EPISODE 168 1 PETER SUPPLEMENT "Sola Scriptura"

Welcome to Share the Word. Have you noticed how money has been the underlying purpose of religious facets who continue taking the liberty of abusing the trust of people? Have you seen the contradictions with the written Word of God by the different religious orders under the pretense of knowing better than what God ordained? Well, buckle up and listen closely. This is an important ride. Sola Scriptura.

A couple podcasts back, as I was introducing the big theme of First Peter, the proper response to suffering for Christians, I was telling you about early followers of Christ who were called before powerful men and given the choice to recant their faith or else be tortured and killed. If you didn't hear that episode, that kind of persecution during the early centuries is not Christian folklore. I read actual correspondence between the Roman Emperor Trajan and one of his provincial governors discussing exactly that. But because the Christian faith was based on facts and on changed lives, the persecution didn't stop Christianity's growth, nor probably even much hinder it. When believers were willing to die rather than renounce their faith in Christ, it only caused the gospel to gain a larger audience. It created wonder and curiosity about it.

What is it that these people believe that they're willing to die for? There have been other turning points in history where forces have sought to destroy the truth, or control the truth, let's say. One of them occurred in the first half of the 16th century. I told you last time that Christianity was made an illegal religion in the Roman Empire by the Emperor Germanicus Nero around 65 A.D. That led to the martyrdom of the apostles Paul and Peter, and the onset of state-sponsored persecution, which raged and ebbed for the next 250 years. If we could pull back the curtain to see the spiritual warfare playing out, I think we'd see the enemy exasperated at that point by his inability to stop Christianity's growth and his decision to change course.

The Emperor Constantine decriminalized Christianity in the year 313 A.D. After he claimed he saw a vision of a cross in the sky and the words, In this sign, conquer. I am doubtful that that really happened. It was a claim made by a biographer after Constantine's death. I think what's more likely happening at that point in history is that this pagan Roman emperor, after even members of his own family had become Christians, decided, If you can't beat them, join them. Following Constantine in the year 380, amazingly, the Roman Empire declared Christianity the official state religion.

We would think at first, Wow, that's great, and it was great that the persecution stopped. But again, if we could pull back the curtain and see the real spiritual battle playing out, it seems to me to have been likely a change of tactics by the enemy. Christianity's growth couldn't be stopped by force, so maybe the more effective way would be to co-opt it, for the state to embrace it. After that time, Christianity became centered in Rome and very entangled with the secular powers of the empire. It gradually institutionalized more and more into a hierarchical religion, with the Bishop of Rome actually ruling over papal states after the Roman Empire collapsed, and it grew to have a lot of influence over the kings of Europe during the Middle Ages. The religion of Roman Catholicism, as we think of it today, gradually, gradually evolved.

For example, the notion of a central leader who was God's spokesman on earth, called the Pope, that was not recognized throughout Europe until the 11th century. The idea that salvation must be earned through faithfulness to seven sacraments. The Roman Catholic Church offered these sacraments, of course. That wasn't formalized until the middle of the 16th century. And honestly, by that time, this religion, with all its trappings, had very little resemblance anymore to the simplicity of Christianity we read about in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, or which we read about in the writings of the apostles in the epistles, or the early church leaders of the 2nd and 3rd century, for that matter. Much of Christianity had been co-opted and institutionalized into something very, very different.

But the 16th century became another turning point. Several things happened that century that shook the institutional church. For one, the printing press was invented, and for the first time, Bibles began to be produced in large numbers in languages people could read for themselves. As far as people go, no one was more crucial than a Catholic university professor in Germany named Martin Luther. Luther was one of those rare, brilliant, and courageous people who does not go along to get along. In fact, someone who could not be forced to go against his conscience, no matter the pressure brought to bear.

He was a teacher of the New Testament who deeply became convinced from his studies that the Roman Catholic Church at that point was so far away from the purity and simplicity of early Christianity that it had to be challenged. He saw so many discrepancies between the doctrine and practice of the institutional church of the Middle Ages and the Word of God that he felt compelled to protest. For example, Luther realized the Roman Catholic teaching that members must merit salvation by good works and by faithfulness to the church's ordained sacraments was completely at odds with what the New Testament teaches about salvation being a free gift to all who would put their faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross. Luther also called out the outrageous practice of the church selling indulgences. What was that about?

