Should Believers Rely on Scripture Alone or Also on Tradition?
1) Direct answer
Believers must rely on the Bible alone as the final authority. Any “tradition” that adds to, takes from, or stands beside the Word as equal authority is to be rejected. Customs may exist, but they carry no binding power unless they are plainly taught in Scripture.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says all Scripture is God-breathed and sufficient to thoroughly furnish the man of God (2 Timothy 3:16–17). If it furnishes us completely, nothing else can be required.
- Jesus rebuked those who made “the word of God of none effect” through their tradition (Mark 7:7–9,13).
- We are warned not to add to or take away from God’s Word (Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:5–6; Revelation 22:18–19).
- Even if an angel preached something different, we must not receive it (Galatians 1:8–9).
- “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20).
- The Spirit guides into all truth (John 16:13), but Jesus defined truth: “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). The Holy Spirit will only quicken what is written.
- Some point to “traditions” in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 1 Corinthians 11:2. Those were the apostles’ own teachings given to the church and now preserved in Scripture. The only traditions we “hold” are the apostolic instructions recorded in the Bible.
3) Simple clarifying logic
Now notice: if Scripture is complete and God-breathed, then putting tradition beside it creates a second authority—and two authorities will soon contradict. That’s how the commandments of men nullify the commandments of God. You see, the Word judges tradition; tradition never judges the Word. If a practice agrees with Scripture, we receive it because it is Scripture. If it is not in the Word, it cannot be binding on the believer.
4) Reinforcing statement
Man lives “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Stay with the Word. The Bible is the absolute.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Unbelief does not hinder God
62-0128M §30
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There is a man here that can turn on the light
63-1229M §78
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God's provided place of worship
65-0425 §80
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It is the Rising of the Sun
65-0418M §31
Now, the very essence of the message that was sent---that He is risen from the dead---we, his beneficiaries, we who share the resurrection with Him, draw benefits from this, by proving to the world that He is alive. We cannot do it by word only. We cannot do it by some tradition of man. We only reflect exactly what we're pointing to. I'm afraid today that too many of us are not getting people to Christ. We're getting them to a church, to a theory. But we must get them to Christ. He is the only One, and the only One...
Demonology, physical realm, part 1
53-0608A §40
I don't hear it around here, but you hear it a lot across the country: One of the greatest things in the Pentecostal groups is the mix-up in that one simple thing. And I've had their heads right together and prove to them they both believe the same thing. It's the devil between them, that's all. If that great Pentecostal church would throw down them little old traditions and unite themselves together in one blessed church of God, the rapture would come. But as long as Satan can keep you broke up, all right. That's...