Sola Scriptura

I’m reading a new book called “The Shape of Sola Scriptura” by Keith Mathison. It is quite good and it basically looks at the concept of biblical interpretation throughout history. Essentially he lays out the history of the church forming its view of interpreting the bible. This, ofcourse, has had lasting impressions on our world not only from the first century but also up to our present time. “There are those who continue to maintain that position of the early Church by insisting that, although the Scriptures must be interpreted by the Church and in the Church according to the rule of faith, they are the sole source of authoritative revelation--”Tradition I.” And there are those who maintain the existence of extra-scriptural sources of revelation equally as authoritative as Scripture--”Tradition II.”

“Martin Luther and John Calvin did not formulate a novel doctrine of scriptural and ecclesiastical authority. Like the ancient fathers before them, they asserted the Scripture as the sole source of revelation and denied the existence of equally authoritative extra-scriptural revelation. They asserted that Scripture was to be interpreted in and by the Church and that it was to be interpreted according to the ancient apostolic teaching of the Church--the regula fidei. Their complaint arose because the Roman church had completely forsaken the apostolic life and doctrine and had also theologically insulated itself against the possibility of ever being corrected by submitting itself to a higher standard of truth. By declaring herself to be infallible, Rome had, in effect, become autonomous--a law unto herself. The classical Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura is not a novel doctrine of scriptural authority. Its distinctiveness arises instead from the fact that it is the doctrine of Tradition I as expressed within the historical context of debate with an almost universally apostate and autonomous church.”

He goes on to define Tradition 0 as those who advocate sola scriptura but do so without a historical context. They do not want what the church has stated on a particular topic of scripture to ever bear any weight for the individual. These radical reformers want just the bible and the individual to determine what is biblical and what isn’t. Without any oversight this mutation has become the norm in our modern evangelical madness. With this thought one can deny the Trinity or the work of the Holy Spirit or a whole host of other denials of true Christian faith. “The second concept, advocated by many of the radical reformers, insisted that Scripture was the sole authority altogether. Not only were medieval “traditions” disregarded, but tradition in the sense of the regula fidei, the testimony of the fathers, the traditional interpretation of Scripture, and the corporate judgment of the Church were discarded as well. The interpretation of Scripture, according to this concept, was a strictly individual matter.”

This book is just fantastic and I’m only halfway through it. Every Christian should read this book and you should read it even if you aren’t a Christian as Christianity has impacted the world significantly and this book will allow you to get a view behind enemy lines. It goes well with O’Palmer Robertson’s books “The Israel of God” and “Christ and the Covenants”. These, combined with John Calvin’s book IV of his Institutes, and you have a nice jumbalya of theological food to savor for quite some time.