Rome and Scripture
Of all the sources of the Roman apostasy, perhaps the most deep-rooted is the departure from the sole authority of Scripture. This is the fundamental error which underlies so many of the teachings and practices of Popery. In her perversion of the doctrine of Scripture, Rome has brought upon herself and her followers exposure to the two-fold curse pronounced in Revelation 22:18-19. For, in regarding her own unwritten traditions as possessing the same authority as Scripture, she has also, at the very same time, practically undermined what Scripture actually teaches. Rome’s doctrine was defined at the Council of Trent (1545-63) and forbids any interpretation of Scripture other than that which accords with her own traditions: “The saving truth and discipline of manners are contained in the written books and the unwritten traditions, which, having been received by the apostles from the mouth of Jesus Christ, or from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, by succession of time are come down to us . . . and preserved in the Catholic Church by continual succession”1.
The infamous assembly at Trent went on to state, “If any knowingly despises the said traditions, let him be accursed!” This, of course, remains the unchanging position of Romanism on the authority of Scripture and “tradition”. Such is the audacity of Rome that she even arrogates to herself the authority over Scripture which Scripture properly has over the Church. She makes the (Roman) Church itself to be the ground of Scripture’s authority whereas the true, Biblical position is that the Church of Christ is actually founded on Scripture.
In his treatise entitled The Divine Inspiration of Scripture, the Swiss pastor Louis Gaussen (1790-1863) described the devastating effects of Rome’s departure from the authority of the Word of God: “Millions and millions of immortal souls . . . though they carried with them intact and complete the New Testament, although they have not ceased to read it . . . every Lord’s Day, in thousands and thousands of churches for 1200 years, have been turned away from the fountains of life, have, like the Jews, ‘paid more attention to the words of the scribes than to those of the law’. . . .
“It is thus they have contrived, for twelve centuries, to maintain doctrines the most contrary to the Word of God, on the worship of images; on the exaltation of the priests; on their forced celibacy; on their auricular confession; on the absolution which they dare to give; on the magical power
1Council of Trent, first decree, session 4.
which they attribute even to the most impure among them, of creating his God with three Latin words”.
They also maintain unscriptural doctrines “on an ecclesiastical priesthood, of which Scripture has never said a word; on prayers to the dead; on the spiritual pre-eminence of the city which the Scripture has called Babylon; on the use of an unknown tongue in worship; on the celestial empire of the blessed but humble woman to whom Jesus Himself said, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ (Jn 2:4); on the mass; on the taking away of the cup; on indulgences; on purgatory; on the universal episcopate of an Italian priest; on the interdiction of meals”.
The result is “that just as people annul the sole priesthood of the Son of man by establishing other priesthoods by thousands, just as they annul His divinity by acknowledging thousands of demi-gods or dead men,2 present in all places, hearing throughout the whole earth the most secret prayers of human beings, protecting cities and kingdoms, working miracles in favour of their worshippers; just so, also, they annul the inspiration of the Scripture, by acknowledging by thousands other writings which share in its divine authority, and which surpass and swallow up its eternal infallibility!”3 This dreadful list of popish errors shows how departing from the sole authority of the Word of God leads to all manner of apostasy and evil. The Saviour’s own words are most apposite here, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition” (Mk 7:9). AWM