Physics Without Newton?

What is this page about?

Many churches today call themselves non-denominational or independent. They often say something like this. The words are from this page, not from a real person.

People usually say this honestly, out of love for Jesus. This page asks what the sentence does after it is said. There are two views.

Three things are true.

• Both views love Jesus and put the Bible first.
• Many independent churches teach well.
• The question is small. It is not “Should we follow Jesus?” It is “Who has the last word on what the Bible means? And can anyone else check it?”

The short answer

1. The picture of physics is fair. And where it does not fit, the point becomes stronger. Physics expects to become better than its past. But the Christian faith says that it has received “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). So in the Christian faith, the earliest voices matter more, not less.

2. Every tradition already says that it follows Jesus alone. A Reformed book of teaching from 1563 begins by saying that I belong to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. In 1934, some German church leaders stood against a movement that mixed the Gospel with the ideas of the Nazi government. They wrote that Jesus Christ is the one Word of God. They wrote it in a signed statement, against people who also said that they followed Jesus. The name “Jesus” did not show the difference between the two sides. Writing down what they meant showed it.

3. The name of Jesus does not answer the questions that a church must answer.

• Do we baptize babies?
• What happens in the Lord’s Supper?
• Can a believer fall away?
• Who can remove the pastor?
• May women preach?
• Must Christians speak in tongues?

Christians who love the Bible give different answers to each one, with verses. A church that “just follows Jesus” still chooses an answer to each. When it chooses, it joins a tradition.

4. The Reformers believed in “the Bible alone”. They did not believe in “my reading alone”. See Part 3.

5. “No tradition” usually means a tradition that does not know its own birthday.

People can give reasons for each one. But each one has a date and a name.

6. The apostles did not settle their first argument by each person following Jesus privately. See Part 4.

7. Every church has a last word on what the Bible means. In the Catholic Church it is a teaching office, and that office must keep to everything it has already decided. In the Reformation churches it is a written statement of faith and wider church courts. Where a church refuses all of these, the last word belongs to the man who preaches. Nothing ties him that he did not write himself.

8. Ordinary members must depend on someone. That is normal. A man in the Bible was reading the prophet Isaiah. He was asked if he understood it. He said: “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” (Acts 8:31) The question is whether the guide can be checked. Is there something written outside him that you can open? Is there a place outside him where you can take a disagreement?

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Newton wrote: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” He meant that he could see far because he used the work of great people before him.

There are different ways to stand towards the past.

• Build on it. Newton built on the scientists before him.
• Disagree with it openly, with reasons. Einstein changed Newton’s ideas of space and time. But his science still gives Newton’s answers at normal speeds. And he explained why Newton’s ideas had worked so well.
• Take no notice of it. This page made up three examples.

The man may be very honest. But he cannot know which of his ideas people tried long ago and found wrong.

And Luther? In 1521 he stood before the emperor. He said that he would not take back his teaching unless someone showed him from the Bible or from clear reason that he was wrong. That is open disagreement, with reasons, in public. And Luther quoted the early church teachers for the rest of his life. To correct the church is not the same as to have no past.

What the Reformers said

Many people think that the Reformation meant this: “Every Christian has his own Bible and decides for himself.” The Reformers said the opposite.

“The Bible alone” meant that the Bible is the only final authority. It stands above popes, church meetings and famous teachers, because all of them can be wrong. It did not mean that we may forget 1,500 years of Christians who read the same Bible.

In 1525 Luther wrote about the new free preachers of his time:

There are as many sects and beliefs as there are heads.

Martin Luther, 1525

In simple words: There are as many groups and beliefs as there are people.

In 1537 Luther went further. He wrote about people who say they have the Spirit without the Bible, and who then explain the Bible “at their pleasure”. That means: as they like. He said that the pope made the same mistake. Luther was never against teachers. He was against any teacher whose final authority is his own inner feeling of being sure, and not a Word outside him that others can read.

All synods or councils since the apostles’ times … 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.

The Westminster Confession, 1646

In simple words: All church meetings since the time of the apostles can be wrong, and many have been wrong. So they must not be the rule for what we believe or do. But we should use them as a help.

They can be wrong, so they are not the rule. They are a help, so we do not throw them away. Every Reformation church kept this balance. And then each one wrote a statement of faith and required its ministers to keep to it.

Would the Reformers agree with these sentences?

