Our Only Foundation

Sola Scriptura has been called the “formal principle” of the Reformation. At the heart of the Reformation was the issue of authority; or, to be more specific the issue of final authority. While both Church and creed carry with them a measure of secondary authority, for the Reformers the Word of God alone was the “only rule of faith and practice” for the Christian.

After being convinced by Holy Scripture that popes, councils, and creeds do error, Luther posited the radical conviction that only the Word of God alone was without error and was the final authority on all matters on which it speaks. Charged with heresy and threatened with death, Luther stood before the ultimate “powers that be” of his day to defend his conviction that the Bible had led him to doctrinal positions contrary to the Church at Rome. When commanded to recant his convictions and doctrines Luther said,

“Unless I am convinced of error by the testimony of Scripture or by manifest reasoning I stand convicted by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God’s word. I cannot or will not recant anything. For to act against conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.”

So strong was the Protestant conviction of the necessity of the Bible that many died in defense of the doctrine of sola Scriptura. We forget the human cost that gives us the privilege of holding in our hands an English Bible that we might hear the voice of God as we read, pray and preach the Word of God.

One of those martyrs was William Tyndale whose passion to translate the scriptures into English led him into direct opposition with Rome. In response to a challenge to the supremacy of God’s Word over both pope and church, Tyndale said, “I defy the Pope, and all his laws, and if God spares my life, I will cause the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!" Charged with heresy in 1536 and sentenced to die it was recorded that as Tyndale faced death "at the stake with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice", he said "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes." He "was strangled to death while tied at the stake, and then his dead body was burned". Tyndale was martyred for the Word of God. Where is our zeal, our commitment to the Word of God in our generation?