The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contains all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.
In Scripture alone we are to search for God’s words to us. God considers what he has told us in the Bible to be enough for us. Paul wrote to Timothy, “from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 3:15). These sacred writings means the written words if Scripture. This means that the words of God which we have in Scriptures are all the words of God we need in order to be saved! This is confirmed by other passages that talk about the words of Scripture as the means God used to bring us to salvation. (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23).
We realize that we will never perfectly obey all of the Scriptures in this life. It may not at first seem very significant to say that all we have to do is what God commands us in the Bible, since we will never be able to obey it all in the life. But the truth of the sufficiency of Scripture is of great significance for our Christian lives, for it enables us to focus our search for God’s words to us on the Bible alone and saves us from the endless task of searching through all the writings of Christians throughout history, or through all the teachings of the church, or through all the subjective feelings that come to our minds from day to day in order to find what God required of us. This means that we are able to come to clear conclusions on many teachings of Scripture.
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture has several practical applications to our Christians lives. Here is a list of 7, but this is not an exhaustive list.
1) The sufficiency of Scripture should encourage us as we try to discover what God would have us to think or to do in a particular situation. We should be encouraged that everything God wants to tell us is to be found in Scripture.
As we go through life, frequent practice in searching Scripture for guidance will result in an increasing ability to find accurate, carefully formulated answers to our problems and questions.
2) The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that we are to add nothing to Scripture and that we are to consider no other writings of equal value to Scripture. Christian Scientists claim to believe the Bible, but in practice they hold the book Science and Health With a Key to the Scriptures on par with Scriptures or above it in authority. Since these claims violate God’s commands not to add to his words, we should not think that any additional words from God to us would be found in these writings. Even in Christian churches a similar error is sometimes made when people go beyond what Scripture says and assert with great confidence new ideas about God or heaven, basing their teachings not on Scripture but on their own speculation.
3) The sufficiency of Scripture also tells us that God does not require us to believe anything about himself or his redemptive work that is not found in Scripture.
4) The sufficiency of Scripture shows us that no modern revelations from God are to be placed on a level equal to Scripture in Authority. At various times throughout the history of the church, and particularly in the modern charismatic movement, people have claimed that God has given revelations through them for the benefit of the church. However we may evaluate these claims, we must be careful never to allow the placings of such revelations on a level equal to Scripture. We must insist that God does not require us to believe anything about himself or his word in the world that is contained in these revelations and not in Scripture. The Bible contains all the words of God we need for trusting and obeying him perfectly.
5) With regard to living the Christian life, the sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that nothing is sin that is not forbidden by Scripture either explicitly or by implication. We are not to add prohibitions to those already stated in Scripture. From time to time there may be situations in which it would be wrong, for example, for an individual Christian, to attend a movie theater, or to eat meat offered to idols, but unless some specific teachings or some general principle of Scripture can be shown to prohibit these (or other activities) for all believers for all time, we must insist that these activities are not in themselves sinful and they are not in all situations prohibited by God for his people.
6) The sufficiency of Scripture also tells us that nothing is required of us by God that is not commanded in Scripture either explicitly or by implication. This reminds us that the focus of our search for God’s will ought to be on Scripture, rather than on seeking guidance through prayer for changed circumstances or altered feelings or direct guidance from the Holy Spirit apart from Scripture. It also means that if someone claims to have a message from God telling us what we ought to do, we need never assume that it is sin to disobey such a message unless it can be confirmed by the application of Scripture itself to our situation.
7) The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that in our doctrinal and ethical teachings we should emphasize and be content with what God has told us in Scripture.
The doctrinal matters that have divided evangelical Protestants denominations from one another have almost uniformly been matters on which the Bible places relatively little emphasis, and matters in which our conclusions must be drawn from skillful inference much more that from direct biblical statements. For example, denominational differences have occurred or have been maintained over the proper form of church government, the exact nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper, the exact sequence of the events surrounding Jesus return, the proper subjects for baptism, and so forth.
We should not say that these issues are all unimportant, nor should we say that Scripture gives no solution to any of them. However, since all of these topics receive relatively little direct emphasis in Scripture, it is ironic and tragic that denominational leaders will so often give much of their lives to defending precisely the minor doctrinal points that make their denominational differences from others.