Formal Sufficiency and Clarity of Scripture, Part 1

• The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple. (Ps 119:130)
• Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. (Ps 119:105)
• and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Tim 3:15)
• But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. (Mat 22:29)Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:27)
• Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, (Luke 24:45)
• But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Pet 1:20-21)
• All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; (2 Tim 3:16)

The discussion for and against Sola Scriptura can get detailed and sometimes even nuanced at times, but there is one thing that cannot be said – no one can make the case that Scripture and church history are silent about the importance of Scripture and its sufficiency in the life of the believer. I have attempted to methodically step through the points for and against Sola Scriptura, providing relevant quotes from apologists on both sides and the witness from the church fathers, as well as verse exegesis, to make a reasoned and logical case for it. For every argument against Sola Scriptura that has been covered so far, I have provided solid reasons why those arguments do not stand up. I have quoted Catholic theologians and apologists in their own words to make each case along that path. And I am not done yet; there is more to go through.

Even though the Catholic Church has never given their interpretation of more than a few verses of Scripture, Protestants have. Protestants have done the hard work of biblical textual criticism and written volumes on the meaning and interpretation of Scripture, going back to the original Greek and Hebrew to do so. Protestants have compiled multiple Greek and Hebrew lexicons to aid the study of Scripture. Countless Protestants have written commentaries on all books of the Bible in every century since the Protestant Reformation. There are even Protestant organizations dedicated to translating the Scriptures into virtually every language on the planet. While Catholics proclaim their Church’s place as the primary interpreter of Scripture, she never produces those interpretations for her flock or anyone else; she does nothing to fill that void, nothing to fill any of these voids. But I, a “layman”, using some of these Protestant resources have easily uncovered the true meaning of verses like 2 Tim 3:16 and 2 Pet 1:20-21. And truthfully, I didn’t even need these resources, as the verses ‘say what they mean, and mean what they say.’ There were no mental gymnastics done to arrive at these clear meanings of Scripture. I simply went back to the original Greek language for the true meanings of the words Paul and Peter used to instruct us as believers in Christ Jesus, in the ‘faith and practice’ that God intended for the church to walk in. This in turn demonstrated that the English translation I used, the NASB, clearly and faithfully reproduced the Apostles' words to us in written form. As the saying goes, this isn’t rocket science. I could have used the NIV, the ESV or the KJV and arrived at the very same place. I could have even used the Catholic NAB! God intended for His Word to be in the hands of His believers so that they could read it for themselves and understand its truths.

It was Protestants and their use of a new tool, the printing press, who made it possible for the Bible to be owned again and read by the common people (you and me), in their own languages, after roughly 1200 yrs of denial, and against the expressed will and desire of the Catholic Church to keep it withheld from those same people, under the ruse of it being ‘too difficult to understand.’ And it was the common person that could now, once again, read the Scriptures for themselves and see what was actually necessary for salvation, according to the Apostle’s own words as recorded in Scripture.

As the verses above make clear, anyone who truly wants to understand Scripture, can read it for themselves, and the promise of God, as shown in the verses above, is to enlighten its meaning to the one who reads it.

As David King put it,

The Bible is the expression of absolute truth, whose source is God, who has made himself known by means of communication fitted to our mental capacities. Scripture proclaims: ‘Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God’ (Rom 10:17). The Scriptures are able to make one wise to salvation (2 Tim 3:15). [1]

As this is now the 15th article in my Sola Scriptura series, there has been quite a lot to say, and there is still more to say in my goal to prove the point that Scripture IS sufficient in every way for the believer.

The Holy Spirit

In a previous blog I came against a Catholic presuppositional position that their Church has the exclusive right to define anything they want simply because they say so. So before I get started with this sub topic, I’m going to start with a ‘presupposition’ of my own, so I wanted to state what it is and why I'm making it.

