I am starting to get into more doctrinal subjects in my blogs now. So, I am going to start talking about how to discern the truth from the Holy Scriptures.
One method that has obviously failed is the Sola Scriptura method. This is the method used by many people today. It involves using nothing but the Bible to interpret the Bible. Each person who uses this method believes that the Holy Spirit has led him or her to the correct understanding of particular texts of Scripture. The problem with this approach becomes apparent when one sees how many different and conflicting interpretations people who use this method have. They even come up with interpretations that the Church has condemned as heretical. For example, someone might look at I Corinthians 15:50 where St. Paul says "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God" and come up with the doctrine that there will no resurrection of the bodies of the dead at Christ's second coming. There are plenty of people who believe that is what St. Paul was saying in this verse. However, they do not know that they are interpreting it the same way the Gnostics did in ancient times. Another example is St. John 3:3-8. It says here:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (St. John 3:3-8)
Some people in modern times interpret the words "born of water" to mean "born in childbirth." They say that the word, "water," means amniotic fluid. They also teach that baptism is unimportant for a person's salvation. People who have this interpretation do not know that none of the Church Fathers interpreted those words that way. They also do not know that by saying that baptism is unimportant for a person's salvation they have adopted Pelagius' view of baptism. He did not think that baptism was important either and the Church condemned his teachings as heretical.
There are many other examples of false interpretations of Holy Scripture that people have gotten using the Sola Scriptura method of interpretation.
People who use this method often have conflicting interpretations. Each Sola Scriptura theologian thinks that he is right and everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. Each such person thinks that his interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures came from God and anyone who disagrees with him was not fortunate enough to have been led by the Holy Spirit into the correct understanding of the Scriptures.
All one has to do to see what is wrong with this approach to understanding the Bible is to look at all of the various Protestant denominations that have been popping up over the past one hundred years. Each one has its own pet interpretation of some passage of Scripture. The Primitive Baptists interpret the Bible to mean that God has chosen only an elect, select few to be saved and has allowed everyone else to go to eternal damnation. The Methodists say people have a free will and God wants to save everyone who is willing to be saved. The Church of Christ teaches that we are born again in the waters of baptism. The Baptists say that we are born again when we believe in Christ. The Presbyterians say that we should be baptized by sprinkling or pouring. The Baptists say that we should be baptized by immersion. The Baptists refuse to baptize babies. The Methodists and the Presbyterians do. Methodists say that a person can lose his salvation after having been saved. Baptists say that once a person believes in Christ his salvation is guaranteed and he can never lose his salvation. Lutherans say that Christ is in, with, and under the Bread and the Wine of the Eucharist. Baptists say that He is not. They say that the Lord's Supper is done in memory of Christ's death on the Cross and the Bread and the Wine merely represent symbolically His Body and Blood. Presbyterians agree with the Baptists, but they also say that people who receive Communion "feed on Christ by faith in their hearts." The Episcopalians teach apostolic succession and say that a minister must be ordained by a bishop who is a part of the historical lineage of bishops in order to be a legitimate minister of the Gospel. People who have formed "non-denominational" churches say that all that a man must have to be a valid minister of the Gospel is to have a call from God on his heart. Some Protestant denominations like the Methodists and the United Church of Christ ordain women to be ministers. Others like the Primitive Baptists say that God calls only men into the Gospel ministry. Anyway, there is a vast multiplicity of conflicting beliefs among those who use the Sola Scriptura approach to interpreting Holy Scripture.
There are some principles to interpretation that can be derived from the Holy Scriptures. One such principle is found in St. John's Gospel:
Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come. (St. John 16:13)
This verse is best understood along with these verses:
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. (II Peter 1:20)
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (I Tim. 3:15)
Holy Scripture should not be privately interpreted by any one particular individual. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth and the Holy Spirit leads people collectively into the truth. The people He leads into the truth are those who are part of the Church.
