Sermon Text: Various Passages

Below is a sermon manuscript from May 11, 2025. Watch the sermon here.

Introduction

Kevin DeYoung once wrote, 

“If authority is the liberal problem, clarity the postmodern problem, and necessity the problem for atheists and agnostics, then sufficiency is the attribute most quickly doubted by rank-and-file churchgoing Christians. We can say the right things about the Bible, even read it regularly, but when life gets difficult, or just a bit boring, we look for new words, new revelation, and new experiences to bring us closer to God. We feel rather ho-hum about the New Testament’s description of heaven, but we are mesmerized by the accounts of school-age children who claim to have gone there and back. From magazine articles about ‘My conversation with God,’ to best-selling books where God is depicted as giving special, private communications, we can easily operate as if the Bible were not enough. If we could only have something more than the Scriptures, then we would be really close to Jesus and know his love for us.

Unless, of course, the finality of Christ’s redemption for us is intimately tied to the finality of his revelation to us.”^[1]

The Bible Has All The Divine Words We Need

The sufficiency of Scripture might be defined as having all the divine words we need. The purpose of these divine words is laid out in our statement of faith as for salvation. 

Have you ever heard a professor say, “It’s in the syllabus.” Sometimes, there can be a frustration when questions are asked and the answer is right there in front of them. Sometimes we can be a little bit like the neglectful student. We have the Word of God and yet we don’t take time to read it, understand it, and then we get frustrated and think we need something else that we haven’t been given sufficient information.

One implication is that we don’t need more divine words

We don’t need additional divine words in order to bring us to a saving relationship with Christ and to live obedient lives before him. Sometimes you might hear someone state that if God were to show up before them and say, “I am God,” they would believe in him. But is that really the case? Is our hesitancy in coming to Christ a lack of God giving us the revelation that is necessary?

Luke 16:19-21

²⁹ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ ³⁰ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ ³¹ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

With this in mind, it is important that we realize the idea of Sola Scriptura. This is the principle that Scripture alone is our ultimate authority and guide. We will talk about this in more detail next week, but for now we should be aware of the danger of adding to a covenant document from God. There are warnings both in the Old Testament and the New Testament related to adding to the covenant document.

Deuteronomy 4:2

² You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.

Proverbs 30:5-6

Every word of God proves true;

he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

  ⁶    Do not add to his words,

lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

Revelation 22:18-19

¹⁸ I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, ¹⁹ and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Practical ways that we can fall into this trap have historically been seen twofold.

Error 1: Falsely claiming to have new words from God

In the Old Testament there is judgment upon those who claim to speak for God falsely. Deuteronomy 18:20-22

²⁰ But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ ²¹ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.^[2]

Galatians 1:8-9

⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

One of the tests of canonicity was that something had to align with the rule of faith. The main teachings of the Christian faith. Failing to do so was an indicator that a book was not inspired. We will talk more about this in a few weeks. For now, it is sufficient to acknowledge that some have claimed to have received direct words from God. These words have even been written down and gathered a following. Even in the 2^nd century there were people who claimed to be prophets and inspired by the Holy Spirit who taught that there was new revelation coming through them. This was known as Montanism and was quickly countered by the early church. As Hebrews teaches, Jesus is the true and perfect revelation of God and we have the perfect revelation of him in the Scriptures. Because redemption is complete in Christ so is the revelation of him complete by the Spirit in the Scriptures. Modern ways that could claim new or contrary revelation might include the Quran or the Book of Mormon. These books would both stand in contradiction to the sufficiency of Scripture and under the covenant curses.

Error 2: Regarding human tradition as the same level of authority as God’s Word

Another thing that has happened is that Christians have elevated tradition to a level it was never intended. The sufficiency of Scripture relates to the idea of Sola ,Scriptura. That Scripture alone is our ultimate authority. That no human words can be on the same level as divine words but must be measured by the divine words that we have in ScScripture.

This can happen with formal tradition and more informal traditions. Today is mother’s day and there can be a multitude of extra-Biblical commands and injunctions that are placed on moms. If you are faithful, if you love Jesus then you will do X,Y,Z. Maybe these are good and true and can be pursued, but it is easy to universalize a personal conviction in a way that binds conscience and harms others. 

The Bible Has All the Divine Words We Need for All of Life

One aspect of this that is important for us to realize is that the Bible is sufficient for life. By that, we need to keep in mind the first point. That is that the Bible has all the divine words we need. But these divine words have a purpose to point us to Christ, to show us our sin and the hope of salvation for all who repent and believe. But we also have all the words we need for every aspect of life. We highlighted that it is God’s complete revelation for salvation within the statement, but this doctrine is related to both faith and obedience. And the ending sentence of our statement of faith picks up on this by saying that it is to be “believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.” As the explanation of our statement of faith says, we have all the divine words we need for all of life.

