonic powers. Satans strategy of
has-God-said comes disguised in every generation. Sola Scriptura is assaulted by the new
papacy of the biblical scholar (The Legacy of Luther, ed. R. C. Sproul and Stephen J. Nichols,
116). Beware of the idea that scholars alone can tell us what the Bible says. Laypersons and
pastors do not have to depend on experts to understand the basic meaning of Scripture. One of
the most alluring subversions of Scripture alone is the new tradition of experience. Feelings and
impressions can easily become a tempting shortcut to truth. Personal experience and
anecdotes must always be submitted to the final authority and complete sufficiency of the
Scriptures. Luther said in no uncertain terms, People generally think: If I had an opportunity to
hear God speak in person, I would run my feet bloody. . . . But you now have the Word of God
in church . . . and this is Gods Word as surely as if God Himself were speaking to you
(Sermons on the Gospel of John, in Luthers Works, 22:526-27).

Scripture alone demands that we live as Bible people. Are we reading the Bible every day?
Luther read the Bible through twice a year. Lets memorize Scripture. It is said that Luther had
memorized much of the New Testament. We must not allow our church to grow soft in
teaching the Scriptures to the next generation. May we never retreat from the Bible as our final
authority and its sufficiency for all things pertaining to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).