This is the initial transcript (minus our spontaneous discussion) of our video, “The 3 Most UN-PROTESTANT Bible Verses” (10-9-25).
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Summary: We discuss three NT passages that are devastatingly “UnProtestant”: having to do with sola Scriptura and an infallible Church, faith alone (sola fide), and penances for the dead.
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Some parts of the New Testament fit into the Protestant outlook only with great difficulty. We will examine (arguably) three of the clearest examples of that.
1 Timothy 3:15 (RSV) . . . the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
Sola Scriptura or “Bible Alone” is the Protestant rule of faith. What it means is that only the Bible is a final infallible authority. Nothing else is. This verse, however, asserts in effect that the Church is also an infallible authority. And so it’s an “un-Protestant verse.” It seems to me that if sola Scriptura is indeed a true and biblical principle, this couldn’t even be in the Bible. It would read, rather, something like, “the word of the living God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth.’
So what does a Protestant do with this? Who knows? They can speak for themselves. For our part, we are explaining why we believe this teaches the infallibility of the Church, and undeniably so. I made an extended argument about that very thing 13 years ago in my book, 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura, which we are now offering in an updated form. I will try to be as brief as I can in summarizing it, without missing anything important.
Pillars and foundations support things and prevent them from collapsing. To be a “bulwark” of the truth, means to be a “safety net” against truth turning into falsity. If the Church could make mistakes when proclaiming doctrine, it could not be what the Bible here says it is. God’s truth would be the house built on a foundation of sand in Jesus’ parable. For this passage to be true, the Church must be infallible: at least in its most important decrees about doctrine.
Similarly, in Ephesians 2:19-20 Paul refers to the “household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.”
Prophets spoke “in the name of the Lord” (1 Chron 21:19; 2 Chron 33:18; Jer 26:9), and commonly introduced their utterances with “thus says the Lord” (Is 10:24; Jer 4:3; 26:4; Ezek 13:8; Amos 3:11-12; and many more). They spoke the “word of the Lord” (Is 1:10; 38:4; Jer 1:2; 13:3, 8; 14:1; Ezek 13:1-2; Hos 1:1; Joel 1:1; Jon 1:1; Mic 1:1, etc.). These communications cannot contain any untruths insofar as they truly come from God, with the prophet serving as His spokesman or intermediary (Jer 2:2; 26:8; Ezek 11:5; Zech 1:6; and many more). Likewise, apostles proclaimed truth unmixed with error (1 Cor 2:7-13; 1 Tim 2:7; 2 Tim 1:11-14; 2 Pet 1:12-21).
Does this foundation have any faults or cracks? Since Jesus is the cornerstone, He can hardly be a faulty foundation. And in the way that apostles and prophets are infallible, likewise, so is the Church, “built upon” them. Our Lord Jesus is without fault or untruth, and he is the cornerstone of the Church. The Church is also more than once even identified with Jesus himself, by being called his “Body” (Acts 9:5 cf. with 22:4 and 26:11; 1 Cor 12:27; Eph 1:22-23; 4:12; 5:23, 30; Col 1:24). That the Church is so intimately connected with Jesus, is itself a strong argument that it’s infallible and without error regarding doctrine.
In the Bible, nowhere is truth presented as anything less than pure truth, unmixed with error. That was certainly how Paul conceived what he constantly refers to as “the truth” that he received and passed down (Rom 2:8; 2 Cor 13:8; Col 1:5; 2 Thess 2:10; 1 Tim 2:4, 18, 25; 4:3; 2 Tim 1:14; 3:7-8; 4:4; Jude 3).
Knowing what truth is, how can its own foundation be something less than total truth (since truth itself contains no falsehoods or errors)? It cannot. It’s impossible, and common sense. A stream can’t rise above its source. What’s built upon a foundation can’t be greater than the foundation. If it were, the whole thing would collapse.
An elephant can’t stand on the shoulders of a man. The base of a skyscraper has to hold the weight above it. The foundations of a suspension bridge over a river have to be strong enough to support it.
Therefore, we conclude that the Church must be infallible, since truth is infallible, and the foundation cannot be lesser than what is built upon it. Therefore, sola scriptura must be false, as a result of this inspired verse alone, along with countless others.
Mark 10:17-21 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” [18] And Jesus said to him, . . . [19] You know the commandments: `Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'” [20] And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” [21] And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
The rich young ruler sincerely asked Jesus how one attained eternal life, assuming (in his word “do”) that “good deeds” would be what is required (since the Old Testament is full of these deeds). If Jesus had been a good Protestant, He obviously would have had to respond, “you can’t do any work to attain eternal life! You’re dead wrong. You must have faith alone!” But in fact, Jesus didn’t rebuke his premise; far from it, He reinforced his train of thought by asking whether he kept the commandments. That’s what our Lord thought was the “road” to heaven.
He didn’t oppose him by asking, “why do you ask me about works? Don’t you know that they have nothing to do with salvation and are done only in gratefulness to God for a salvation already attained?” His replies are massively contrary to Protestantism’s faith alone. His replies are not like any sermon I ever heard in my 13 years as an evangelical! This is not how we were taught to spread the faith in street witnessing, in order to “get people saved.”
