We're going to hear about scripture alone. I hope that you guys are excited about this. Before Preston Kelso comes and teaches us about this glorious doctrine, just wanted to give you guys some time to open up your bulletin, to have a seat, and tell you that after next week, next week we will finish our solas with the glory of God alone, and then We will start a new series where we will teach through things that are pertaining to marriage and the heart. So I hope that you guys are excited about that. We will alternate weeks where we will have a teacher give us a theology and practical outworkings of marriage, and then we'll also have teachings on the heart. But with that being said, Preston, will you come and teach us from God's word about sola scriptura. Please come, my brother. Well, it is incredibly easy. to get me to come up here and talk about the Word of God, the easiest sell you've ever had, Jimmy. I love, I love God's Word. I wanna communicate that to you, that I love the Word of God. I think this borrows a little bit of language from Charles Spurgeon, but I can think back to my years in ministry and my years in seminary as a student, and I always enjoyed dabbling in other things. But it's dabble in church history for a little while and then get back to God's word. And dabble in John Gill for a little while and get back to God's word. And dabble in systematic theology for a while, come back to God's word. I've been sitting in my chair in the mornings and evenings reading Isaiah. How many times in the course of one's Christian life do you think you read from the book of Isaiah? It's pretty common. And every night, sitting in my chair, it's a page burner. It's like, it's brand new, it's fresh, every time. I love God's word. And so it is a real privilege, I mean a real privilege, to be able to come up here and talk with you about the doctrine of sola scriptura, by scripture alone. So, as we begin this morning, I want to chart a little bit of a path out for us, tell you a little bit about what I hope to accomplish this morning. That way, if I don't get through all of it, I can at least say I tried and I put it on your radar. The last few weeks, we've been looking at several things. that come to us from the Reformation. We've been looking at some of the doctrines, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, we've been talking about some of these things that distinguish us and distinguish what it means to be a Protestant and this morning I want to contribute to that discussion by talking about Sola Scriptura which in translation means by scripture alone. I want to first call our attention to what the principle of this is in terms of its distinction and its uniqueness. Especially the unique idea that God's revelation given to us in scriptures is the single authoritative sufficient mode of revelation that has been given to us. And so we'll talk a little bit, and I think you necessarily have to dip into some history to talk about these kinds of doctrines. We'll talk a little bit about Catholic doctrine at a very surface level and how The Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura coming out of that is indeed unique. And then I want us to look closely at two of the key terms that are commonplace in discussions, not only about sola scriptura, but in discussions about scripture in general. And these are terms like scriptural authority and scriptural sufficiency. And you know, if you read any systematic theology at all, If you've heard anyone talk about the doctrine of the word or give lectures on this subject, that these two terms, sufficiency and authority are critical to our doctrine of scripture. And finally, and I know this will be brief, I want to propose sola scriptura as the foundational doctrine from which the other solas are derived and the doctrine upon which they necessarily rely. And this is not an effort to try to put a hierarchy together of the doctrines and talk about which one is most important and second and so on. This is an effort to say if we're going to have a doctrine of faith and of the graciousness of God and of the work of Christ, and of all things being done to the glory of God. That doctrine must come from the word of God. There is no other source from which we can derive it. So, starting out here, one of the critical issues, as you know, at the heart of the Protestant Reformation was the assertion that God's word alone is the means by which divine revelation is given to mankind. that God's word alone is the means by which an authoritative and a sufficient revelation from God is imparted to mankind. You and I might accept this proposition without hesitation, but that was not the predominant view of the Christian church in the 16th century. In fact, Catholic doctrine asserted and continues to maintain that there are two equal means of disseminating a single divine source of revelation. Now this can get wordy quick, so I'm going to periodically stop and say what I'm saying and say it again in a way that I can understand it without having to write it down. We're looking at this and saying there's one well from which divine truth comes, and there's one means by which it is disseminated, and that is the word of God. But when these doctrines were being formulated, this was not the most widespread, especially geographically, view of scripture. This was truly revolutionary. Because there was an idea that there is a single source of doctrine, and that is God himself, or a single source of truth, but that there are several different means by which that truth might be communicated. Here's how it is explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The father's self-communication made through word in the Holy Spirit remains present and active in the church. God who spoke in the past