Protestants Accept the Bible Alone as the Divine Revelation of God’s Will: Not Church Traditions or Decrees of Church Councils or of Popes

As Protestants, we stand on the Bible. The Romanist says, “Well, the Bible can be understood only in the light of the teachings of the church.” But we maintain that God gave the Bible in order to instruct the church. He gave it through holy, inspired men in order to show the church how to behave and to make clear to them what the truth of God really is. Letter after letter in this New Testament is addressed to one or another of the different churches. There is a letter to the church in Rome, two letters to the church in Corinth, a letter to the churches in Galatia, a letter to the church in Ephesus and so on. These messages to the churches contain the truth that we as Christians need to know and we take our stand upon the statement of Chillingworth of old in the seventeenth century who, when he was challenged as to the ground of authority as recognized by Protestants, said this, “The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the religion of Protestants,” We dare to stand on that. And we are sure of this, that God’s Word will never fail us, because it comes from Him who is immutable.
We are told in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” Observe the Word of God; the Scripture is profitable for four things: “for doctrine”—for the unfolding of the divine truth; “for reproof” —to show where we are wrong; “for correction”—to show us how to get right; “for instruction in righteousness”—to show us how to keep right. And as we give heed to the Holy Scripture, not to the teaching of some body of men, however sacred their office may seem to be; as we give heed to the holy Scripture we may “become perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”