Sola Scriptura: Why the Bible is Our Highest Authority
Sola Scriptura is the doctrine that the Bible is the highest authority in matters of faith and morals. The phrase is Latin for “scripture alone” and indicates that scripture is the final authority to which we can appeal in matters of the faith. Writers sometimes contrast it with Solo Scriptura, which rejects the legitimate (but subordinate) authority of tradition, the church, pastors, parents, and teachers. Sola Scriptura affirms these authorities but insists that Holy Scripture has a higher authority over them and overrules them when they err. As the Anglican Articles of Religion put it:
It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.
Article XX, from the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
Opponents of Sola Scriptura will sometimes claim that this doctrine is not taught in the scriptures. This is like saying that the Trinity is not taught in the scriptures. Yes, the words Sola Scriptura are not used, just as the word Trinity does not appear. But the main idea, that the Word of God is the highest authority, is prominent and runs all the way through, from Genesis to Revelation. And it is because of this special authority that the church has canonized the holy scriptures, recognizing their unique authority in the life of the church.
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Sola Scriptura in the Old Testament
Scripture: The Word of God Written
From the beginning, the Word of God has a power and authority that belongs to it alone. God speaks, and light is made (Genesis 1:3). His word commands and creates. The first sin of mankind occurs when they listen to the words of a creature rather than those of God (Genesis 3:1-7).
When God gives his Word to his people, he arranges for it to be written down. Some of the writing he does himself, inscribing the Ten Commandments on the stone tablets! But most of the writing he commits to his prophets: “And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD” (Exodus 24:4). The reason for writing down the words of God is twofold: first, so that his Word can be disseminated to his whole people, and second, so that it can be remembered even after his prophet has died.
Moreover, before Israel enters the promised land, Moses twice teaches that no one should add or take away from God’s Word:
You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.
Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.
Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32
Moses forbids both subtraction and addition, implying Scripture’s sufficiency. Intermediate authorities still explain and apply God’s Word (especially in a largely non-literate context), but these guides do so under Scripture, not alongside or above it.
A good example of this dynamic is in Nehemiah 8, where Ezra the scribe assembled the people and read the scriptures to them. He even stood on a “wooden platform,” a piece of liturgical furniture designed for the occasion (and a prototype for the church pulpit). Alongside Ezra’s reading, the Levites instructed the people so that they could understand its meaning:
The Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
Nehemiah 8:7-8
Scripture over Tradition: Josiah
Throughout the Bible, scripture always takes precedent over the traditions of the temple and of the religious leaders. The most prominent examples are the stories of King Josiah in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament.
In Josiah’s day, the people had neglected the Book of the Law, and Temple practice had drifted from God’s Word. During repairs of the Temple, the high priest Hilkiah found the book and brought it to the king. Convicted, Josiah gathered the people to hear Scripture and renewed covenant obedience:
And the king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD.
2 Kings 23:2
Notice how Josiah thought it was essential for the people to hear the words of God. He wanted them to know God’s word and to follow it, even when it meant overruling the traditions of men.
What followed was Josiah’s extensive program of reformation, which included the removal of idols that had been placed in the Temple, the deposition of idolatrous clergy, the restoration of the Passover feast, and a rededication of the King, the clergy, and the people to the written teachings of God:
And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.
2 Kings 23:3
Sola Scriptura in the New Testament
Scripture Over Tradition: Jesus
The gospels depict Jesus’ deep engagement with the scriptures, not only in his teaching, but also in his practical ministry. There is an especially dramatic moment when Jesus responds to Satan’s temptations with authoritative scripture, overruling Satan’s improper use of the Bible. Jesus thereby shows that the right response to the false use of the scriptures is the true use of the scriptures.
Like Josiah, Jesus rebuked traditions that contradicted God’s Word—especially among the Pharisees, a Jewish sect known for rigorous ritual practice. They questioned why Jesus’ disciples did not follow their customs:
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?
Mark 7:5
But Jesus pointed out that these traditions often contradicted the word of God:
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!
Mark 7:6-9
Notice how Jesus even quotes from Isaiah to show how the scriptures anticipate the false elevation of tradition over the word of God.