In Ephesians, it says:
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. (Eph. 4:4)
There is only one body, that is, one Church. In Ephesians chapter 1, St. Paul called the Church "His body." (Eph. 1:22, 23)
Another passage that pertains to this subject is in St. Matthew's Gospel. Christ said:
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. (St. Matthew 16:18)
The gates of Hell will not prevail against the one and only Church which is the pillar and ground of the truth. So then, there will be a continuous unbroken history of the Church going all the way back to the days of the apostles. There is one Church on Earth, then, that has always taught the truth.
Since the Holy Spirit has always guided the Church into truth and the Church has an unbroken history going back to the days of the apostles (The gates of Hell have not prevailed against it.), there are some other principles that we should use in discerning the truth. These principles are antiquity, universality, and consent. St. Vincent of Lerins wrote about these principles.
Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense “Catholic,” which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.
What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.
But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province? Then it will be his care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few. But what, if some error should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear? Then he must collate andconsult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in divers times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation. (The Commonitory, chapters 2 &3, written by St. Vincent of Lerins in about 434 A.D., vol. 11, pp. 132-133, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series)
The principles of antiquity and universality say that we should accept what has always been taught everywhere the apostles founded a church. The principle of consent says that we should accept what all or most of the respected teachers of the Church teach. The respected teachers of the Church are the Church Fathers. None of the Church Fathers taught, for example, that the expression, "born of water," means "born of amniotic fluid." So then, that interpretation of Christ's words in St. John 3:5 is false. None of the Church Fathers taught that our salvation is permanently guaranteed after we believe in Christ. So then, that teaching is clearly false.Another verse bearing on this subject is found in Acts.
Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole Church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren: and they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia: forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the Law: to whom we gave no such commandment: it seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. (Acts 15:22-28)
At the Council of Jerusalem, the apostles and elders (presbyters) who met at this council reached a decision on a matter with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That is why they said in their letter to the Gentile Christians, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us." The Holy Spirit guides the Church into truth through Church councils.
There is a saying among us Orthodox: "The Church as a whole cannot err." Whenever there is a worldwide Church council and the decisions of the council are accepted by the vast majority of the clergy and laity, there is an Ecumenical Church Council. The doctrinal decisions of such councils were written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and are viewed by Orthodox Christians as infallible statements of doctrinal truth. There have been seven Ecumenical Church Councils. There have also been some regional councils that have canons that have been accepted by an Ecumenical Council.
So then, using the principle of conciliar infallibility we can make sure that we do not come up with a false interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. As to the issue of infant baptism, for example, we should interpret the Scriptures to be teaching that this practice is correct. In Canon XC of the Council of Carthage (419 A.D.), it says:
Likewise it seemed good that whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother’s wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema.
For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, “By one man sin is come into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed upon all men in that all have “sinned” (Rom. 5:12), than the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith (regulam fidei) even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by regeneration. (Canon XC, Council of Carthage, 419 A.D., vol. 14, pp. 496-497, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series)
As to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, we should be in agreement with this canon and say that the Bible teaches this doctrine. The canons of this Council of Carthage were accepted by the Second Canon of the Quinisext Council in 692 A.D. The issue regarding the baptism of infants and the doctrine of baptismal regeneration have already been accepted by the Church as a whole. There is no more need, then, to debate these issues. The Holy Spirit has already spoken through the Church.
There is a documented history in the writings of the Church Fathers that indicates that the Church has always taught that the Eucharist is Christ's Body and Blood and not just a mere symbol with a memory attached to it. So then, the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is true.
The Church Fathers taught the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the Second Ecumenical Church Council affirmed this doctrine to be true. So then, we should not interpret I Cor. 15:50 to be teaching that our bodies will not be resurrected.
In future blogs, I will write more about these subjects. I just wanted to mention these principles of interpretation of Holy Scripture before I start discoursing any further on God's plan for redeeming man.
