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Thursday, October 28, 2021

What Are the Five Solas? - by Ryan McGraw

Excerpted from here. Our comments in bold.
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Reformation Day is celebrated every year by those who hold to reformation theology. So there has been a blizzard of commemorations on various reformationist websites. 

The below excerpt explains, or tries to explain, Sola Scriptura. Leaving aside the stark irony of celebrating the uniqueness of Scripture while simultaneously managing to quote only a snippet of a single Scripture, The author jumps to a conclusion not warranted by what he previously wrote. 

He writes, if Scripture is sufficient to make us wise for faith and life in Christ, then Scripture alone can be our guide to walking with God. This is a non-sequitur. The author's further claim, Scripture alone can be our guide, is patently false and unbiblical. The Bible tells us that we have several helps and guides for our walk of faith:
  • The ministry of the Body [1Co. 12:12-31]
  • Teachers [1Co. 12:28, Ep. 4:11]
  • The Holy Spirit [1Jn. 2:27, 1Co. 2:10-12]
  • The gift of prophecy [1Co. 12:10, 1Co. 14:1, 1Co. 14:26]
Further, we also have the resources written by learned men, like commentaries, concordances, and books of theology. If only Scripture alone can be our guide, then the author is engaging in a substantial irony by writing this extra-biblical article. We must judge the author by his own words, everything else is both useless and superfluous.
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Sola Scriptura

Theology must be Scripturally grounded. God’s life-giving speech reveals to us His salvation and calls us to faith and repentance. We were once darkness, but now we are light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers, lest they see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4). Yet the God who commands light to shine out of darkness shines in our hearts, giving us the light “of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). God always does this by the Spirit working through the Word. The Holy Spirit is the Author of Scripture, and He speaks through Scripture (Heb. 3:7). The Scriptures teach us everything that we need to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ and to be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:15–17). This is why those who do not speak according to the rule of Scripture have no light in them (Isa. 8:20). Yet without the Spirit, even the Scriptures cannot help us. We are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1–2), our minds and hearts are darkened (Eph. 4:18; Rom. 1:21), and we need someone to raise us from the dead and turn on the lights (Eph. 5:14). If Scripture is sufficient to make us wise for faith and life in Christ, then Scripture alone can be our guide to walking with God. Everything else is both useless and superfluous. Yet we must be born of the Spirit in order to see God’s kingdom (John 3:5). Only through the Spirit working by and with the Scriptures in our hearts can we walk in the light with the God who is light (1 John 1:7).

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