The Perspicuity of Scripture: Part 2 – Sola Scriptura
In the first part of this article, we saw how Scripture itself testifies to its own perspicuity, both explicitly (Psalm 19:7; 119:105, 130) and also implicitly, evident in the various exhortations and admonitions to discernment that only make sense if all God’s people are endowed (albeit in varying measures) with the ability to tell truth from error. Two example were particularly highlighted: Hebrews 5’s rebuke of those who had grown sluggish in their study of God’s Word and so become “unskilled in the word of righteousness” (5:13) and in need of relearning the basics, and Paul’s exhortations to the Colossian believers to discern the characteristics of false teachers and false teaching (Colossians 2:16–23).
In this part, we will look at what place the Church, with its teachers and subordinate standards, should play in the task of interpretation. After all, the perspicuity of Scripture is not a free-for-all, as though it validates every individual’s interpretation. As such, the writer to the Hebrews does not advise those he’s rebuking simply to go back to the Word by themselves. Rather, he declares: “you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God” (Hebrews 5:12). So, how should we (and how should we not) understand the role of the Church in the task of interpretation?
The false humility of Roman Catholicism
Interestingly, the first characteristic of false teachers which Paul pinpoints in Colossians 2 (and which he clearly expected the believers to be able to identify) is tapeinophrosune – the ESV renders this ‘asceticism’ in verse 18 (and verse 23), but the word is actually just the standard New Testament Greek word for ‘humility’—indeed, Paul uses it positively in the next chapter as one of the positive virtues with which God’s chosen people are to clothe themselves (3:12). Thus the NIV’s rendering of tapeinophrosune as ‘false humility’ is possibly closer to the mark. The picture is of someone who deliberately feigns humility yet is in fact proud within, and/or of someone who insists, whether ingenuously or disingenuously, on some kind of self-abasement; for instance, insisting on some theological position that appears to be humble, but is in fact unwarranted by Scripture.
One such example of this rather subtle form of “humility” would be the claim of Roman Catholicism that we as individuals cannot possibly think that we, with all of our individual sins, hang-ups and cultural baggage, can have the ability to interpret Scripture such that we ourselves truly know what God Himself is saying in it. After all, they say, that leaves us in the realm of private judgment, leading to anarchy, since there are then as many interpretations as there are individuals. It sounds humble.
But as the first part of this article has shown, this is totally unwarranted scripturally. Moreover, it fuddles the issue by imputing to Reformed Protestants the claim that private judgment is in fact the highest authority. Yet nobody rightly claims such a thing; as Gavin Ortlund has written: “The most that could be said is that sola Scriptura, by placing Scripture as the ultimate authority, elevates private judgment too highly.”[1] Yet that is the most that can be said.
Also unwarranted scripturally is Roman Catholicism’s answer to this supposed problem: placing our trust instead in the Church of Rome as the sole infallible guide for interpretation. To do such is to fall into a far greater danger than that of private judgment. As Ortlund writes: “It is one thing to be able to err; it is another to be yoked to error.”[2]
The carefully articulated Reformed doctrine of sola Scriptura
In his discussion of the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture, Louis Berkhof was keen to note that the Reformers “did not mean to minimize the importance of the interpretations of the Church in the preaching of the Word.”[3] In fact, they acknowledged the Church’s duty in this regard.
Thus, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the divines stipulated that:
It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith…: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission… (WCF 31.3).
Yet they also stated: “All synods and councils… may err; and many times have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as a help in both” (WCF 31.4). After all, “the infallible rule of interpretation is Scripture itself” (WCF 1.9) and thus they could conclude: “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other than the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture” (WCF 1.10).
It is abundantly clear, therefore, how the Reformed doctrine of sola Scriptura steers a careful middle path between two opposite errors. On the one hand, it explicitly refutes the notion that private judgment is the final authority, contra the libellous claim from Roman Catholicism. It even notes that public, corporate judgment may err and indeed many times has done so: much more, then, might private “the opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits.”
On the other hand, it clearly makes provision for the Church and its leaders to produce subordinate doctrinal standards (including those of ecumenical councils such as the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, as well as confessional statements of particular ecclesial bodies, such as the Westminster Confession of Faith) to which believers are to submit, without endowing such determinations with binding, governing authority. Notable, however, are the Confession’s comments on both the production and the reception of such standards. In terms of the latter, it states that submission to such “decrees and determinations” is contingent upon these productions being “consonant to the Word of God”. Therefore, in producing them, synods and councils, it states, perform a ministerial function, not a magisterial function.
Conclusion
Herein lies the major difference between the Reformed doctrine and that of Rome: the former understands subordinate standards to be just that—subordinate, namely to the eternal and infallible Word of God. As such, these standards are “not to be made the rule of faith, or practice” but are merely to be used “as a help” in both (WCF 31.4). By contrast Rome posits the Church and its determinations as performing a magisterial function, whereby its decrees have a governing, binding authority in and of themselves, without reference, necessarily, to the Word of God. In so doing, it errs grievously: Jesus gave no quarter to those in the habit of “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9).
The apparent humility of the Roman Catholic claim that individuals cannot, in their sin, possibly think they interpret God’s Word aright, and that in order to abnegate the possibility of sinful (and myriad) private interpretations we must accept the Church of Rome as an infallible guide for interpretation turns out to be a case of false humility, which, according to Colossians 2, is a key characteristic of false teaching designed to disqualify ordinary believers from the assurance that is already theirs in abundance in Christ Jesus.
So, let us not misplace our trust, putting it in mere “human precepts and teachings” (Colossians 2:22), but rather, confident of the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and aided by the Church’s historic and orthodox creeds and confessions, let us put our trust solely in Holy Scripture, the precious words of Christ the living God, words which “will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord;
“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.
You, O Lord, will keep them;
you will guard us from this generation for ever. (Psalm 12:6–8)“You are my hiding place and my shield;
I hope in your word.” (Psalm 119:114)
[1] Gavin Ortlund, What It Means To Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2024), 100.
[2] Ibid., italics original.
[3] Louis Berkhof, Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1932) repr. in combination with Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2023), 167.
