Does Sola Scriptura Leave Room for the Work of the Holy Spirit?

John Frame, against the idea that sola Scriptura leaves no room for the work of the Holy Spirit:

Evaluating present-day situations is not merely a matter of taking the Bible and relating it to our extra-biblical knowledge. It is also a matter of spiritual insight, spiritual growth.

Many Christians, especially those who are inclined toward the charismatic movement, fault the Reformed for making the Christian life too much of an intellectual exercise. To them, the sola Scriptura principle looks like an academic way to God. You have a textbook; you read the textbook; you correlate it with other factual knowledge, and you act. But where is the spirit? Where is the personal relationship between ourselves and God?

I do believe that some Reformed teachers and writers can be justly criticized in this way. The idea of the "primacy of the intellect" has been prominent among some Reformed writers, and I believe that idea is not biblical at all. But the genius of Reformed theology is not at all to turn the Christian life into a kind of academic curriculum. Above all, our relationship to God is fully personal: covenantal, as the theologians say. Learning to apply Scripture to our present opportunities is also a personal process, the process of a developing personal relationship between ourselves and God.

Let us look at a familiar passage: Rom. 12:1, 2. We could also look at other passages, such as Eph. 5:8-10 and Phil. 1:9-10, where Paul uses a similar pattern of argument; but we'll stick with Rom. 12 for now. In the first eleven chapters of Romans, Paul has expounded very systematically, but also passionately, God's way of salvation in Jesus Christ. Then he comes to the question, "how shall we then live?" He says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

The second verse tells us how to discover God's will. The question, "how do I discover God's will?" is a very practical question. High school young people ask it all the time. In Reformed churches, we tend to answer by saying "read your Bible," and that answer is very sound. sola Scriptura; the will of God is the content of the Bible. But as we have seen, finding the will of God in the Bible and relating it to my life situations can be rather complicated. It is not just a matter of reading; it is also a matter of understanding your own times in the light of Scripture. And what Paul tells us here is that it is also a matter of spiritual transformation. It is when by God's grace we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, turning away from worldly patterns of behavior, it is then that we come to know, and take delight in, the will of God.

1 Cor. 2:14 tells us that the "natural man," the unregenerate person, cannot rightly understand the word of God; the word is foolishness to him, and of course his ideas are foolish to God. But when God comes and transforms a person by his Spirit into his image, a whole new way of thinking develops. Paul calls that in 1 Cor. 2:16, "the mind of Christ." Rightly understanding and using God's word, therefore, is a spiritual process, an ethical process, the outgrowth of our personal relationship with God.

It is those who walk with God who are able to discern God's will for their lives. Perhaps that seems backwards to you. You might think that one must know God's will before one can obey him. Didn't J. Gresham Machen say that doctrine comes first, and then life is built on doctrine?

But of course it works both ways. Obedience is built on knowledge, but knowledge is also built on obedience. Knowledge contributes to obedience; obedience contributes to knowledge.

It sounds paradoxical, but of course we know how it works, don't we? We've all experienced it. Regeneration comes first; that's good Reformed doctrine. The first change in us is not something we do, but something God does. Unless a man is born again, he shall not see the kingdom of heaven. Regeneration creates both new knowledge and new obedience. The knowledge feeds on the obedience and the obedience feeds on the knowledge. Our knowledge of God's word helps us to obey him. But as we continue to obey him, over and over, overcoming temptation, going through trials in a godly way, we find ourselves thinking differently. New patterns of thought develop. With new habits of life come new habits of thought. We look at Scripture in a new way, and our knowledge grows. That leads to more obedience and more knowledge, on and on.

Hebrews 5:11-14 tells us a bit about this process. The writer here intends to enter a rather difficult theological discussion, concerning Melchizedek and his relation to Christ. He pauses, however, to observe that his readers are not quite ready for this teaching. They are "slow to learn." They should be teachers themselves, but at this point they need someone else to teach them the elementary truths of God's word all over again. They need milk, not solid food. Who subsists on milk? Babies, of course; the Hebrews are spiritual babies. Theological babies, we might say, since they are not ready for heavy, though valuable, theological teaching.

Well, who are the mature? Are they the ones with more book learning, with academic doctorates and the like? Surprisingly not. The mature, the ones who can take the solid food, the meaty theology, are those "who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil," verse 14.

Notice that maturity here is ethical in character, rather than merely intellectual. Theologically mature people are people who are ethically mature, who are able to make proper distinctions between good and evil. And where does that ethical maturity come from? From "exercise" gymnazein. From "constant use."

Theologically mature people are not necessarily the most academically astute; they are, rather, the ones who have been on the front lines of the battle against Satan and sin and death. They are the ones who have fought the good fight. When you seek a fellow-believer's help in discerning the will of God for your life, those are the people you should go to. Not the smarty-pants types whose sole accomplishment has been a string of As in college and seminary, but the people whose devotion to Christ you have come to admire: those who have made sacrifices for the kingdom; those who have suffered some persecution and ridicule; those who have been tested and, by God's grace, have prevailed.

So when Scripture sets forth the qualifications for elders in the church, it demands people of this kind: above reproach, sexually pure, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, managing his own family well, having a good reputation with outsiders (1 Tim. 3:1-7). Not much there on academics, except perhaps for the ability to teach; but even there the emphasis is less on academic preparation than on the ability to communicate.