ANSWERING THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHALLENGE OF THE "SOLA SCRIPTURA" STAND
  1. Introduction
    1. When the Protestant Reformers rose up to challenge the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, the followers of Rome responded, as they often do today, challenging Protestantism's call to use Scripture alone as its ultimate authority and not Scripture and Church Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.
    2. A main charge from the Roman Catholic side is that the Bible itself does not teach a Sola Scriptura stand.
    3. We examine the whole issue both from a pragmatic, historical perspective as well as from the Bible:
  2. Answering The Roman Catholic Challenge Of The "Sola Scriptura" Stand.
    1. The Apostle Peter, Catholicism's alleged head pontifical figure called for a "Sola Scriptura" stand:
      1. Roman Catholic dogma sees Matthew 16:13-19 calling for all papal authority to follow the precedent of the Apostle Peter. Cardinal Gibbons, Faith Of Our Fathers, p. 95, says: " . . . our Lord conferred on St. Peter the first place of honor and jurisdiction in the government of His whole church, and that same spiritual supremacy has always resided in the popes . . ." (cited in L. Boettner's, Rom. Cath., p. 75-76)
      2. Well, using such teaching, the papal decree of Peter leads us to use our individual logic for apologetics:
        1. Peter declared: "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason (logon in the N.T. Greek) for the hope you have . . ." (1 Peter 3:15 NIV; UBS Grk. N.T., p. 798)
        2. Thus, every Christian is to use his own logic to defend his belief system to everyone else!
      3. Yet, logic leads us to see Protestantism's 66-book Bible alone as authoritative: (Ibid., Boettner, p. 78f)
        1. There are numerous logical contradictions in Roman Catholic traditions: (a) Augustine who is heavily used for dogma in the Catholic Church himself wrote a book, Retractions to counter former statements he had made; (b) some early Church fathers wrote that Christ would shortly rule for a thousand years in Jerusalem only to be refuted by Origen and Augustine; (c) early Church fathers advocated the free use of Scripture reading in worship where later Church fathers restricted its use; (d) early Church fathers condemned the use of images in the Church where later fathers approved of their use; (e) Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome, denounced the assumption that his office was to be considered a universal one, saying the idea was anti-Christian. Popes later and even today reversed his statement, saying the universal papacy resides in the bishop of Rome, the pontiff. (f) Hence, traditions outside of the 27 books of the New Testament are unreliable to say the least.
        2. Logic also leads us to limit our Old Testament Bible to the 39 book of the Protestant Bible, and to exclude the Apocrypha: (a) The Jews of Jesus' day felt the Apocrypha was not canonical, but that the 39 books held by Protestants as the Old Testament were canonical, Josephus, Against Apion, I,8, 861-862. (b) However, the order of the Hebrew 39 books differs from the Protestant's Bible, that order beginning with Genesis and ending with 2 Chronicles, Ryrie Study Bible, KJV ftn., Mtt. 23:35. (c) Well, when Jesus sought to list all the Old Testament prophets from Abel (Gen. 4) to Zacharias "which perished between the altar and the temple" (2 Chron. 24:20-22) in Luke 11:49-51, He obviously omitted the Apocrypha from being Scripture or He would have mentioned one of the Maccabee martyrs in place of this Zacharias! (d) Thus, Jesus believed in a 39-book Old Testament!
    2. Scriptures elsewhere testify that we should hold to the "Sola Scriptura" stand on ultimate authority:
      1. Jesus denounced treating man's traditions as God's Scripture doctrines in Matthew 15:1-6, 7-9.
      2. Paul denounced subjection to man's rules instead of subjection to God in Colossians 2:20-22.
      3. Isaiah 8:20 teaches that unless men say, "To the Law and the Testimony" instead of seeking guidance from other even supernatural sources, there was no light of even dawn, or no hope of acquiring a sure hold on what was truth, cf. Young, Isaiah, vol. I, p. 319-320. As Young comments, "Light is found in . . . the written revelation, the Scriptures. Those who speak contrary to Scripture have no dawn."
Lesson: Scripture instructs us not to view our ultimate authority as being vested in Scripture PLUS the Catholic Church's or man's traditions, but to adopt Protestantism's "Sola Scriptura" view INSTEAD.

Application: (1) The sole authority for the Christian's faith and practice is Protestantism's 66-book canon of Scripture. (2) Every believer is to use his own logic under the Holy Spirit's illuminating ministry (1 Cor. 2:9-10; John 14:26) to interpret the Bible and use it in defense of his faith.