Discover how a single monk's defiant stance against the medieval Church ignited the flames of Reformation, forever altering the Christian landscape. Our latest Gospel Grid episode takes you back to 1521, where Martin Luther's proclamation of 'sola scriptura' – the idea that scripture alone is the ultimate authority for believers – sets the stage for a riveting exploration of faith, authority, and truth. As we dissect the implications of Luther's doctrine, we reveal the monumental impact it has on the way we interpret religious teachings and the enduring influence it holds over the church's understanding of biblical authority.
Join us for a thrilling journey through history, theology, and personal conviction. We examine the roles of creeds, councils, and church leaders, acknowledging their historical significance while discerning their fallibility in the light of scripture. No bishops, no pastors, not even popes are immune to error, and we discuss why it is essential to continually reform our understanding of the Word of God. This episode of Gospel Grid is more than just a history lesson; it's an invitation to grasp the power of God's Word and its singular authority in guiding the people of God towards His glory.
If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, follow, share the episode, like, or check us out in YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvAv52Ldvfjf4CgYhYTZig
As always, thank you for watching Gospel Grit, where we seek to apply the Word of God, to the people of God, to the glory of God.
Discover how a single monk's defiant stance against the medieval Church ignited the flames of Reformation, forever altering the Christian landscape. Our latest Gospel Grid episode takes you back to 1521, where Martin Luther's proclamation of 'sola scriptura' – the idea that scripture alone is the ultimate authority for believers – sets the stage for a riveting exploration of faith, authority, and truth. As we dissect the implications of Luther's doctrine, we reveal the monumental impact it has on the way we interpret religious teachings and the enduring influence it holds over the church's understanding of biblical authority.
Join us for a thrilling journey through history, theology, and personal conviction. We examine the roles of creeds, councils, and church leaders, acknowledging their historical significance while discerning their fallibility in the light of scripture. No bishops, no pastors, not even popes are immune to error, and we discuss why it is essential to continually reform our understanding of the Word of God. This episode of Gospel Grid is more than just a history lesson; it's an invitation to grasp the power of God's Word and its singular authority in guiding the people of God towards His glory.
If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, follow, share the episode, like, or check us out in YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvAv52Ldvfjf4CgYhYTZig
As always, thank you for watching Gospel Grit, where we seek to apply the Word of God, to the people of God, to the glory of God.
Speaker 1:
In 1521, an Augustinian monk stood before the assembled power of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. His name was Martin Luther. He stood accused of heresy and false teaching and was asked to recant, to which he famously replied. To recant, to which he famously replied unless I am convinced by sacred scripture or by evident reason, I cannot recant, for my conscience is held captive by the word of God, and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, god help me.
Speaker 1:
In this moment, a great rending in the history of Christianity became visible for all to see. One side of the issue stood the monk, armed with no authority but what the Bible affirms, and on the other side, the Catholic Church with her affirmations of the dual streams of authority being the Bible and the sacred tradition interpreted by the church. And thus the doctrine of sola scriptura was birthed into the world in official capacity. Welcome to Gospel Grid, where, today, we seek to apply the Word of God alone to the people of God, for the glory of God. As always, in this fourth installment today of Roman Catholicism, we look at the formal principle of the Reformation, that of sola scriptura, or scripture alone. So let's jump into these categories, these four categories that I have for you guys in today's video and I'll try to unpack the sub-points. So the doctrine of sola scriptura is not that there is not truth in other areas, like human wisdom, human philosophy, non-inspired books, apocryphal books, that all of those are absolutely false. The Bible does not teach that. The doctrine of scripture alone does not teach that. Instead, as Luther articulated, scripture alone is the sole and final authority for the church. The Word of God is the sole source of inspiration and infallible truth for all of life and godliness. So point number one today, as we unpack this in a very quick and sort of overview manner, scripture alone is that there is no other final authority outside of it.
Speaker 1:
So the first point to take up to elaborate on this would be that creeds and councils have erred. In fact, this is a quote directly from Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521. It is unequivocally true that many of the churches, councils and creeds not just Roman Catholic but Protestant creeds and councils, those that were formed for the official formation of the Roman Catholic Church have erred, that at some point they have gone astray, that all creeds and councils are crafted by men and while they are based in their best moments on the Word of God and, in their worst moments, are absolute corruptions and distortions of it. They are designed and geared to help us understand the Word of God in common vernacular, in a way that is both rehearsable, recitable, as well as edifying, and able to be prepackaged and sold to those who hear the creeds and the councils. I love the creeds and the councils. I think most of them are fantastic. I think, for example, the Nicene Creed. We have never found anything better. I think we have never come up with a statement of Trinitarian orthodoxy better than that one. I think it's fantastic, even though it is almost 1,700 years old.
