The Scripture as Our Ultimate Authority

Notes

Editor’s note: Dr. Saucy adapted this article from chapter 14 of his book, Scripture: Its Power, Authority, and Relevance (Word Publishing, 2001).

¹ Virginia Mollenkott, letter to His magazine, 33 (June 1973): 23.

² Harvey Cox, Fire From Heaven: the Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1994), 299-308.

³ Catechism of the Catholic Church (Paulist Press, 1994), par. 81.

⁴ Ibid., par. 97.

⁵ At times it is difficult to see even an implicit link between Roman Catholic tradition and the teaching of the Scriptures, such as the Catholic dogmas on the immaculate conception of Mary (born without original sin), her sinlessness, and her “assumption” into heaven (being taken bodily into heaven at the moment of death).

⁶ This authoritative teaching voice of the church is also based on the belief that the Church is the continuation of the incarnation of Christ in the world.

⁷ Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 95.

⁸ Mark P. Shea, “What is the Relationship Between Scripture and Tradition,” in Not By Scripture Alone, ed. Robert A. Sungenis (Queenship Publishing, 1997), 181.

⁹ Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Penguin Books, 1993), 202.

¹⁰ D. H. Williams, Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1999), 36.

¹¹ Ibid, 215-216.

¹² Ibid, 205

¹³ French Confession of Faith, quoted in John H. Armstrong, “The Authority of Scripture,” in Sola Scriptura, ed. Don Kistler, (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1995), 121-122.

¹⁴ John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1986), 238.

¹⁵ C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Harper’s New Testament Commentaries (Harper & Row, 1968), 106.

¹⁶ Chrysostom, quoted in William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture against the Papist (University Press, 1849; reprint, New York: Johnson, 1968), 637.

¹⁷ Oscar Cullmann, The Early Church, ed. A. J. B. Higgins (SCM Press, 1966), 80 (italics his).

¹⁸ A. N. S. Lane, “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey,” Vox Evangelical 9 (1975): 38-40.

¹⁹ Robert Thomson, ed., Athanasium: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione (Clarendon Press, 1971), 2, quoted and translated from the Greek in James White, “Sola Scriptura and the Early Church,” in Sola Scriptura, 49.

²⁰ Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Letters 4:17, quoted in White, “Sola Scriptura and the Early Church,” 27.

²¹ Augustine, Reply to Faustus 11.5, quoted in Norman L. Geisler and Ralph E. MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences (Baker, 1995), 200.

²² Thomas Aquinas, De veritate XIV, 10, ad 11, quoted in Norman L. Geisler and Ralph E. MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, 201.

²³ If as some believe there is a succession of apostles that continues throughout church history with the same gift of infallibility of teaching as given to the original apostles who wrote Scripture, Church teaching itself becomes the revelatory Word of God. The church no longer stands under the Word but speaks the Word itself. The following comments concerning the position of the Roman Catholic Church in this regard help to clarify this situation. “The magisterial interpretation of the Word of God prevented from erring by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, makes the question who has authority over whom [the Church or the Word of God] futile because in the Roman system this problem does not really arise. Much more important is the question whether the quasi-identification of Tradition (and so of Scripture which belongs to it and contains it in a special way) with the total being, teaching and action of the Church does not mean that ultimately it is not Tradition (in any sense of the term) or Scripture that is the source of revelation but the Church itself. In any case, how can Scripture stand vis-à-vis the Church as its superior and judge it, when its total being, teaching and action are equated with Tradition to which Scripture belongs?” (Rudolph J. Ehrlich, Rome: Opponent or Partner? [Westminster, 1965], 284).

²⁴ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill (Westminster, 1960), 4.8.9.

²⁵ Paul W. Barnett, “Salvation,” in Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, ed. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids (InterVarsity, 1997), 1074-1075. Similarly at the conclusion of his scholarly study on the Lord’s Supper, I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’s Supper [Eerdmans, 1980], 156). points to many distinctions between the biblical teaching and several church practices. He writes, “The New Testament does not indicate that the bread and the cup were ‘consecrated’ in any way for the sacrament. Neither the practice of offering the elements to God nor that of offering a prayer of epiclesis [‘invocation upon’] for the Spirit to bless the elements [changing them into the body and blood of Christ] has any foundation in Scripture.”