According to Protestantism, we can’t do anything to be saved. No work we do is sufficient. All we can do is have faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus would have failed Soteriology 0101 in any evangelical seminary or divinity school.
“When the man said, “all these I have observed from my youth,” Jesus had a second chance — if Protestantism is right, — to affirm, “you must believe in Me with faith alone to attain eternal life.” But He again chose to answer like a Catholic and recommended another meritorious work: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Selling all that he owned was, of course, another work, as opposed to faith and assenting belief. Thus, the rich young ruler’s rejection of Jesus’ advice was based on his unwillingness to do one extraordinary work that he was told would save him.
His fatal flaw was placing possessions above God (a form of idolatry). Nothing here upholds faith alone at all. I think that a hypothetical Protestant who was writing part of the Bible would and could never have written the passage this way. Jesus twice emphasizes that works save a soul; never mentioning faith or belief in Himself (though we fully agree that those things are also true and necessary). The point is that Jesus highlighted and made central the very thing that Protestants falsely claim has nothing to do with salvation. How can this be?
The young man went away and Jesus observed, “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” (10:23). Why is it so “hard”? It isn’t because he didn’t exercise the faith that Jesus never recommended. It’s “hard” because the work that was required to attain salvation (giving away all that he owned) is difficult.
If faith alone were true and in fact the only way to get to heaven, it seems that Jesus would have said so when directly asked about that very thing. But He didn’t; therefore, “faith alone” is false, since it’s foreign and unknown to Jesus Himself. The Bible we have is plainly far too “Catholic.” The “Protestant” Jesus would have talked something like the following in this encounter:
“If you would enter life, exercise faith alone in the son of man. No commandments can save you. Say the sinner’s prayer, so you will be saved; and come, follow me. Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a man without faith alone to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
1 Corinthians 15:29-30, 32 Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? [30] Why am I in peril every hour? . . . [32] What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
In 2004 in my book, The Catholic Verses, I called this “the most ‘Un-Protestant verse in the Bible.” Protestant commentators almost agree, but from a different perspective. One of them, the well-known Methodist Adam Clarke, writes about it:
This is certainly the most difficult verse in the New Testament; for, notwithstanding the greatest and wisest men have labored to explain it, there are to this day nearly as many different interpretations of it as there are interpreters.
Likewise, the famous Presbyterian commentator, Albert Barnes, in his Barnes’ Notes on the Bible states:
There is, perhaps, no passage of the New Testament in respect to which there has been a greater variety of interpretation than this; and the views of expositors now by no means harmonize in regard to its meaning.
But Barnes also includes among the various interpretations the following take:
There remain two other opinions, both of which are plausible, and one of which is probably the true one. One is, that the word baptized is used here as it is in Matthew 20:22-23; Mark 10:39; Luke 12:50, in the sense of being overwhelmed with calamities, trials, and sufferings; . . . That the word is thus used to denote a deep sinking into calamities, there can be no doubt. . . . That this view is plausible, and that it suits the strain of remark in the following verses, is evident. But there are objections to it: . . . This interpretation does not relieve us from any of the difficulties in regard to the phrase “for the dead” . . .
He goes a long way towards the exegesis that we will submit. But in the end he can’t get over the hurdle of human beings doing anything whatever to assist the dead. It’s too foreign to his Protestantism.
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) in his book, The Catholic Controversy [translated by Henry B. Mackey, Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books, 1989, from the 1886 edition (London and New York); originally 1596], derived from pamphlets that are said to have played a direct role in more than 70,000 converts returning to the Catholic faith in France, provides what I think is the most plausible view, and it incorporates and expands upon the elements that Barnes made reference to:
This passage properly understood evidently shows that it was the custom of the primitive Church to watch, pray, fast, for the souls of the departed. For, firstly, in the Scriptures to be baptized is often taken for afflictions and penances; as in St. Luke chapter 12 [12:50] . . . and in St. Mark chapter 10 [10:38-39] . . . in which places Our Lord calls pains and afflictions baptism [cf. Matthew 3:11, 20:22-3, Luke 3:16].
This then is the sense of that Scripture: if the dead rise not again, what is the use of mortifying and afflicting oneself, of praying and fasting for the dead? And indeed this sentence of St. Paul resembles that of 2 Maccabees 12:44: It is superfluous and vain to pray for the dead if the dead rise not again. (p. 368)
From this perspective, Paul’s thought clearly harmonizes with and likely even draws upon the parallel passage in Maccabees about prayer for the dead. St. Paul in context further indicates this by asking, rhetorically, “Why am I in peril every hour?” In other words, he is tying in his own suffering with the previous reference of people being baptized for the dead. That is, he is doing activities that will help the dead, and he explains why he does it: because the dead are raised.
The problem for Protestants is that their overall outlook has no place for this concept and practice, and so it’s ruled out from the outset. Therefore, the text remains mysterious for them because of the false preconceived view that they bring to it and also their denial that 2nd Maccabees is part of the Bible. Because of the latter they can’t utilize the verse in 2nd Maccabees: a clearer passage on the same topic, to help understand it, according to the standard practice of all Bible commentators, because they deny that Maccabees is canonical.
Related Book
The Catholic Verses: 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants (Aug. 2004, 235 pages)
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