Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Friday, February 25, 2022
Out of love for human beings made in the image of God, we Christians must oppose the well-funded political lobbyists determined to prevent trans people from having the care and help they need. And we need to take back the rhetoric of love, and in our attitudes and our actions toward those struggling with his pernicious form of politicized body dysmorphia, show that it is we who truly desire their safety and well-being.

Various LGBTQ+ groups have expressed outrage (is there any other idiom for expressing disagreement today?) over the British Equality and Human Rights Commission’s calls for Scotland to delay its move to “simplify” its criteria for gender recognition (i.e., make it easier for men and women to identify as the opposite sex and to enjoy legal protection thereof) and for England and Wales to slow down legislation outlawing “conversion therapy.”
Stonewall, the U.K.’s most prominent LGBTQ+ outfit could not contain its anger at this “attack on trans equality” and human rights. The LGBT Foundation went further, immediately cutting all ties with the EHRC. That Stonewall did not go quite that far might have something to do with the money that flows into its coffers from the British Conservative Party’s government.
In amidst the usual huffing and puffing about human rights, the LGBT Foundation statement contained the following paragraph:
“EHRC has ignored the experiences of trans and non-binary individuals who have undergone unnecessary trauma. They suggest that LGBTQ+ lives are up for debate and medical scrutiny. They disregard expert opinion and lived experience—a humiliating and dehumanizing action against our community with real-world consequences.”
Now, anyone who has ever reflected on the LGBTQ+ alliance knows that it is at best a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” a confected political mirage designed for one thing and one thing only: the displacement of the normative status of traditional sexual mores and notions of human identity. Other than that, the L, the G, and the B have next to nothing in common with the T and the Q (which does not even have a stable definition). The former all assume that biological sex is critical to identity. The latter repudiate that. And as the near-total cultural triumph of the movement approaches, it is not surprising that cracks in the edifice are starting to appear. We now find that even the EHRC is having doubts about the validity of lumping together matters of sexual orientation and gender identity in the campaign against the catch-all category of conversion therapy. Indeed, it should be patently obvious to anyone—gay or straight—that outlawing any attempt to change the mind of someone who thinks they are born in the wrong body is not following the science. Rather it is to force queer and gender theory on the medical profession under penalty of law.
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Scripture is truly a living and active Word and it takes a living and active God to interpret it rightly. Thankfully, the people of God made alive by the Spirit are given everything we need for life and godliness—both in the Scriptures and in the Spirit. 

Writing about Sola Scriptura in his book Biblical Authority After Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity, Kevin Vanhoozer notes that the reformation principle of Scripture Alone “implies the sufficiency of Scripture” (114). But then he asks and important question: “Sufficient for what?” What does the sufficiency of Scripture promise? And what does it mean?
To that question, he gives four answers—one negative and three positive. Here they are in abbreviated form.

Scripture is not sufficient for anything and everything that it may be called upon to do or describe.
“Scripture is sufficient for everything for which it was divinely inspired. ‘[My word] shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it’ (Isa. 55:11).”
“Scripture is materially sufficient (‘enough’) because God has communicated everything we need to know in order to learn Christ and live the Christian life: ‘all things that pertain to life and godliness’ (2 Pet. 1:3).”
Scripture is formally sufficient, which means when it comes to interpretation “Scripture interprets Scripture” so long as the interpretive community (i.e., the church) relies upon all the means of grace created by the Holy Spirit.

