Introduction
The teaching of the Lord Jesus was challenged
by his enemies, not just because of its content, but also on the
ground of its origin. We read that “the
chief priests and the elders of the people came to him [as he was]
teaching, saying,
By what authority doest thou these things? and
who gave thee this
authority?” (Matt. 21: 23, my emphasis). Now the question was a
legitimate one, even if the motive behind it was evil. Furthermore,
it is a question that those who follow in the footsteps of Christ
must expect others to ask—as well as asking it of themselves.
By what authority do we do the
things that we do, or teach the things that we teach? It is
not simply a matter of being “prepared to [give] an answer [to]
every one that asks you to give an account of the hope that [is] in
you” (1 Pet. 3: 15), but of knowing the
basis of that hope as
well. Luke, in the introduction to his Gospel, speaks of “the
matters fully believed among us” (Luke 1: 1), but he also speaks of
“eye–witnesses” and “attendants on the Word” (v2) who had delivered
their testimony to the first Christians. Thus what is believed and
taught has its
origin in an
authority (in this case the testimony of witnesses) and that
authority is the root and cause of both
why we believe and
what we believe. It is
very common, for example, to hear people to say that they have ‘come
to faith’, and to be very sincere in saying it, but such language is
essentially meaningless. Faith needs to be in God, and that,
ultimately, is proved by faith in His Word. Anything that bears the
name of Christ but is not rooted in the Bible is really mysticism.
Sadly, such human ideas and fantasies dominate Christian thought
today.
One Authority
Now it is evident from the earliest pages of
Scripture that there are competing authorities operating in this
world. Adam’s behaviour was to be regulated by what God had said.
Thus: “Of every tree of the garden thou shalt freely eat; but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it”
(Gen. 2: 16, 17). This authority was quickly called into question by
the serpent (see Gen. 3: 1, 5), and as a result, the woman took of
the forbidden fruit. She heeded Satan rather than God and, in turn,
the man heeded the woman rather than the divine instruction. In the
next chapter, we find Cain approaching God in his own way (see Gen.
4: 3–7; Jude v11), while Abel offered to God a more excellent
sacrifice “by faith” (Heb. 11: 4). Cain’s authority was his own
thoughts, but Abel approached God according to divine revelation.
And so we might go on through the Bible. On the one hand, we have
God, and what He has revealed as to His mind, while on the other, we
have many contrary authorities, which, despite their variety, are
actually united by their antithesis to the divine will. By rights,
there is really only
one
authority—God’s—and all others can be lumped under the heading of
“revolt against Jehovah” (Jer. 28: 16). When Elijah pleaded with
Israel saying “How long do ye halt between two opinions” (1 Kings
18: 21), he gave a perfect illustration of the position in which man
finds himself. It is the divine will that is to be obeyed or, in
turning after any other will, the divine will that is rejected.
There is no take it or leave it option. Man is either obedient to
what God has said (and this goes far beyond just belief in the
Gospel), or, like Nimrod (see Gen. 10: 8), a
rebel (which is what his name means). Thus those who have
believed have “obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which” they
“were instructed” (Rom. 6: 17, my emphasis). But what, exactly, is
this form of teaching, and how does this instruction come to us?
The Seat of
Authority
For example, ask professing Christians
why they believe that
Jesus is the Son of God, and you will not get one answer but
several. Some will say that they do not believe it, others will
point to it as being the traditional position of the Church, and
many will respond that it is what the Bible teaches, without being
very clear
where in the Bible.
The first group has rejected divine revelation, but the other two
groups have not got what they hold from the fountain–head. Their
belief, although true, is second–hand—their
authority, sad to say, is not Scripture, but other men and women.
This is often brushed aside on the basis that people in the Bible
also got their beliefs by way of the instrumentality of
others—through Moses and so on—but this objection is unsustainable.
