2 – The Sufficiency
of Scripture – Is the Bible Sufficient? (Part One)
Is
the Bible Sufficient?
The statement remains that “It is one thing
to acknowledge that the Bible is the revealed Word of God, which He gave for
our salvation and guidance in life. It
is another matter, however, to ascertain how God’s authority through His Word
actually encounters our lives.”
“Through the centuries people have answered
this question (how to know the
authoritative will of God) in one of three ways: God’s will is determined either by human
spiritual experience or by the authoritative teaching of the church or by the
Scriptures themselves as taught by the Holy Spirit.” (Emphasis added) Charles R. Swindoll and Roy B. Zuck, General
Editors, Understanding Christian Theology,
(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 2003), pp. 122-123.
It is this third view that is the subject of
the paper. This view is often called “The
Scripture Alone” or “sola
Scriptura.” “This classic Protestant doctrine . . .
is well stated in the French Confession of Faith in 1559:
We believe that the
Word contained in these books has proceeded from God, and receives its
authority from him alone, and not from men.
And in as much as it is the rule of all truth, containing all that is
necessary for the service of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful for
men, nor even for angels to add to it, or to take away from it, or to change
it. Whence it follows that no authority,
whether of antiquity, or custom, or numbers, or human wisdom, or judgments, or
proclamations, or edicts, or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles,
should be opposed to these Holy Scriptures, but on the contrary, all things
should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them.
French Confession of
Faith, quoted in John H. Armstrong, ‘The Authority of Scripture,’ in Sola
Scriptura, ed. Don Kistler (Morgan, Pa.:
Soli Deo Gloria, 1995), 121-22.
Charles R. Swindoll and Roy B. Zuck, General Editors, Understanding Christian Theology,
(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers,
2003), p. 125.
As previously noted, “The sufficiency of
Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his
people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains
all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for
obeying him perfectly.
“This definition emphasizes that it is in
Scripture alone that we are to search for God’s words to us. It also reminds us that God considers what he
has told us in the Bible to be enough for us, and that we should rejoice in the
great revelation that he has given us and be content with it.” Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 127.
“The term sola
Scriptura also refers to the sufficiency of Scripture, that is, the fact
that the Bible contains all truth that is necessary for salvation and the
spiritual life. To a people of unbelief
who were looking to mediums for direction, Isaiah declared, ‘Should not a
people inquire of their God? . . . To the law and to the Testimony! If they do not speak according to this word,
they have no light of dawn’” (Isaiah 8:19-20).
Swindoll and Zuck, p. 123. All
Scripture reference is from the New International Version (NIV) unless
otherwise noted.
We should ask of ourselves this same
question: “Should not a people inquire
of their God?” Here is a rhetorical
question that demands an emphatic, “YES?”
But what is often done? We seek
sources outside of the Scripture or we combine extra-biblical sources to look
for wisdom. Even worse, when extra-biblical
sources are combined with Scripture, these extra-biblical sources are treated,
at best, equal to the Word of God, but at worst (and more often than not)
superior to the Word of God. The Word of
God tells us to look to the Scripture.
Not to other sources, but to Scripture.
. . . and how from
infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
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.
2 Timothy 3:15-17
Here, the Apostle Paul says that we can be
“thoroughly equipped for every good work” through the
knowledge and use of the Scripture. Not
only is the special revelation of the Scripture the source of our understanding
salvation, it thoroughly equips us for every good deed, a feat that cannot be
accomplished in any other way. It is to
be used to teach, rebuke, correct and train in what we are to be all about;
righteousness. Our quest to be
Christ-like is the quest to be fulfilled in the character of Christ. That character is righteousness. Through Scripture alone, sola Scriptura, can this be accomplished. What God wants us to do is contained in the
Scripture. Everything He wants us
to do is contained in the Scripture. He
does not expect anything from us other than what is in Scripture. We are to be taught, rebuked, corrected and
trained in what we are to do, all from Scripture. Nothing more or nothing less is required of
us.
“To be morally perfect in God’s sight, then,
what must we do in addition to what God commands us in Scripture? Nothing!