The selling of indulgences was a shameful practice at the time which involved the sale of a certificate that supposedly absolved the purchaser of past sins and released them from purgatory after death. Purgatory, if you're unaware, is a made-up Roman Catholic doctrine just invented in the 12th century. Supposedly a place Catholics go after they die who are not yet pure enough to enter heaven. They have to stay in purgatory, being purged of their sins until they're pure enough to enter heaven. Here's how indulgences worked. The churchmen said that they controlled a spiritual treasury of merit.

That's what they called it. The idea was that some exceptionally holy people earned a surplus of merit during their lives because they had done more than they needed to to earn their way to heaven. Their merit was then banked, so to speak, in the treasury of merit that the Roman Catholic Church controlled. Church members could buy some of that merit for a price. Some were afraid they were not going to be saved, or if so, they would have to spend a long time in purgatory before making it to heaven, could purchase from the church a certificate of indulgence. How much you paid would determine how many years you could shave off your sentence in purgatory.

I'm not making this up. Do your own research if it sounds too incredible to you. Anyway, Martin Luther openly challenged such serious errors based on what he was seeing in the Bible, like the treasury of merit. New Testament is very clear that no one can merit salvation, that it's a gift of God's grace. Luther first came to the attention of the church hierarchy as a potential problem when his 95 theses were published in the year 1518. Ninety-five discrepancies he felt should be debated by scholars and churchmen.

He was under the impression, originally, that if he pointed out the serious contradictions between what the church was doing and teaching and the Bible, that surely the church would reform itself. That document was published in Germany, which was then a part of the Holy Roman Empire, in the year 1518, and then translated and spread to other countries in the following year or two. Far from producing the reforms he'd hoped for, Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in the year 1521, and he was called to appear before the Diet of Worms. It says Worms, but that's how the Germans pronounce it. An imperial assembly convened by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. This was both a secular and religious convocation because, again, the Holy Roman Empire was deeply entangled with the Church of Rome.

We fortunately have preserved transcripts of what Luther actually said that day in his defense when he was called before this council. The day was August 17, 1521. I want to read you a very condensed version of his response when he was called a heretic by the church hierarchy. Realize now, this was during the period of the Inquisition when people who challenged Rome or were deemed to be heretics by the powerful Roman Catholic Church often ended up losing their heads or being burned at the stake. How sadly ironic, as I was thinking, realizing where Christianity began. Christians had been tortured and martyred by the Roman government for not conforming to state religion in the early days.

And now, the official church, merged with the state, was persecuting Christians again who would not buckle to their power. What Luther said that day in that hall is, to me, astonishing and one of the greatest moments in the history of Christianity. Listen. Most serene Emperor, illustrious princes, gracious lords, I appear today before you in all humility according to your command, and I implore your Majesty and your august Holinesses, by the mercies of God, to listen with favor to the defense of my cause, which I am well assured is just and right. Although I am a mere man and not God, I will defend myself after the example of Jesus Christ, who said, If I have spoken evil, bear witness against me; but if well, why would you strike me? I implore you by the mercies of God to prove to me by the writings of the prophets and the apostles if I am in error.

As soon as I am convinced of that, I will instantly retract all my errors, and I will be the first myself to seize all my writings and commit them to the flames. Since your most serene Majesty and your Highnesses require of me a simple and clear and direct response, I will give you one, and it is this: I cannot submit my faith either to the Pope or to this Council, because it is clear that they have fallen into error and even into inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am not convinced by proof of Holy Scripture or by cogent reasons from the texts I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God's Word, I neither can nor will retract anything. Can you hear the gasp in that hall? Luther finished by saying, It is neither safe nor honest for any Christian to speak against his own conscience.

