Chapter 1 Part 6 The Sufficiency of Scripture

OUTLINE

Completeness of scripture
Cessation of scripture
Illumination of scripture
Principles of scripture

INTRODUCTION

A challenge that every Christian faces is the question whether the bible is enough. In every age there is a challenge to the sufficiency of scripture. The Bible and … was a challenge that was faced at the time of the Reformation. On the one hand you had the Roman Catholic Church saying that the Bible and Tradition was necessary for the Christian; from another side you had the Anabaptist accusing the Reformers of having a dead letter, they were encouraging mystical experiences, prophecies, visions and dreams in addition to the Bible; from another side were the rationalists like the Socinians who denied historic Christian beliefs like the Trinity and original sin whose preconceived notions were brought to bear upon the Bible. Tradition, so called spiritual experiences, reason these were all challengers to the sufficiency of scripture. Today we have seen other contenders, psychology and the Bible, science and the Bible, critical race theory and the Bible, communism and the Bible. The devil attacked God’s word in the garden and has not stopped. Paragraph 6 of chapter 1 is the reformed response to these challengers affirming the sufficiency of scripture.

We will be looking at this paragraph under four headings. Completeness of scripture; Cessation of scripture; Illumination of scripture; Principles of scripture.