Nothing at all! If we simply keep
the words of Scripture we will be ‘blameless’ and we will be doing ‘every good
work’ that God expects of us.”
Even though we will never be able to keep
God’s word completely, “. . . the truth of the sufficiency of Scripture is of
great significance for our Christian lives, for it enables us to focus our search for God’s words to us
on the Bible alone and saves us from the endless task of searching through all
of the writings of Christians throughout history, or through all the teachings
of the church, or through all the subjective feelings and impressions that come
to our minds from day to day, in order to find what God requires of us.
“There will of course be some times when the
answer we find is that Scripture does not speak directly to our question . . .
In those cases, we may conclude that God has not required us to think or to act
in any certain way with regard to that question (except, perhaps, in terms of
more general principles regarding our attitudes and goals).
“. . . frequent practice in searching
Scripture for guidance will result in an increasing ability to find accurate,
carefully formatted answers to our problems and questions. Lifelong growth in the skill of rightly
understanding Scripture will thus include growth in the skill of rightly
understanding the Bible’s teachings and applying them to specific
questions.” Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, pp. 128-131.
In Luke 16:31, Jesus directed the Pharisee to
the Scripture. “He said to him, ‘If they
do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if
someone rises from the dead.’” In
Matthew 22:29, speaking to the Sadducees, Jesus said, “You are in error because
you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” In Matthew 15:2-9, being questioned by Jewish
religious authorities, Jesus referred them to Scripture, saying:
And why do you break
the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’
and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father
or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift
devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake
of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about
you:
These people honor me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are
but rules taught by men.
The apostles also appealed only to the
Scriptures as their final authority.
Paul makes special commendation of the Bereans because “they received
the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see
if what Paul said was true. (Acts
17:11) Further, the apostles told the
Corinthians “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). They were then to live only by the
Scriptures.
Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14-17,
“and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to
make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 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.”
2 Corinthians 3:5, says, “Not that we are competent
in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from
God.” Our “competency” or our
“sufficiency” comes from God and nowhere else.
In 2 Corinthians 9:8, Paul says, “And God is
able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times,
having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” Note the absolutes: “all grace, all things, at all
times, in every good work.” This
is what God wants us to understand. He
is all sufficient in everything and, since He “God-breathed” His Scripture, it
too is all sufficient in everything.
In John 17:17, Jesus says to His Father,
“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” The word “sanctify” means “set apart from
sin, holy, separated unto God.” The idea
is that of spiritual perfection or completion.
Notice the progression. They are
sanctified or set apart by TRUTH, but the verse does not end there. “Your word is truth,” Jesus says. Spiritual completion or perfection comes from
truth, that is the Word or God. There is
no other truth. There is no other Word,
there is no other God. Here is sola
Scriptura.
In 1 Corinthians 2:13, note that the teaching
of God by the Holy Spirit, through the apostles by special revelation to us, is
this: “This is what we speak, not in
words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing
spiritual truths in spiritual words.”
Our sufficiency is in God, not through the extra-biblical sources of the
human mind. We are not to be taught
spiritual things by human wisdom. We are
to be taught by the Holy Spirit in spiritual words.
Psalm 19:1-6 gives us a glimpse into general
revelation.
The heavens declare
the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night
after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. In
the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom
coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes
its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.
Verses 7-14 speak to
special revelation.
The law of the Lord
is perfect, reviving the soul. The
statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving
joy to the heart. The commands of the
Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and
altogether righteous. They are more
precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than
honey from the comb. By them is your
servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his
errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may
they not rule over me. Then will I be
blameless, innocent of great transgression.
May the words of my
mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock
and my Redeemer.
See also Psalm 119, 2
Peter 3:16 and Hebrews 4:12.
Here is clear and powerful truth: The “law of the LORD is perfect . . . The
statutes of the LORD are trustworthy . . . wise . . . The precepts of the LORD
are right . . . The commands of the LORD are radiant . . . The ordinances of
the LORD are sure and altogether
righteous . . . They are most precious . . . keeping them . . . is great
reward.” They are pleasing in the sight
of the LORD.
Next we’ll look at Part Two of this section.
Doug