His use of the terms “implies” and “at
least hints” indicate that White himself is perhaps not convinced the Bible
absolutely declares Sola Scriptura as irrefutably true. His argument falls
apart when read in the context of the entire Gospel of John, as well as the
verse that immediately precedes John 20:31.
As we’ve already established, John’s
gospel clearly proclaims that the Word of God is an eternal person, not a
finite book, and there is much more to the Word of God than what can printed in
any book. John himself acknowledges this in John 20:31, when he writes: “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book,” which is
followed by the verse White quotes: “But these are written that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may
have life in His name.”
John states that what he has written
are samples of the eternal Word, not its entirety, so that through these
samples one may “have life in His name,” a life that has many elements spoken
of elsewhere in the Gospels, particularly the Eucharist, which John proclaims
emphatically as essential to the Christian life (which will be the subject of
another article).
We can in no way draw from this what
White wants us to believe: that what is recorded in the written Gospels is the
full extent of God’s eternal Word, all of what God wants us to know, and that
only the knowledge of what is in those pages is sufficient.
In another argument White proof-texts
Scripture to propose a point that just doesn’t hold up in context. He writes:
“The Bereans are commended for subjecting the apostles’ own preaching to a
comparison with the Scriptures: ‘These were more noble than those in
Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and
searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so.’ (Acts 17:11)”
Let’s fill in the context from Acts
17. In both Thessalonica and Beroea Paul and Silas are preaching to Jews in their
synagogues. The specific topic of their talk is that Jesus is the Messiah whom
the Hebrew Scriptures prophesied would have to suffer and die. The Berean Jews,
in order to evaluate whether these specific claims about Jesus fulfilling
Scriptural prophecy were true, had to necessarily consult the Scriptures. To
then use that specific circumstance to imply that all teaching about Jesus was
cross-referenced with Scripture doesn’t hold up. (It wouldn’t help them to
search the Scriptures to verify Jesus’ “You have heard it said…but I say…”
teachings, without an apostolic explanation of how Jesus was fulfilling, not
contradicting Scripture with these sayings. It would not be self-evident from
Scripture.)
White responds to the question “Where
is ‘Scripture interprets Scripture’ in the Bible?” with this: “2 Timothy 3:16
says, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’ If
this is true, then it follows that all Scripture has one divine author even if
it has many human authors.”
White misses the point. The issue is
not whether the Scriptures are inspired and profitable—it is whether the
Scriptures are the only divinely inspired instrument of the eternal Word. Once
again, read in context, 2 Timothy 3:16 does not declare Sola Scriptura.
Indeed, in 2 Timothy 3:10 Paul writes:
“But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith,
longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions…” Paul
then adds to his own experiences which Timothy has observed the Scripture
Timothy learned as a child, adding in verses 14-15: “But you must continue in
the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you
have learned them, and that
from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you
wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” When Timothy was a
child he learned only the Hebrew Scriptures, for his childhood predated the New
Testament. The Scriptures Timothy knew were incomplete, and were supplemented
by Paul’s example and teaching.
Another of White’s arguments that does
not stand up to Biblical scrutiny is his response to the question “But where is
the only in [John 20:31]?” He
responds: The sola or only of ‘Sola Scriptura’ is simply a
negative claim—in other words, it’s saying that Scripture is unique—there’s
nothing else like Scripture.”
First of all, sola means exactly what it says—ONLY—and the Scriptures simply do
not proclaim themselves to be the ONLY authority. (Every Evangelical will dance
around this question, because there is no way to answer it truthfully without
rejecting the very foundation for all their arguments—which subsequently fall
apart like a house of cards.) He is right that Scripture is unique; among all
the works of literature ever written, yes, Scripture is unique. But among all
the organizations ever comprised of human beings, the Church is unique, and
that’s where we have to go next.
Let’s begin with Jesus’ commissioning of the Apostles in John
20:22-23. But first let’s talk about what an apostle is. An apostle is distinct
from a disciple, as established in Mark 3:14. The New Testament authors
borrowed the Greek “apostolos” to refer to the twelve, a military term in use
at the time for a lower ranking official sent by a superior to act with the
authority of the one who sent him. The lower official did not possess any
authority in and of himself—he acted rather in the person of the one who sent
him, merely as an instrument of the true authority. Perhaps a good analogy is a
police officer, who has authority not of his own accord, but because he has
been sent by a greater authority to act as an instrument. This is what
“apostle” means.
The Gospel of John says of the Apostles’ commissioning:
“And when He had
said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If
you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of
any, they are retained.” (John 20:22-23)
Jesus breathed on the Apostles before sending them. The word
“inspired” literally means “God-breathed.” This is the same term applied to the
men God chose to write the Scriptures. This puts the Apostles on the same level
as they, for the same term is applied to both.
But there’s more.
The mission of the Apostles includes forgiving and retaining sins.
