Authority of Scripture

On your handout, flip over on the back because this is week 10 and we've gone through nine different studies so far in our study of the Bible, and this is the concluding one. I just want to kind of give you a brief overview of where we've been. We started in week one with general revelation, and if you remember, that's the concept that God speaks to us through nature and also in our conscience, and that is a voice that will tell us about His character, that He's holy, that He's a creator, that He's wise, but it's a voice that, though it displays His grandeur and it displays the reality that we are accountable to Him, it doesn't display the cure.

In other words, it's enough to convict us but not enough to save us. Week two we looked at special revelation, and special revelation is found in the personal work of Jesus Christ, which scripture is a record of, and so when we read through scripture we're learning about Christ, and that tells us the remedy of our sin, that tells us that Christ is our Savior and He's the one who died on the cross for us and rose again so our sins can be forgiven, that we can be just before our holy God.

In week three we looked at the inspiration of scripture, that this is not the work of men but this is God-breathed — that's what we read that week — that God is its author, and because God is its author it's perfect and reliable and trustworthy. In week four we looked at the infallibility and inerrancy of scripture. We call scripture infallible because God is infallible. He cannot err, so everything that we find in scripture is totally trustworthy, it's totally reliable for us to put our trust in His promises and in the God who makes those promises.

In week five we looked at the credibility and authenticity of scripture. We talked about how God, who not only inspired scripture but ensured that it be transmitted throughout the ages, that we can have full confidence because of the way the manuscripts have been passed on from one generation to another that these were really the words that the apostles wrote and these were really the words that Christ spoke and that the prophets said.

Week six we looked at the canonicity of scripture, determining how we know which books are received, and we received them the same way that the apostles received them — we received them by the witness of the Holy Spirit. These were the books that we have full confidence are divinely inspired. Week seven we looked at the sufficiency and completeness of scripture, that scripture gives us everything we need to know for our salvation, for us to be able to live holy lives before the Lord.

It's not a science book, it's not a mathematics book — that's not the sufficiency we're talking about. It's everything we need for our faith and rule of living to live a godly life. Lesson eight we looked at the perspicuity of scripture, and that's simply the clarity of scripture, that scripture is meant to be understood. God wants us to understand His word, and He's written it in such a way that we know it has one author and it has one subject, being Jesus Christ, and that's the great theme of all of scripture.

It's one book with one subject and one name. Then we looked at the interpretation of scripture last week — Hal taught us that, and what a joy that was to look at how we interpret scripture in context, and with the aim of knowing Jesus Christ. And then tonight we're looking at the authority of scripture, and if you see beside the authority of scripture I have written "Sola Scriptura." The authority of scripture is the capstone of this study because it was one of the reasons why we had the Reformation in the first place.

When you think about what took place 500 years ago in the Reformation, it really centered around two key doctrines. One was a doctrine of salvation. What does it mean to be saved? How can we find salvation that had been largely lost in the Church? Because at that time the Church was doing the Mass in Latin, no one understood it. They understood only what the priest told them, and that was that they had to earn their salvation, that they could perhaps spring their loved ones out of purgatory by donating money to the coffers, and so the Gospel had become corrupted and even lost in large degree to many people.

So that was part of the reason for the Reformation — what we call soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. But also just as important was the doctrine of the authority of scripture. How do we know what is scripture and what are God's commands? Out of that Reformation we have five what we call "solas." Sola in Latin simply means "only." We know for example that we're saved only by grace, only through faith, only in Christ Jesus, and only to the glory of God Almighty.

We're reading through Ephesians chapter 2 on Sunday mornings, which we'll be starting here in just a couple weeks, and being saved by grace through faith in Christ alone to glorify God alone — that sure sounds like the first few verses of Ephesians chapter 2, does it not? But how do we know that? We know that only through the authority of scripture, and that's the fifth sola: Sola Scriptura, only scripture for our authority.