Steve
Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., volumes 1-10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. & Henry Wace, D.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
One method that has obviously failed is the Sola Scriptura method. This is the method used by many people today. It involves using nothing but the Bible to interpret the Bible. Each person who uses this method believes that the Holy Spirit has led him or her to the correct understanding of particular texts of Scripture. The problem with this approach becomes apparent when one sees how many different and conflicting interpretations people who use this method have. They even come up with interpretations that the Church has condemned as heretical. For example, someone might look at I Corinthians 15:50 where St. Paul says "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God" and come up with the doctrine that there will no resurrection of the bodies of the dead at Christ's second coming. There are plenty of people who believe that is what St. Paul was saying in this verse. However, they do not know that they are interpreting it the same way the Gnostics did in ancient times. Another example is St. John 3:3-8. It says here:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (St. John 3:3-8)
Some people in modern times interpret the words "born of water" to mean "born in childbirth." They say that the word, "water," means amniotic fluid. They also teach that baptism is unimportant for a person's salvation. People who have this interpretation do not know that none of the Church Fathers interpreted those words that way. They also do not know that by saying that baptism is unimportant for a person's salvation they have adopted Pelagius' view of baptism. He did not think that baptism was important either and the Church condemned his teachings as heretical.
There are many other examples of false interpretations of Holy Scripture that people have gotten using the Sola Scriptura method of interpretation.
People who use this method often have conflicting interpretations. Each Sola Scriptura theologian thinks that he is right and everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. Each such person thinks that his interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures came from God and anyone who disagrees with him was not fortunate enough to have been led by the Holy Spirit into the correct understanding of the Scriptures.
All one has to do to see what is wrong with this approach to understanding the Bible is to look at all of the various Protestant denominations that have been popping up over the past one hundred years. Each one has its own pet interpretation of some passage of Scripture. The Primitive Baptists interpret the Bible to mean that God has chosen only an elect, select few to be saved and has allowed everyone else to go to eternal damnation. The Methodists say people have a free will and God wants to save everyone who is willing to be saved. The Church of Christ teaches that we are born again in the waters of baptism. The Baptists say that we are born again when we believe in Christ. The Presbyterians say that we should be baptized by sprinkling or pouring. The Baptists say that we should be baptized by immersion. The Baptists refuse to baptize babies. The Methodists and the Presbyterians do. Methodists say that a person can lose his salvation after having been saved. Baptists say that once a person believes in Christ his salvation is guaranteed and he can never lose his salvation. Lutherans say that Christ is in, with, and under the Bread and the Wine of the Eucharist. Baptists say that He is not. They say that the Lord's Supper is done in memory of Christ's death on the Cross and the Bread and the Wine merely represent symbolically His Body and Blood. Presbyterians agree with the Baptists, but they also say that people who receive Communion "feed on Christ by faith in their hearts." The Episcopalians teach apostolic succession and say that a minister must be ordained by a bishop who is a part of the historical lineage of bishops in order to be a legitimate minister of the Gospel. People who have formed "non-denominational" churches say that all that a man must have to be a valid minister of the Gospel is to have a call from God on his heart. Some Protestant denominations like the Methodists and the United Church of Christ ordain women to be ministers. Others like the Primitive Baptists say that God calls only men into the Gospel ministry. Anyway, there is a vast multiplicity of conflicting beliefs among those who use the Sola Scriptura approach to interpreting Holy Scripture.
There are some principles to interpretation that can be derived from the Holy Scriptures. One such principle is found in St. John's Gospel:
Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come. (St. John 16:13)
This verse is best understood along with these verses:
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. (II Peter 1:20)
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (I Tim. 3:15)
Holy Scripture should not be privately interpreted by any one particular individual. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth and the Holy Spirit leads people collectively into the truth. The people He leads into the truth are those who are part of the Church.