Speaker 1:
The problem is not that we have creeds and councils. The problem is, if we view creeds and councils as part of sacred tradition, that they are therefore infallible, we have problems. We don't assume that anything that is told to us by man is ever on the level of scripture. It's impossible for it to be so, which brings us to our second point. Within no other final authority and that is point B here Bishops, pastors and the Pope have erred. So not only is it creeds and councils that have erred, but the issue is that the bishops, pastors, popes, anybody who stands over and with authority of the church, whether it be the Protestant churches that many of us are familiar with and all of their disparaging views and all of the church, whether it be the Protestant churches that many of us are familiar with and all of their disparaging views and all of the divergence in opinions and doctrinal beliefs, or whether it be the Roman Catholic Church, which is bishops and friars and cardinals and the Pope himself. They have erred. They are men.
Speaker 1:
This is going to be a recurring theme through this video. If they are men, therefore, therefore, they have the ability and proclivity, they have the desire, they have the bent towards creating errors, theological and otherwise. So the problem with believing that there are two streams of authority, the problem with believing that there is an authority of the Word of God and then there is a divinely inspired, traditional authority that runs parallel, as a parallel stream, to the Word of God, is absolutely false, because that stream, no matter how wonderful it is, no matter how wise the wisdom that comes out of that stream is, it's not the Word of God. And because it's not the word of God, it cannot be fully trusted. Again, the doctrine of sola scriptura is not that other. Some documents have to be rejected outright. It's not that other documents are not helpful and not valid. It's simply that other documents are not inerrant, they are not inspired, and because they're not inspired, we don't have to listen to them. This is what our Catholic friends get very, very, very wrong, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:
Point C on this first point is confessions and understandings have erred, so this is more of a Protestant bent. There are things that I think are wonderful in the London Baptist Confession, and it's really the creed that I would hold to. There are many, many wonderful things within the Westminster Confession, but the problem is they were written by men. Now, they were, in my opinion, extremely educated and biblically literate men who believe the scriptures and believe them to be the sole source of authority. But the moment that we start quoting scripture outside of the context of scripture and we start putting it in our own words, we start paraphrasing, is the moment that we put ourselves in some amount of danger, because simply it's not good enough to say I think, or I understand it to be, or this is my interpretation, while our interpretations oftentimes are correct, either because we accidentally stumble upon the truth or because we have been granted wisdom from the Holy Spirit or from other men have been granted wisdom from the Holy Spirit or from other men.
Speaker 1:
The problem is, it's not God's word, and so, again, a Protestant point would be private interpretations have erred, the idea that God is speaking to me and giving me private revelation. That is somewhat of an issue, ultimately, because I can't put and this is the idea here with all of these, I can't put a pope, a pastor, a bishop, a cardinal, I can't put creeds and councils, I can't put private interpretations of my own understanding of Scripture, and I can't put confessions up on the same notch or the same rung of trustworthiness as Scripture. It's absolutely impossible to do so. Okay, so that's point number one. Point number two scripture alone, no other final truth. Okay, so this is really important. I know we're eight minutes in here so I'll keep moving, but this could be its own video.
Speaker 1:
There's no unquestioned truth but the Bible. Okay, now, again, we're not saying that other things aren't true. Many things are true, and thank God for human wisdom, thank God for scientific reasoning and philosophy and understanding, thank God for the discoveries that we're able to make with our five senses and empirical data. All of that is wonderful. The problem is there is no unquestioned authority for life and godliness and for the bride of Christ, his church, except the Bible. Everything else I must filter through the lens of the Bible and if I fail to do so it means peril for my soul.
Speaker 1:
If I have an unquestioned authority, then I am placing it on the level of the Bible, and the problem is every other form of wisdom and knowledge is earthly. It may be the Holy Spirit working through men preaching fantastic sermons, writing fantastic books, creeds, confessions, and again, I am pro all of those things. The trouble is I cannot have an unquestioned truth but the Bible. I don't get the opportunity to put something else on the pedestal near Scripture and say, well, it's basically saying the same thing. No, sola Scriptura, scripture alone means that we reject any other final truth outside of the Bible itself.