Everything I said above ‘presupposes’ that the Holy Spirit imparts understanding to us as believers so that we can understand God’s Word and its implication in our lives. As a matter of fact, this is even true for the unbeliever who is seeking the truths of God in the pages of His word. As John 16 says,

But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you. (John 16:13-15)

As you can see, these verses clearly spell out what the Holy Spirit will do for the believer in guiding him or her into all truth, He will glorify Jesus, and He will disclose to believers all that was given by Jesus, who in turn received all things from the Father. This clearly shows the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a single verse (John 16:15).

The goal for this section is to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit can clearly be seen as God in Scripture, and that the early church understood this from Scripture, since there are Catholic theologians that do not seem to understand or see this in Scripture.

As we see in John 3:5-8, no one is converted to Christ without the working of the Holy Spirit upon the heart of the person seeking to know God.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5-8)

And in 1 Cor 12:3, no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ without the presence of the Spirit of God in their life,

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor 12:3)

And in 1 Cor 2:12-13, it is the Holy Spirit that makes the word of God, the Scriptures, clear to us,

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. (1 Cor 2:12-13)

And Paul declares 2 Cor 1:13 that the words he preached were also clear,

For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope you will understand until the end; (2 Cor 1:13)

The Protestants have always stood on this ground, that the overwhelming majority of the Scriptures are clear, and can be easily understood by the reader, and that Scripture teaches the believer truth about the saving nature of the Gospel. Theologians like Dr. Cornelius Van Til [2], Walter Kaiser, Gerhard Maier [3] and Richard Muller [4], and D.A. Carson [5] all make this same point as the quote provided below from Kaiser,

Scripture in any faithful translation, is sufficiently perspicuous (clear) to show us our sinfulness, the basic facts of the gospel, what we must do if we are to be part of the family of God, and how to live for Christ. This does not mean, however, that in seeing (and even understanding) these truths we have exhausted the teaching of Scripture. Neither does it imply that the solution to very difficult questions in Scripture or life is simple, much less simplistic. It only affirms that, despite the difficulties we find in Scripture, there is more than enough that is plainly taught to keep all believers well nourished. [6] [emphasis added]

In other words, we do not need to know Scripture totally and completely to understand the gospel message, or to understand how believers are to act. Nor do we need to have every verse in Scripture be equally clear as all others for us to understand Scripture. And we do not mean that there is nothing in Scripture that is difficult to understand; of course there are difficulties, Peter says there are in 2 Pet 3:16. But we do not need to understand every possible aspect of the meaning of a verse, or a passage or a book to understand the vast majority of Scripture; it does not have to be an exhaustive understanding for us to comprehend the clear teachings within Scripture. As David King wrote,

Though the elect are not gifted with the attribute of infallibility, collectively or individually, nonetheless God has declared that they will not ultimately be overcome by deception, even of the more intense nature (Mat 24:22-24; Mark 13:20-22). Christ has declared that his sheep will recognize his voice, follow him in obedience, shall never perish, and are so firmly held in his hand that no one can snatch them away (John 10:27-29). It is a non sequitur [a conclusion that does not logically follow the previous statement] to insist that an infallible Bible requires an infallible human interpreter, as though our sovereign God is incapable of making himself sufficiently clear to his creatures. [7] [definition and emphasis added]

Clear or Obscure

While Protestants believe and teach that the Gospel message, as well as the message of how a Christian is to live (faith and practice), is clear in Scripture, that is not the assertion of non-Protestants. The Catholic Church, for instance, contends that the meaning of Scripture cannot be understood without their undefined oral tradition and/or their teaching office. Case in point, Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) said the following,

For the Sacred Scripture is not like other books. Dictated by the Holy Ghost, it contains things of the deepest importance, which in many instances are most difficult and obscure.
. . .
Wherefore it must be recognized that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; [8] [emphasis added]

As I have said in other blog posts, this sounds quite a lot like what the Gnostics of Irenaeus’ day taught. Only with the Catholic Church’s help and guidance would the believer be able to understand the secret things of God, like his Word, to ‘disentangle the true meaning of Revelation’, as Jean Danielou, the French Jesuit and cardinal, said. So, the Catholic Church teaches that I need a guide, but for the last 1500 years has purposely made only a handful of pronouncements on what Scripture actually means. So, what is the point of having a guide who cannot unlock the meaning of Scripture, since the Church virtually never makes pronouncements on what Scripture actually means? Would it not make sense that after 1500 years of Church history, these meanings would have been written down for every single verse in the Bible?

