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At the time of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, one of the key points of dispute between the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church was related to the doctrine of Scripture. To be more specific, the Reformers taught the doctrine of sola Scriptura, or Scripture alone. The use of the word sola indicates that they were affirming that there is something unique about Scripture. But what is it that is true only of Scripture? As the Westminster Larger Catechism explains, “The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience” (Q&A 3).
Notice the word “only.” The Holy Scriptures are the only rule of faith and obedience. Why? Because the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God. That is the fundamental point of the doctrine of sola Scriptura—namely, that Scripture has the authority of God whose Word it is, and God’s authority is infinitely higher than any human authority because God is God and humans are not. In other words, the doctrine of sola Scriptura ultimately rests on the distinction between the Creator and His creatures. There is a metaphysical difference between the Word of God and the words of any human beings. Yet as seemingly obvious as this point is, there remain many misunderstandings of the doctrine of sola Scriptura and its implications.
There are, for example, those who believe that Scripture’s ultimate divine authority rules out the existence of any subordinate human authorities. In such a view, not only is Scripture the ultimate and final authority, but it is the only authority at all. There remains no place for ecclesiastical authority or creedal authority. Sola Scriptura, according to those who hold this view, is diametrically opposed to any positive use of traditional teaching or practice. It is important to understand that this concept of sola Scriptura is not the doctrine taught by the early Reformers. It is a serious distortion of that doctrine, influenced more by post-Enlightenment philosophies than by the theology of the Reformation.
For the Reformers, the doctrine of sola Scriptura meant that Scripture is the final authoritative norm for faith and life and that Scripture is to be interpreted in and by the church. The Reformers did not deny that the church and its creeds have any real authority. They denied that the church and its creeds have the same kind of authority that God has. The Reformers distinguished God’s ultimate divine authority from subordinate human authorities.
So far were the Reformers from rejecting creeds and confessions that they were actually churning them out by the dozens. In the first 150 years after the beginning of the Reformation, Reformed churches and theologians wrote well over a hundred confessions and catechisms, and these confessions of faith and catechisms taught the doctrine of sola Scriptura. In other words, the early Reformed theologians saw absolutely no conflict between the doctrine of sola Scriptura and the ecclesiastical use of confessions of faith.
To understand why they saw no conflict, it is necessary to recognize what a creed or a confession is and how such writings differ from the writings that we find in the Bible. The writings that we find in the Bible are unique because they are the very Word of almighty God. In 2 Timothy 3:16, we read that “all Scripture is breathed out by God.” Other translations read, “All Scripture is inspired.” This is where we get the technical theological term inspiration. The doctrine of inspiration is a translation of the Greek word theopneustos, which literally means “God-breathed.” It is an assertion that the words of Scripture are not merely human words. Yes, they are the words of men such as Moses and Paul, but ultimately, these words are God’s words. They are God-breathed. Their ultimate source is the mouth of God. Therefore, the words of Scripture carry the very authority of God.
Creeds and confessions, on the other hand, are not theopneustos. They are not God-breathed. They are man-breathed. They are human statements of faith. The word creed comes from the Latin credo, which simply means “I believe.” Credimus means “We believe.” Everybody has a creed, whether they call it a creed or not. Even those who say, “I believe in no creed but Christ” or “I believe in no creed but the Bible” have a creed. Their words “I believe” indicate the existence of their creed. These creeds are short creeds, and they are self-contradictory creeds, but they are creeds nonetheless. In other words, creeds are unavoidable by anyone who believes something to be true. The only real question is whether our creeds are good creeds or bad creeds.
Creeds are subordinate to and dependent on Scripture. If there is no Scripture, there is no creed. In a creed, the church is corporately stating what it believes that God’s inspired Word teaches. It is a faithful response to the divinely authoritative teaching of Holy Scripture. Scripture is God saying, “Thus saith the Lord.” A creed is the people of God saying, “We believe You, Lord.” The Scriptures, for example, say with divine authority, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). In response, the church confesses, “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” (Nicene Creed).
The church’s creedal response of faith does not give Scripture its authority. God’s Word has God’s infinite divine authority regardless of whether anyone believes it. Nor does the church’s creedal response of faith add to the infinite divine authority of Scripture. The church’s creedal response instead recognizes and publicly acknowledges Scripture’s divine authority. The sheep hear their Shepherd’s voice (John 10:27), and they respond accordingly. The church confesses its belief in the doctrines coming from the very mouth of God in Holy Scripture. The church’s confession is authoritative, therefore, in a subordinate way. It is authoritative to the extent that it expresses God’s Word accurately.
But isn’t there a contradiction between saying that the Holy Scriptures are “the only rule of faith and obedience” and giving the church any kind of authority at all? No. God has always been the ultimate authority, but from the beginning of history, He has appointed real subordinate authorities. It seems that many Christians today read the words of Acts 5:29—“We must obey God rather than men”—as a strict either-or. In other words, they read it as though it meant, “We must obey only God and never obey men.” There are numerous biblical problems with this interpretation, however.
In the first place, this understanding ignores the context of Acts 5. In this chapter, Peter and the Apostles are given a divine command to proclaim the gospel in the temple (v. 20), and they obey God (v. 21). When Peter and the Apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin, the high priest reminds them that the council had commanded them not to teach these things (v. 28). It is in that context that Peter says, “We must obey God rather than men” (v. 29). God had commanded them to do something, and these men had commanded them not to do that very thing. In that context, the only choice is to obey God’s command rather than the command of these men. If men are commanding us to disobey God, then we obey God and not those men.
In the second place, this interpretation ignores the fact that throughout the Bible God often commands some people to obey other people. God commands Israel, for example, to obey Moses, and God’s response to rebellion against Moses’ authority is severe (see Num. 12). God commands children to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1–3). God commands wives to submit to their husbands (1 Peter 3:1). God commands people to obey civil authorities (Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:13–17). And God commands Christians to obey their leaders in the church (Heb. 13:17). If the words “We must obey God rather than men” mean “We must obey God and never obey men,” how do we obey God’s commands to obey men?
Usually, those who adopt this interpretation of Acts 5 are selective in their application of it. They apply the misinterpretation only to those men whom they do not want to obey. Most of the people who use these words to reject legitimate human authorities over themselves would not be happy if they told their child to clean his room, only to have that child refuse and justify his rebellion by saying, “We must obey God rather than men” (see WLC 123–33).
The authority of the church is not in conflict with the authority of Scripture. Scripture is the only rule of faith and life, but the church has ministerial authority—to “determine controversies of faith,” for example (Westminster Confession of Faith 31.2). Unlike Scripture, which is inerrant, the church can err and has erred and therefore cannot be made the rule of faith and practice (WCF 31.3). Making the church the effective rule of faith and practice is the error of the Roman Catholic Church.