This is over and above the mission of preaching the Word, because the Word
doesn’t want to simply be preached, He wants to live in the heartss of His
people. But this is something no human being can do; only God can forgive sins.
So let’s put all of this together: By breathing on the Apostles
(imparting divine inspiration, “God breath,”) and charging them with a task
only God can do, Jesus established the Apostles not as mere men to work under
their own power, but as inspired instruments of the Word (Jesus himself). Jesus
will be the one forgiving and retaining sins, not the Apostles themselves,
using them as His God-breathed instruments. Otherwise Jesus would have
instructed them to tell people only to pray for the forgiveness of their sins.
But He didn’t. He established the Apostles—not just prayer—as dispensers of
divine forgiveness.
These two details, God-breath and the mission to forgive or retain
sins, are part of the Biblical foundation for Jesus instituting inspired
instruments in addition to Scripture. (He gave this authority to the Apostles, by the way, at least three decades before the first words of the New Testament were even put on paper. The Apostles received jesus' authority long before the Scriptures did.)
Mark’s gospel emphasizes this point when it states:
“And they went
out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word
through the accompanying signs.” (Mark 16:20)
Jesus worked in and through the Apostles as they preached the
Word—not with Bibles (because there weren’t any, and it wouldn’t be for another
fifteenth centuries that Bibles would be available to most people anyway), but
through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which Jesus (the Word Himself)
breathed upon them. He performed accompanying signs to confirm this.
There is no Biblical basis for Scripture alone. There is for a
divinely inspired Church to work together with inspired Scripture.
A dramatic example of this is Philip’s encounter with the
Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-39. An angel sends Philip to the road where he
will meet the eunuch—a supernatural occurrence that serves as the first indication
that Philip is an inspired instrument of the Word (Jesus). Once Philip sees the
eunuch in his chariot reading Scripture, we read:
“Then the Spirit
said to Philip, ‘Go near and overtake this chariot.’”
This is another indication that Philip is an inspired instrument
of the Word, directed by the Spirit, not his own human ideas.
When Philip asks do you understand what you are reading, the
eunuch replies:
“How can I,
unless someone guides me?... Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at
this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.”
He began with Scripture, but then Philip the inspired instrument
of the Word began to preach the Word (Jesus).
After Philip baptized the eunuch, we read:
“Now when they
came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that
the eunuch saw him no more.”
Recorded here are three supernatural signs performed by God
through a man—not performed by a man, but performed by God through a man—so
that someone could understand what was unclear in the Scriptures alone. If
Philip was not an inspired (God-breathed) instrument of the Word (Jesus) in
this instance, where Scripture alone was not enough, how else could one
describe it, especially considering the supernatural elements involved? And if
we accept that Philip was an inspired instrument of the Word in this episode,
then we have to accept that there are inspired instruments of the Word outside
Scripture. And if we acknowledge that happened then, we must acknowledge it
still happens today. (Apostolic succession will be the subject of another
article.)
Jesus established the Church as a whole—not just the Scriptures—as
the ultimate place where a sinner is to hear his fault. In Matthew 18:15-18
Jesus established a procedure for the correction of a sinner:
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the Church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
The instruction is not “have him read
the Scriptures,” but “tell it to the Church.” It is not “if he does not heed
the Scriptures…,” it is “if he refuses even to hear the Church.” And once again
we hear Jesus telling the Apostles that whatever they bind on earth will be
bound in heaven, and whatever they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. As
we’ve already discussed, the Apostles have no authority on their own to bind
and loose; it is only as His inspired instruments that Jesus will bind and
loose through them. Once again, Jesus has other inspired (God-breathed)
instruments of the Word (Jesus) besides the Scriptures.
Of course the foundation for this is
Matthew 18:17-20. Jesus changes Simon’s name to Cephas. (Matthew wrote in
Greek, and fell into a Greek grammatical trap trying to translate this, but
Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek, and Cephas is what He actually called Simon, as
referenced in John 1:42, Galatians 1:18, 2:9-14, and 1 Corinthians 1:12, 3:22,
9:5, 15:5.) Cephas means rock, and Jesus said it is upon Cephas, this rock
formerly named Simon, that He will build His Church. He also gives this pledge
for the first time:
“I
will give you (Kephas) the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind
on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven.”
Jesus does not declare Scripture to be
the rock; he gives this title to Simon. Jesus does not declare that Scripture
holds the keys to heaven; He says very plainly He is giving those keys to
Cephas, a human instrument. Keys are a symbol of authority. Once again, no
human being can bind and loose in heaven, only Jesus can do that. So Jesus is
saying here that He has chosen Cephas as the inspired instrument through which
Jesus will exercise His authority on earth. There is no mention of Scripture
here—a human being is clearly established as the divinely chosen and inspired
(God-breathed) instrument of the Word (Jesus).
This does not discredit Scripture as
inspired; it does negate the idea of Scripture as the sole authority.
