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.
Things that are to be
65-1205 §100
Dear God, as I know that this is paged on the book, the great record. We have blundered into science, Lord, enough to wake us up, for realities to know that every move that we make goes around and around the world, the same time we make it. We've got that through television. We do realize, Father, that that television doesn't manufacture a picture, it only channels the vibrations into a tube that makes the picture. Even the color of clothes that we've got on shows through the ether waves of the air, that vibration...
Events made clear by prophecy
65-0801E §14
For the Bible is a living, foretold witness of Jesus Christ. And as the earth has growed into its fullness and also vines grow into their fullness, the day grows into its fullness. The Bible was manifested in its fullness in the person of Jesus Christ; He was the Word of God revealed, the whole complete book of redemption. The Bible is God's Word, foretelling the future events. Its believers is commanded by its Author to read and believe every word of it, not just part of it. One word, to disbelieve it, you might a...
Why I'm against organized religion
62-1111E §32
Let's take John 3 just a moment, Nicodemus, a master and ruler of a great denomination called the Sanhedrin. They brought themselves together, and they made their traditions. The one of the Pharisees and one of the Sadducees, and they had their denomination then, their differences, and so they... This man was a master, a ruler of this great Sanhedrin, a marvelous man in teaching. He knowed the Scriptures, he thought. He knew it by their tradition. Did not Jesus say, "You have, by your tradition, made the commandmen...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-15
Now then, I think there is something else you ought to know. The seven churches which are addressed by John are in Asia Minor and are all Gentile churches. He does not speak to the church at Jerusalem which was mostly Jewish with perhaps just a few Gentiles in it. The reason is that God had turned from the Jews to the Gentiles. Thus the whole of the church ages is God dealing with the Gentiles, and calling out a Gentile Bride to Himself. That makes the 'Church Ages' and 'The Fulness of the Gentiles' the one and the...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 5:E-165
It also says here that He is going to give the overcomer a white stone and in (not on) the stone a new name, which the owner alone knows. Now the idea of a new name is a familiar one. Abram was changed to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel, Simon to Peter, and Saul to Paul. These names either brought about a change, or were given because of a change. It was only after Abram and Sarai had their names changed by the Lord that they were made ready to receive the coming son. In Jacob's case, he had to overcome an...