Sola Scriptura

We often group Reformation principles under  those five heads that we call the five solas:   sola fide, sola Scriptura, soli Deo gloria,   solus Christus, and sola gratia. And  I put them in a random order there. Been some discussion this year about  what’s the proper order. It seems to me   sola Scriptura comes first; that is the principle  that Luther was committed to from the beginning,   and what emboldened him to nail  those theses to the door was his   conviction that Scripture is a  higher authority than the pope. Yeah, and I think that’s historical.  You can go back to Nehemiah chapter 8,   and Israel has departed from God, and then  comes the call, “Bring the book,” and they   brought the book. And Nehemiah stands up and  he reads from the book, and the revival starts. Every restoration of truth, every  great movement of God in the world   is launched by recovery of Scripture,  and that was the heart and soul. Look,   sola gratia, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria,  sola fide all comes out of the Bible. And what   you had was a battle over who’s in charge. The  authority in the Roman Catholic system was the   pope and the Church. And the Church wasn’t  including the people, the Church was made   up of the pope and the cardinals and the higher  ups, that was the Church; and the other people   kind of suckled at the Church when they took the  bread at the mass; but they weren’t the Church.

So the authority was all in the pope  and the people around the pope. Luther   came to the conclusion that everyone  comes to that revolts against that,   and that is that the Bible is the authority, the  pope is not the authority. We don’t follow men,   we don’t follow church councils, we don’t follow  the magisterium, the collection of traditions;   we follow the Word of God. And that is the  foundation point of all sound doctrine. Sound doctrine doesn’t rise out of  philosophical theology. It doesn’t   come from the musings of intelligent men. And  that is Paul’s whole message in 1 Corinthians 1,   that the wisdom of the wise is absolute  foolishness with God. You can take the,   “Where’s the wise man? Where’s the sage?” you  know. They are useless in terms of knowing the   mind of God. It is all bound up in the revelation  of Holy Scripture. So the Reformation was   essentially the result of a recommitment to  the sole singular authority of Scripture.