What does it mean that the Bible should be our sole authority for faith and practice?

But we have all Scripture to guide us: Paul's epistles; the Old Testament writings; the Gospels and the other New Testament writings. All these have been given by divine inspiration, and all is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). In the inspired writings, the Old and New Testaments, God has set forth His mind and will; that which makes known His thoughts regarding Himself, that which tells us of His ways with men, that which unfolds His purposes and counsels, and which presents His Son as the One in Whom there has been the perfect and full revelation of Himself; and that which marks out the path for the saints of God at all times. We need the Spirit of God to give us understanding in relation to these things, but we have not the mind and will of God for us apart from "All Scripture" which is "given by inspiration of God." When upon earth, the Lord Jesus met the enemy with "It is written;" He used the Scriptures. We need no other words to guide us, for through the Scriptures "The man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:17).

There is but one supreme and paramount authority, and that is the Word of God. All human writings are interesting as references, valuable as aids, but they are worthless, yea mischievous as authority. Scripture is all-sufficient. We want absolutely nothing in the way of guidance and authority beyond what we possess in the sacred canon of Scripture. No doubt, it is only by the Holy Spirit we can understand, appreciate or be guided by Scripture. God may use a human voice or a human pen to help us, but Scripture is divinely sufficient. It can make a child wise to salvation and it can make a man perfect to all good works. See 2 Timothy 3:15-17.

"The teaching of the written Scriptures is the Word which God spoke and speaks to His Church, and is finally authoritative for life and faith … It contains all that the Church needs to know in this world for its guidance in the way of salvation and service … Furthermore, the Holy Spirit, who caused it to be written, has been given to the Church to cause believers to recognize it for the divine Word that it is, and to enable them to interpret it rightly and understand its meaning. … The Bible, therefore, does not need to be supplemented and interpreted by tradition. … Instead, it demands to sit in judgment … the words of men must be tried by the Word of God."

Our apostle, like Paul, had his dissolution before his eyes as well as the increasing evil through false teachers in depravity, and scepticism. Both are distinct in pointing to scripture as the great safeguard. As they alike set aside tradition, so they exclude any thought of apostolic succession. Grace might raise up faithful men to teach the truth they had learnt, or even to instruct others competent to communicate it. But scripture alone is the rule of faith, the sole unerring standard given of God to all His children whereby to test what they hear; and it is all the more blessed and necessary, as wicked men and impostors advance for the worse, leading and led astray. Scripture alone has divine authority. Therein God speaks directly to every soul; as indeed the apostle John also expresses it in his First Epistle, We [the inspired, apostles and prophets] are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error" (1 John 4:6). No one honoured scripture as Christ did from first to last, on the cross, and when risen from the dead. He even set the written word as a definitive witness beyond His own spoken words (John 5:47).

Sola scriptura means the Bible alone is all we need for our spiritual authority. All the things we need to know, believe and practice are clearly stated in the Scriptures, which are given by inspiration of God.

Read it regularly, connectedly, consecutively. Give your heart and mind the whole field of Scripture. Christ in type and prophecy in the Old; Christ on earth, in life, in death and in glory, in the New. The Bible is from God. It is Divinely inspired, has been miraculously guarded, is of supreme authority, all sufficient, eternal. The standard of doctrine, the channel of blessing, the rule of life, the final appeal on all God's things, in all ages. Nothing needs to be added to it because nothing is wanting; nothing taken from it, because nothing is superfluous. Like its Author, it is Divine, unchanging, eternal.

How important it is to hold fast the great truth that the Bible is the Word of God, and therefore "God-breathed." All apostasy starts with the denial of this fact. The Scriptures are the permanent expression of the mind and will of God. It is not merely that the truth is given in them by inspiration, but they are inspired. They are the expression of His own thoughts. They are our only authority. Upon the constant use of them depends everything. Without adhering to the Scriptures and being obedient to them, we also would be swept along by the current of apostasy. They are the one thing profitable. Note the order: Profitable for doctrine, which we get alone from the Word of God, and which is the foundation of everything. Then follows "reproof" or conviction, and that is followed by correction and instruction for righteousness. It starts with the doctrine and leads, after conviction and correction, to righteousness. And then the man of God, obedient to the Scriptures in all things, is perfect, thoroughly finished unto every good work.

We feel it to be our sacred duty, as most surely it is our high privilege, to press upon all to whom we have access the immense importance, yea, the absolute necessity of the most uncompromising decision on this point. We must faithfully maintain at all cost the divine authority, and therefore the absolute supremacy and all-sufficiency of the word of God at all times, in all places, for all purposes. We must hold to it that the scriptures having been given of God are complete in the very highest and fullest sense of the word; that they do not need any human authority to accredit them or any human voice to make them available; they speak for themselves and carry their credentials with them. All we have to do is to believe and obey, not to reason or discuss. God has spoken: it is ours to hearken and yield an unreserved and reverent obedience.

There are those of course who brush aside Paul's administration. Though believers in Christ, they think that Paul's instructions in church matters are not of binding importance in the twentieth century, whatever they may have been in the first. We are confident that our readers are not among these. Nor are they, we trust, amongst those who, whilst accepting Paul's inspired instructions, hold themselves free to add a little from other sources, as they think may be needed; as though Scripture were not enough. Scripture is enough, as is made very manifest in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. If Scripture suffices to furnish the man of God fully and completely to every good work, there is no work that is good — whether in the church, or outside it in the world — that is not covered by Scripture. We need nothing beside.

The lesson for us is singularly appropriate in the present day, when man and his doings occupy such a large place, and faith and obedience are so little thought of. It was not that David despised any reasonable precaution or instrumentality even the sword of Goliath had its use, "There is none like that; give it me." But the best service we can render to God and His people, when His word has lost its value in the eyes of professors, and is in danger of losing its authority over the hearts of His own, is to contend earnestly (as Jude writes) for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. By a self-sufficient world, intoxicated with its brilliant discoveries and its imaginary knowledge, the word of God may be treated as antiquated and obsolete, but our wisdom and duty is to maintain its divine authority and sufficiency both for faith and practice, whatever may be the claims of anything new either in doctrine or methods of service. "Every scripture is given by inspiration of God ["who cannot lie"], and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work." Here is the divine competency of God's word for every good work. And "if a man therefore purge himself from these [vessels to dishonour], he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, meet for the Master's use, prepared unto every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Tim. 2:21). David could say with regard to Saul's resources, "I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them." All that is worth doing is what God approves and commends to us in His wotd; it is proved also in the experience of all Christ's faithful servants. May we then "hold fast that which is good; abiding in the things which we have learned, and of which we have been fully persuaded, knowing of whom we have learned them. For evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." "We are of God," says the apostle; "he that knoweth God, heareth us [the apostles]; he that is not of God heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error." G.S.B.