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Tradition

Handout #9   11/9/14

I. Introduction
A. Last week we spoke about the Roman Catholic (RC) and Eastern Orthodox (EO) objections to Sola Scriptura.
B. This week: summarize the debate between RC/EO and Protestant/Reformed Christians over tradition
C. Holy Tradition — Holy Tradition “to an Orthodox Christian ... it means the books of the Bible; it means the Creed; it means the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils and the writings of the Fathers; it means the Canons, the Service Books, the Holy Icons — in fact, the whole system of doctrine, Church government, worship, and art which Orthodoxy has articulated over the ages. The Orthodox Christian of today sees himself as heir and guardian to a great inheritance received from the past, and he believes that it is his duty to transmit this inheritance unimpaired to the future.” (Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church)
II. The Protestant idea of Sola Scriptura has often been misunderstood or misrepresented by RC/EO as not valuing tradition.
A. Last week we said that Sola Scriptura doesn’t mean that Scripture alone is our source of truth or understanding. Rather, Sola Scriptura means that the Bible is the only infallible authority of truth:
1. WCF 1:10 “The supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.”
B. Sola Scriptura does not mean that we despise tradition.
1. WCF 31:3 “All synods or councils since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as a help in both.”
2. The councils are to be used as a help. That’s not rejection of tradition; that’s appreciation of tradition.
3. The Reformers themselves produced a large number of creeds and catechisms.
C. So, we don’t repudiate tradition. We are grateful for tradition. We just don’t believe it’s infallible. So, if the Bible contradicts a certain tradition, we say the Scripture must be given primacy.
D. The debate isn’t about whether tradition is good or bad, as any RC/EO who has spent much time around evangelicals should know. So, disregard any RC/EO arguments promoting the value of tradition. That’s not the point.
E. E.g. in the PCA: we don’t keep going back and reinventing the wheel by re-proving every doctrine from Scripture every time someone questions a doctrine. So, in that sense there is a tradition. And that tradition is reflected in our constitutional documents, the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) & Catechisms. And we try to persuade people that these doctrinal traditions are Biblical. But if someone thinks they are not Biblical, we tell them they must believe what God says in His word above what any man teaches. And if someone wants to change something in these documents, it will be changed if the group can be persuaded that the Scriptures warrant the change.
III. It’s true that Reformation Christians have little or no regard for tradition that is separate from Scripture.
A. “So when a Protestant comes and says, Why do you do it that way? Where in the Bible does it say you have to immerse three times, make the sign of the cross in this way, have communion in this way and at these times, have Bishops, priests and deacons, adhere to these beliefs and on and on? We say we know these things because they have always been done this way and this is what we have received, what was delivered to us. This is the Catholic Faith, the mind of the Fathers, the Apostolic Deposit.” (Father Patrick)
B. But Reformed churches have always had a high regard for tradition re: the interpretation of Scripture.
C. We believe in the institution of teaching in the church. And the teacher is able to teach because he’s been taught. And the tradition of how the Bible’s been interpreted and taught over the centuries is our first outside resource to go to. In many ways, tradition helps us to interpret the Bible correctly. But even so, we don’t believe there’s any reason to consider it infallible.
D. This is in contrast to the way we are often misunderstood or misrepresented by RC/EO: “Protestants tend to interpret according to traditions. That is, there is a certain consistency among most Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc. because they are following their own teachers in the faith. Thus, they violate their own principle every time a sermon or Bible class is taught, because in all those cases, a teacher is presuming to tell someone else how to read the Bible.” (Father Patrick)
E. E.g. the ancient creeds
1. Background: in the first millennium of the church, there were a number of church-wide councils which formulated creeds, defining especially the doctrine of the Trinity and the natures of Christ. RC/EO and Protestants agree with these creeds. However, there’s an important difference.
2. RC/EO believe in the doctrines because they’re in the creeds. We believe in the same doctrines but for a different reason. We believe them not because they’re in the creeds but because we believe these creeds accurately articulate what is in the Bible.
3. But that doesn’t mean we think of these things as infallible. And that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in Sola Scriptura. If I believe the Bible says A while the WCF says B, I would believe the Bible and not the WCF, even if it means I can no longer be an officer in the PCA.