continues to converse with the spouse of his beloved son. And I think thus far we would say, okay, we agree with this. And the Holy Spirit through whom the living voice of the gospel rings out in the church. and through her into the world leads believers to the full truth and makes the word of Christ dwell with them in all its richness. Then here's the part that makes you squirm. Sacred tradition and sacred scripture then are bound closely together and communicate with one another. For both of them flowing out of the same divine wellspring come together in some fashion to form one thing moving toward the same goal. So here's the idea in Catholic doctrine that there is one source of divine truth, and that source of divine truth is God himself, but there are different channels or different means by which it's going to be imparted to mankind. One of these means is the word of God. Another means is by the means of tradition. Now, keep in mind that these debates that were raging in the 16th century are far removed from ours, so there's not as much being said here about natural revelation and reason and some of the things that are the center of this debate today. But in the moment, the question was, does the church impart revelation in the same way that scripture itself imparts revelation? The Catholic Catechism goes on to define these two modes of revelation. I think this is important to do, number one, so that we understand them, but number two, so that we don't make a caricature of that which we're reading. Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit. And Tradition, capital T, Tradition transmits in its entirety the word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. So here's the conclusion of the matter, and you're just gonna have to trust that I'm not trying to play fast and loose with the catechism here, but there's a little bit of material there that elaborates on that, and then here's the conclusion of it. As a result, the church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy scriptures alone. Both scripture and tradition capital T, must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence. If it's not the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, it does not get my equal sentiments of honor and reverence as the Word of God. Now the Catholic doctrine at this point argues that there is a distinction between the big T tradition, which is the message received from the apostles, and the little t traditions, plural, such as the liturgies and rites and doctrines of the church, which are subject to periodic revision. So I don't want to make a caricature of this here. They're not saying that every little action of each individual local Catholic church is revealing new revelation or that it's making new assertions about truth. But instead, it's the church as a whole, with its message, with its magistrates, with its officers, that's communicating these things in what they call a Big T tradition, and saying if it comes through the written scriptures, or if it comes through the tradition of the church, then these things are to be equally accepted and revered. But this distinction to me seems dubious in light of the fact that is the tradition big T and the traditions little t. This distinction seems dubious in light of the fact that both the big T tradition and the little t traditions are not empirical perspicuous modes of revelation, but rather are modes of interpretation. That is to say that the written word of God is revelatory. It comes from and it reveals God himself. But tradition and traditions can only be an interpretation of what has been previously revealed. Without the revelation that comes from the word of God, it's impossible to formulate a big T tradition. And without the revelation that comes from God's word, it's impossible to formulate little t traditions for the most part. We have some little traditions that honestly have probably needed to be purged out of the church for a while. And I know that we tend to cling, I'm not talking Grace Bible Church, I'm talking the church in general, not to make anybody sufficiently uncomfortable this morning. We make and formulate little traditions. But if we limit those to saying this is how we read scripture, this is what our liturgy looks like, this is why we do the things that we do, Those things are dependent upon revelation. So revelation coming in God's word and tradition, how we interpret and apply and understand God's word, these things are not one and the same, even though that distinction seems to be somewhat abolished as we read about it in the Catholic catechism. The Catholic doctrine of the 16th century similarly elevated the offices of the church to attain to the status of scripture. It was argued that in order for the church to effectively carry out its responsibility of stewarding truth, that God endowed the leaders of the church with infallibility. This was seen as a necessary, a necessary thing in order for the church, for the popes, for the bishops, for the cardinals, the officers of the church to carry out their responsibilities. Apart from it, the catechism argues, this would be impossible to do. The supposed infallibility conferred upon a man a quality that is implicitly acknowledged to belong to God and his word alone, and that is the inability to be wrong. Paragraph 891 of their catechism reads, the Roman pontiff, head of the College of Bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office. And I would say just parenthetically, this then is how you can build a doctrine of apostolic succession. Because this doctrine or this quality of infallibility is contained within the office itself, not the individual. So to return to the catechism, when the church through its supreme magisterium proposes a doctrine for belief