Truth
On
Tough
Texts
ISSUE 17 –
December/2006
The
Sufficiency of
Scripture
Romans 4:3; Galatians
4:30
OF ALL THE ISSUES THAT SURROUND AND
INUNDATE THE CHURCH TODAY—THE REDEFINING of the Gospel,
the “seeker-sensitive” movement, the
entertainment-orientation of ministry, the abandonment
of preaching, the relativism and pragmatism that rule
all aspects of Church life, etc.—I am absolutely
convinced that it is the doctrine of the sufficiency
of Scripture that is the key issue, that
every issue and question, without exception,
comes back to our attitude toward and approach to
Scripture. The bottom line is that what Scripture
alone says is always the issue. In contrast, when
Scripture alone is not our
sole authority, anything is
possible.
May we interject here that
even more alarming, as documented by several recent
polls, is the fact that “a major reason many people are
leaving the church is because they no longer believe the
Bible to be the absolute Word of God.”[i] Is there any doubt of the
Church’s weakness?
When one,
therefore, sits down and objectively
(repeat, objectively)
compares modern Christianity with Scripture, it does not
take him long to see the places of departure. He quickly
sees that men have removed many of the necessities, such
as the primary one of strong expository preaching, and
then added several tons of baggage. How many doctrinal
statements, church constitutions, and denominational
creeds say,
“We believe the Holy Scriptures, the sixty-six books of
the Old and New Testaments, to be the only verbally
inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the final
authority for faith and life” (or words to that effect),
but how many truly practice it? How
many pastors are standing in pulpits and boldly and
unapologetically preaching “all the counsel of God”
(Acts 20:27) and following It alone as their
authority for every aspect of ministry? How many
Christians live a life that follows
solely the principles,
precepts, and precedents of the Word of
God?
In both of our
texts, we see Paul concerned with one thing only,
namely, what saith the scripture?—that is,
what does Scripture say on a particular
subject. In the first instance
(Rom. 4:3), he speaks of justification by faith and
cites Abraham as the prime example. To emphasize his
point, he quotes from Genesis 15:6. In the second
instance (Gal. 4:30), he speaks again of justification
by faith. Illustrating the principle that we are no
longer under law but under grace (vs. 21-31), he again
quotes from Genesis (21:10, 12).
Over and over again,
we see Paul going to the Scripture as His sole
authority. He uses the phrase “it is written,” for
example, thirty times (e.g. Rom. 1:17; 3:10; 9:13; I
Cor. 1:19, 31; Gal. 3:10; etc.). Further, including all
New Testament writers, we find that phrase a total of
sixty-three times (KJV; 60 in the NASB, 62 in the NIV,
etc.). Similarly, we find the words “Scripture saith”
six times (Jn. 19:37; Rom. 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; I Tim.
5:18; Jas. 4:5). All this demonstrates the singular
importance of the declarations
of Scripture.
We read something very
different, however, in our day. One noted evangelical
author and pastor, for example, writes the following in
one of his many books (so as not to offend, I will not
cite the author by name):
There are four common
misconceptions about spirituality and maturity that
simply don’t hold water. . . . [One of them is] all the
problems you will ever have are addressed in the Bible.
They’re not.
To be fair, we’ll
give the author the benefit of the doubt by saying that
perhaps he means that not every difficulty we will ever
face is mentioned by name.
For example, nowhere do we read, “Thou shalt not use
tobacco products,” but the principle of not doing
anything that damages the temple of the Holy Spirit (I
Cor. 6:18-20) plainly teaches against this
practice.
