Tradition and the Bible.
By John Nevins Andrews
God gave the Bible by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That volume is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. 2 Tim. 3:16, 17. We must not add to the word of God, and we are warned not to take anything away from it. Prov. 30:5, 6; Deut. 4:2; 12:32. If we obey this instruction, we shall conform exactly to the will of God. We shall not create institutions and commandments and add them to those which God has created, and we shall not neglect nor transgress any of the things which God has commanded. But men do dare to add to the Bible and to take away from the Bible, and they are so far from thinking this to be a sin that they even regard it as a virtue. The authority which justifies this course of action is tradition. Now tradition has an origin that is wholly indefinite and uncertain. Men suppose that Christ taught his apostles some things of a different nature from those which the apostles recorded. They suppose that the apostles repeated these things by word of mouth to the next generation of disciples, and they to the next, and they to the next, in constant succession. Thus in the second or third or fourth centuries men began to write what had come down to them in this manner by tradition. These writings in our times are known as the works of the fathers of the church. Some of these works contain valuable information concerning the times in which the writers lived, and valuable expositions of some passages of the Bible. But when they deal in traditions they always depart from the declarations of the Bible, sometimes in a very grave manner. When traditions do not contradict the Bible they may be true, but they are not even then safe to follow, for they may be entirely false. But when traditions do conflict with the word of God we know that they are absolutely false. The Bible came from God. Whatever tradition contradicts the Bible must have come from the adversary of God and man, Satan. But many persons seem never to have thought of this. They acknowledge that the Bible came from God, but they think that tradition comes also from God, even though it contradict what he has said in his word. Therefore they dare to accept tradition when it leads even to disobedience of the commandments of God. There is always one thing to promote the triumph of tradition over the Bible: Tradition is popular and agreeable, but the Bible is always pointing us to the duty of self-denial and the crucifixion of the old man with his deeds. Tradition is the great source of strength to the church of Rome. Her doctrines, ceremonies, and ordinances rest mainly upon tradition as she freely admits. Her rule of faith is not the Bible alone, but the Bible and tradition. And when these two are thus joined tradition has always the superiority. Men do not say in such cases: We will accept tradition so far as it is in harmony with the Bible, but they say rather: Tradition has come down to us to teach the meaning of the Bible, and to supply the defects of that book. Tradition is therefore always the master, and the Bible must give place to this usurper. If the church of Rome were to renounce tradition and to return to the simplicity of the Bible, we should see no longer one vast organization largely composed of unconverted men, but we should see, as in the book of Acts, many churches, each composed of men and women who had been converted. There would be no pope and cardinals, no archbishops and bishops, no inquisition, no pompous ceremonies, but there would be pastors and evangelists, like Stephen, who was filled with faith and the Holy Ghost; and the members of these churches would keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, without turning to the right hand or to the left to follow tradition. Tradition is the great element of weakness in the Protestant church. It is not such from necessity, but from unfaithfulness on the part of Protestants to the great doctrine of the Reformation that the Bible alone, and not the Bible with tradition, is the rule by which God governs men. Before this doctrine Romanism must fall, and so also must all human ordinances among Protestants. The weakness of Protestants has been that in separating from the church of Rome they brought away with them institutions which could not be sustained without the help of tradition, and which made void some of the institutions of the Bible. This has placed them under the necessity of constant resort to tradition to strengthen the feeble support which they could produce from the Bible for the institutions to which we refer. And this has given Romanists the occasion to say that Protestants do not make the Bible their only authority, but that while denying that tradition should be added to the Bible, they actually add tradition to that book, but only follow tradition so far as it suits them, while Romanists follow it in full. There is certainly some force to this reproach. We refer in particular to the change of the fourth commandment. We have often shown that the Bible makes no allusion to this change as an act wrought by divine authority. But it is said in reply that the fathers of the church assert that this change was made by Christ, and that they received this fact by tradition from the apostles. J. N. A.