This is what we see in 2 Timothy 3:15-17. Paul tells Timothy first that what he learned will make him wise for salvation, then says Scripture will equip him for every good work.

¹⁵ and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

It’s true that the Bible does not directly address every aspect of life. You will not find a detailed explanation for how to change the tire on your car. But you do have all the divine words you need for the task.

John Frame puts it like this,

Christians sometimes say that Scripture is sufficient for religion, or preaching, or theology, but not for such things as auto repairs, plumbing, animal husbandry, and dentistry. And of course, many argue that it is not sufficient for science, philosophy, or even ethics. That is to miss an important point. Certainly, Scripture contains more specific information relevant to theology than to dentistry. But sufficiency in the present context is not sufficiency of specific information but sufficiency of divine words. Scripture contains divine words sufficient for all of life. It has all the divine words that the plumber needs, and all the divine words that the theologian needs. So it is just as sufficient for plumbing as it is for theology. And in that sense it is sufficient for science and ethics as well.^[3]

The sufficiency of Scripture is both explicit and implicit

The words of the Westminster Confession of Faith capture this idea well. 

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.^[4]

When logical deductions are done correctly they add nothing but merely see what is already there. It is true that this is a human activity and can introduce error, but that shouldn’t prevent us from doing it any more than we should avoid Bible translations.

In the classic syllogism “All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal,” the conclusion doesn’t tell you anything you couldn’t find out from the premises themselves. What the syllogism does is to make the implicit content explicit. Logic is a hermeneutical tool, a device for bringing out meaning that is already there in the text. So (a) the “content of Scripture” includes all the logical implications of Scripture, (b) the logical implications of Scripture have the same authority as Scripture, and (c) logical deductions from Scripture do not add anything to Scripture.^[5]

We might say it another way, that this logic can help us see or put it in different words. It can assemble the parts into a cohesive whole. The doctrine of the Trinity might be one example of this. It merely puts a word to how the Bible talks about the oneness and threeness of God. It does not add to Scripture but simply shows what is already there.

The sufficiency of Scripture addresses a multitude of situations

Knowing the content of Scripture is not enough. We see in the testimony of the New Testament that people were held to account for not properly applying it. This was true in not recognizing Jesus whom the Scriptures pointed toward and also to living godly lives. Often the application of Scripture in these ways includes understanding Scripture and rightly applying it in light of our present context.

Again, John Frame is helpful to see how this works out – this time in terms of moral applications.

Much ethical reasoning can be expressed in the form of moral syllogisms. In a moral syllogism, the first premise states a principle, the second a fact to which the principle applies. Then the conclusion states the application. We might describe the first premise as normative, the second as situational, and the conclusion as existential, since it brings the principle to bear on our own ethical decision. For example:

1.   Stealing is wrong (normative premise).

2.   Embezzling is stealing (situational premise).

3.   Therefore, embezzling is wrong (existential conclusion).^[6]

Scripture is sufficient to provide all the ultimate norms, all the normative premises, that we need to make any ethical decision. Scripture contains all the words of God that we need for any area of life, and all ultimate norms come from divine words.

Then what use is general revelation? First, it is important, especially, in furnishing situational premises. Of course, the Bible, too, furnishes situational premises, as in:

1.   Adultery is wrong (Ex. 20:14).

2.   Lust is adultery (Matt. 5:27–28).

3.   Therefore, lust is wrong.

But most of the time, we need extrabiblical data to formulate the situation that we are seeking to address, as in the following example:

1.   Stealing is wrong.

2.   Cheating on your income tax is stealing.

3.   Therefore, cheating on your income tax is wrong.^[7]

To go “outside the Bible” is not to go outside of God’s revelation. It is rather to move from the sphere of special revelation to the sphere of general revelation. So the whole syllogism utilizes general revelation, illumined and evaluated by special revelation.^[8]

We should pay attention to what God’s given us

Have you ever seen a game show where someone starts to ask a question and the eager participant jumps in and answers completely wrong. They only had a portion of the question and they were ill-equipped to answer the actual question. Sometimes we can be a little like that in the Christian life. We can have a “good-enough” type of approach that sees sufficiency not in God’s Word and dependency on Him but an overconfidence on what we already know. This is why discipleship is so important in the Christian life. It’s why humility is so important in the Christian life. Sufficiency means we shouldn’t add to it, as we have discussed, but it also means diving deeply into what we already have.

The Bible Is Not The Only Revelation We Have

Challenges to the Bible’s sufficiency are always prevalent. We tend to desire to know more and have more. Maybe you know people who always chase after the next thing. The next dieting fad, the next investment fad. They don’t know or are not content to simply know the main and ordinary realities of these things but always what is flashy and popular in the moment. We can have a similar approach to the Bible, if we are not careful. We have all we need yet we desire more. The real issue, often isn’t the desire for more but the method for gaining it. We want exciting, novel, and our restlessness is formative. But this is often not the way God works. Remember he comes to Elijah in the small still voice. He comes to use through the ordinary means of His Word.

