What is sola scriptura?

Inspiration of the Bible is a main watershed between Christianity and other faiths. If the Bible cannot be trusted to be the inspired Word of God, then its claims concerning the deity of Christ, our sins and state and our need for salvation through faith in Christ's death, and resurrection have no force. The biblical Christian recognizes the Old and New Testaments as the only words that come from God Himself - the final authority for faith and practice. For biblical Christians, all claims to authority must be judged according to Scripture. Following are answers to common questions concerning the Scriptures.

These verses are the touchstone for the Christian who wants to be biblical. Biblical Christians believe that Christ is God and that He died for our sins. Biblical Christians believe that by nature they are sinners, spiritually dead, and that their only hope of salvation from sin is faith in Christ's death and resurrection. Biblical Christians believe they have a Bible that is inspired by the living God, and it is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

The church then is not the authoritative teacher and interpreter of truth as Rome claims but the living witness to the truth which is authoritatively set forth in Scripture. To differentiate between these two things and to keep them in their right relative places in our minds is of extreme importance. AUTHORITY lies in the very word of God which we have in Scripture alone. The living witness to what Scripture sets forth is found in the church, but at the present moment that witness is sadly obscured though it will be perfect and complete in glory. Compare verses 23 and 21 of John 17, and note that what the world has failed to "believe" now it will "know" when the church is perfected in glory.

Now we feel as strongly as any Roman Catholic that, unless there is adequate authority for our confidence, that confidence is worth nothing, and will certainly fail us sooner or later. But the word of the living God as contained in the holy Scriptures is our authority — that word, in the Spirit's favour, is our confidence. We acknowledge no other, and we place implicit confidence in it. Ministers of that word may be used and blessed to us; but if so, they will be the first to own the distinction between a rule of faith — i.e. a divinely-given standard of what is to be believed — and a means of communicating it. The former cannot err, the latter can. As to the faith even the apostle Paul says, "Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand" (2 Cor. 1:24). If true to the Lord, whose servants they are, they will repudiate any personal authority in matters of faith, and will exhort and encourage their hearers or readers to base their convictions on the Scriptures alone. Tradition is but the enemy's device to injure the integrity of the Bible, as the sole authority for what is to be believed.

"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."

And now again, in the second epistle, he says, "Accordingly then, brethren, stand firm, and hold fast the traditions which ye were taught whether by word or by letter of ours" (verse 15). Beyond a doubt the delivered instructions embrace oral and epistolary teaching, and in no way allow an indefinite sense actuating powerfully but almost insensibly a community from age to age. The traditions which the apostle urges the church to hold fast were known and possessed truth (1 Cor. 11:2), not at all scripture supplemented by a vague spiritual sense that would mould all by its intrinsic influence. The Romish idea is unknown to and excluded by scripture, which insists on the Lord originating and forming all that is His will by that word which the Spirit makes effectual in all His operations from quickening to the highest edification, and alike in worship and in service. For He is here in the individual saint, and in the assembly, to glorify Christ according to the Father's will. The theory of a dual rule of faith betrays its real character as a rival of scripture, and a rebel against God Whose glory admits of no co-ordinate authority, such as its tradition cannot but assume to be. For this supposes defect in scripture, and claims, though human, nothing less than divine honour. A tradition you have not got and do not know is not only an absurd contradiction of the only true sense of tradition in scripture, but its assertion by Romanism exposes its votaries to the purely human tradition of the elders, which the Lord denounced as commandments of men which make void the word of God. In vain do such worship God; they honour Him with their lips, but their heart is far from Him. The word of God alone has an absolute title over the heart and conscience of His people.

Nor does sola scriptura mean that anyone can believe whatever he likes and interpret the Bible as he sees it. [.] The Church must remain subservient to the truth. The Protestant believer can trust his church only to the extent that it stays true to Scripture.

In approaching our consideration of the New Testament, it is well to premise that there are two common errors in the present day, and found almost everywhere in Christendom: 1, That the use of the Bible is only to teach persons the way of salvation; and 2, That the Book of Revelation is too difficult for any one to understand. As to the first point, it is plainly said that the scriptures are not only able to make "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus," but that every scripture is God-breathed, or "given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Tim. 3:15-17.) Thus we see that the scriptures are the complete and all-sufficient guide of man after he has been born of God and saved from coming wrath. There is another point of all importance here. When the inspired apostle says that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived," he turns to scripture as the only resource in an evil day; and would have Timothy know of whom he had learned the things he had been assured of. If many were asked in the present day from whom they had learned this doctrine and that, they would find it difficult to reply; some would say, "Our church teaches it." Now, true Spirit-taught and Spirit-led souls would say they learnt it from the scriptures, and therefore they can assert its divine authority. This is the exercise of faith, and nothing short of it can be pleasing to God. And as to the expression, "Our church teaches," it is not only unauthorised by the scriptures, but exactly opposite to scripture, for there we learn that, instead of the church teaching, the church is taught, and built up by various gifts from an ascended Saviour. (Eph. 4:11-12.) If any take refuge in another snare, that such and such doctrines must be true because the clergy have accepted them, we do well to remember that "the faith was once delivered to the saints," and is therefore the common possession of all true believers. The scriptures, not clever men, or preachers, or traditions, are our resource in these evil days; but we are enjoined to have that abiding in us which we have heard from the beginning; that is, the beginning of Christianity. (1 John 2:24.)

Again, refuge is taken by the opponents of the truth in the words, "the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2.) These words are found in Paul's last epistle to Timothy, when all Asia had turned away from him, and a prominent fellow-servant had forsaken him, and loved this present world. The Church had long gone on as God's corporate witness on earth, and had deeply failed, and nothing would have been easier than for the aged apostle in prospect of martyrdom to have commended Timothy to church authority; but instead of that, he calls upon Timothy to look out for individuals in the church on earth whom he can judge true to the Lord, and commit the truth which he had received from the apostle to such as he could call "faithful men," so that they might be able to teach others also. Timothy could not fail so to understand it. There is no thought of church authority in the passage. Nor is there such an idea here or elsewhere in scripture as that "the church teaches." Instead of the church teaching, the church is taught by the "gifts" received from Christ in ascension; and in the prospect of ruin and difficulty in the church looked at as God's corporate witness on earth, we are directed to the scriptures and their sufficiency as our resource in a time of evil in the last days. (2 Tim. 3:15-17; see also Eph. 4:8-16.) From first to last in the sacred writings their divine authority is set before us. Even when Paul preached, who had received his commission directly from the Lord Himself, as he says, "not of men neither by man," the Bereans were specially commended by the Holy Spirit, because they searched the scriptures daily, "whether those things were so." (Acts 17:11-12.) How important it is at this time to see that instead of the church giving authority or adding any value to the written word, it is that word which is the only authority in the church, and is sufficient to guide, instruct, and correct every believer and furnish him unto every good work.

But there are explicit directions what to do when this is the case — turn away from them. The church could have no authority, for Christians were called upon to listen to Christ's judgment of it. See the seven churches. Jezebel would be its teacher, the mother of its children; and from its lukewarmness it would be spued out of Christ's mouth. And the apostle in 2 Timothy 3, when the perilous times of the last days should be come, refers to the Scriptures as able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. When the church would be a false and insecure guide (having the form of godliness, denying the power of it) the believer is referred to the Scriptures as a secure one, and called on authoritatively to listen to and hear the Spirit's judgment of the church.