Sola Scripture—What does it mean?

Pastor Larry wrote,

Larry,

Please do NOT post that I am incorrect when I am NOT! If you wish to post some oddball definition, that is your privilege, but don’t say that my mainstream definition is wrong.

Fact: The doctrine of canonicity is a part of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura because without a defined Canon, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is meaningless.

Again, please do NOT post that I am incorrect when I am NOT! If you wish to post some oddball definition, that is your privilege, but don’t say that my mainstream definition is wrong. Hermeneutics is the study of the methodological principles of interpretation of literature, and one of the primary principles of interpretation is that a new and novel interpretation that contradicts the well-established and historical interpretation is almost for certain an incorrect interpretation. When the Holy Scriptures were first interpreted to teach eternal security, that interpretation was a new and novel doctrine that contradicted the well-established and historical interpretation of the very same Scriptures. And indeed, not only was the historical interpretation well-established, it was the unanimous interpretation of the Church from the close of the New Testament Canon till the 16th century.

This is nothing but a worn-out scarecrow! (Or is the right word “straw man”? ) We both agree that the final authority is the Holy Scriptures. The issue here is the interpretation of those Scriptures. OSAS is a new and novel doctrine that was developed in the 16th century based upon and derived from a careless and inaccurate interpretation of Scriptures having to do with the sovereignty of God. This new and novel interpretation ticked the ears of men who called themselves Christians but who were in reality hedonists. Hence the doctrine of “you can have your cake and eat it to” (otherwise known as the doctrine of eternal security) spread like wildfire.

Fact: If the doctrine of eternal security is REALLY taught in the Holy Scriptures, someone, somewhere, would have noticed that to be the case—but between the close of the New Testament Canon and the 16th century there is absolutely no evidence that any would did, and there are tens of thousands of Christian documents from this period in which the doctrine of conditional security is either explicitly taught (as it is in very many of the documents) or assumed to be true with no mention or refutation of any conflicting doctrine.

 

Pastor Larry wrote,

That is exactly what you did!

I was correct about Sola Scriptura and perhaps your problem is than you are relying upon basic knowledge found in an oversimplified first semester textbook.

Hermeneutics has nothing to do with theology or any theology text.

We both know better than that! You are using a junior boys Sunday school definition; I am using the very same definition used by a multitude of scholars.

That could not be more true!

You don’t know anything about me, but when I post facts that contradict your personal theology, you post that I don’t know what I am talking about rather than deal with the facts that incontrovertibly prove that you are wrong and that I am right.

Please forgive my typographical error (“to” should read “too”). And it is ironical that you would write as you do about Zane Hodges, for it is Zane Hodges that accuses the people who hold your position of believing that they can have their cake and eat it too. Zane Hodges very forcefully argues that you cannot have your cake and eat it too, and if a Christian fails to repent of his sins, he will spend 1,000 years gnashing his teach in torment! Perhaps you should study Zane Hodges theology a little more closely! And please don’t lead anyone to believe that I agree with Zane Hodges and his doctrine of millennial exclusion, for I know from the Bible that it is nonsense even though he does teach that Christians will pay for their sins.

This could NOT by less true! If OSAS was based even remotely on the writings of Scripture, someone at least would have noticed that little detail during the almost 1500 hundred years between the Canonization of the New Testament and the 16th century—but no one did!

This is absolutely NOTHING BUT CALVINISTIC NONSENSE!

This is a totally false statement—you know it and I know it! The truth is that you esteem the false teachings of John Calvin and your theological nonsense VERY MUCH higher than you esteem the writings of Scripture. I, on the other hand, esteem the Scriptures above all else with nothing else even coming even slightly close. You write that your personal interpretation of the Bible is Scripture and ignore the very fundamentals of both hermeneutics and common sense when interpreting Scripture.

This is false statement from the very pit of hell! And you either know this statement to be a false statement, or you do NOT understand either my posts or the doctrine of conditional security and the Biblical basis for it.

This is another false statement from the very pit of hell! And you either know this statement to be a false statement, or you do NOT understand what I have written in the several threads in which you and I have been through this.

This has been my point from the very beginning!