In the introduction to his book, Not By Scripture Alone, Robert Sungenis repeats this claim,

It is the Catholic contention that Scripture, though esteemed as God’s holy and inerrant Word, cannot be properly understood apart from the Church and her Tradition. [9]
. . .
We can love Scripture, but we must love Truth even more. [10]

But I thought Scripture was ‘truth’? If I ‘love Scripture,’ don’t I ‘love truth’ by default? David King had a great reply to Sungenis concerning those statements,

His words [Sungenis] remind us of the rebuke Justin Martyr issued to any man who departs from the Scriptures ‘because it is thought he can bring forth something better than Scripture’ to sustain the cause of Truth. Augustine wrote similarly: ‘I wish to be conquered by the truth which does not oppose the most clear sacred Scriptures. For, that which opposes should not be called or considered truth.’ It is this regard for Scripture that precipitated the protest of the Reformers. Scripture is God speaking (Rom 9:17; Ex 9:16; Gal 3:8; Gen 12:1-3). According to the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s word is Truth (Jn 17:17). [11]

Now I understand that Sungenis’ point is that the Church needs to interpret Scripture, but if the vast majority of Scripture is already clear, then what is the need for interpretation? And, if there is a need to interpret Scripture for the common man to understand God’s word, then why hasn’t it been done already? There has been more than enough time to have done these interpretations a hundred times or more, over the last 1500 years! If this is your place to do so, and it’s really such an important task that only you can do, then, Catholic Church, get on with it already!

But the sad fact is, this task will likely never be done, because the Catholic Church does not really want to go on the record as having given the ‘true’ meaning to all of the Scriptures on subjects like salvation and grace, when those have already been redefined so as to state openly that Scripture does not define the full means of God’s grace and His plan of salvation (that will be discussed in future blogs). To provide those scriptural interpretations would open the Catholic Church up to questions she would actually have to answer, and might have to debate with people like James White, who generally destroys their apologists in debates. The end result might be that she may, in fact, have to agree with much of what the Reformers rebelled against.

But Does Scripture Say He’s God?

Now you might be wondering why I presented some verses about the Holy Spirit above, and have not really tied them in yet. So, let’s do that, let’s talk about the Trinity and the Godhood of the Holy Spirit. To answer the question I posed above, “yes,” there are a lot of Christians that can be easily confused by people that question whether their foundational belief in the Trinity is actually true. I expect this from cultic groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I do not expect this from a Church that ‘claims’ the ‘apostolic fathers’ as the creators of ‘tradition.’ Have they actually read Athanasius’ defense of the Trinity? Here is an example that seems to be used by some Catholic apologists who maintain that the Scriptures are unclear and where the Catholic Church could bring that much needed clarity. Concerning the Trinity, Karl Keating wrote,

Consider the doctrine of the Trinity. It is not present on the face of Scripture, not in the sense that the word Trinity is never used – its first use was by Theophilus of Antioch in 181 – but also in the sense that it is by no means obvious, from the surface meaning of the text, that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person. [12] [emphasis added]

Let’s hope that this is not an example of the Catholic Church’s abilities to interpret Scripture, because this is an embarrassing example to try to use, if we actually look at Scripture and Church history. So, let’s do that right now. I expect an uneducated argument of ‘the word trinity is not in the New Testament’ from the Jehovah’s Witnesses (they live to twist Scripture), but not from the Catholic Church. Could it be that she does not know that the early church fathers created a word to define a doctrine clearly taught in Scripture? Of course she knows, doesn’t she? This is an ‘amateur hour’ statement that someone who has never studied theology might say, but not someone that believes themselves to be a Catholic theologian and apologist. Let’s hope he was trying to answer a rhetorical question an uneducated Catholic would ask, since the vast majority have never read Scripture and wouldn’t actually know that the word ‘Trinity’ is not found in Scripture.