Now Scripture is certainly very clear that Moses was the mouthpiece
of God (see Exod. 4: 15, 16), and, more generally, that all the
prophets spoke as having a word from the Lord (sometimes very
specifically as in ‘Thus saith Jehovah’). Hence in believing
them, the people were
believing
God. However, divine
revelation is now complete, both as to content and as to time (see
Col. 1: 25; Rev. 22: 18), and there is no one today who can speak
authoritatively as the
mouthpiece of God. Authority now lies in the record of what has been
revealed—the written Word of God. It is
that which must be brought to bear on our hearts and
consciences. Thus the true Christian believes that Jesus is the Son
of God because
Scripture tells him so (see Luke 1: 32; John 9: 35–37; Rom. 1: 4
etc.). Furthermore, he can have confidence that it is true because
God has said it. To
rely on the testimony of others (however pious or gifted) is
essentially to have faith in man. Far better to be like the
Samaritans of John 4 who could say “[it is] no longer on account of
thy saying that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves, and we
know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world” (v42). Let us now
pursue this matter of the authoritative nature of Scripture further.
The Word of
God
Now the expression
the Word of God is so
familiar that its force is sadly often lost sight of. It is
God speaking. Think of
that! Peter tells us that “prophecy was not ever uttered by [the]
will of man, but holy men of God spake under the power of [the] Holy
Spirit” (2 Pet. 1: 21), and Paul declares that “every scripture [is]
divinely inspired” (2 Tim. 3: 16). The Bible is therefore unlike any
other book in that its origin lies not with man, but with God: it is
the expression of the divine mind. This is not merely a question (as
some say) of Scripture containing God’s Word, for it is God’s Word.
Make Scripture to only contain God’s Word and its authority is lost
for we are then dependent on man to tell us what is divine and what
is not. Again, inspiration relates not merely to concepts but to
words for it is “not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those
taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2: 13). There is a world of difference
between someone telling me what he
thinks is the
substance of what another has said, and that message being delivered
to me in the very words used.
It follows from all this that
Scripture is its own authority.
Ordinary books are only as good as the competence of their
necessarily flawed human authors, and their authority (such as it
is) is often dependent on other sources outside their pages. The
Bible is wholly different. Here we have God speaking, and it is as
well to remember that “Who is like unto Jehovah our God?” (Ps. 113:
5). The Bible carries with it all the authority of God Himself and
it is therefore irreverent in the extreme when men presume to sit in
judgment upon its content. Nothing external to God’s Word
proves God’s Word
because of the simple fact that it
is God’s Word. It does not
need proving—only believing. Nor is believing presented as an option
for “He that rejects me and does not receive my words, has him who
judges him: the word which I have spoken, that shall judge him in
the last day. For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who
sent me has himself given me commandment what I should say and what
I should speak” (John 12: 48, 49). God demands not only to be heard
but heeded. This passage is of course referring to unbelievers, but
this does not exempt Christians from the need to be careful in their
handling of Scripture. Taking my opinions to the Bible and seeking
texts to support them is not only a dangerous way to read the Word,
but is, essentially, a denial of its authority. When God speaks, it
is obligatory that “all flesh be silent before Jehovah” (Zech. 2:
13). We go to Scripture to hear what God has to say—not for God to be requisitioned as a buttress to our own
agendas. Such a course may make us wise in our “own eyes” (Rom. 12:
16), but wresting Scripture in this way (see 2 Pet. 3: 16) is
actually a mark of the untaught and ill–established.
The Church and
Authority
Nor has such behaviour been confined to
individuals, for laying down doctrine soon became a characteristic
of the professing Church—even though the faith (or body of doctrine)
had been “once delivered” (Jude v3). Of course it is true that a
certain kind of authority has been delegated to the Church (see
Matt. 18: 17, 18; 1 Cor. 5: 7–13)—at least in its initial state of
unity— but what it has
never had is the authority to teach in the sense of deciding
doctrine. The assertion that Acts 15 is the fore–runner of the
ecclesiastical councils and synods that dogmatized over doctrine in
later centuries is without foundation, for in that chapter Peter and
James simply appealed to Scripture. Again, when Paul said that
“there will come in amongst you after my departure grievous wolves,
not sparing the flock” (Acts 20: 29), it is significant that he
committed the saints, not to the Church, but “to God, and to the
word of his grace” (v32). Of course, the Church, as God’s house, is
“[the] pillar and base of the truth” (1 Tim. 3: 15), but that means
lifting the truth up for display
as a responsible witness. It is not, as some think, that the
Church is the basis for the truth (and by ‘Church’ those who argue
this way generally mean its clergy, official or otherwise). The
thought is simply all believers, as placed together as living stones
in God’s house being a collective testimony to the truth. In actual
fact, the Church quickly failed in that collective witness and
degenerated into a “great house” in which there was a mixture of
vessels “some to honour, and some to dishonour” (2 Tim. 2: 20).