So we must object to
the author’s wording, for it immediately, whether
intended or not, casts a doubt on the Scripture. This
wording could easily cause someone to say, “Oh, since
the Bible doesn’t saying anything about this practice,
then it must be okay,” or, “Since I can’t find the
answer in the Bible, I must look elsewhere.” We submit,
however, every
single problem or question we might have is answered by
either word or principle in Scripture. The Word of God is sufficient! If the above
author agrees with that truth, and we hope he does, why
didn’t he word it this way: “All the problems you will
ever have are addressed either in Word or principle in
the Bible?” In the words of Puritan Thomas
Gouge:
There is not a condition
into which a child of God can fall but there is a
direction and rule in the Word in measure suitable
thereunto.[ii]
While the Puritan’s
were certainly not perfect, their devotion to the
authority and application of the Word of God puts us to
shame. It was from them that we received the Westminster
Confession of Faith (1646), in which we read these
statements (which also appear virtually verbatim in
The London Baptist Confession of 1689):
. . .all the books of the
Old and New Testament. . .are given by inspiration of
God to be the rule of faith and life . . . (Chapter I,
section II)
The authority of the holy
Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and
obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or
church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the
author thereof: and therefore it is to be received,
because it is the word of God . . . (I.IV)
The whole counsel of God
concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s
salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down
in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may
be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any
time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the
Spirit, or traditions of men . . . (I. VI)
The supreme judge by which
all controversies of religion are to be determined, and
all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers,
doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be
examined, and in whose sentence, we are to rest, can be
no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.
(I. X)
The Puritans
believed the Bible to be the only model for life
and cited Scripture for every area of living:
worship, family, government, economics, sex, church,
education, and all others. Do we really believe Thomas Vincent’s (1634-1678) answer to
the question, “Why are the Scriptures called the rule to
direct us how we may glorify and enjoy
God?”
Because all doctrines which
we are bound to believe must be measured or judged of;
all duties
which we are bound to practice as means in order to the
attainment of this chief end of man, must be squared or
conformed unto this rule.[iii]
Among my favorites of the
Puritans was Thomas Watson (no relation that I know of),
who wrote:
The Word is a rule of
faith, a canon to direct our lives. The Word is the
judge of controversies, the rock of infallibility. That
only is to be received for truth which agrees with
Scripture. . . . All maxims in divinity are to be
brought to the touchstone of Scripture, as all measures
are brought to the standard.[iv]
Further, the
Puritans mercilessly scorned (and rightly so) the
traditions of Catholicism (in contrast to today’s open
tolerance of its heinous blasphemies and pagan
practices). To them the Scriptures
alone were to govern the
Church. Watson continues:
The Papists, therefore,
make themselves guilty, who eke out Scripture with their
traditions, which they consider equal to it. The Council
of Trent says, that the traditions of the church of Rome
are to be received . . . with the same devotion that
Scripture is to be received; so bringing themselves
under the curse. Rev xxii:18. “If any man shall add unto
these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that
are written in this book.”[v]
We simply cannot avoid
equating that with what we see today, even in
Evangelicalism. Countless things have been and continue
to be added to the Church and its ministry, and
traditions often supersede the clear revelations of
Scripture.
We should approach
every question of life by turning to Scripture
alone. If the Bible is absolutely authoritative,
this therefore means that it is authoritative in every area. If,
on the other hand, It is not authoritative in every
area, then It’s not authoritative at all. There can be
no middle ground here, no “gray area.” Therefore, when a
question arises, we should turn to the Word of God
alone for the
answer.
Again, however, the
grievous trend in the Church today is the idea that,
“The Bible does not address every issue of life.” To
mention a single example, one of the most common things
used to supplement Scripture today is psychology. I have
heard many advocates say, “Psychology by itself is not
enough and the Bible by itself is not enough; we need
both for effective counseling.” Such teaching is
appalling and is no less than heresy; it flies in the
face of Scripture by blatantly denying its sufficiency,
that something else is needed to answer people’s
problems. If we may submit, whatever did poor ole Paul,
or the Lord Jesus Himself for that matter, do without
modern psychological techniques? How could they possibly
have been effective without adequate training in
psychology? We must face the question: Is Scripture
solely sufficient, or is It not?
Our answer to that question reveals our true attitude
toward Scripture.
