Four years after his famous nailing of the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Martin Luther found himself on trial for his life at the Diet of Worms. Like Jan Hus before the Council of Constance a century earlier, Luther stood to defend his teachings before both the leadership of the Roman Church and the Holy Roman Emperor. His books and preaching vociferously argued against the absolute authority of popes and councils and the sale of indulgences, advancing an insistence that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in the finished work of Christ alone. Having exhausted his efforts against an intractable prosecution, the trial reached an inflection point that left its mark on history, perhaps more significantly than the nailing of the Theses themselves. When pressed to recant in order to preserve his life, Luther, echoing Hus’s own words in his moment of crisis, famously and soberly confessed,
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.”
Unlike Hus, Luther escaped his own trial and condemnation with his life. His fundamental conviction of being “bound by the Scriptures,” with his “conscience…captive to the Word of God,” went on to become the rallying cry of the Reformation we know as Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone).
Sola Scriptura is the conviction that the Scriptures (the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments) are the supreme, final, and infallible authority over Christian faith and practice. Any church doctrines, proclamations by church leadership (popes, bishops, councils), or insistence on practices that seek to compel the submission and obedience of individual Christians must themselves be measured against and submitted to Scripture alone. It is the only true and final standard for Christian life and godliness.
It is not an overstatement to say that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura rests as the foundational bedrock of the other four of the Five Solas of the Reformation. The Protestant recovery of the gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone depended entirely on their insistence on Sola Scriptura. While it is true that the Roman Catholic Church would also insist on the infallible authority of Scripture as divine special revelation, it rejected Scripture as the only such source. Over the centuries of doctrinal development, Roman Catholics increasingly taught the existence of an oral and written body of teaching that included the Church Fathers, decisions of church councils, and popes, known as “Tradition.” This was ultimately elevated to a position alongside Scripture as ultimate, infallible, and binding on the Christian conscience. As such, it became dogmatic that even Scripture itself could not be rightly understood unless it was interpreted in a way consistent with this Tradition. It was here that the Reformers made their stand because, as Luther said, “(they could) not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves.” While the Reformers did not reject the value and importance of the forms of authority expressed in the development of Christian doctrine through the ages, the authority of the Church Fathers, creeds, councils, and church leadership was only legitimate insofar as it was consistent with the clear teaching of Scripture. This is a position that those of us who embrace the blessings of the Reformation maintain today.
Like Luther and Hus, our consciences are bound by the Scriptures. We regard them as the ultimate authority because the Scriptures claim it for themselves and our Savior claimed it of them. As the apostle Paul wrote to guide the ministry of young Timothy, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). That the Scriptures are breathed out by God Himself identifies Him as their source and, as such, they are full of His authority and without error. Moreover, the apostle Peter declares, “…we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place…knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:19–21). Finally, the authoritative Word of God in the flesh assures us that the Scriptures “cannot be broken” and that all the Law, Psalms, and Prophets (the Old Testament) bear witness to Him, affirming His words, which would be written in the New Testament.
While our Roman Catholic friends may certainly object to this very brief overview of the issues, we, along with the Reformers, must maintain Sola Scriptura. We must believe the Holy Spirit when He says that the Scriptures alone contain the power of God to “make us complete for every good work” that comes through salvation in Christ. As those who are called to guard against and test false teaching, we must have a reliable, objective, and consistent standard by which to do so. In the end, there is only one source of special revelation whose source is God Himself. The gospel championed by the Five Solas depends on this, and in the end, we must confess to Christ with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)