IV. To justify their view of tradition, RC/EO argue that Jesus taught and did many things which were not recorded in the Bible citing passages like John 21:25 “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (Cf. Acts 1:3; 20:13; 2John 12; 1Cor.11:34)
A. Three responses
1. So, what sayings of Jesus do you have from tradition which aren’t in the NT? What miracles which He performed? What parables He told? I’d love to hear them. If you don’t have any, what’s the point of the argument?
2. The same thing could be said about the OT. There were a number of prophets of which we have no written record of their prophecies. Does this mean that there’s an oral tradition somewhere passing down this info?
3. The fact is, much of what God has spoken is not in Scripture. But we trust that God providentially included everything we needed in the books of the Old and New Testaments. Sometimes God has something to say to one person or group that we don’t all need to hear.
V. To justify their view of tradition, RC/EO also point to the tradition of the Jews as an historical precedent for their concept of Holy Tradition.
A. There actually was something quite similar and parallel to the RC/EO view of Holy Tradition in the OT. The OT Jews had a body of traditions which grew over the years alongside the Scriptures, which eventually came to be called the Talmud. It contained the ideas and interpretations of the great rabbis and schools of thought. It was an official written record of the oral tradition of God’s people in the OT. It was considered authoritative by the Jews.
B. RC/EO argue that the Jews were right to rely on tradition. I’ve even heard them refer to the tradition of the Jews as Holy Tradition.
C. But, as I said in a sermon in August, when Jesus came, there were many vastly different parties among the Jews. Jesus didn’t come rebuking them for not following the traditions. He rebuked them for not listening to the Scripture. In fact, He rebuked them for being tradition-oriented instead of listening to Scripture:
1. Mark 7:8–13 “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men...You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! ... thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
VI. Another important RC/EO argument used for Holy Tradition (and against Sola Scriptura) is that the NT repeatedly urges God’s people to believe and obey the tradition of the apostles.
A. They are correct that there ARE several times the NT epistles refer to tradition in a positive sense:
1. 2Thessalonians 2:15 “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.”
2. 2Thessalonians 3:6 “We command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.”
3. 1Corinthians 11:2 “Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.”
B. The Greek word for tradition is a combination of the word for ‘give’ and the word for ‘over.’ The places where the noun is used just refer, then, to that which is passed along from one person to another. The verb, on the other hand, means to hand something over to someone else, to pass something on to another person. The verbal form is used in a positive sense at times in the NT as well:
1. 1Corinthians 11:23 “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread...”
2. 1Corinthians 15:3 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures...”
C. Although the Greek words are different, the same idea is contained in other verses:
1. 1Timothy 6:20 “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.”
2. 2Timothy 1:14 “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”
3. Titus 1:9 “He [an overseer] must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”
D. Here’s what we think is going on:
1. Down through history, God has at times spoken infallibly to mankind through human prophets, vessels through which He has revealed Himself and His will. While those prophets were alive and delivering God’s prophetic messages, their messages were to be received by God’s people as authoritative. Many people, of course, did not hear the message directly from the prophet himself/herself. The message was passed along from one person to another, and each one who heard it was still responsible to listen to it and obey it. For a time, this oral tradition was the only form in which the messages of the prophet existed. And during this time the people of God were responsible to maintain, hold onto, and stand firm on the prophetic tradition they had received and to disapprove of those who were not willing to walk in accord with these traditions.
2. At some point, it was the will of God for these messages to be written down. (We all know that written transmission is generally more reliable in terms of preservation than oral transmission. The story of Josiah shows that the written word can be preserved even when there is no one alive preserving the oral tradition.) These written words were recognized as carrying the same weight and authority as the audible words of the prophet.
E. There is no reason for us to conclude that the revelations of the apostles should be treated any differently. At first, the oral “tradition” which Jesus began and was proclaimed by the apostles was the only form in which this revelation existed. So, it does not surprise us to find commands in some of Paul’s early epistles to maintain the traditions they had received from the apostle.
1. But over the years, God in His wisdom ordained for these things to be recorded in written form, through the epistles, through the gospels, etc. So, gradually over the years of the apostles, the need for passing along their teaching through oral tradition faded as the copies of their writings began to permeate the churches. And once the apostles died, their teachings preserved in their writings, the emphasis shifts from the oral tradition to the writings, the Scriptures.