• “The Bible is the only final authority, and every teacher must be tested by it.” Yes.
• “Church meetings and famous teachers can be wrong.” Yes.
• “A church should print how it reads the Bible and hold its ministers to it.” Yes.
• “Every Christian should decide what the Bible means by himself, and it does not matter how the church read it before.” No.
• “The early church teachers can be wrong, so we should take no notice of them.” No.
• “A preacher led by the Spirit does not need anyone else’s reading.” No.

How the apostles settled an argument

The Bible tells of one argument about teaching in detail. Must people who are not Jews be circumcised when they become Christians? Read Acts 15 and see how it was settled.

1. It went to a wider group. Paul had received his message straight from Christ. But the church sent him “to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question” (Acts 15:2).
2. They argued openly. There was a long discussion.
3. They heard what God had done, and then they tested it by the Scriptures. Peter and Paul told what had happened. Then James showed that the words of the prophets agree with it.
4. They decided together: the apostles and the elders, with the whole church.
5. They said that the teachers who caused the trouble had not been sent by them.
6. They wrote it down and passed it on. Paul and his friends “delivered the decrees to them to keep” (Acts 16:4). In simple words: they gave the decisions to the churches to obey.

The apostles were special. No later church meeting has their authority. But the point is clear. The apostles had the best right to say “we just follow Jesus”. They chose not to settle things that way.

And Paul himself let others check his message. He explained it to the leaders in Jerusalem “for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain” (Galatians 2:2).

Who has the last word?

Someone decides what is preached next Sunday. Churches disagree very much about where the last word should be. This page does not choose between them. But each old tradition has a written answer. That answer ties the present leaders to something older than they are.

What if a church has no written statement? Or it has a short one that ties nobody? Then the last word belongs to the man who preaches. He may teach very well. But he can change what the church teaches about baptism, the Lord’s Supper, money or authority. And nobody can prove that anything changed. “We just teach the Bible” describes the new teaching as well as the old.

Ordinary members have jobs and families. They have no time to study church teaching deeply. That is normal. We all depend on doctors too. But you trust a doctor partly because he was trained by public rules. He can lose his right to work. Another doctor can check him. Take all of that away, and you are trusting a sure man in a white coat. He may be very good. You have no way to know.

Where is the last word in these churches? This page made up the independent examples.

• A Presbyterian church whose elders sign a long statement of faith. A member can take a complaint beyond the local church.
• A Baptist church with an old Baptist statement of faith and meetings where the members vote. It is independent, but its beliefs are written. Members can hold the pastor to a text that all can read.
• An independent church that says “we just follow Jesus”. It has a statement of faith of one paragraph, and the pastor chose the elders. The statement is too short to answer most questions. The elders owe their place to the man they would have to correct. So in real life the last word is his.
• A church that its pastor started ten years ago. It has no written beliefs and no members’ meeting. This church’s reading of the Bible is what its founder teaches today.

Fair arguments against this page

“The Christian faith is a relationship with a person. It is not a subject like physics.” True. But you can only follow a person if you know who he is. Paul warned about people who preach “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:4). They talked about Jesus all the time and meant someone different. The record of how the church has understood Jesus does not take the place of knowing him. It shows you which Jesus you follow.

“Those questions are not the main things. We keep to the main things.” This is wise in part. But who decides which questions are main things? Churches disagree about that too. And a family may ask you to baptize their baby. You will do it, or you will not.

“The Reformers said no to the pope. We finish their work and say no to all human authority.” The Reformers heard this in their own time, and they did not accept it. A reader who uses no help but his own mind has not escaped human judgement. He has made it the judgement of one person.

“Every believer has the Holy Spirit and does not need a teacher.” The verse is “you don’t need for anyone to teach you” (1 John 2:27). If this meant that nobody needs teaching, it would be against pastors too. And John was teaching when he wrote it. John wanted to comfort believers. False teachers said that they had secret knowledge. The Spirit helps believers to hold on to what they heard from the beginning. That works only if we still have what was heard from the beginning, to check against.

“The people of Berea checked Paul’s words with the Bible.” They did, and the Bible praises them (Acts 17:11). But see what they did. They checked a teacher against a shared text that both sides accepted. A written church statement lets members do exactly this today. An unwritten one, in the pastor’s head, makes it impossible.

Check it yourself

1. Read Acts 15:1 to 16:5, and then Galatians 2:1-10.
2. Read chapter 31 of the Westminster Confession. It is short.
3. Do this one. Find your own church’s answers to the six questions in Part 1, point 3. For each one, ask: Is it written down? Does the church say where it comes from? Must anyone keep to it? If all three answers are yes, that is good to know and good to say.