For the 1500 year period that I have referenced over and over again, the unanimous view of the Church was conditional security and it was always SOLIDLY based upon Scripture. If the doctrine of eternal security were true, most certainly at least someone would have found it in the Bible during those 1500 years—but no one did! The only rational conclusion is that the doctrine of eternal security is not found in the Scriptures, but during the 16th century some careless readers began to imagine that it is found there, but the doctrine of conditional security if very plainly and obviously there because the church unanimously found it to be there and the large majority of the Church continues to find it there. Those who do not find it there don’t find it there because they don’t want to find it there.

Larry,

Rather than deal with the facts that I post, you construct an irrelevant straw man, make him out to be me, and then show how foolish he is. I am not your foolish straw man and my hermeneutics are not his nonsense, but very solid hermeneutics. And since you chose not to debate me but a straw man who does not share either my beliefs or practices, there is no point at all in debating with you.

 

Pastor Larry wrote,

Absolutely! For all you know, I am a raving lunatic posting from Saint Mary’s of Bethlehem! And I have posted that the unanimous view of the Church between the canonization of the New Testament and the 16th century was that many Scriptures in the Bible teach conditional security. We all know (or certainly should know) that Tertullian and some other early Church fathers quoted Scriptures and used them to teach conditional security, but am I right that many Baptists have searched for at least one document from the 1500 year period that I referenced above in which at least one Scripture was interpreted to teach eternal security, but no such document has been found? Check this out for yourself! You would be a fool to take my word for it, just as you would be a fool to take Pastor Larry’s word for what he says! Check out his statements. Check out how he responds to my posts. Did he post examples to show that the doctrine of eternal security was believed by at least one person during those 1500 years, or is he dodging the facts against his personal theology and attempting to pick apart my use of words and terminology? And is he even right in stating that my use of my terminology is incorrect, or do other scholars use the same terminology in the same way that I used it? Check it out! Find out for yourself which one of us is posting honestly and honorably, and which one of us is trying to sell you ocean-front property on the moon!

I am NOT appealing here to historical theology; I am stating how the Scriptures dealing with the security issue were interpreted prior to the 16th century. The theology of this period is relevant, but I am making NO appeal to it, but only to the interpretation of specific Scriptures in the New Testament. You can pick any scripture that you want to dealing with this matter, that is, any of them that Larry interprets to teach eternal security or any of the Scriptures that for 1500 years were unanimously interpreted to teach conditional security, and read for yourself the writings from this 1500 year period and see what the writers wrote about them. And you will see for yourself how these writers interpreted those Scriptures. And if you read enough of the literature from this period, you will learn for yourself that the concept of eternal security was not conceptualized until the 16th century, and that it could not have been, because it is derived from other theological concepts that had not yet been conceptualized.

But you say, “Surely this cannot be!” Oh, but it is! Check it out for yourself!

What is relevant to this discussion are two points:

1. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura itself as narrowly defined by Pastor Larry is NOT taught anywhere in either the Old or New Testaments but is an extra-Biblical, man-made doctrine totally outside of the bounds of “Sola Scriptura!” What a farce!

2. I am not basing my arguments in this thread upon the theology of men, but the interpretation of the Scriptures during the 1500 year period between the Canonization of the New Testament and the 16th century. IF the Scriptures really can be accurately interpreted to teach eternal security, someone, somewhere, would have noticed that fact during this period, but they did not! Indeed, the Scriptures on this matter are so explicit, and so crystal clear, that unlike very many other Scriptures, these particular Scriptures were unanimously interpreted by the Church to teach conditional security. And these arguments do NOT lie outside of the bounds of Sola Scriptura any more than do the commentaries on these Scriptures by Luther and Calvin.

 

Pipedude wrote,

No, absolutely not! Throughout the history of the Church we find several different views, including the view held by the majority of Baptists today.

It most certainly would if your premise was correct, but it is not.

My emphasis, however, is not upon the Church Fathers, but upon the Scriptures themselves and their correct interpretation.

If it could be established that the present day “Baptist” interpretation of the Scriptures having to do with water baptism is post 16th century and dependent upon theological concepts that were not conceptualized till the 16th century and that the entire Church was unanimous for 1500 years in its agreement on a conflicting interpretation, we would know beyond a reasonable doubt that the “Baptist” interpretation is wrong! But the Church was NOT at all unanimous in agreeing upon a conflicting interpretation of the water baptism passages in the Bible.