So, let’s move on to the second assertion concerning the Holy Spirit’s deity not being clearly taught in Scripture. Here is what Acts 5 says concerning the Holy Spirit:

But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Act 5:3-4; see also: Mat 28:19; Heb 9:14; 1 Cor 2:11, 6:11)

This does not get much clearer. The Holy Spirit is seen and addressed as a person, and then clearly called God, as emphasized above. If you lie to the Holy Spirit, you are lying to God. Does this not make the Holy Spirit the 3rd person of the Trinity: three persons, one God? Again, I would expect this from the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, but the Catholic Church? I am both surprised and shocked.

So when that argument failed miserably, some of the Catholic apologists have turned to the church fathers, who they have said in the past have had to turn to ‘Tradition’ because Scripture does not teach that the Holy Spirit is God. Now, not all of the church fathers wrote on every New Testament book, nor did all of their writings survive through history, but one that did was Niceta of Remesiana (AD 335-415) who commented on Act 5,

Now, what did St. Peter without hesitation say to him, ‘Ananias, why has Satan tempted [your] heart, that [you] [should] lie to the Holy Spirit?’ Then he added: ‘[You] [have] not lied to men, but to God.’ And being struck by the power of Him whom he had hoped to deceive, he expired. What does St. Peter here mean by the Holy Spirit? He clearly gives the answer when he says: ‘[You] [have] not lied to men, but to God.’ It is clear that one who lies to the Holy Spirit lies to God; therefore one who believes in the Holy Spirit believes in God. [13] [emphasis added]

Where Keating could not see the Holy Spirit as God, Niceta, a church father I had never heard of, clearly did. The same was true of Epiphanius of Salamis (AD 310/320-403), when he commented on the same passage saying, “... for the Spirit is of God and not different from God.” [14]

And finally, we have Augustine, who both Catholics and Protestants promote for his intellect and writings, who commented on 1 Cor 6:19-20 and Act 5:3-4 concerning the Holy Spirit, saying,

When the apostle said, Do you not know that your body is the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God, and are not your own? For you have been purchased at a great price, he immediately goes on to say, Glorify God, then, in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20). There he showed with utter clarity that the Holy Spirit is God and that he should be glorified in our body as if in his temple. The apostle Peter said to Ananias, Have you dared to lie to the Holy Spirit? And to show that the Holy Spirit is God, he said, You have not lied to me, but to God (Act 5:3-4). [15] [emphasis added]

Did you catch that? Augustine said that the Apostle Paul showed with ‘utter clarity’ that the Holy Spirit is God. These three examples clearly show that the church fathers understood that the Holy Spirit is God from Scripture, and Protestants whole heartedly agree, because the meaning can clearly be understood from just reading the text. But the Catholic Church is not quite sure that’s true. Concerning some sort of an appeal to ‘tradition’, as inferred by Keating above, it needs to be pointed out that the deity of the Holy Spirit was first defended by Athanasius (AD 298-373), who stood virtually alone for decades and had no tradition to appeal to. The only thing that he could appeal to was Scripture, because there was nothing else. To him, the apostolic ‘tradition’ was Scripture. And just in case you think these three examples are all there is, here is a bonus example. The mentor of Athanasius, Alexander of Alexandria (d. AD 328), in speaking about the Arians, “They are not ashamed to oppose the godly clearness of the ancient scriptures.” [16]

This idea that Scripture is unclear, is simply made up, contrived, invented for the purpose of supporting an indefensible concept that tradition was needed to clarify Scripture. Protestants agree with the early church father’s definition and exegesis of the Trinity because it represents what Scripture teaches. It does not need clarification or confirmation from some concept of tradition.

We didn’t get to their proof that tradition was needed and we do not have to, because they could not even make their basic argument that neither Scripture nor the early church fathers support their contention that Scripture is unclear, and the early church fathers had to appeal to ‘tradition’ concerning the deity of the Holy Spirit. That is not faithful to either Scripture or the church fathers. 