In Ephesians, it says:
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. (Eph. 4:4)
There is only one body, that is, one Church. In Ephesians chapter 1, St. Paul called the Church "His body." (Eph. 1:22, 23)
Another passage that pertains to this subject is in St. Matthew's Gospel. Christ said:
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. (St. Matthew 16:18)
The gates of Hell will not prevail against the one and only Church which is the pillar and ground of the truth. So then, there will be a continuous unbroken history of the Church going all the way back to the days of the apostles. There is one Church on Earth, then, that has always taught the truth.
Since the Holy Spirit has always guided the Church into truth and the Church has an unbroken history going back to the days of the apostles (The gates of Hell have not prevailed against it.), there are some other principles that we should use in discerning the truth. These principles are antiquity, universality, and consent. St. Vincent of Lerins wrote about these principles.
Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense “Catholic,” which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.
What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.
But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province? Then it will be his care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few. But what, if some error should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear? Then he must collate andconsult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in divers times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation. (The Commonitory, chapters 2 &3, written by St. Vincent of Lerins in about 434 A.D., vol. 11, pp. 132-133, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series)
The principles of antiquity and universality say that we should accept what has always been taught everywhere the apostles founded a church. The principle of consent says that we should accept what all or most of the respected teachers of the Church teach. The respected teachers of the Church are the Church Fathers. None of the Church Fathers taught, for example, that the expression, "born of water," means "born of amniotic fluid." So then, that interpretation of Christ's words in St. John 3:5 is false. None of the Church Fathers taught that our salvation is permanently guaranteed after we believe in Christ. So then, that teaching is clearly false.Another verse bearing on this subject is found in Acts.
Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole Church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren: and they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia: forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the Law: to whom we gave no such commandment: it seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. (Acts 15:22-28)
At the Council of Jerusalem, the apostles and elders (presbyters) who met at this council reached a decision on a matter with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That is why they said in their letter to the Gentile Christians, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us." The Holy Spirit guides the Church into truth through Church councils.
There is a saying among us Orthodox: "The Church as a whole cannot err." Whenever there is a worldwide Church council and the decisions of the council are accepted by the vast majority of the clergy and laity, there is an Ecumenical Church Council. The doctrinal decisions of such councils were written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and are viewed by Orthodox Christians as infallible statements of doctrinal truth. There have been seven Ecumenical Church Councils. There have also been some regional councils that have canons that have been accepted by an Ecumenical Council.
Just as this woman sifts grain from chaff, so we too can sift truth from error by using the principles of antiquity, universality, consent, and conciliar infallibility.
So then, using the principle of conciliar infallibility we can make sure that we do not come up with a false interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. As to the issue of infant baptism, for example, we should interpret the Scriptures to be teaching that this practice is correct. In Canon XC of the Council of Carthage (419 A.D.), it says:
Likewise it seemed good that whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother’s wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema.
For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, “By one man sin is come into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed upon all men in that all have “sinned” (Rom. 5:12), than the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith (regulam fidei) even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by regeneration. (Canon XC, Council of Carthage, 419 A.D., vol. 14, pp. 496-497, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series)
As to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, we should be in agreement with this canon and say that the Bible teaches this doctrine. The canons of this Council of Carthage were accepted by the Second Canon of the Quinisext Council in 692 A.D. The issue regarding the baptism of infants and the doctrine of baptismal regeneration have already been accepted by the Church as a whole. There is no more need, then, to debate these issues. The Holy Spirit has already spoken through the Church.
There is a documented history in the writings of the Church Fathers that indicates that the Church has always taught that the Eucharist is Christ's Body and Blood and not just a mere symbol with a memory attached to it. So then, the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is true.
The Church Fathers taught the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the Second Ecumenical Church Council affirmed this doctrine to be true. So then, we should not interpret I Cor. 15:50 to be teaching that our bodies will not be resurrected.
In future blogs, I will write more about these subjects. I just wanted to mention these principles of interpretation of Holy Scripture before I start discoursing any further on God's plan for redeeming man.
Steve
Bibliography
Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., volumes 1-10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. & Henry Wace, D.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
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