Michael Tolosa

Sola Scriptura was the reformers’ rejection of the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church believed that its interpretation of the Word of God was infallible (or without error), and that it was the Church’s role alone to read and interpret the Scriptures. The reformers, however, believed that it was the duty of the Christian to read the Scriptures for himself and to make interpretations based on this first-hand reading, rather than taking the Church’s word for it. This notion of private interpretation was utterly scandalous to the Roman Catholic Church, and those who endorsed it were deemed by the Church as heretics.

The doctrine of Sola Scriptura goes even further, though. The reformers also wanted to make it clear that the 66 books of the Bible contained all that was necessary for salvation—it was the sole infallible rule of faith, and that no other revelation was needed for the Church. This dismissed all “other” forms of revelation (i.e. private revelations from God, angels, etc.) as unnecessary and subordinate to the Holy Scriptures.

Because the Bible contained all that is necessary for salvation, the reformers felt that whatever the Pope or the Roman Catholic Church in general taught and said had to be compared to what the Bible taught. In order to keep a check on the Church, the common people (or laymen) had to have the Scriptures translated in their own, common tongue. This, again, was scandalous to the Church, and those who were caught translating the Scriptures were imprisoned, burned at the stake, or punished in other horrible ways.

The traditions of the Church (no matter how customary or ingrained in the Church’s past they may be) also had to be checked with the Scriptures. Many of the Church’s traditions were declared unbiblical by the reformers, and hence the reformers arguably overcompensated by doing away with all traditions and symbols of traditions found in church worship.

It is important, also, to point out what Sola Scriptura isn’t. Namely, the doctrine does not claim that the Bible contains all knowledge. It is not a science textbook. It does not contain instructions on how to plant and grow daisies. The doctrine does not claim that all traditions are bad—only those whose roots cannot be found in the Scriptures. It does not deny the Church’s authority to teach God’s truth—only that the Church’s authority comes from and is subordinate to God’s Word.

Martin Luther sums up the doctrine with these words, spoken in his own defense at the Diet of Worms:

“Unless I am convicted by Scripture or by right reason (for I trust neither in popes nor in councils, since they have often erred and contradicted themselves)—unless I am thus convinced, I am bound by the texts of the Bible, my conscience is captive to the Word of God, I neither can nor will recant anything, since it is neither right nor safe to act against conscience. God help me. Amen.”

According to Paul, Jesus achieves salvation by representation. Jesus’ sacrifice atones for those who have faith in it. When one acknowledges one’s own inadequacy at following the Law and accepts Christ’s sacrifice as sufficient, in and of itself, for redeeming fallen man (that works cannot and do not add anything to salvation), one is saved.

Man, by nature, is fallen and sinful. Right-off-the-bat, man has already violated the Law of God and can, thus, never keep the Law perfectly. Any hope of gaining righteousness by doing any good deed is utterly futile, because man can never change the fact that he has not kept the law perfectly. Thus, salvation must be achieved by something other than following the Law.

Since man does not keep the Law perfectly, man’s punishment is Hell. This damnation to Hell is the righteous and just judgment of God, because the wages of sin is death, and if God didn’t punish sin with death, He would not be just. But because God loved man, He offered His Son up as a sacrifice to satisfy His own judgment on the select group of people, who have faith in Christ’s sacrifice.

God doesn’t simply forget about the sins of some to let them into Heaven. Their sins still have to be paid for. So, instead of sentencing some people to eternal damnation, He punishes Christ for their sins in their stead.

Christ is the center of salvation, because all God is concerned with (as far as people getting to Heaven is concerned) is whether or not there is still sin accounted to a person. Either a person has faith in Jesus’ sacrifice and his sins are thus paid for by Christ, or a person doesn’t have faith in Christ’s sacrifice, alone, and his sins are still accounted to him. Works have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Doing good works is nothing, because as soon as a man sins once in his life, works can no longer be considered in gaining access to Heaven.

When a man has faith in Christ’s sacrifice alone for his salvation, that man’s wickedness is then accounted to Christ, and Christ’s righteousness is accounted to the man. God’s justice simply demands that the sins be paid for—it doesn’t necessarily have to be the man who actually committed the sins who pays for them. Since Christ lived a life completely perfect under the Law, He had the ability and authority to do this “sin-for-righteousness swapping.”

A Christian, Martin Luther argues in his commentary on Galatians, is dead to the Law. The whole purpose of the Law is to declare how short man falls in being righteous. The Law was never something to be followed to gain salvation. The Law’s purpose was to reveal sin and show how high God’s standards are for righteousness—a standard that man could never live up to. Luther stresses this point to counter the Catholic and scholastic views that relied on works and acts of love—rather than having faith in Christ alone—to perfect salvation. For the Christian, the Law was simply used to convict him of his sin. Once convicted, the sinner sees the futility of ever trying to live up to God’s standards and flees to Christ.

In Christ, the sinner is freed from (or dead to) the Law. Not that the Law is dead, but that it no longer has jurisdiction over the sinner, who is in Christ. For the Law still lives to convict those who have not come to Christ.

According to Luther, when Paul speaks of Christians being “free,” he does not mean that Christians are free to do evil—or, in fact, anything they want. The freedom Paul speaks of, rather, is that of the conscience. Christians are free from fearing their damnation at the hands of a just and holy God. Because Christians no longer have to pay for their sins (because Christ has), they have peace-of-mind (or freedom). Since some professing Christians interpreted “Christian freedom” as freedom to sin, Paul gives them (and stresses) a command to “be servants of one another through love.”

All of this is certainly accurate to the teachings of Paul, who stressed over and over again the importance of faith in Christ alone for justification and diminished the role of the Law in the life of a Christian. In the format of a commentary, it’s difficult not to stay in line with the teachings of the text (although, I’m sure it’s possible). There isn’t much (if any) of Luther’s teachings here that can easily be charged as anti-Pauline.

The importance (or value) of these teachings of Luther is as great as the rift is between Protestants and Catholics. To add a requirement to follow the Law as a means of adding to salvation is just simply not faith alone—it’s simply not at all what Paul was preaching. Not only are Christians free from the burden of having to keep the Law perfectly, but all the due credit to salvation is given to Christ. The value of giving all the glory to God is infinite.