Over the catcalls that came raining down on him, some nearby heard Luther say, Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Luther's defense that day was distilled by emboldened reformers into the slogan, Sola Scriptura, which means by Scripture alone, and it became a rallying point for the Protestant Reformation. Luther told the assembled churchmen and government leaders trying him that day, Unless you can show me in the Scripture where I'm wrong, I'm not going to retract anything that I've said or written. If you cannot prove to me by the writings of the apostles and prophets I'm in error, then here I stand.

My conscience will not let me do otherwise. Interesting, Paul, but what does that have anything to do with First Peter, you might be thinking? Well, actually, it has to do not only with First Peter, but all of the New Testament Scripture, because it gets to this fundamental question. Where does spiritual authority come from? Where ultimately do we find with certainty what we should believe and practice as Christians? I'll tell you why I felt the need to pause on our way through the New Testament to address this directly in today's podcast.

That's because while I was looking through the second chapter of First Peter, I realized there were a dozen quotations or allusions to Old Testament Scripture in just that one chapter. That means every other verse in this chapter contains a quotation or allusion to Old Testament Scripture. Why is that? Think about it. Why is that? By the way, this is not just true of Peter.

For example, in the important book of Romans, the most complete one-stop shop for what Christians should believe and practice, the Apostle Paul uses 73 quotations or allusions to Old Testament Scripture. Again, why is that? I think the answer is pretty obvious. The apostles believed Scripture. The inspired Word of God is what's authoritative. I wonder where they got that idea.

Well, have you ever noticed how Jesus, when he was in disagreements or was answering charges from his religious opponents, always went back to the Scripture? It is written, he would say, and he would quote something from the Old Testament, which for him was the final word. Not long ago, from the podcast focused on Mark chapter 12, we considered a series of difficult questions Jesus was asked by his opponents at the temple, where he was openly teaching the week before his arrest. Priests from the temple who belonged to the sect of the Sadducees, if you remember, men who didn't believe in the resurrection from the dead, didn't believe in an afterlife, posed to Jesus what they saw as a very difficult question, really a ridiculous question, about a man who died childless whose widow then married one of his brothers after another. Each one of them in turn dying childless, leaving her alone.

Smirking, they asked Jesus, So whose wife will she be in the resurrection? as if there could be such a thing. Jesus' response to them was, You are wrong on two counts. You don't know the Scriptures nor the power of God. Then he quoted Exodus chapter 3 to show why they were wrong. Even Jesus in that instance did not say, I'm here to tell you this or that, although he could have.

But as he so often did, he appealed to the authority of Scripture. For him, the inspired Word of God was the final word. Martin Luther realized correctly that the doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus, which he saw clearly in the epistles of Romans and Galatians, was simply incompatible with Roman Catholic teaching that members must try to earn their salvation by good works and faithfulness to the church's sacraments. He realized those two ideas were mutually exclusive. He told the council trying him on this question, I'm going to stand with the Word of God. I can't do otherwise.

When he challenged the selling of indulgences, he was told, Pipe down. Don't question the prelates of the church. But he would not do that because he knew they were abusing people's trust for money. He knew the idea of purgatory and a treasury of merit were total fabrications with no biblical foundation at all. Since they had no basis in Scripture to Luther, this was obviously a shameful scam that needed to stop. This is a very specific claim, sola scriptura, by Scripture alone.

It means the Bible alone is the only sure repository of God's truth. The Bible is the sole infallible source for what Christians should believe and practice. The Roman Catholic Church in Luther's day, still to this day, disagrees with that. They claim that authority also comes from traditions passed down from antiquity, and as well pronouncements made by their church councils over the centuries and papal decrees. They claim these are also necessary for Christians to believe and practice and are equally authoritative as the Bible. But isn't that exactly the same claim the Pharisees made about their traditions and the teachings of their prominent rabbis of the past?

And Jesus told them that they were nullifying the Word of God by insisting their traditions had to be obeyed. Far from reforming, the Roman Catholic Church doubled down and has only continued to add dogma their members must believe. I was reading an article recently about what they call the four Marian dogmas, their official church teachings that say Mary is the Mother of God, that she remained a virgin all her life, that she herself was conceived without original sin, and that she was bodily assumed into heaven alive without dying. None of these things are biblical, of course. These ideas came from traditions that grew up over time, which then were popularized by influential writers and popes, finally codified by church councils. In our time, some church leaders are advocating for a fifth Marian dogma to be officially adopted.