It is obvious that if the Church can teach,
then the Bible is only the repository of
some of the truth, and we
are at the mercy of whatever that body further decides. This is what
had happened in Thyatira where “Jezebel,
she who calls herself
prophetess” had taught and led astray the Lord’s servants
“to commit fornication and eat of idol sacrifices” (Rev. 2: 20, my
emphasis). Of course the NT apostles and prophets laid down NT truth
authoritatively before the canon of Scripture closed (see Eph. 2:
20), but their service has long ended, and those individuals gifted
in teaching today (see Eph. 4: 11) are restricted to opening up that
apostolic teaching
as recorded in the Bible.
They cannot get it anywhere else. I am aware that some wrest
Matt. 13: 52 out of its context and allege that there are “things
new” today that the apostles did not have, but Scripture is explicit
that the Holy Spirit would guide the apostles into
all the truth (see
John 16: 13). The “things new” in Matt. 13: 52 is simply NT
doctrine!
Tradition
Now of course the apostles
handed down
instruction to their successors (for such is the simple meaning of
the word tradition in Scripture), but there is a world of difference between
what the apostles handed down in addition to OT revelation (see 1
Cor. 11: 2; 2 Thess. 2: 15; 3: 6; 2 Tim. 2: 2) and what has come
from the Church fathers and
all who have come
after them. Thus the apostle John exhorts his readers to “let that
which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you” (1 John 2: 24)
and we find the record of what he is talking about preserved to us
in the NT Scriptures. Others, however, hold tenaciously to “what has
been delivered by the ancients” (Mark 7: 3), but that, by
definition, is preserved outside Scripture. The great difference is
that while both have the lustre of antiquity, the former is God’s
Word, and the latter is man’s word. Now there is no need to travel
out of one’s immediate ecclesiastical circle to find that some
things are done simply because they have always been done that way,
or because it was an instruction of a respected teacher in a past
generation—despite there being no definite Scripture behind it. And
when it is impossible to diverge from that tradition, then you have
a law, and therefore an additional authority to that found in
Scripture. In practice, of course, it is nonsensical to speak of two
authorities, and so the invariable result is that tradition carries
more weight than the Bible. If there is a choice, man always prefers
his custom to God’s Word for, as the
Lord charged the Pharisees “Well do ye set aside the commandment
of God, that ye may
observe what is delivered by yourselves to keep”
(Mark 7: 9, my emphasis).
The background to this verse is the Jews
seeking to bind their own tradition of handwashing upon the Lord:
“Why do thy disciples not walk according to what has been delivered
by the ancients, but eat the bread with defiled hands?” (Mark 7: 5).
It was an argument that seemed to have a lot in its favour. The Jews
themselves carried ‘ecclesiastical’ authority, for they came from
Jerusalem, the great religious centre of the day. They also knew
their Scriptures, for some of them were scribes and they were
morally upright, because some of them were Pharisees. Furthermore,
the practise may even have had a pious origin since personal purity
would illustrate that God looks for holiness among His people. These
Jews may also have pleaded that the tradition was indirectly drawn
from the word of God, because there were certain washings under the
Law which God’s people always practised. Yet though they honoured
God with their lips, their hearts were set on tradition—even to the
extent of allowing it to contradict the Word of God itself (see vs.
6–13). They were nothing but blind leaders of the blind. Now of
course there are many traditional practices among God’s people that
are not of this serious character, and a good portion are harmless
or even beneficial. However, if they are made binding upon the
conscience then another authority is in operation apart from the
Word of God, and God is effectively made to share His throne. To be
helped by those who teach is one thing—but this is a very different
from an authoritative rule imposed as binding upon the conscience.
Those so gifted may teach, but if they teach as they should, it is
to teach “obedience to the truth” (1 Pet. 1: 22).
Ministry of
the Word
Ministry, if is of God, is thus “ministry
of the word” (Acts 6: 4,
my emphasis). There is no obedience associated with ministry in
itself—the obedience is in the Word of God to which it points. In
the light of this, it is quite sobering to come across Christians
who appear to be governed by Scripture but who in fact are regulated
by a particular brand of teaching. Bring Scripture to bear on their
doctrine and practices and it has no effect. Why? Because the seat
of authority (unconsciously perhaps) no longer lies in the Bible but
in the thoughts of men. Such Christians will typically only read
what they refer to as ‘divinely accredited ministry’, and quote 2
Tim. 3: 14 in support of their position: “But
thou, abide in those
things which thou hast learned, and [of which] thou hast been fully
persuaded,
knowing of whom thou hast learned [them]” (my emphasis). But
what has this Scripture got to do with ministry today? Nothing. The
words in the verse suit a certain purpose and so are used, but the
context is simply ignored. The background is that when Paul wrote to
Timothy the Scriptures were incomplete, and even the NT books that
had been written were not yet generally available. Of course Timothy
was familiar with the OT, as from a child he had “known the sacred
letters” (v15), but he could not learn the distinctive truths of
Christianity there. For that he was dependent on apostolic
doctrine—and in his case, this meant Paul. Paul and those like him
were apostles—not simply
ministers of the Word—and their foundational teaching (see Eph. 2:
20) was accredited by signs, wonders and works of power (see 2 Cor.
12: 12). There is nothing comparable today because the Word of God
is doctrinally complete (see Col. 1: 25). As his child in the faith,
Timothy had first–hand knowledge of Paul’s “teaching” (2 Tim. 3: 10)
but Christians today only have these things recorded for them in the
NT. Thus “knowing of whom thou hast learned [them]” (v14) does not
mean accredited ministry so–called, but apostolic ministry, and is,
essentially, identical to what we find in the epistles.
The great danger with the erroneous idea of a
modern “divinely accredited ministry” is that it encourages people
to believe what is said (or written) without going to Scripture. In
essence, it must be right because a certain teacher said so. The
authority of the Bible, since it is no longer absolute, is
undermined. The fact is, what accredits any ministry is Scripture,
and
nothing else. Thus the
inhabitants of Berea, while receiving Paul’s word “with all
readiness of mind” still verified it against the previous divine
revelation that had been given them, “searching the scriptures if
these things were so” (Acts 17: 11).
We can be thankful for any of God’s servants
who bring the truth to our attention, but if they are truly God’s
servants, they will point us to Scripture as the basis of our faith
and confidence. If we do not get the truth for ourselves from
Scripture, then we can have no certainty that what we have believed
is true. False teachers get a hold of souls because what they say is
never critically examined by their devotees, while even faithful
teachers may disseminate a mixture of truth and error. Imbibing what
seems right because we
have confidence in the speaker is foolhardy, and ecclesiastical
history is littered with tragic examples of those who have been led
needlessly astray in this way. Even Barnabas was carried away by the
dissimulation of Peter (see Gal. 2: 13). The same danger applies to
reading printed commentaries without bothering to validate the
teaching with Scripture. It is very revealing when people respond by
saying that they
trust the writer, because that is precisely what they have put
their faith in. Faith needs to be in God and what He has said in His
Word—not expositions. In saying this, I do not wish to undermine the
usefulness of printed (or spoken) ministry, but, if used correctly,
such helps will reinforce our faith in Scripture and not become a
substitute for it.
Conclusion
It is very common to dismiss the Bible as just a
book. Physically that is of course true, but it is not the whole
picture. We would not say that a note from a loved one or a summons
from a court are just pieces of paper—how much more that which comes
from God! If these lesser things have the power to command our
hearts and minds, let us see to it that we give Scripture its
rightful place over our souls!