The Word of God in the New Testament was given without partiality to all who care to receive it, and ALL of our Biblical doctrines were known and understood by at least some persons throughout the history of the Church. This is especially true of the doctrines regarding salvation. If Larry’s interpretation of the conditional passages in the New Testament is correct, the New Testament was so very poorly worded that no one was able to understand the doctrine of salvation until it was first explained by John Calvin and his contemporaries. And if that is the case, the teaching that the Bible is the inspired Word of God is absolutely preposterous because God is more than capable of clearly expressing Himself in the New Testament Scriptures on the matter of salvation.

And this principle of hermeneutics is not limited to the Bible—it applies to all ancient literature. If you knew for a fact that a passage in Plato’s Republic was unanimously interpreted in a certain manner for the first 1500 years after it was written, what would you think of a conflicting opinion by a man who was 1500 years removed from the time, language, customs, and culture of Plato? I don’t know about you, but I would think that that man’s head was screwed on backwards and inside out!

Note: I did not get any of my theology from any of the Church Fathers; I learned it directly from the Bible.

When I was in my twenties, I began hanging out with two groups of Christians—an Assemblies of God group and a Baptist group. I was not saved, but I enjoyed the fellowship of committed Christians. After a few months of fellowship with these two groups of Christians, I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and experienced a radical conversion. Nonetheless, by this time I had some very good friends who belonged to the Assemblies of God and other very good friends who belonged to various Baptist churches. These two groups were very much divided on the issue of eternal vs. conditional security and the issue of the Baptism in/with the Holy Spirit. Therefore I began to diligently pray everyday for God to teach me His truths and to protect me from error of all kinds. And long before I knew anything at all about the Church Fathers, God made known to me through His Word that the doctrine of eternal security was a false teaching. Indeed, He made it so very clear to me that it is a false teaching that I became curious as to why anyone would believe such a thing. Therefore I began studying the doctrine in the writings of those who teach it and learned for myself what a very shallow and fragile doctrine it is. It was not until several years later that I began to study the history of the interpretation of the New Testament and learned that the doctrine of eternal security is a relatively new doctrine that was derived from a careless and totally inadequate understanding of the sovereignty of God and that men began to re-interpret the writings of Apostle John to make them fit this new “understanding” of the Bible. And, of course, these men also had to reinterpret the many conditional passages in the New Testament to bring them into conformity to their new “understanding” of the Bible, and they could not at all agree how to do this, and even to this very day they cannot agree on how to get around some of the most clearly worded conditional passages. Some of them change the rules of Greek Grammar, others change the definition of words and phrases, and others concoct ridiculous nonsense.

For those who daily and diligently pray for God to teach them His truths and to protect them from error of all kinds, the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith is very easy to understand; for the others it is a quagmire.

 

The key phrase here is "To some extent." And this is, or course, true. However, the ecclesiastical authority of which you write did not even exist until the 5th century, and even then, nor to this day, was it universal. And even where it was very strictly applied, we find very much literature by writers who refused to submit to that authority. And, of course, if anyone was teaching the doctrine of eternal security, we would find those in ecclesiastical positions teaching against the doctrine—but we don’t. The doctrine of eternal security was unknown to the ecclesiastical authorities just like it was unknown to everyone else.

And, of course, there are the many conditional passages in the Bible that were uniformly interpreted during this entire period to mean that true Christians could lose their salvation.

This all comes down to two possibilities:

1. The Bible is not an inspired work and was so very poorly worded that the doctrine of salvation could not be understood without the help of John Calvin.

2. The Bible IS the inspired Word of God and the doctrine of salvation was so VERY clearly worded that it was universally understood for 1500 years to teach conditional security, but after that period of time, the ears of many were tickled by the doctrine of eternal security and a large minority of the Church submitted to this new and false teaching.

 

Pastor Larry wrote,

If Larry is familiar with Church history, he knows that his option #3 is wildly ridiculous. As I have already posted, there was no central ecclesiastical authority before the 5th century and at no time in church history was there universal ecclesiastical authority.

If Larry is familiar with the history of the development of Christian Doctrine, he knows that his option #4 is just as ridiculous. Hint: It was necessary to invent the wheel before one could invent the cart!


My summer vacation has come to an end and I no longer have the time to refute absurd and ridiculous posts. If any one would care to post the contents of a document from the 1500 year period under discussion that they believe supports the doctrine of eternal security, we can look at that together and discuss it, but I will not continue to refute empty nonsense.