Sola Scriptura: A Provably False Doctrine

Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you - 1 Corinthians 11:2

In Matthew 23:1-7 Jesus tells His followers to listen to the Pharisees, and notes that their sins are in binding up heavy burdens that they themselves refuse to carry, and pride. 

“Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men...”

It is very noteworthy that Jesus affirms that the Pharisees have authority to tell people what to do and practice, and he tells His followers to obey them because they are the lawful authority at that time. They sat in Moses’ Seat. Jesus’ followers were to obey them, even when they sinned, just as Christians must obey Church authority even when Bishops sin, and the Israelites had to obey King David even when he sinned. But what is the Seat of Moses the Pharisees sit on?

Moses created the Pharisees in Exodus 18. Moses had the authority to interpret Scripture (what little of it was written at that point), and judge the people of Israel, and guide them spiritually. Whenever people had a dispute about what God wanted, or a religious question, they took it to Moses because he had the authority to decide these matters from God. Eventually, it got to be too much for him, and he was worn out. His father-in-law, Jethro, advised him to select and teach a group of trustworthy men to help him, and imbue those men with authority. They “sat on the seat of Moses.” As Exodus 18:13-27 states:

On the morrow Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood about Moses from morning till evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand about you from morning till evening?” And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God and his decisions.” Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you; you are not able to perform it alone. Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God, and bring their cases to God; and you shall teach them the statutes and the decisions, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover choose able men from all the people, such as fear God, men who are trustworthy and who hate a bribe; and place such men over the people as rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times; every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves; so it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.” So Moses gave heed to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all times; hard cases they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went his way to his own country.

Protestants like to point to the Bereans as an example of Sola Scriptura somehow being true during the Old Covenant, but the Bereans were bound by the Seat of Moses as to how they could interpret Scripture. St. Paul also had the authority to interpret Scripture, as the Seat of Peter, which we will get to shortly, is similarly delegated to trustworthy men, namely the Bishops (and St. Paul was an Apostle, those whom the Bishops are successors of). 

The Seat of Moses was represented by a literal rock outside of a Synagogue that was fashioned into the shape of a chair. Whenever a Pharisee sat on this rock and began to teach, it signified that he was teaching in an authoritative manner. 

In Matthew 16, Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, which means rock (or Cephas in Aramaic). Matthew 16:18-19 reads:

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

In doing this, Jesus was proclaiming that the Church would be built upon the Chair of St. Peter. He also proclaimed that St. Peter would be the Prime Minister of the Church. That’s what the keys signify. In Isaiah 22, King Hezekiah made Eliakim the Prime Minister of Judah. The Prime Minister in Old Testament times wore the Keys of the Kingdom as a sign to the others at Court that he was the ruler in the King’s absence. 

“In that day I will call my servant Eli′akim the son of Hilki′ah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.”

As Moses was God’s chosen leader, or Prime Minister, on earth, and the Pharisees were Moses’ chosen “bishops,” Moses was a sort of original “father” or first  “Pope.” Jesus did away with the Old Covenant Seat of Moses, and established the New Covenant Seat of Peter. Thus, St. Peter and his Apostles have the authority to loose and bind as the Pharisees once did, and the authority to interpret Scripture. They must be obeyed, just like the Pharisees had to be obeyed. 

The New Testament tells us of one group that rejected the Pharisees, removed books from the Bible, established their own shorter Canon, and promoted all manner of heretical beliefs while claiming to still be Jews and following the ways of the Temple. This group was called the Sadducees, who were a sort of proto-Protestant sect. They were in protest against the Seat of Moses, refusing to acknowledge the Pharisees teaching authority. The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead, which is similar to the common Protestant rejection of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. The Sadducees saw things from a fleshly viewpoint, similar to how Protestants see the Eucharist. As the Protestant website Christianity.com points out, the Sadducees put “special emphasis on the first five books of Moses (the Torah), they believed the Bible, our Old Testament, was the only authority on matters of faith and life. Sadducees flatly rejected the Pharisee teaching that oral tradition was equal to Scripture in authority.”

Protestants are indeed the heirs of the Sadducees in many ways. As the Sadducees rejected the Chair of Moses, the Protestants reject the Chair of Peter. The Sadducees were foiled and embarrassed throughout the Book of Acts when they tried to persecute the Church (Acts 4:1-22; Acts 5:17-41; Acts 23:1-9). 

The Seat of Peter, like the former Seat of Moses, is the authority of the faith. Jesus did not give us a new religion. He gave us a New Covenant. A Covenant is a type of familial bond, or a family relationship. It’s not a contract in the modern sense of the term. Jesus did not abolish Judaism, He bought it to its ultimate fruition. This is why the heroes of the Old Testament are also canonized Saints. Adam and Eve are canonized Saints along with St. Peter, St. Mary, etc. Christianity is indeed a fulfilled, global version of what was Judaism for all nations, with a ministerial priesthood, altar, sacrifice, authoritative teaching office, and more. Since it’s global, the ceremonial law which kept the Israelites distinct from the peoples around them is no longer needed, but of course the moral law is still in effect. Protestantism looks very different from Catholicism, and the religion of the Old Testament times, just like the Sadducees were quite different from the Pharisees, who were the actual authority in their day, prior to the Apostles taking over teaching authority. 

On the Road to Emmeus in Luke 24, Jesus explained to two Disciples the proper interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the death and resurrection of the Messiah. He shared the Eucharist with them (verse 30) in the village they arrived at, and the rest of the 11 remaining Disciples (who would also be Apostles) and gave them a special ability to understand the Scriptures in Luke 24:45. Note that at the time, this was initially just the Old Testament, as the New Testament had not been written yet. This would enable them to carry out their duties. 

In the Book of Acts, the Ethiopian Eunuch could not understand the Scriptures he was reading. In Acts 8:30-31 he asked St. Phillip, an Apostle, to help him understand it:

“So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless some one guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”

St. Phillip had special enlightenment, and authority from God, delegate through the Chair of St. Peter the leader of the Twelve, to interpret Scripture faithfully. The Holy Spirit gave St. Peter and His Apostles, and their successors, the authority to faithfully teach and interpret Scripture, just as it once belonged to the Pharisees. Interpreting Scripture is not a private matter, but God gave the true interpretation to His Church, that way there would be unity. Without the Chair of Peter, there is extreme division and doctrinal chaos. The Protestants are like the Sadducees and Essenes, making up their own religion based on private interpretation of Scripture. Like the Sadducees and Essenes, they get a few things correct, but because they elevate themselves to the equal of St. Peter as the Sadducees elevated themselves to the equal of Moses they are ultimately gravely mistaken on key doctrines, and are not following God’s chosen authority figures. Sola Scriptura is not a Biblical or logical doctrine. I will leave you with this verse:

1 Timothy 3:15: “If I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.” The pillar and bulwark of the truth is the Catholic, or universal Church, not the Holy Bible, which is a product of the Catholic Church, and can only be authoritatively interpreted by the Seat of Peter, or the Pope and his Bishops. They took over from the Pharisees and the Seat of Moses, as Jesus Christ made clear.