Reformation Monday: Sola Scriptura 2

Now that you have the basics on how the Lutherans read the Bible, we can figure out why Luther made such a big deal about Word Alone.  But it's not as easy as all that........


When Luther spoke about the Word....he was rarely speaking simply about the Bible.  He was speaking about Jesus: who is The Word.  Made Flesh.  Who dwelt among us.  (see John 1).  Jesus is the logos - a Greek word that means 'a means of communicating a meaning'.  When the writer of John uses it s/he means 'the embodiment of a concept'.  It doesn't mean just a 'word;' it is a word that when spoken becomes the thing it signifies.

And even if Jesus is 'just a word' then what word is he?  He is God's word of grace.  In fact, the graciousness of God's love for us, which is made flesh in the person of Jesus, is the key understanding of the Good News for Luther.  Luther said that we are justified by grace through faith and not by any works of our own.  (look up the 3rd chapter of Romans and read from there to begin to grasp where Luther got this).  It is that Word:  grace through faith ...which is the core of the message of God's love for humankind.  So first, The Word is that we are saved by grace through faith.  

The second understanding of The Word is Jesus:  we come to understand God's gracious love through the life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus the person, Son of God.  So, second, The Word = Jesus.

#3  The Word is the Bible.  We get to know all of this through the words of the Bible.  The Bible's primary purpose is to transmit this truth:  Jesus is God incarnate demonstrating in word, deed and life and death, the gracious love of God.  We read the Bible with this lens of God's love for us through Jesus.

And in the end, whatever we want to say about God and Jesus, we need to find some support for it within the scripture's message of Divine Love.  Sola Scriptura.  No building our doctrines on the teachings of some scholar and holding them as important as the message of the Bible.  No pronouncements from fallible humans which cannot be understood through the eyes of the Bible.  No human made rituals and traditions have the same authority as the Bible and its witness to God's great love as Creator for all of creation.  No tradition can get in the way of proclaiming God's great love either.

Whew!  It took us a long way to get here, but I think we have the basics.  God is revealed to us through the stories of people of faith, and most perfectly in the person of Jesus.  If you have a God question, go to the scriptures to seek an answer. Sola Scriptura.