It's already being practiced and taught, and that is that Mary is a universal—this is their term—co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix of God's grace. By co, they mean along with Jesus. This is why Catholics are taught to pray to Mary and through Mary, because she can also mediate with and influence God for us. Wait, but doesn't that contradict nullify, to use Jesus' term, the New Testament scripture that says there's only one mediator between us and God, and that is Jesus Christ? Yes, it does. So, like Martin Luther, Roman Catholics can still accept unbiblical traditions that grew up over centuries of time and decisions reached by church councils, or they can stand on the Word of God and what it actually teaches.

But you can't do both because they are mutually exclusive. I'm using Roman Catholicism as an example because it is a large, well-known religion. But the principle of sola scriptura applies across the board to the teachings of any religious group. Mormonism, for example, is based on their church leaders' interpretations of the Bible, but also on additional writings they claim to be equally authoritative, the Book of Mormon and their book, the Doctrines and Covenants. These books tell a whole different story about Jesus. Other world religions base their beliefs on other writings, for example, Islam, whose scripture is the Quran.

The Quran depicts Jesus as another prophet like Muhammad, denies his deity. But wait a minute. If he wasn't God the Son who came in the flesh, he could not atone for our sins. True, exactly. That's why in Islam, like every other religion outside of biblical Christianity, you must earn your salvation. So people can put their trust in Islam's sacred writings or in the Bible, but not both.

Because what they teach is mutually exclusive. Even Protestant denominations that have sadly drifted into liberalism over the last hundred years, and several have, now believe they can judge which parts of the Bible to accept and which parts to reject because, for them, modern ideas and sensibilities take precedence over biblical authority. So for them, the Bible is no longer the final word when it comes to many modern questions. Get this. The largest Lutheran denomination in America has issued statements recently to their affiliated churches that LGBTQ individuals are welcome to fully participate in the life of their churches, including serving as ordained pastors, and that pastors are free to perform marriages in the church for homosexual couples.

Martin Luther would be rolling over in his grave if he was aware a denomination of professing Christians using his name have strayed that far from the authority of Scripture, a conviction he was willing to die for. I hope I'm illustrating this clearly enough. The authority of Scripture means no preacher or prelate, no organization or denomination claiming to represent God and teach His truth should ever contradict Scripture in their doctrine or practice. Nor should they go beyond Scripture and require their members to believe or practice additional things.

The Bible alone dictates what is spiritual truth, what Jesus believed on this point, what His apostles, who are the authors of the New Testament, believed, what Martin Luther believed on this point, and what all faithful Christians should believe on this point is that the God-breathed writings in the New Testament are the final word for the Christian faith. As the apostle Jude, the brother of the Lord, wrote, the faith has once for all been delivered to God's holy people. Once for all? That means it's not to be added to. As David wrote in Psalm 119, Thy word, O Lord, is forever settled in the heavens, which means what God's word teaches is unalterable. And as Jesus prayed in John chapter 17, Father, sanctify my followers in the truth.

Your word is the truth. Sola Scriptura. The New Testament writings are a complete revelation for the Christian era. They are the settled, unalterable word of God. Here we stand. We can do no other.

This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. Those like Martin Luther, who've challenged the bureaucracy of religion and have stood up for the truth of God's word, even though they've found themselves in turmoil and have been persecuted, their purpose has been God-honoring and moved Christianity forward. It's been happening throughout history that people have been persecuted under the Pharisees and throughout Christianity. There's a constant attempt to disprove the existence and the importance of Christ, the resurrection, and the Bible itself. It is crucial that we are able to defend our faith with truth, and one way to do that is to know the truth.

Please, please visit the blog on ShareTheWord.org and check out the article, Why Trust the Bible. You'll be glad you did. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Simply email us at info at ShareTheWord.org. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.