In an article titled, “The
Finality and Sufficiency of Scripture,” theologian John
Murray wrote:
Here, I believe, we have
too often made the mistake of not taking seriously the
doctrine we profess. If Scripture is the inscripturated
revelation of the gospel and of God’s mind and will, if
it is the only revelation of this character that we
possess, then it is this revelation in all its fullness,
richness, wisdom, and power that must be applied to man
in whatever religious, moral, mental situation he is to
be found. It is because we have not esteemed and prized
the perfection of Scripture and its finality, that we
have resorted to other techniques, expedients, and
methods of dealing with the dilemma that confronts us
all if we are alive to the needs of this hour. .
.
. . . it is not the
tradition of the past, not a precious heritage, and not
the labours of the fathers, that are to serve this
generation and this hour, but the Word of the living and
abiding God deposited for us in Holy Scripture, and this
Word ministered by the church. And we must bring forth
from its inexhaustible treasures, in exposition,
proclamation, and application—application to every
sphere of life—what is the wisdom and power of God for
man in this age in all the particularity of his need, as
for man in every age. There will then be commanding
relevance, for it will be the message from God in the
unction and power of the Spirit, not derived from the modern
mentality, but declared to the modern
mentality in all the desperateness of its anxiety and
misery.[vi]
I am compelled here to
cite another example of today’s trend. My desire is not
to be divisive or unkind, but to “[speak] the truth in
love” (Eph. 4:15). One writer first makes this
well-sounding and typical evangelical
statement:
If I could have only one
wish for God’s people, it would be that all of us would
return to the Word of God, that we would realize once
and for all that His book has the answers. The Bible IS
the authority, the final resting place of our cares, our
worries, our sorrows, and our surprises. It is the final
answer to our questions, our search.
We whole-heartedly agree
so far, but then in another book, he writes:
Clearly my position is on
the side of openness, allowing room for the untried, the
unpredictable, the unexpected, all the while holding
fast to the truth.
[My wife] and I are
neither brilliant nor worldly wise, but we do learn fast
and we stay flexible, always open to innovative ideas. .
. . If a fresh idea, never tried before, makes sense,
we’ll give it a whirl! If it fails, we learned. If it
works, we get all the more excited!
That is so appalling
that it’s hard to know where to begin. First, God
doesn’t ask us to be brilliant, and He certainly
doesn’t ask us to be worldly wise; He asks us to
be obedient. Second, we must ask “makes sense” to
whom, man or God? Third, “give it a whirl?” What verse
of Scripture tells us to give things “a whirl”? On the
other hand, how many verses outline what we are to do
and how many more tell us to obey? Fourth, Christian
ministry is simply not a matter of
trial and error. We must disagree with the
writer’s statement, “If it fails, we learn,” for he
obviously didn’t learn that when we do what God says
and do it the way He says, we won’t fail. Fifth, why can’t the
writer “get all the more excited” by just doing things
God’s way? Sixth, in light of the second paragraph, it’s
difficult to know what the writer means when he says
“holding fast to the truth” in the first
paragraph.
My Dear Christian
Friend, God doesn’t want simply our physical activity, nor
does He need our mental productivity,
rather He demands our total reliability. He
wants to use us, but He wants to do it His way,
and His way is outlined in His Word alone. We
have flooded His church with man-made programs,
gimmicks, humanistic psychology, worldly marketing, and
a plethora of other “helps” just to get results, but
what kind of results are they? They are not lasting
results, for just as man’s ideas come and go, so will
the followers of such ideas. Only when we follow the
Word alone will we have
lasting, permanent results: “I [Paul] have planted,
Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then
neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that
watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (I Cor.
3:6-7; cf. 2:1-5).
Of many Scriptural
examples we could cite of those who just did things
God’s way and obeyed His Word without addition or
subtraction, Noah is among my favorites. Here was a man
who appeared to everyone outside his family to be either
an eccentric at best or “a nut” at worst. Though totally
land-locked, he built a huge boat, all the while
proclaiming it was going to rain, even though it had
never rained before. Why would anyone do such a thing?
Did God give Noah any signs that it was going to rain?
Did He give Noah any evidence that what He said about
the coming judgment was true? No. So why did Noah do it?
Simply and solely
because God said to do it. That
was enough for Noah; his response to what God said was:
“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him,
so did he” (Gen. 6:22).
How many of us today fear
what people will think if we simply obey what God says?
