Words of Life by Timothy Ward

Author:Timothy Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781844748587
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
Published: 2009-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

The sufficiency of Scripture

Before discussing what I am calling here the sufficiency of Scripture, it must be noted that there is nothing fixed about the terms used to describe these doctrines of Scripture. None is a term given to us in Scripture, so we are not bound to them. It is the concept to which each refers that is important, not the term. The use of the term ‘sufficiency’ has been especially fluid. Thus Francis Turretin in the seventeenth century does not use the term as a general heading, preferring instead to speak of ‘the perfection of the Scriptures’ (Elenctic Theology 1.16). To repeat: although uses of the terminology have varied, the concepts referred to by these differing terms have been widely accepted by most Christians across the centuries.

The claim that the Bible is ‘sufficient’, says one writer, ‘is the dominating tone for the entire chorus of the church’.8 It rests on those many parts of Scripture that speak of a completeness in God’s law and word. Thus Psalm 119:1 assumes God’s law communicates everything a person needs to know to live a blameless life:

Blessed are those whose ways are blameless

who walk according to the law of the LORD.

Paul speaks in 2 Timothy 3:15 of the Scriptures as ‘able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ’, referring in his immediate context primarily to the way in which the Old Testament is a complete witness to and preparation for faith in Jesus Christ. The closing section of the book of Revelation promises a divine curse for anyone who adds to or subtracts from its words (Rev. 22:18–19). These words, when placed not just at the end of the Apocalypse but also subsequently at the end of the New Testament canon, and immediately followed not by the expectation of further verbal revelation from God but only now the coming again of Jesus Christ (v. 20), look back over the whole of Scripture and imply that it is now complete.

The confession that Scripture as divine revelation is sufficient for knowledge of salvation and godly living was commonly made in the early centuries of the church. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, wrote that ‘the sacred and divinely inspired Scriptures are sufficient for the exposition of the truth’.9 For Augustine, some eighty years later, ‘among the things that are plainly laid down in Scripture are to be found all matters that concern faith and the manner of life – to wit, hope and love’.10 This conviction that Scripture contains everything needed for Christian faith and life is sometimes known as the ‘material’ sufficiency of Scripture. It lasted relatively unchanged, although some of the fathers of the early church did express themselves in two ways that, over the centuries, would grow to threaten a healthy outworking of belief in the sufficiency of Scripture. First, there was a growing acceptance of what were taken to be apostolic traditions passed down in ways other than by Scripture. Basil of Caesarea referred

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