Conclusion

There is so much more to say but once again, I have yet another long blog with still quite a bit more to say. So, I will conclude this blog in a ‘part 2.’ But what has been presented so far, is that Scripture is clear if one just reads it. We started with an example concerning whether the Holy Spirit can be seen in Scripture as God, and He can be. A number of verses of the New Testament, along with Acts 5:3-4, were presented as definitive proof that Scripture clearly teaches the deity of the Holy Spirit. It is not ambiguous or difficult to see and understand. Church history also shows that there were a number of church fathers that understood Acts 5:3-5 to be clearly stating that the Holy Spirit is God.

Of course, this is not the only example being used to present Scripture as unclear, but we can easily move onto those in future blog entries. 

What is sad is that this was, in my opinion, such an unforced error on the part of the Catholic Church and her apologists. It has made them look uneducated and grasping for any available example to prove that their ‘tradition’ is needed to bring clarity to Scripture. Would it not have been better to have said nothing? This type of mistake actually goes quite some distance in proving the exact opposite: Scripture is overwhelmingly clear, and as one writer put it,

Our confession of the clarity of Scripture reflects our confidence that God is good and wise and powerful. He wants us to understand what he has to say to us, he knows how to say it in a way that we can understand, and he is able to overcome every barrier to our understanding. That confidence is also reflected in the Scriptures themselves. [17]

As Isaiah says,  

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth,And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. (Isa 55:101-11)

For he is the best student who does not read his thoughts into the book, but lets it reveal its own; who draws from it its sense, and does not import his own into it, nor force upon its words a meaning which he had determined was the right one before he opened its pages. Since then we are to discourse of the things of God, let us assume that God has full knowledge of Himself, and bow with humble reverence to His words. For He Whom we can only know through His own utterances is the fitting witness concerning Himself.

Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-367)

Footnotes

[1] David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), p. 195.
[2] Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974), p.135.
[3] Gerhard Maier, Biblical Hermeneutics, trans. Robert W. Yarbrough, (Wheaton: Crossway, 1994), p. 183.
[4] Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), Vol 2, p. 341.
[5] D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p. 544.
[6] Walter Kaiser, ‘Legitimate Hermeneutics’. Found in Normal Geiler, ed., Inerrancy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), p.128, as quoted in David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), p. 197.
[7] David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), p. 198.
[8] On the Study of Holy Scripture, Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on 18 November 1893.
[9] Robert Sungenis, Not by Scripture Alone (Santa Barbara: Queenship Publishing, 1997), p. Xiii. (online PDF version, academia.edu)
[10] Ibid, p. Xv.
[11] David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), pp. 198-199. See King’s book for the appropriate references to the appropriate works of Justin Martyr and Augustine.
[12] Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on ‘Romanism’ by ‘Biblical Christians’, (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 144, as quoted by David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), p. 199.
[13] Fathers of the Church, Vol. 7, Writings of Niceta of Remesiana, The Power of the Holy Spirit, p. 37, as quoted by David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), p. 199.
[14] Frank Williams, trans., The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (Leiden: Brill, 1994), Book II and III, Section IV, 59, p. 109, as quoted by David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), p. 200.
[15] John E. Rotelle, O.S.A, ed, The Works of Saint Augustine, trans, Roland J. Teske, S.J. (Hyde Park: New York, 1995), Part 1, Vol. 18, Book II:XXI.1, p. 304, as quoted by David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith Vol I, (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001), p. 200.
[16] Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Vol III, Theodore’s Ecclesiastical History, Book 1, Chapter 3.
[17] Mark D. Thompson, The Clarity of Scripture, The Gospel Coalition

All Scriptures quotes are from the New American Standard Bible, 1995 Revision, unless otherwise noted. Verse links from Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/

For the best treatment of Sola Scriptura in book form, please consider investing in the 3 volume set of: David T. King, Holy Scripture, Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3 (Battle Creek, WA: Christian Resource, Inc, 2001). It's the guide I'm using to integrate some of my own study on this important subject. This book set is inexpensive and worth every penny.