So let's flip over to the front and we're going to go through these six Bible points on the authority of scripture. You have the fill-in-the-blank handout for those of you who haven't been with us before. You can fill these in as you go along and it'll give you a great way to be able to take notes and actively listen, and then later on give you a chance to be able to review it, maybe teach it to a friend.

Number one, authority — that's the first blank — authority adds something to that which is communicated. The thing added is the personal element of witness. Scripture is God's revelation of Himself — that's the second blank.

Let me reread that. Authority adds something to that which is communicated. The thing added is a personal element of witness. Scripture is God's revelation of Himself.

How many of you grew up with one or more siblings? Quite a few of you have, okay? I have an older brother. You all saw him last week — he was visiting from Texas. My brother's two years older than me, and so that means growing up as a kid, he was always two years bigger than me and two years smarter than me, okay? He always jokes that the scripture that says "a brother is born for adversity" — he takes it the wrong way. Rather than being a brother who is born for helping you in times of trouble, he took that as a brother being born to give you trouble. And he did that plenty when I was growing up.

That's kind of what big brothers do. I'd be on my bed reading and my brother would come in and start jumping on the bed, and so I'm trying to read the book and it's going like this, and I'd say, "Stop!" And he'd say, "Make me." So he would keep doing it. I'd say, "Stop!" He'd say, "You're not the boss of me." So finally I'd pull the trump card and I'd say, "Mom! He's jumping on the bed, tell him to stop it!" My mom was a little lady but she was tough and she had a growl, and she'd say, "Stop it!" And my brother would stop. Now I told him to stop and he didn't pay any attention to me, right? He didn't listen to me, but when my mother told him to stop, he did it.

What's the difference between my mom and myself saying "stop"? Authority. Exactly right. He knew that if he didn't obey mom there would be consequences, right? So that's what we mean by authority adds something to that which is communicated. In Latin is where we get the word "authority" from. It comes from the word "augeo" which means to add to, to increase, or to complete. And what we mean by that is an authority is something who stands behind the words.

It says in number one, scripture is authoritative because it is God-breathed — that's the third blank. God is the highest — that's the fourth blank — the highest authority. God alone is true and infallible. Scripture is therefore authoritative because God stands fully behind it — so God is the fifth blank.

Let me reread that. Scripture is authoritative because it's God-breathed. God is the highest. God alone is true and infallible. Scripture is therefore authoritative because God stands fully behind it. All authority comes from God, right? All authority in the human realm — politicians are appointed by God. God raises kings and God takes them down. All authority is what we would call derived or delegated authority.

God is the one who holds all the cards, right? Jesus knew this. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does something quite spectacular in chapters five, six, and seven of Matthew. He'll say, "You have heard that it was said of old," and he quotes the Old Testament. But then he says, "But I say to you," right? And when he completed that sermon — one of the most beautiful sermons ever read or spoken — look at what Matthew 7:28 through 29 says: "And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." They recognized something was different about Jesus, right? He spoke as one who had authority.

The application is this: whose word is the most important to you? Whose word is the most important to you? God's word, right? How much time do you spend in His word each day? How much time do you listen to, say, a Joe Rogan podcast or your favorite political commentator? You used to listen to Rush Limbaugh when he still walked the earth — he was on three hours a day. How many of us spend three hours a day in scripture, right? If God's word is the most important to you, then it should show in your life, because it's authoritative. Why else would you listen to anything other than the word of God?

John 6:68 through 69 records Peter's reaction to Christ. Christ had been teaching and, as He was teaching, He really confounded the Pharisees and the religious leaders because He said, "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead," and He said, "But I am the true bread come down from heaven. Unless you eat of me and drink of me, you have no life in you." And what He meant by that is unless you put your trust in Him, unless you believe in Him, unless you have faith in Him and partake of Him, unless you're united to Him by faith, you have no life in you.

And they didn't take it that way, though. They were thinking He was talking about literally eating flesh and drinking blood. And so many of His disciples turned away from Him and followed Him no more.

And so Jesus turns to the twelve and He says, "What about you? Are you going to go away also?" And Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." So we turn to Christ because only His words are the words that give us life and only His words are authoritative.

