Has the Bible Become an Obstacle to Our Salvation?

Eli Kittim

Just as religion has become an obstacle to our salvation——by mimicking redemption through sacraments and liturgical rituals——the Bible has also become a major stumbling block to our regeneration and rebirth, given that the experiences of the supernatural are often frowned upon in many academic circles. Having elevated the Bible to a position of supremacy over all books, traditions, councils, doctrines, denominations, beliefs, and philosophies——Protestants have created a deep-seated soteriological impediment to the regeneration of believers. Being held in the highest esteem as the supreme authority of Christianity, the Bible has been deemed as the only source of salvation. The doctrine that the Bible is all we need——because it equips us for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17)——is what Reformed theologians have dubbed the sufficiency of Scripture. But do we really have everything we need? Or is there something missing?

Putting aside, for the moment, the question of biblical inerrancy and infallibility, which is a whole other topic, how is scripture sufficient as the final authority for faith and godliness if Christ says that he will send the Holy Spirit to teach us (Jn 14:26), and that without the Holy Spirit indwelling us we do not belong to Christ? (Rom. 8:9). The Bible gets in the way of our salvation by not allowing us to obtain what we need in order to live a Christian life, namely, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! In other words, the Bible has become an obstacle to our salvation! Is the Bible a higher authority than the Holy Spirit? Jesus doesn't think so. He says in Jn 16:13:

     "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He
     will guide you into all the truth; for He will
     not speak on His own, but whatever He
     hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to
     you what is to come."

Yet, according to Protestantism, even though they don't articulate it in so many words, the Bible has, in some sense, replaced God. God can no longer speak apart from, or outside, the Bible. Scripture also trumps Jesus because it is scripture that is the final authority in dictating which spiritual expressions are "biblical" or not. That's because many reformed theologians are skeptical of spiritual experiences, given that they are, by and large, Cessationists in outlook. In other words, Jesus' spiritual relationship to human beings is not direct; it is indirect via the Bible. It has to be evaluated via the biblical lens. Put differently, we no longer believe in Jesus or God as realities or entities, which exist outside the Bible with the ability to communicate and transform our lives. No! According to mainstream academia, they interact with us only in, and through, the Bible. Thus, we only believe in the literary word of God. These divine beings only exist inside the Bible and not apart from it. Unfortunately, many Protestants are in love with a book, not the author of that book. Outside of that book, they don't seem to know its author. They only meet him via that book!

This is what the Reformed doctrine of sola scriptura has produced. It has cut us off from the person and work of the Holy Spirit. But this epistemology is completely bogus, as if God is incapable of speaking to us outside the Bible. By contrast, 1 Cor. 4:20 says: "For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." As Jesus observes: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (Mt. 15:8)!

It's as if God & Jesus are simply literary characters, in the Bible, whose powers and abilities are confined and subject to the authors' discretion. Accordingly, we don't have a personal relationship with Jesus; we have a personal relationship with the Bible! We don't know God apart from the Bible. That's the basic message, namely, that Christianity is not a spiritual but rather a literary religion! Reformed theology reduces Apocalyptic Christianity to literature! In so doing, it rejects the operations of the Holy Spirit. And yet, Charles Hodge, a reformed theologian——who argued forcefully for the authority of scripture——nevertheless wrote in his book, Systematic Theology: