The Authority of Scripture

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 2 TIMOTHY 3:16

Lloyd-Jones began his ministry in an age when the Bible had lost its authority in most of the churches of Britain. The higher criticism of the nineteenth century had filtered down from the universities into the pulpits, and many ministers no longer believed that Scripture was the Word of God in any sense their grandparents would have recognised. Preaching had become, in many places, a matter of moral uplift, literary appreciation or comment on the events of the day. Against all of this Lloyd-Jones set himself with a single, unwavering conviction: the Bible is the Word of God, and the preacher’s whole business is to expound it.

The question of authority

He believed that the great question facing the church of his day was not evangelism or social action or unity, important as those were, but authority. On what basis does the church speak at all? If it speaks only on the basis of human opinion, it has nothing to say that the world cannot say better. If it speaks on the basis of the Word of God, it has everything to say. In a short book called Authority, published in the late 1950s, he set out the matter under three heads: the authority of Christ, the authority of Scripture and the authority of the Holy Spirit. The three stand together. Christ Himself received the Old Testament as the Word of His Father, and commissioned His apostles to speak in His name; the Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is the Spirit who illumines them.

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. MATTHEW 24:35

The Christian who takes Christ as Lord, he argued in effect, cannot take a lower view of Scripture than Christ took. The attempt to separate the authority of Jesus from the authority of the Bible fails at the first step, because it is from the Bible that we know Jesus at all, and because Jesus Himself submitted to its authority.

Scripture interprets Scripture

His reverence for the Bible was not blind. It shaped a careful method of reading. In the sermon on the prodigal son hosted on Ochorus, he lays down two principles that he followed everywhere. First, no passage may be interpreted in a way that contradicts the plain teaching of Scripture elsewhere, because the Bible is one revelation from one God, and there are no real contradictions in it, though there are many things we cannot fully understand. Second, one must not build doctrines on what a passage does not say. A parable, for instance, is given to teach one great positive lesson, and it is folly to argue that because the parable of the prodigal son does not mention the cross, the cross is unnecessary.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 2 PETER 1:20–21

He believed that most heresies would never have arisen if these two simple rules had been kept. They are worth any reader’s keeping still.

Expository preaching

His view of Scripture determined his whole approach to preaching. If the Bible is the Word of God, then the preacher’s task is not to find a text to hang his own ideas upon, but to let the text speak. That is why he preached consecutively through whole books, verse by verse. It kept the preacher from riding his hobby-horses. It compelled him to deal with passages he would otherwise have avoided. It taught the congregation to read the Bible for themselves. And it trusted the Word to do its own work.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. HEBREWS 4:12

He was not interested in exposition as a lecture, however. He was scathing about preachers who gave a running commentary on a passage and never applied it. Exposition, for him, meant taking the doctrine out of the text and pressing it home upon the hearer until he was confronted by God. The Word of God is not a museum piece to be admired. It is a living voice that calls for a response.

The Bible and the modern mind

He was often told that modern men could no longer believe the Bible, and he was unimpressed. In the sermon on the light of the world, he observes that the world has always spoken of its enlightenment, from the Renaissance through the eighteenth century to his own day, and that in spite of all its real advances in knowledge of the natural world, it knows no more than ever about the things that matter most — about God, about the soul, about how to live and how to die. The modern mind, he argued, is not the final court of appeal. The Word of God judges it, not the other way round.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:18

This did not make him anti-intellectual. He was a man of formidable learning, and he read widely in history, philosophy and science. But he refused to allow any human learning to sit in judgment on the Word of God. When the two appeared to conflict, he was prepared to wait, confident that it was human learning that would change.

Where care is needed

A high view of Scripture can be held in a way that is harsh or proud, as though holding the right doctrine of the Bible were the same as obeying it. Lloyd-Jones knew the difference, and warned against an orthodoxy that was dead. It is also worth saying that faithful Christians who share his conviction about Scripture have sometimes differed from him about particular interpretations — on prophecy, on the gifts of the Spirit, on church order — and that his own readings, like anyone’s, must be tested by the Word he loved. He would have been the first to insist on it.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. PSALM 119:105

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask honestly what is the final authority in your life: Scripture, your feelings, your church’s traditions, or the opinions of your age.

2. Choose one short book of the Bible and read it through this month, a little each day, from beginning to end.

3. Next time you find a passage you dislike, do not skip it. Ask what it says, why it says it, and what it requires of you.

4. When you hear a sermon, check whether the point of the sermon is the point of the text.

5. Memorise Hebrews 4:12 and pray it before you open your Bible each day this week.

A PRAYER

Lord God, You have spoken, and Your Word is truth. Forgive me for treating it as one voice among many.

Give me a humble mind, willing to be corrected by what You have said rather than correcting it by what I think.

Let Your Word be a lamp to my feet: not a subject I study but a voice I obey.

And raise up preachers who will open the Scriptures faithfully, that Your people may hear You speak. Amen.