Let's look at Bible point number two. Scripture is authoritative over natural theology — "natural" is the first blank. We talked about general revelation, and that's another way of saying general revelation is talking about natural theology.

Nature displays facts about God, which we learn through observation, history, and science, and those should never ever contradict special revelation, right? General revelation is from God and so is special revelation. They are meant to go hand in hand, if you will, and teach us about our creator.

However, our sin — that's the second blank — and finitude (finitude means our finiteness, our shortcomings, our frailties as humans), our sin and finitude can lead to wrong conclusions from nature's incomplete witness — that's the third blank, "witness." We look to scripture for our complete source of divine revelation — that's the fourth blank.

Let me reread that. Scripture is authoritative over natural theology. Nature displays facts about God, which we learn through observation, history, and science. Our sin and finitude can lead us to wrong conclusions from nature's incomplete witness. We look to scripture for our complete source of divine revelation.

As we mentioned, general revelation only tells us a little bit about God, right? It doesn't give us the complete picture. We have to go to Jesus Christ and the record of Jesus Christ in scripture to flesh that out, right? To get what we call special revelation. So if you're just studying general revelation, your ability to think through it and apply it and understand it properly is diminished due to sin, and it's also diminished due to our human capacity as finite beings. We can't contain the infinite, right? We can only understand so much.

And sin has a way of clouding our reasoning, does it not? Theologians often talk about what we call the noetic effects of sin. That's N-O-E-T-I-C. That comes from the Greek word "nous," which means mind. And basically what it means is that sin has a way of making you really stupid. It does. You do stupid things, illogical things when you're driven by sin's passions, don't you? It has a way of clouding your judgment and clouding your reasoning.

Paul talks about this in Romans chapter one, verses 21 through 22: "Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools." Sin has a way of dumbing down our understanding of God.

When we observe nature, it should tell us about God, right? But those observations can fall on deaf ears. In the book of Acts chapter 14, we have the story of Paul and Barnabas. They're on their missionary journey, and they go through a region called Iconium. There's a lame man and they heal him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, because Paul is an apostle. He's been given this special dispensation of power to be able to do this, to confirm the words of the apostle. And everybody's excited, and these pagans begin to worship Paul and Barnabas, calling them Zeus and Hermes. And Paul and Barnabas begin to preach to them and say, "Don't sacrifice bulls to us. We're just men like you are." And they tell them that God created everything, and that this God who created everything had left some of the people, like the Gentiles, without a witness for a while.

But look what He says in Acts 14:17 through 18: "Nevertheless, He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." And with these sayings, they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them. They were discussing natural revelation, saying, "Just the food that God has given you, the care that God has shown and poured out as what we call His common grace — that should be enough for you to know that there's a God." But that could scarcely stop them from sacrificing to Paul and Barnabas.

In other words, natural revelation was bouncing right off their heads. It wasn't leading them to God. That was because of their sin, right? And that's the state of fallen humanity. We need the Holy Spirit to regenerate our minds, right? To give us new hearts, new souls, for us to be able to understand His revelation.

The application is this: scripture alone reveals Christ our Savior. You can study the rocks and the trees all day long and learn a lot about God and His infinite perfections, but only scripture tells us about Christ our Savior.

Flip over to the back. Bullet point number two on the back, this is in Acts 26. We have Paul where he's before Agrippa and Festus giving his personal testimony before them. He says, "Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision," speaking of his road to Damascus where he met the Lord Jesus Christ, "but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance. For these reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come — that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and that He would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles."

When he is before Festus and Agrippa, he gives them what we call special revelation. He doesn't start talking about the trees, he doesn't start talking about the rocks — he tells them exactly what Moses and the whole Old Testament was pointing to, that Christ had to die, that He had to be the sacrifice for humanity to be able to reconcile us to God, and that His Gospel should be preached to all nations beginning in Jerusalem and going out through all the world.