as being divinely revealed, and as the teaching of Christ, The definitions must be adhered to with the obedience of faith. And this infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine revelation itself. If I'm reading this and understanding it correctly, then what it appears to be saying is that infallibility is conferred upon the popes, upon the magisterium, that is the officers of the church, as a necessary means of protecting the church from passing down the wrong doctrine. And so whatever is written or said, especially as an ecumenical council, and it is proposed that this is divinely revealed in the word of Christ, Then as far as the deposit of Scripture reaches, so too does this doctrine reach. In other words, if you wouldn't go beyond Scripture to this point, neither should you go beyond the big T tradition of the church to this point. Well, how do you know where the lines are? Well, one way to know where the source of truth has given us the lines is to go to Holy Scripture. But another place is to go to the tradition of the church. Another place is to go to the magisterium and ask them to speak from a position of authority to where this belongs. Now I know you don't want a 30 minute lecture on why I'm not Roman Catholic. But this brief introduction to the issue of the relationship between scripture and tradition or the officers of the church makes this clear. That while the Roman Catholic Church argued for one source and at least two means of dissemination of authoritative sufficient revelation, the Protestant doctrine was that there was one source of revelation, God himself, and one means of communicating that revelation to the church, sola scriptura, by scripture alone. Having this background makes the statements about scripture in the Reformed confessions really pop, to use a theological term. As one example, here's a part of the Belgic Confession, Article 5. If you haven't read the Belgic Confession, it's useful, it's good to read, we should read it, we should understand that there are things we're going to disagree with. There are also things here that give us a glimpse into our background in the Reformation, and it's really interesting to read the Belgic Confession, which predates the London Baptist Confession significantly. In translation, Because the translations often bring out some of the cheekiness, I think, of the Belgic Confession. And in the Belgic Confession, Article 5, it's talking about, and it's kind of like our London Baptist Confession, the first chapters in the Belgic Confession deal with the nature of God, and they deal with the nature of God's Word. They talk about canons, and they talk about authority, and sufficiency, and things like that. In Article 5, in the middle of this discussion, it has said we accept these books, these 66 books as scripture, and we receive all these books and these only as holy and canonical. Not so much because the church receives and approves them as such, but more especially because the Holy Ghost witnesseth in our hearts that they are from God. And then this is the cheeky part. for the very blind are able to perceive that the things foretold in them are fulfilling. So, the authors of the Belgic Confession are thinking through this issue of where does divine truth come from and how do we receive it? And what should we receive and say, this thing is divine truth? We get a book and we go, the book of Habakkuk, this is divine truth. But we have another book and we go, this doesn't seem to be a divine truth. And they're appealing that these books are inherently inspired, that they have qualities within themselves, that something is imparted in them and implanted in them, so that when God's people look upon them, the light comes on and they recognize them, not by their intellect or their appreciation for their literary qualities, but because the Holy Spirit is saying to them, this is divine truth, listen to it. And it's so plain. that even the blind can look at and see it. Historically speaking, sola scriptura, by scripture alone, is the answer to the question, how do we know what God desires for us to know about himself? How do we know what God desires for us to know about our faith toward him? And how do we know what God desires for us to know about how to live a life of obedience? Now, we just went through the London Baptist Confession, so these categories should sound pretty familiar from the early chapters, right? How do we know what God wants us to know and believe about him, and how do we know how we are to live in light of that? The answer is Sola Scriptura. By Scripture alone, these things are made known to us. Now, when thinking about Sola Scriptura, and I mentioned this a few minutes ago, there are two terms that inevitably find their way into this discussion. And it doesn't matter if it's a lecture about Sola Scriptura, a lecture about the doctrine of the Bible and what it is, a systematic theology book, these terms, scriptural authority and scriptural sufficiency, are found time and time again. And they are actually distinct ideas, but they are so closely linked that they're often used almost interchangeably in discussions about the nature of Scripture. And sometimes it can be frustratingly so. But in some sense it's inevitable to talk about the sufficiency and the authority of Scripture very closely because they depend upon one another. There's a great deal of overlap in talking about how Scripture is sufficient and talking about the authority that it has inherently being the product of God. So first, scriptural authority means that God's word is to be believed and obeyed because its author is God. If we just put a very simple definition on it, scriptural authority is saying, look, this comes from God. God's the divine author. Therefore, it has