Defending the Faith: sola Scriptura vs. Sacred Tradition - Part 1

Nearly as powerful of a debate as anything to do with Mary is, is the age old battle between sola Scriptura (the Bible alone for guidance) versus Scripture AND Sacred Tradition used co-equally. So Biblically, who's got it right?

The Evangelical Stance - The most used, most heard, most quoted text Evangelicals use to defend the belief that the Bible alone is all anyone needs to emulate the Lord as a good Christian is 2 Timothy 3:16-17 - "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." And that's about as black and white as you can get. Other verses that are regularly used to support the idea of sola Scriptura are -

• "And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe." (1 Thessalonians 2:13)
• Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

 

Most Evangelicals even go so far as to condemn those who do not see eye-to-eye with a "Bible alone" belief because, they contend, Jesus himself condemns religious tradition (as is found heavily in Catholicism, Episcopalianism, Lutheranism, and Methodism):

• "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions....Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." (Mark 7:8,13)
• " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.' "(Matthew 15:8-9)

The Counter Argument - To answer the claims of sola Scriptura that Evangelicals glean from the Biblical texts, we will address the scriptural claims first before moving on to the overall issue of human, Christian tradition.

In today's world, when we go to church - most carry a Bible. If we don't, there's a strong guarantee that one is waiting for us in the pew rack in the sanctuary or on a shelf in a Sunday school classroom - either is easily accessible and ready to be read. No one alive today living in America has ever had an issue with never being able to own, have, borrow, or rent a Bible. Go back hundreds of years, and still Biblical texts were available. But go back in time prior to the year  AD 325 and you run into a problem - the Bible, codified Scripture, as we understand it today, simply did not exist as such. And this immediately brings major problems to the table for "Bible alone" believers. Why? Because Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy in the first century. When Paul writes, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.", HE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT THE BIBLE. Did you just hear the audible crack in sola Scriptura's foundation. If you didn't listen, because the building is about to collapse.

Indeed, in every single one of the major examples used above (and all minor examples not included here) every mention of scripture or the gospels are not talking about the Bible as we know it today!

**crash crumble crash**

The only "scripture" that existed at this time was the Jewish Torah and the Septuagint (a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek) - both of which Jesus, all his disciples, and every God-believing human followed in that area. The "word of God" Jesus talks about has nothing to do with the New Testament but with apostolic preaching - the oral preaching. Which, understandably, is not restricted to scriptural writings. 

So what about when Paul refers to the gospels? Well, it certainly cannot be the gospels as we identify them today because they were only identified and codified as such hundreds of years after Paul penned these words - so unless Paul is omniscient, we have to look elsewhere for this answer besides Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The gospels, as he refers to them, is another way of referring to the oral preaching. Note, Paul always implies the vocal preaching of the gospels - never reading the written gospels. When Paul states that he has "received" the gospels, he has not received them written down but from a vocally passed down oral tradition. How can we know this for certain? When Paul says to the Corinthians, "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures", the scripture he is referencing is Isaiah 53 - the famous Passion scripture about the suffering servant. And therein is the linchpin: nowhere in Isaiah 53 (part of the Torah and Septuagint that was Scripture during this time) is Jesus Christ identified as the suffering servant. Paul is not relying only on chapter 53 but on new Christian heritage and tradition that detailed Jesus' death. Likewise, he draws the same conclusion (which is based in tradition) when he makes reference to the resurrection at the end of this verse.

1 Peter 1:25 is important to make mention here for one main reason. In it, he writes, "...but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word that was preached to you." We have identified that the "word" being discussed here cannot be the codified Bible, but the apostolic oral tradition. Peter says that it "endures forever" - and because he means the oral tradition, we must understand that this sets tradition apart from but does not exclude the written word of the future codified Bible.

If you are still reading and still not convinced one single verse in Acts may sway you. The verse and the saying are well known to anyone over the age of a toddler: "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ". There's only one problem - there is not one single record of Jesus ever saying this in any other part of the Bible, except for right here, coming from a second-hand source. Matthew, by the time of Acts being written down had already been written and this beyond-famous directive was not included. Neither is included in any of the New Testament gospels. This is an oral tradition and quote that had been passed down for years as binding and authoritative from Christ before it was written down by Luke in Acts.

In discussing the scriptural aspect of this argument, many Evangelicals say that you can throw out all the other verses because they still have 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and it says that "All Scripture is God-breathed..." - end of story. ..... Only it's not. We've already proven that Paul is not talking about codified Biblical scripture in this instance as all evangelicals believe, but the Torah and the Septuagint - what we now refer to as the Old Testament. Looking more into the context of this verse, Paul writes to Timothy just one verse before this that,"...you know that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Note that these sacred scriptures are not in reference to the New Testament but to the Torah and the Septuagint.

 

Finally, let's take the side of the sola Scriptura believers for a moment. Let's say that this verse in Timothy does mean the codified Bible as we know it today - the same one we take back and forth to church every Sunday and use in our weekly devotionals. Paul choses the word "profitable" in verse 16. Why is this important? Because "profitable" is defined as, "beneficial or useful" according to Mr. Webster. It is not defined as 100% sufficient or absolute for a belief in Christ. This is supported scripturally as well in 2 Corinthians 12:9 where Paul offers that it's not the Bible alone that is most important, "But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me."

The bottom line is this, scripture, the Bible, alone is profitable, yes. Important? Absolutely! Beneficial? Beyond a doubt! But 100% absolute and sufficient for our walk with Christ?  No. Scripture helps lead us along the road to heavenly perfection but it is not the only means to that end.

 

How we find that balance will be covered in our next installment.