We fear that we will appear old-fashioned, behind the
times, out of touch, naïve, simplistic,
non-intellectual, or just plain silly if we quote and
practice the Bible. Not Noah.
Noah teaches us
another lesson. Notice that he did not build the
ark because he saw “a need” for it—there wasn’t one.
There were no large bodies of water nearby, and Noah
certainly didn’t live in a port city, so there was
absolutely no need for a big boat. In contrast, many
today want to go out and “do something” just because
they perceive a need. So using human reasoning they
think up something to “meet the need.” This is not what
Noah did. He did
what God told him to do, no more and no less.
He didn’t form a committee,
he didn’t found an organization, he didn’t think up a
method for ministry; he simply obeyed God by building
the ark and preaching the Word. Likewise, if we would
just do what God says to do, the way He says to do it,
no more and no less, we will see God’s blessings like
never before.
Without doubt, most of
Christianity today is totally pragmatic in its approach
to ministry. To many, if not most, Christian ministers,
“the end justifies the means.” They, like Charles
Finney, D. L. Moody, and others, will “do anything to
get a man to God” (Moody’s words). But is that what we
see in God’s Word? Is that what we learn from Noah? No.
We see a man doing what God told him to do.
Consider what Noah
would do today if he followed modern trends. To be
successful, he would build several boats (or just one
even bigger one) and then do anything to get people on
one of them. He’d run an attendance contest, give away
balloons with dinosaur pictures on them, put on a stage
play to dramatize the coming flood, make people feel
comfortable by appealing to their “felt-needs,” sing
praise choruses for an hour, have a celebrity give his
testimony, and then deliver a ten-minute talk on
self-esteem and that “God has a wonderful plan for your
life so you really need to get on the boat.” But Noah’s
ministry was not a pragmatic one; it was a
biblical one. He did things
God’s way.
I’m also constantly
reminded of another example, namely, the book of
Nehemiah, where we read:
And all the people
gathered themselves together as one man into the street
that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra
the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which
the LORD had commanded to Israel. (8:1)
The pivotal words here are
“bring the book,” the background of which we find in
Deuteronomy 31:9-13, where Moses delivers a law stating
that,
At the end of every seven
years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the
feast of tabernacles, When all Israel is come to appear
before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall
choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in
their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and
women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy
gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and
fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words
of this law: And that their children, which have not
known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD
your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go
over Jordan to possess it. (vs. 10-13)
Note carefully that
all
the people—men, women, and children—were to listen to
the Law of God. The accepted practice today, of course,
is that we need “graded curriculum” and different
classes and programs for each age group, an approach
that is, according to historical fact, a by-product of
evolutionary thought propagated by John Dewy and others.
Here, however, all the people listened to the reading of
God’s Law. In fact, what we
find in Scripture is that children of every age were
always, without a single exception, with their
parents when God’s people met for worship; in other
words, families always worshipped together.[vii]
And what was (and is) the
purpose? “That
they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe
to do all the words of this law.” While people
were instructed every Sabbath and daily in their homes,
this public reading served as a collective reminder to
obey God’s Law.
So the people’s
request to “bring the book” is extremely significant.
During the seventy years of captivity in Babylon, the
practice of publicly reading the Scriptures had been
neglected, but was now reinstated. I am always struck by
those words. The people did not say, “Ezra, bring
entertainment,” “Bring a celebrity,” “Bring your
opinion,” “Bring psychology,” “Bring a new method,” or
“Bring your experience”; rather they said, “Bring
the Book!” Oh, how
much we need the Book today! We bring everything under
the sun into our assemblies except the one (and
only) thing we should bring,
the Word of God.
We also read that
the people “gathered themselves together as one man.” We
hear much today about “unity,” but it is the Word of God
alone that provides the
ground for true unity. If there is no unity around the
Word of God, then there’s no unity.
Also notice that the
people were attentive to the Word (v. 3), and that they
“stood up” when It was opened (v. 5). What reverence and
awe they had for God’s Word, in stark contrast to
today’s often nonchalant, flippant, and lip-serving
attitude.