Sola Scriptura in The Apostolic Church
Sola Scriptura is also central to the apostolic church. As new teaching arose through Jesus, the apostles, and other prophets, hearers needed a standard for discernment. The apostles direct believers to test such claims against the already-inspired Scriptures, as Peter writes:
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 Peter 1:20-21
This is why the church emphasized that Jesus’ death and resurrection had been prophesied in the scriptures, as had the coming of the Holy Spirit. Peter makes all of these points in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2.
Moreover, the apostles praise certain communities, such as the Bereans, who hear the new teaching and test it by the scriptures. We might call this the applied method of Sola Scriptura:
The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
Acts 17:10-11
Interestingly, the apostles commended the scriptures not only to the Jews but also to the Gentile churches. This is because the scriptures were not only predictive, but also prescriptive and authoritative for all the people of God. That’s why Paul instructed Timothy to use the inspired scriptures in his ministry to Gentile churches:
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, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Perhaps most striking of all, the apostles wrote their own scriptures and claimed authority over the word of God. Here’s Paul again:
If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.
1 Corinthians 14:37
Sola Scriptura in Revelation
The book of Revelation is often overlooked in the discussion of Sola Scriptura, but if we read carefully, we will see that it is a powerful witness to the authority of the word of God. From the beginning, it emphasizes the authority of John’s vision as a revelation of Jesus Christ and the importance of it being written so it can be read, heard, and practiced. Here are the opening verses of the book:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
Revelation 1:1-3
Throughout the book, John receives repeated instructions to write what he has seen. He receives this instruction from multiple figures: the Ancient of Days (Chapter 1), in the preface to the letters to the seven churches (Chapters 2-3), by a voice from heaven (Chapter 14), by an angel (Chapter 19), and by the one who sits on the throne (Chapter 21). To my mind, the most striking example is from the one who sits on the throne:
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Revelation 21:5
Notice that God instructs John to write down this revelation because these words are “trustworthy and true.” While this refers specifically to Revelation, it also serves as a good description of scripture in general.
The end of Revelation brings our discussion full circle to the sufficiency of scripture. These are the words of Jesus himself:
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
Revelation 22:18-19
Like Moses’ warning in Deuteronomy, Jesus warns anyone who would add or subtract from his revelation.
In Conclusion: Sola Scriptura and the Canon of Scripture
Besides the Bible’s own testimony, Church history also supports Sola Scriptura, showing no necessary contradiction between Scripture and the church’s broad tradition. We see Scripture’s primacy emphasized in the apostolic fathers (e.g., Clement of Rome), the church fathers (e.g., Augustine), the medieval doctors (e.g., Thomas Aquinas), Anglican formularies such as the Thirty-Nine Articles, and modern figures such as J. I. Packer.
Canonization—the church’s recognition of which books belong to the Bible—follows from Sola Scriptura. Scripture does not contain a table of contents; the fallible church discerned the canon over time through a complex process, and major Christian traditions still differ on the canon and how to treat certain books (e.g., Anglicans read the Apocrypha for life examples but do not use it to establish doctrine).
Yet when a church makes a canon, it implicitly treats Scripture as carrying a higher authority than other writings. When the church reads Scripture in worship and expounds it in sermons, it makes the same claim in practice. In that sense, any church that receives a biblical canon and uses it liturgically participates—at least partially—in Sola Scriptura, even if it does not articulate the doctrine.
Anglicans sometimes face the opposite problem: we preach Sola Scriptura without fully practicing it. The godly solution is to reform our church in accordance with the Word of God. As Paul concluded his message to Timothy:
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. But as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
2 Timothy 4:2-5
Image by Virrage Images Inc, courtesy of Canva. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
The Bible: Walking in God’s Word
The Jerusalem Declaration offers a set of principles to guide us in our Christian walk, as outlined in the second sentence of Clause 2: “The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.”
The Bible: Believing God’s Word Written
Clause 2 has two sentences. Taken together, they capture the twofold dynamic of the Bible, moving from God’s gracious self-revelation to our thankful response.