With this in mind, we might think, will God add new revelation to what we already have? This is a question that is often posed and it relates to this doctrine. Those in the charismatic traditions often answer yes, and those in more reformed traditions typically answer no. There can be a lot of heat in these conversations one side can accuse the other of not desiring to hear from God and the other can say they are not adding to Scripture or not content with what he has given us – like a child throwing a fit because he wanted one more present on his or her birthday.

John Frame helpfully presents an understanding that both sides can find consensus in.

God’s revelation of himself in creation, general revelation, certainly continues, and we learn new things from it everyday.

God’s specific revelation in Scripture is complete but God continues to reveal through general revelation. Frame discusses how every time the sun rises God’s glory is declared in a new way. That means that our understanding of God is not static but that it is continually growing and developing. 

Further, we should not be intellectualistic in our understanding of how this knowledge comes to us. It may well be true that some general revelation comes to us through subconscious intuitions, through dreams, through visions, through hunches of various kinds. We simply don’t know all the dimensions of human knowledge, which is to say that we don’t know all the ways in which God reveals himself to us.

We should not equate such general-revelation knowledge with God’s personal words in Scripture. But it is real knowledge of God^[9]

Daniel Treir says this,

Scripture’s sufficiency does not entail the ludicrous claim that the Bible conveys all valuable knowledge. The crucial distinction concerns what is necessary for salvation and holy living. Much general knowledge, in psychology for instance, is worthwhile as part of God’s creation, perhaps even contributing to Christian growth. Such contributions do not entail spiritual necessity, however. God’s self-disclosure in Jesus Christ via Scripture is distinct from the wider knowledge that humans are free to pursue. Despite being valuable for exploring the beauty and addressing the brokenness of God’s creation, extrabiblical knowledge is neither revelatory nor necessary in the same way as Scripture’s spiritually sufficient testimony concerning Jesus Christ^[10]

Special revelation has ceased

God will not be making new covenants with us, following the new covenant par excellence made with us in Christ. So there will be no more covenant words or covenant documents. This is only to say that Jesus’ work is complete, once for all, and that therefore his revelation concerning Christ is complete as well.^[11]

As the book Evangelical Convictions puts it, 

“Nothing can be added to Christ’s redemptive work, and nothing can be added to the revelation of that redemptive work found in the Bible.”^[12]

The application of Scripture to the believer continues

Frame writes, “The Christian life is a continuing conversation with the Bible, with God’s revelation in creation, and with the Holy Spirit, who enables us to understand and use revelation. Every day, God in Scripture speaks to us in new ways. He brings to our attention teachings, commands, promises, and questions that we had not yet seen. He points out new ways in which Scripture applies to our lives…Not only does he work in an intellectual way, but he works with our will, conforming it to God’s commands, and with our emotions, so that we delight to hear what he says. In these ways, God the Holy Spirit teaches us.”

The preaching and teaching of Scripture continues

Spirit-filled preaching has been called prophesying in many circles, including those that would be more cautious even of the idea of prophecy today. Praying for the preaching of this church means praying that the sermon aligns with God’s Word and that anything that distracts is left unsaid. As the Word of God is correctly handled, it is the Word of God to us. Not in the sense of being inspired like the Scriptures but in that it handles and applies the inspired and inerrant word in a proper way.

At the return of Christ will come the revelation of Christ par excellence

Luke 17:30; Rom. 8:19; 1 Cor. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Peter 1:7; 4:13 all discuss longing for the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is in reference to a future event, the return of Christ. In this sense, there is a future hope.

Conclusion

Do we get that? We have all we need in Scripture for where God has us, it is complete in Jesus Christ and his revelation in Scripture. Yet, there is a fullness to this that will be finally realized in the future. A fullness that not only helps us understand, but more importantly, a fullness of relationship that is unhindered and untainted by our sin and the brokenness of this world. Perhaps this is where you are at right now. Maybe you grow restless in your Bible study and prayer, not because the Bible is insufficient but because of the weariness of this life. You long for a deeper relationship with Jesus, and you know that it’s not simply a matter of knowledge, but something more profound. We resist this truth because we are in need of Christ. Thankfully the Bible helps us understand our need to be forgiven of our sins and shows us the solution, Jesus Christ.

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^[1] Kevin DeYoung, Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 45-46.

^[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Dt 18:20–22.

^[3] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 221.

^[4] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 220–221.

^[5] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 222.

^[6] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 230–231.

^[7] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 231.

^[8] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 232.

^[9] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 234–235.

^[10] Daniel J. Treier, Introducing Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2019), 312–313.

^[11] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 235.

^[12] Evangelical Convictions, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, Minn: NextStep Resources, 2022), 36.