Bible point number three. Scripture is authoritative over human reason — "reason" is the first blank. We are created in God's image as rational beings with the ability to think about God, ourselves, and others. Our sin and finitude can lead us to poor reasoning. We depend on scripture to guide and inform our reasoning and to be our final standard of appeal. So the first blank is "reason," second blank is "reasoning," third blank is "guide," fourth blank is "inform," and the last blank is "final."

Scripture can take our reason and redeem it, can it not? Can it not guide our reason? Can it not inform our reason? Special revelation takes the ball, so to speak, that general revelation dropped, and it picks up that ball and runs with it, right? It tells us the reason why all things were created — for the glory of God, for the preeminence of Christ. That's what scripture does. It actually informs and renews our reason.

In church history, there have been various movements that have been both positive and negative. The Reformation was a very positive period. Right after that, though, we had a period called the Enlightenment. Some people call the Enlightenment the period or the age of reason, where people cast off the truths that they had learned from scripture and exalted human reasoning, and they put that above and beyond scripture.

And starting in about the early 1800s, within Christianity, rose what we call Christian liberalism. And what Christian liberalism taught in our universities — they started off in solid universities at one time, such as Princeton and Yale, that used to be godly, biblical, Christ-honoring seminaries from the way they were founded — and this is what they said: liberalism said the Bible is not the product of God. It's the product of men. Rather than being God-breathed, they said the Bible was simply a history of man's yearning for God.

Therefore, this work is not inerrant. This work is at best a guide or historical narrative of how people have thought and tried to interact with the divine. Do you see what that does to the authority of scripture? It chops it out, right? It puts man in the place of God. It exalts man to be the rational one above and beyond God's wisdom, and how dangerous that is.

The application is this: only God's word can make us holy and true — first blank is "word," second blank is "holy," third blank is "true." God's word is not a dead letter, right? This is the word of God and, as we've already studied, it's living, it's powerful, it's sharper than any two-edged sword. And scripture is what God uses to sanctify us, right? To sanctify us means to set us apart, to make us holy, to make us true, and He can take our reason — He can take our corrupted reason — and He can renew it.

He can renew our minds through His word. John 17:17 says, "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." That's what Jesus prayed to the Father. He would set us apart by His truth, and what is His truth but the word of God, right?

Bible point number four. Scripture is authoritative over our own personal experience — so the first blank is "personal," second blank is "experience." The opposite of trusting our reason is often trusting in our personal experience. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit. Our sin and finitude can lead to wrong, private — that's the third blank — private impressions of the Spirit's teaching. We must turn to scripture for our objective source of revelation and to be our final standard of appeal.

Let me read that one more time. Scripture is authoritative over our own personal experience. The Holy Spirit does indeed bear witness with our spirit. Our sin and finitude can lead to wrong, private impressions of the Spirit's teaching. We must turn to scripture for our objective source of revelation and to be our final standard of appeal.

In the twentieth century, another poor development took place within Christian education, and it was what we call neo-orthodoxy. "Neo" in front of orthodoxy — orthodoxy means right belief, right practice. This is neo-orthodoxy, meaning it sounds at first glance to be right, but there's a big difference, right? The chief proponent of this was a theologian from Germany named Karl Barth — B-A-R-T-H. He was a rock star of a theologian. He made the leap from being just an academic to being a popular theologian. This is what Dr. Barth taught.

He said, "I have a very high reverence and esteem for the word of God, for the scripture." He'd say, however, "Scripture isn't always God's word." He says, "God's word is found sometimes in scripture and sometimes in preaching, and the way it's found is when God comes upon you as you're reading the word or you're hearing a sermon and He speaks to your heart, and when He speaks to your heart through that Bible passage or through that sermon, then it becomes God's word."

That removes the objective standard of the word of God, right? It makes it subjective. So a verse that speaks to me — Karl Barth would say, "Well, that's scripture to me." But maybe it doesn't speak to Shawn, right? And so Shawn says, "I can disregard that scripture, because I don't hear the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart. I'm not encountering God in that verse. So that's not scripture to me, okay?" And that is taught today in many of our seminaries all throughout the United States. Karl Barth had a great influence all the way up to this day on that.