Understandably, these four answers need further elucidation, and in his chapter on “Scripture Alone,” Vanhoozer explains each point that I have abbreviated above. Here are a few quotes and explanations to help round a sufficient doctrine of Scripture’s sufficiency.
Four Aspects of Biblical Sufficiency
1. Sufficiency Caricatured
Introducing the topic, Vanhoozer asserts that Scripture is not sufficient for everything. He writes,
To say “Scripture is sufficient for everything—stock market investments, leaky faucets, clogged arteries—is to saddle it with unrealistic expectations, and eventually to succumb to naïve biblicism and the quagmire of pervasive interpretive pluralism.” (114)
Sadly, many have taken the Bible to address everything in creation. But this only creates more problems than it solves. Instead of overpromising what the Bible can do, we should read the Bible and learn what it says it can do.
2. Sufficiency Simpliciter 
If the Bible does not say that it is sufficient for everything, it does say what it is sufficient for—namely knowing God in Christ and how to live by faith in the promises of God.
Scripture is sufficient for everything for which it was divinely given: “[My word] shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11). Paul tells Timothy that Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). These verses help us see what sufficiency means and does not mean. The Bible is sufficient for the use that God makes of it, not for every use to which we may want it put. In John Webster’s words: “Scripture is enough. This is because Scripture is what God desires to teach” [Domain of the Word, 18]. Scripture is “enough” to learn Christ and the Christian life. (114)
Indeed, this is the simple answer to the question of what Scripture is sufficient for. However, Vanhoozer presses deeper to explain what “enough” means.
3. Material (or Doctrinal) Sufficiency
Going beyond the basic statement that Scripture is enough, Vanhoozer states,
Scripture is materially sufficient (“enough”) because God has communicated everything we need to know in order to learn Christ and live the Christian life: “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). Article VI of the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles makes exactly this point: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation.” The material sufficiency of Scripture excludes any possibility of Scripture needing an external supplement in order to achieve the purpose for which it was sent. The Westminster Confession forbids adding any new content to Scripture, “whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men,” thereby echoing statements in Scripture itself, such as Revelation 22:18: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described this book.” What God has authored is adequate for his communicative purpose: “Scripture is materially sufficient for the bearing of propositional content (the presentation of Jesus Christ as the means of salvation) and for the conveying of illocutionary force (the call or invitation to have faith in him)” (Timothy Ward, Word and Supplement, 205). (114–15)
In short, the Bible reveals everything necessary for knowing God and living before him (Coram Deo). Still, there is something else and Vanhoozer shows us that a full doctrine of Scripture must consider another kind of sufficiency—namely, one that grapples with the interpretation of Scripture, and not just its doctrinal content.
4. Formal (or Interpretive) Sufficiency
Acknowledging the difficulty of interpretation and the criticisms leveled against Protestants, especially those who ignore their confessional heritage, Vanhoozer states that material sufficiency does not “authorize its own interpretation, or to adjudicate between rival interpretations” (115). That is, affirming that Scripture contains all that is necessary for life and godliness is not the same thing as stating that all who read Scripture are sufficient to interpret correctly. We are not, and this is why many will criticize the Protestant principle of Sola Scriptura.
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Written by Mark J. Larson |
Sunday, May 12, 2024
The Jews, steeped in the mentality of legalism, once asked Jesus, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” (John 6:28). This is the typical question of the unsaved person who does not know the gospel: What work of righteousness shall I do? How can I be good enough to  enter heaven? Jesus’ response is crucially instructive: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29). Luther properly maintained, “The first, highest, and most precious of all good works is faith in Christ” (Treatise on Good Works). 

Legalism holds its grip upon the minds and hearts of countless numbers of people in our time. It was no different in the sixteenth century when Martin Luther drew a radical distinction between the gospel of grace and the legalism of all other religions outside of biblical Christianity. As Luther contemplated religions of works in his time, he immediately thought of Judaism, Islam as exemplified by the Ottoman Turks, late-medieval Roman Catholicism, and various heretical splinter groups. He declared in his Commentary on Galatians: “If the article of justification be once lost, then is all true Christian doctrine lost. And as many as are in the world that hold not this doctrine, are either Jews, Turks, Papists or heretics.”
Sad to say, the ancient Jewish leaven of legalism even infected the church in the first century. Let us reflect upon this phenomenon and then draw out some practical applications.
The Legalism of the Pharisees
The Pharisaic movement of the first century demonstrates the tendency of legalism to slide into fanatical excess. Even as Jesus pronounced woe upon the Pharisees, he reflected upon their lack of balance: “You tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23). As we read the Gospels, we are continually astounded. We are presented with blind, nitpicking fanatics who could not see the glory of the divine Messiah Jesus who ministered in their very midst. Jesus, for example, was “grieved by the hardness of their hearts” when “they kept silent” after he asked them a simple question, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4–5). Their response to Jesus healing a man with a withered hand was diabolical: “Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him” (Mark 3:6).
Paul acknowledges that he too had been an angry man, a violent aggressor, even while clothed with the garments of outward religiosity. His assessment was an insider’s perspective, for he himself had been a Pharisee, and “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless” (Philippians 3:6). He had excelled at dotting every letter i and crossing every letter t in the Pharisaic rule book of man-made religion. His heart, nevertheless, was far from God. He makes a startling admission for one who was “advanced in Judaism” beyond many of his contemporaries, “being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions” of the fathers (Galatians 1:14). He felt that he needed to make this confession: “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man” (1 Timothy 1:13). Indeed, he had consented to the murder of Stephen (Acts 8:1). He is presented as “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). He “persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13).
Grace, though, brought radical change. Paul became a new man. He came to embrace a truly Christian perspective regarding law righteousness, the righteousness that a person seeks to build up by meticulous keeping of the law of God and the tradition of the elders. This was a righteousness that tended to lead to pride and a spirit of self-congratulation. Jesus, in fact, spoke a parable in which he described a Pharisee who trusted in himself that he was righteous and viewed others with contempt: “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank you thatI am not like other men.” “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess” (Luke 18:9–12).
He came to regard his past religious achievements as dung—as the King James Version of 1611 translates the Greek skubalon in Philippians 3:8. Everything that he did by way of outward religious observance was tainted due to his unbelief. As he himself said, “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). He would have concurred with Jesus’ woe of judgment which rested upon hypocrites who outwardly appeared to be righteous before men, but inwardly were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:28). He knew that the way of salvation came by faith appealing for mercy.
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