The Divine Lamp

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PASTOR JACK’S SCRIPTURE ATTACK AGAINST ROMANISM is a rather cheaply done booklet which bills itself as “A handy guide for the refutation of Catholicism.” Basically, it consists of “a series of bibilically (sic) based arguements (sic) against various errors perpetrated on humanity by the popish religion.” The first series of “arguments” are related to the reformation doctrine of sola scriptura.

The Argument:

1. With officious precision the Romish Catachism (sic) states: “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.” The blatant reference to tradition (sic) already highlights how wrong such a statement is, for Jesus had noting to do with tradition (sic) as a reading of Mark 7 or Matthew 15 shows. But we will deal with that subject further along.

The fact is that the Lord has commanded us Christians-by which I mean true Bible Christians- to “search the Scripture” (John 5:39). Romish authority is well aware that one way the true Bible Christian does this is by perusing the word, checking out what a pastor or preacher is saying, like the noble Bereans who checked the Appostle (sic) Paul’s preaching too see if it accorded with Scripture (Acts 17:11).

Response:

a. In light of the official Latin text of the Catechism, “authentically” should more properly be translated as “authoritatively.”

b. Since the subject of Tradition will come up latter, I’ll only note the following: The Hebrews used two primary words to denote the concept of Tradition; masar, meaning “to hand on,” and gibbel, meaning “to receive.” Tradition is the handing on and/or receiving of some teaching or practice. The Greek word for Tradition is paradosis, “that which is handed on” (paradososn, paradidonai, paradidomi ect), or “that which is received” (paralambano, paralambanien, ect). To say that Jesus had nothing to do with Tradition is quite wrong, for He Himself states: “All things have been handed over (paradidomi) to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Matt 11:27). Here revelation is described as Tradition coming to us through the Son from the Father. The condemnation of man-made traditions in chapter 15 has nothing to do with the Reformation novelty of Scripture Alone; rather it’s about the source of Jesus’ teaching and His authority to teach it. Because His teaching and authority comes from the Father he is able to “declare all foods clean” in spite of the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law (Mark 7:19; Matt 15:15-20). The condemnation in Matt 15 is meant to call the readers mind back to Matt 11:27 and prepare for Matt 16:13-20, where both the Father and the Son reveal something to Peter.

c. Pastor Jack seems to be under the delusion that John 5:39 was directed to believers, but it wasn’t. Our Blessed Lord was speaking to men thinking of killing Him (John 5:18). Further, Jack seems to think the words are a command, they are not. “Search” (ereunao) is in the indicative mood, not the imperative. In other words, it indicates something the addressees do, not something Christ wants them to do. This becomes apparent when properly translated into English and seen in its fuller context: “You search the Scripture in which you think you have eternal life; even they testify on my behalf. But you are unwilling to come to me to have life’ (John 5:39-40). The condemnation of the addressees in John 5:44-47 confirms the indicative mood of verse 39.

d. The Bereans were Jews who studied the Scripture (i.e., Old Testament) by the light of St Paul’s teaching and came to see it as true, thus coming to faith. How can those who claim to have faith already appeal to this passage as proof of what Christians must do? Jews needed the proclamation of the Gospel in order to understand the Scripture (2 Corinthians 3:15-18; 4:1-6), the proclamation included the interpretation of Scripture (Acts 17:1-3), which interpretation was one of “these things” the Apostles were to witness to (Luke 24:44-48). If faith comes through hearing the proclamation of the Gospel by those who are sent (Rom 10:14-15; see also Col 1:4-8; Eph 1:13-14), then who, I ask, preached to the Reformers that they could claim to have heard and believed? If one receives the Spirit through faith in what is heard (Gal 3:2), how did the Reformers come to possess the spirit they claimed guided them in their reading of Scripture?

One final note. The account of the Berean’s conversion states that they “received (dechomai) the word.” Dechomai is a synonym for lambano, the root of paralambano, a Tradition word.

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