When I was in seminary, I heard a man give a lecture series in person — Stanley Grenz — and he wrote a huge systematic theology, and it's called "Theology for the Community of God." At first glance, it sounds great. Well, theology is meant to be done in the Church, like what we're doing right now. It's not meant to be done in the university or the ivory tower, right? Studying God is meant to be done in the word with the saints.

Well, that part's good. But what he meant by that, of course, is that it's only God's word when it speaks to you individually within the preaching ministry of the Church or within the teaching ministry of the Church. And that's not true. God's word is God's word. Whether you're in China, whether you're in your prayer closet, whether you're in the uttermost parts of the world, God's word is an objective standard that we can always trust in.

If not, it's not authoritative, right? Not authoritative at all. John 14:25 through 26 says, "These things I have spoken to you while being present with you." This is Jesus. He's about to be offered up and crucified. He's saying His final words to His disciples in His upper room discourse. He says, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." He promised them that He would send the Holy Spirit, right? And the Holy Spirit, though, would not really be an organ of new revelation.

What He would do is this: He says, "He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." The work of the Holy Spirit is simply to take the finished work of Christ and apply it to us, right? To remind us of what Christ said, to remind us of what Christ did, to take the words of Christ and illumine them in our hearts and minds so we can understand them and remember them and apply them to our lives, right?

So there are some — especially in some charismatic circles — who will have, say, the voice of God speaking with them or in them that's independent from scripture, and will say things that are contrary to scripture. And you'll hear preachers sometimes say awful things and say it with, "The Lord said to me." The Holy Spirit never contradicts the word, right? They always go together.

Such things can ruin lives. Some of you have come out of such backgrounds and you know very well the damage that it can do to families, the damage that it can do to relationships.

The application is this: God's Spirit always works with God's word. Ephesians 6:17 says, "And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the sword of the Spirit." The tool that the Spirit uses is what? The word of God. Exactly right. These things always go together, never contradict one another.

Bible point number five. Scripture is authoritative over all ecclesiastical authority. Ecclesiastical means Church authority. The Church did not give us God's word — that's the second blank, "not." God's word gave us the Church — that's the third blank. The authority of the Church is found only as it is God's appointed proclaimer of the truth. The Church can proclaim God's truth only as it is built on the truth of God.

Let me reread that. Scripture is authoritative over all ecclesiastical authority. The Church did not give us God's word. God's word gave us the Church. The authority of the Church is found only as it is God's appointed proclaimer of the truth. The Church can proclaim God's truth only as it's built on the truth of God.

In the Reformation, one of the reasons the Reformation happened was because the Roman Catholic Church was calling on people to do things that were not scriptural. They were teaching doctrines that were not found in scripture, such as, for example, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, praying to Mary in veneration of the saints, transubstantiation, and teaching things like indulgences, right?

When Luther saw Tetzel going around — and Tetzel was a preacher of the Church of Rome — he said, "Every time a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs." In other words, give us money, and your deceased relatives who aren't quite in hell and aren't quite in heaven and are going through further punishment right now because they're not good enough yet to get into heaven — you can actually buy their way into heaven.

Purgatory — that's not scriptural at all. But what the Church argued was this: the Roman Catholic Church says, "Who was first, the Church or the scripture? We were first, the Church, and the Church gave us scripture." So it's our right to be able to add to it or take away whatever we wish, basically. Our traditions, the magisterium of the Church, the authority of the Church, has the right to make new doctrines, if you will.

And they gave papal authority. So the Pope was the Vicar of Christ on earth, and whatever he says is equivalent to and the same as God's word. So they held man's tradition right alongside the word of God. And how wrong that is, because the Church did not give us the word of God — the word of God gave us the Church. What do we know? That faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, exactly right. It was the word of God that birthed the Church.

If you have any Catholic friends, I hope you do, and I hope you're able to talk with them about their faith. There are some Catholics I know who are born-again Christians. I have full confidence that they know the Lord Jesus Christ because they don't believe in the Church dogma, so to speak — they have encountered the word of God. They've been justified by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, not by works.