authority in all matters, matters of life, matters of the church, matters in believing truth. All of these things come to us with authority because of the nature of the divine author. Because God is the author of scripture, the quality and truthfulness of the written word is inextricably linked to the goodness and truthfulness of its author, who is, according to our confession, the very truth itself. Another way of saying this is if God is good and God is true, then his word is good and his word is true. Although some of the most brilliant thinkers and theologians to ever lived served as the human authors of scripture, its authority is not derived from their character or brilliance. I remember reading, or didn't read the book, I picked it up at a bookstore and looked through the table of contents and it was called something like the 10 most significant people who ever lived, or the 10 people who had the greatest impact ever in the world. And Jesus was third, which I thought was respectable, but not nearly right. The most important person that ever lived was Paul. because it was Paul who really formulated the Christian church, right? It was Paul who really thought through the doctrines and the implications of the church. It was even Paul who brought together the various teachings of the Old Testament and the words of the disciples that preceded him and drew all of these things together. I don't think it was the brilliance, the intellect of these human authors that make Scripture beautiful and illuminative. Even though Scripture contains some of the most beautiful literary artistry ever written, a chiasm on every page, right, Dr. Federle? Its authority is not derived from its aesthetic qualities. The Word of God has been eagerly accepted And it has been painstakingly preserved and transmitted and translated and received for over 3,000 years. If you go back to Mount Sinai and the finger of God writing down the very first scripture. And yet the authority of scripture is not derived from its reception throughout history. The fact that our fathers and our forefathers in the faith believe the word of God is not what makes it authoritative and is not what makes it revelatory. Scripture is to be believed and obeyed on the basis of the character of its divine author, which is God himself. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica and said, we thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. He said, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. Paul exhorted and encouraged and charged not by the words of flattery, as he says earlier in that passage, not by acts of bribery, not with an eye to selfish gain, But by admonishing them with the word of God, sola scriptura was Paul's principle in dealing with the church at Thessalonica. What then is scriptural sufficiency? If that's authority, what are we talking about when we use the term sufficiency? Well, scriptural sufficiency means that scripture alone is able to reveal to us what God desires for us to know about Him, about the faith that He desires from us, and about how we are to live a life of obedience. Now, you're picking up on a pattern. These things are why we have God's Word, right? If you're reading the London Baptist Confession, this is why God has given us His Word. He's given it to us so we can know him. He's given it to us so we can know what to believe about him. And he's given it to us. So I keep walking in and out of that. Sorry, I can't help but walk around a little bit so that we can know what to believe about him. And we can know how to live in light of that. We can know how to walk in obedience and live the Christian life. But you may ask, hasn't God revealed himself in many ways? And the answer, of course, is yes, he has. As Paul says in Romans 1, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. There's an interesting link here between the physical and immaterial. I don't have as much time to get into this as I hoped. But just a sliver of God's infinite providence is seen in the magnificence of his creation. You realize that? How little, comparatively, of God's power and majesty and wisdom is seen in creation, and yet it's more than we can take in. How little could God show of himself to Moses? If God didn't protect us, possibly from just a little bit more, it would probably kill us to look at it. And what this sliver of God's power and majesty and wisdom does is that it forces us to acknowledge a power that is beyond us and it forces humanity to acknowledge a power that is beyond them. Yet this glimpse of divine nature and power does not serve to bring mankind closer to God. It actually has the opposite effect. It increases their condemnation. Looking at just this sliver of wisdom and power that God has shown us doesn't serve to bring us any closer. No matter how it makes us feel, no matter if it makes us ponder things that are beyond us, it only increases our condemnation for worshipping the creature rather than the creator. The reasoning to get to a more modern discussion of fallen humans does not alleviate their plot, it exacerbates it. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him that they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. And Paul concludes with possibly the most sobering statement about humanity's condition, claiming to be wise, they became fools. While creation testifies to God's goodness and wisdom and power, it is not sufficient, it is not enough to bring man to salvation. So, God has not only shown himself, but he has spoken. Throughout the period of the Old Testament, he made himself known in a variety of ways, through prophecies, and dreams, and written scriptures, and theophanies, and discourse, and sometimes wrestling with a patriarch. But now he reveals himself in a way that is even more certain than a dream, or even a smoking mountain, sola scriptura, by scripture alone. Now, you might also ask, Is this book really more certain than if God spoke to me in a dream? Is it really more certain than if he set Pinnacle Mountain on fire and descended there and spoke to us autumnly? I intentionally emphasize the word certain because that's what we're after. In the whole pursuit of God and truth, we're after certainty. We want to know for certain who he is and what he is like and what he has revealed to us and what he expects from us. were after certainty. And would it be more certain if he wrote something down and he delivered it to us than it would be if he took one of our patriarchs and wrestled him out here in the parking lot until he begged, let me go, let me go. I want you to think about what it would be like to look upon the Lord Jesus in all of his glory. That would confirm, I think, pretty well the authenticity of his message, the authenticity of who he is, if you could look upon him with your own eyes in all of his glory. But did he not take Peter, and James, and John, and they go up into a mountain, he's ministering in Galilee, and they go up to a mountain there, and presumably to the top, and as Luke tells us in his gospel, they get up there and they begin to pray. And so they're praying on the mountain, and Peter dozes off, which none of us do when we're praying, And John and James, they doze off as well. And when they wake up, Jesus' whole appearance has been changed. And he is white. He is radiant white. And if you have ever been and spent any time in the Middle East or in Israel, nothing is white. Nothing is like that. And especially not 2,000 years ago. And he's brilliant as the sun. And Peter wakes up and comes to his senses and looks. And he's like, what is that? That is Moses. The led Israel out of Egypt Moses. That is the Moses who stood on Mount Sinai. That's the Moses who went and gave on the law a second time in Moab. That's that Moses. And that's Elijah. We're talking standing on Mount Carmel calling down for fire from heaven. Pleading with the Lord. We're talking chariots of fire wrestling him away. That Elijah. And so Peter naturally says the most underwhelming thing. It is good to be here. I like this. Now he gets slammed for his next statement. Let us build three booths here. And he was actually talking about the feast of booths and he was trying to honor them. Peter sometimes, at least scripture leads us to believe, spoke first, thought and asked questions later. After Peter says this, a voice booms out of heaven and says, this is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him. You think Peter ever forgot that moment until the day that he died? We've been singing in family worship, send on angels now to carry me to realms of endless day. Well on that day, and I know there's theological issues, this is fraught with theological issues, but until the day that the angels carried Peter home, you think he ever forgot standing on that mountain? Yet he wrote to the church, and he said, we didn't follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We were eyewitnesses to his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain, the aged Peter. is now writing and he's going back and he's reliving this in his mind, writing it to the church. And that's a powerful way to defend the legitimacy of his message. To say, accept these things and accept them as true because I have seen them with my own eyes. But if you want certainty, if you want to know these things are true, if you want it to be unequivocal, he writes this, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. And no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Peter is one of the very notably, and I know I'm out of time, one of the notably few persons who could say that they had both seen a glimpse of the glory of God with his own eyes and had held the written word of God in his hand. And he took that written word and he put it in the hand of the church and said, this is sufficient. This is enough. As we're making our way through the study of the five solas of the Reformation, I want to pose this question to you from where are these five affirmations derived? We believe that we are saved by grace alone, sola gratia, not by any of our own efforts. If you could or must earn your salvation, number one, you better get to work. Number two, you better find out what it is you need to be doing. But the authoritative and sufficient word of God says, by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We believe that we are brought near to our God and our redemption is secured by Christ alone, solus Christus. It is to the scriptures, indeed to Christ himself, that we go to learn that the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many there are who find it. And yet it is from Christ that we also hear, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. It is the word of God, and in it that we read the words of our Savior. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. We believe that salvation is appropriated by faith alone, sola fide, and cannot be secured by any other means. Even faith is a gift, but it is the means by which God has ordained us to attain unto salvation. So we go to the authoritative and sufficient word of God with the question, what do I do to be saved? And that authoritative and sufficient word says back to us, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And over and over, the scriptures tell us the just will live by faith. We believe that the glory for every good thing belongs to God alone, sola deo gloria. May he be glorified for making himself known to us, for inviting us to be reconciled to him by faith, and for instructing us in obedience, sola scriptura, by scripture alone.