Further, the people
listened from “the morning until midday.” The Hebrew for
“morning” (owr) means “light, light of day, daybreak, or dawn.”
So God’s people stood and listened to the Word read,
exposited, and applied for several hours. What an
indictment on us today who barely have time to give God
an hour on Sunday morning, or who don’t want the sermon
to go “too long” so as not to interfere with our plans
for the afternoon, or who think nothing of attending a
Christian content or having an hour long song service
but only a ten-minute “sermon” (or none at
all).
What was the result of all
this in Nehemiah’s day? Did the Word of God make a
difference in the lives of God’s people?
Now in the twenty and
fourth day of this month the children of Israel were
assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth
upon them. And the seed of Israel separated themselves
from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins,
and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up
in their place, and read in the book of the law of the
LORD their God one fourth part of the day; and another
fourth part they confessed, and worshipped the LORD
their God. (9:1-3)
Again the people gathered
to read God’s Law, this time for a fourth part of the
day, that is, for three hours. They then spent another
three hours in confession of sin and worship of God.
What a contrast to our habit today! As Matthew Henry
puts it, “They stayed together six hours . . . without
saying, Behold what a weariness it is.”
Further, we often hear
such clichés as, “Oh, we need revival,” “We need
renewal,” “We need reformation,” and so on. We then use
every human idea we can think of to produce the desired
effect. Charles Finney wrote in his autobiography, “A
revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle in
any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the
right use of the constituted means, as much so as any
other effect produced by the application of
means.”[viii] Likewise, today’s
basic philosophy of ministry is, “If it works, do it.”
But that is not what we see in Nehemiah. It was
only when Ezra opened the Book, read It, and
expounded It that true revival broke out. It was only
then that the people of God repented and turned back
to Him. Likewise, new life will come to the Church only
when we “bring the Book” alone.
In his typical
straightforward style, A. W. Tozer brings the issue down
to this pointed and practical application:
What Christian when faced
with a moral problem goes straight to the Sermon on the
Mount or other New Testament Scripture for the
authoritative answer? Who lets the words of Christ be
final on giving, birth control, the bringing up of a
family, personal habits, tithing, entertainment, buying,
selling, and other such important matters?[ix]
What is the final
conclusion of believing in Biblical authority and
sufficiency? We say we believe
it, but do we really?
The final conclusion of believing
in biblical authority and sufficiency is that we do that
which It says, refrain from doing what It forbids, and
add nothing to It or subtract nothing from It in both
doctrine and practice.
It’s one thing to say
those words, but it’s quite another, indeed, to live
them.
Dr. J.
D. Watson
Pastor-Teacher
Grace
Bible Church
*
* *
The
Holy Ghost rides in the chariot of Scripture, and not in
the wagon of modern
thought.
Charles
Spurgeon,
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit
NOTES
[i]
From a poll taken by Answers in Genesis, as a follow-up
to a 2002 Barna poll and a Southern Baptist poll of
around the same time. Cited in “Answers Update”, Volume
13, Issue 11 (Hebron, KY: Answers In Genesis, 2006), p.
2.
[ii] Cited in Leland
Ryken, Worldly
Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were (Zondervan, 1986), p.
137.
[iii] Thomas Vincent, The Shorter
Catechism Explained from Scripture (Banner of Truth Trust, 1980), p. 22 (emphasis
added).
[iv] Thomas Watson, A Body of
Divinity (Banner of Truth Trust,
1992 reprint), p. 30.
[vi] John Murray, Collected Writings
of John Murray (Banner of Truth
Trust, 1976), Vol. 1, pp. 21-22 (emphasis in the
original).
[vii] See Josh. 8:35;
II Chron. 20:13; Neh. 12:43; Joel 2:15-16; Lu. 2:41-42;
Matt. 18:1-5; Mk. 10:13-14; Acts 2:46; 20:20.
[viii] Charles G.
Finney: An Autobiography
(Revell, n.d.), p. 5.
[ix] A. W. Tozer, “The
Waning Authority of Christ in the Churches” in God
Tells the Man Who Cares
(Christian
Publications).