But some are not. And sometimes when you talk with a Catholic person, especially one who's given to theology, they may get a little cheeky with you. They may say, "Where was your Church before Luther?" When they say such things, be cheeky right back. Tell them, "My Church was where your Church isn't, and that was in the word of God." Because the word of God birthed the Church, right? You can go further and tell them, "Where was your face before you washed it?" That's what the Reformation was all about.

Where was the fine flour before the grain was sent to be milled? It was always there, right? The Gospel is what birthed the Church, right? Don't believe that the word of God only has its authority because of the Church. Not at all. The Church has its authority only in that it proclaims the word of God. And that goes for us Baptists as well. I have been in many Baptist churches where the pastor of the Church throws his weight around in an unbiblical way.

He doesn't have any accountability. He doesn't have a plurality of elders like we have here. And that kind of power can go to a person's head, can it not? And they can crush people, right? That can be so destructive when someone abuses their power in such a way. John MacArthur was once asked, "What is your power at your Church?" He says, "I have none." He says, "My power only resides in my faithful proclamation of the word of God. To the extent that I say, 'Thus says the Lord,' that's my authority, because it's not my authority, it's God's authority, right?" And if anyone says, "Thus says the Lord," and what they say is not according to scripture, run, right? Because that's not biblical authority.

1 Peter 1:23 through 25 talks about how the word of God birthed the Church. It says, "Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God." So how were you born again? Not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through what? The word of God, exactly right. "Which lives and abides forever. Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever." Now this is the word which, by the Gospel, was preached to you.

So scripture is authoritative over all ecclesiastical authority, right?

Application. How do you spot a wolf in sheep's clothing? What do we inspect? You look in the Bible, and you're like, when Pastor Casey teaches, I follow him in the Bible. Amen. I'm not saying I'm perfect. You're being a good Berean, right? She's following along with Pastor Casey when he preaches to make sure what he's saying is in the Bible. It's not that she doesn't trust him, but it's because the Bible is the standard for every Christian, right? And that's what we should all be — faithful Bereans.

We also can check people's fruit, isn't that what the scripture says? We'll know them by their fruits. In other words, that's another way of saying, look to the scripture. Does their life line up with the scripture? Are they living a Christ-exalting, honoring life, right? Are the things that they are saying and proclaiming leading to a Christ-honoring life? Are they congruent with the scripture?

Bible point number six. Scripture is authoritative over all confessions, creeds, and catechisms. Confessions, creeds, and catechisms are doctrinal summaries, okay? They can be a great aid — that's the first blank — in learning about God, and provide helpful clarity — that's the second blank — in times of controversy.

However, confessions, creeds, and catechisms are not scripture, and therefore are not infallible. Scripture alone is our final, sufficient, and complete authority for our life as the Church.

Let me read that once more. Scripture is authoritative over all confessions, creeds, and catechisms. Doctrinal summaries can be a great aid in learning about God and provide helpful clarity in times of controversy. However, confessions, creeds, and catechisms are not scripture, and therefore are not infallible. Scripture alone is our final, sufficient, and complete authority for our life as the Church.

Our Church has a wonderful confession. It's based on the New Hampshire Confession of Faith from, I believe, 1834, and the elders of our Church went through that confession for about three months, and we modified it in some areas, because what a confession should do is reflect or summarize what you believe about the scriptures and the scripture's witness, right?

But no confession is perfect, right? And what we have to be careful of is that we do not exalt a confession, which is a great tool, or a creed, which can be a great tool, above scripture. Sometimes in Reformed circles, you'll have people who, if there's an issue or a controversy about a particular doctrine, before they turn to the Bible, they'll quote the Westminster Confession, or they'll quote the 1689 Baptist Confession. They'll quote paragraph three, line such and such, and they'll treat that as if it's scripture, right?

