I have discussed various things from time to time with people who deny Sola Scriptura. Those who most commonly explicitly do this in America today are Mormons and Roman Catholics, although they are by no means the only people who do this. For that matter, there are many people who practically deny Sola Scriptura even while paying lip service to the doctrine.
This morning, I read an interesting passage in First Kings. It is interesting because of the way that it relates to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, not because it explicity teaches this doctrine but because it relates to us the consequences of not believing in Sola Scriptura. See, when someone rejects Sola Scriptura, they must assert some alternate standard of authority in place of Scripture. Thus, if you do not accept the Scripture as the final authority, you must assert another authority like the First Presidency, the Papacy, or Pastor Bob’s interpretation. Some people assume that shifting the authority to a different source also shifts the responsibility to that source. In other words, if you believe something in error then when you die and get to heaven you can simply say, “It is not my fault that I believed this in error. I trusted the word of the Presidency, the Papacy, or the Pastor. Therefore, I bear no responsibility for believing error and the fault lies with my assumed authoritative standard instead of with me.”
The problem with this view is easily demonstrated by 1 Kings 13. To give an overview of the passage, “a man of God” (as the passage describes him) from Judah went to Jeroboam (the first king of Israel after the civil war that divided Israel and Judah) and prophecied against him because Jeroboam was sacrificing to idols. After he did this, Jeroboam was afraid and asked the man of God to come to his house and refresh himself, but the man of God said, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place, for so was it commanded me by the word of the LORD saying, ‘You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came’” (1 Kings 13:7-9).
The man of God then departed. As he left, an old prophet who lived in Bethel heard about this man of God and tracked him down. When he found the man, he said, “Come home with me and eat bread” (vs. 15). The man of God declined and stated the commandment of God for his reason. The old prophet then responded: “I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water’” (vs. 18). This, however, was a lie. The old prophet had received no such message from God.
The man of God, however, listened to the old prophet. And when he had eaten with the old prophet, the old prophet cried out to the man of God from Judah and he said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD and have not kept the command that the LORD your God commanded you, but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water” your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers’” (vs. 21-22). After this, the man of God departed and when he was on the road to return to Judah, he was slain by a lion. The old prophet then picked up the body of the man of God and buried him in his own grave, instructing his sons to bury him by the man of God when he died too.
At first glance, this story doesn’t seem very fair. The old prophet lied to the man of God, and it is the man of God who ends up being punished for believing the lie. And that’s precisely the reason why this passage applies to the idea of Sola Scriptura and extra-biblical authority. The Bible is clear in stating that what it teaches is truth. Each of us is responsible to understand and obey those commands in Scripture. Even if someone happens to be a prophet from God–a man who actually receives revelation from God!–that does not make him authoritative over the commands of God.
In short, what this passage shows is that each of us are responsible to believe correct doctrine, and each of us will be held accountable for not believing the truth. This is irregardless of what any other man says, even if he claims to be speaking for God, and even if at some times he does speak from God, as the old prophet did. We are each responsible to know what God has actually commanded, and being deceived by a lie is no excuse for our disobedience. As such, any extra-Biblical authority that you submit to is irrelevant in determining your status before God. You either obey Him or you disobey Him, and no extra-biblical authority will be able to save you if you have disobeyed God’s commands.
