Perhaps the best antidote to rejecting sola scriptura and going back to Rome would be a careful study of the Book of Hebrews. It describes a situation that is analogous to that which evangelicals face today. The Hebrew Christians were considering going back to temple Judaism. Their reasons can be discerned by the admonitions and warnings in Hebrews. The key problem for them was the tangibility of the temple system, and the invisibility of the Christian faith. Just about everything that was offered to them by Christianity was invisible: the High Priest in heaven, the tabernacle in heaven, the once for all shed blood, and the throne of grace. At the end of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews points out that they have come to something better than mount Sinai: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24). All of these things are invisible.
But the life of faith does not require tangible visibility: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). The Roman Catholic Church has tangibility that is unmatched by the evangelical faith, just as temple Judaism had. Why have faith in the once-for-all shed blood of Christ that is unseen when you can have real blood (that of the animals for temple Judaism and the Eucharistic Christ of Catholicism)? Why have the scriptures of the Biblical apostles and prophets who are now in heaven when you can have a real, live apostle and his teaching Magisterium who can continue to speak for God? The similarities to the situation described in Hebrews are striking. Why have only the Scriptures and the other means of grace when the Roman Church has everything from icons to relics to cathedrals to holy water and so many other tangible religious articles and experiences?
I urge my fellow evangelicals to seriously consider the consequences of rejecting sola scriptura as the formal principle of our theology. If my Hebrews analogy is correct, such a rejection is tantamount to apostasy.
One small reason for this is evangelical orgs like the Navigators hiring people like Brennan Manning to be their chief (false) teacher.
Great points.
Thanks.
Thanks for the ping to this article. For a short while this morning, I looked for an excellent post made by Alamo Girl on another thread--now 5,000+ posts long. I could not find it, but I remember that the post was about how Catholics emphasize the physical/tangible and how non-Catholic Christians emphasize the spiritual.
In a society that needs constant sensual stimulation, is it any wonder that people would desire physical/tangible in worship? God knows the difficulty of loving an unseen spiritual being. In fact, we cannot love him unless he first loves us. And after that first love, we need the Holy Spirit to work in us through his word that we may continue to love what only can be seen by faith.
“The Roman Catholic Church has tangibility”
Why not the Eastern Orthodox....I think they have more tangeability to claim to be “Christ’s Church” than the Vatican does?!