But what we do when we do theology — which these confessions are simply a way of doing, trying to understand God — is we try to summarize scripture, but that's still man's authority. There still can be errors there, right? Things we disagree with. Many of us may greatly agree with many parts of the Westminster Confession, for example, which is a common Presbyterian confession, but there's probably not a single one of us here who would agree with infant baptism, right? That's in there. There's a lot of things in there we would disagree with. We can take the good of what's there and use it as an instructive measure, but we have to be careful never to exalt it above and beyond scripture.

Years ago, when I was in seminary — 30 years ago — I worked at United Parcel Service, and I was a supervisor, and I ran the evening shift. My job each night was to make sure that all my employees got those brown package cars unloaded, that they then got them fueled up, then washed them — because UPS wanted everything to be spotless — and then parked where they should be on the conveyor belt for the next morning.

And sometimes they're parked within inches of each other without any wrecks and no accidents. And so we had over 300 package cars that had to be done in a space of just a few hours each evening, and that's what my job was. And all my crew — which was a wonderful crew — I had three shop stewards. In other words, the employees were what we call unionized employees with the Teamsters union, and a shop steward was a representative of the union — they were kind of a go-between between the employee and management.

They oftentimes are very adversarial with management, and I had a good crew of 30 guys, but every now and then you've got one employee who sandbags, so to speak. Doesn't pull their weight. And I had one employee that was like that. His name was Johnny, and we nicknamed him "Johnny Ooze," because we never saw him walk. He just oozed. And he was the slowest-moving guy you would ever see. And so whereas most guys could process five to seven trucks an hour, he would maybe do one or two an hour.

I had to supervise him a lot, as was my job. And sometimes a shop steward would intervene, and he would pull out of his back pocket a little black book. And this black book was the union's interpretation of the employment contract. It wasn't the employment contract itself — it was the union's interpretation of it. And he'd pull it out like a preacher and he'd say, "Look here, there's no such thing as a production standard, only safety. As long as Johnny is being safe, if he only does one car an hour regardless of anyone else who's doing ten an hour, as long as he's being safe, you cannot fire him or reprimand him or do any corrective action against him." That was his interpretation, right? And he treated that as if that was the employment contract. That was not our policy at UPS.

What I'm getting at is we can do the same thing, right? Not just with confessions and creeds and catechisms, but even just with the doctrines of men. When I was growing up, the Baptist Church I was involved in was really involved in the Bill Gothard Institute back in the day. And if you've probably read some of the things about Bill Gothard, he had a lot of good things. He also had a lot of things that were just personal convictions that were taught as Gospel truth.

And he gave ten steps for everything. And a lot of those things did a lot of damage, right? Teaching the traditions of men as the doctrines of God — it's the same thing that Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and the scribes for doing, right? And so we have to be careful not to ever exalt a man's teaching, no matter how much you may love John MacArthur or how much you may love R.C. Sproul. They're just men. They're capable of error, right?

But God's word is infallible. It's our infallible rule for faith and life. Galatians 1:8 says, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." Then he repeats that again in verse 9. Paul wanted to get that through to us. The word "accursed" means literally to go to hell. That's what Paul is saying. Even if we or an angel — why would an angel lead you astray, right? Well, doesn't false teaching often come in the guise of an angel? Someone who looks good, who sounds good, who has a lot of truth, but mixed with error, right?

The application is this: commit yourself to teaching nothing else — first blank is "commit," second blank is "nothing." Commit yourself to teaching nothing else other than the word of God, right? Where God's word is silent, you be silent. Don't fill in the blank. Don't waste your time on speculation. If God's word doesn't provide that answer, then God doesn't want you to know that, right? Don't speculate in that case.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, he says, "That you may learn not to go beyond what is written." Many times pastors and laypeople go beyond what is written. I've heard people say, "Oh, I was praying and I just got such a great impression that God is going to do wonderful things for your life. I really think God spoke to me and I envision you doing this, this, and this." That's going beyond what is written, right?

Don't do that. Don't fill in the blanks of scripture. Trust that scripture is sufficient for every problem, for every need. God's word alone is authoritative.