Speaker 1:
Okay, the second point to this one is the Bible as the source of authority and truth. So when we say the Bible speaks authoritative, we are not saying on the level of the Pope. Of course, when the Pope speaks ex cathedra and things like that with the Roman Catholic Church, they would absolutely say that infallible interpretations and infallible traditions would be on the level of Scripture, because they are equally inspired by the Holy Spirit, and I roundly reject that. The doctrine of sola scriptura is a flat denial of that claim. There is no such thing as an authority in the church, whether it be the speaking of the Pope, or whether it be the speaking of 1,500 years of tradition, whether it be creeds and councils or some scrawling somewhere throughout church history that we found on a mosaic or a carving. None of that is Scripture, and if they're quoting the Scriptures, let the Scriptures speak for themselves.
Speaker 1:
God, defining and identifying the Word of God gives us great strength and understanding, because it alone is the sole source of God's authority. And the question that I would ask here is how can we know what to deny? Is it even possible whatsoever to know what to deny? If I don't view Scripture as the final source of truth? The answer, in my opinion and belief, is no. I don't know what to deny. The devil has used so many lies to attack the truth. The question always has been and it always will be did God really say the serpent in the garden asking Adam and Eve, did God really say Because the question always goes back to God's authority right, and God's authority lies solely in the Bible what I do and how I'm obedient to the scripture is how I am judged.
Speaker 1:
Not by man-made traditions or even clerical authorities over me. Although I'm supposed to obey authorities Romans 13 and others I am not judged and my conscience is not bound and this is our next point by anything but scripture. So no other truth binding on our conscience other than scripture. That's the third point of sola scriptura. There's no other unwavering defense. I don't go to the hilt defending my church's tradition or my church's interpretation. I don't go to the hilt defending my church's tradition or my church's interpretation. I don't go to the hilt, I don't die on that hill, so to say, of my pastor's interpretation of the scriptures. I certainly don't place my faith in a pope or a bishop or a cardinal or a president of a seminary or a professor. I don't base my faith in any of those things, and I know that Catholics and many others would deny a lot of those things, and I agree wholeheartedly with that. The trouble is, I can't base my beliefs on anything outside of the Word of God itself. How can we know what to deny?
Speaker 1:
So Scripture above reason, reason. So sola scriptura entails that I place my scripture, my copy of the scriptures, above my own human reason. My human reason is not a. It doesn't guide my understanding of the scriptures. My scriptures guide my understanding of reason and logic and truth itself. The Bible has to take preeminence over every other form of knowledge. It is our source of knowledge itself. So scripture above philosophy, I won't go too far into that.
Speaker 1:
Scripture above experience. So I have to place my scriptures, the scriptures, the copy I have, the infallible word of God. I have to place them above my experience. I don't get to have my experience determine my theology. I have to have the scriptures interpret my experience and I have to have the scriptures interpret my theology. I don't get to just arbitrarily choose how I'm supposed to interpret my experiences, because by doing so I'm placing things like philosophy, experience, reason. I'm placing those is the sole and final authority for the church and we have to obey it above and in spite of all others.
Speaker 1:
The last major point, point number four scripture alone, no other voice. Scripture alone is where God speaks with total precision. Excuse me, I've addressed this earlier. Scripture alone is where God speaks with total precision. God does not speak in any other place, way, shape or form, with total precision like he does with Scripture. Scripture alone is our hope because it reveals perfectly God's will and our understanding of His world and His will. Scripture alone is what we can trust. I said this earlier Scripture alone is worth dying for. We die on that hill and some of us that has been necessary, and sometimes, unfortunately, against the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout history that's been necessary and I think it's going to be necessary in the future. Scripture alone God has spoken. If you want to know what God has said, if you want to hear God speak, he has spoken. He is speaking through His Word. It is His final source of authority. It's the high ground. Here we stand, on Scripture. Our conscience, if we believe in sola scriptura, is bound by the Word of God. Here we stand. We can do no other. God help us.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so that's a quick 15-minute overview of the doctrine of sola scriptura. Please like, share, subscribe, comment down below. I'd love to hear from you guys. This has been the source of what the arguments have been in the past with Roman Catholics is this doctrine? They reject it because they want to place infallible church approved tradition on the same pedestal as scripture, and that is absolutely unacceptable and not biblical whatsoever. So love to hear from you guys. Please share this video if it blesses you. Thank you guys for joining me on Gospel Grit where, as always, our goal is to apply the word of God to the people of God for the glory of God. See you guys on episode 20. Love to hear from you guys. Please share this video if it blesses you. Thank you.