Summer in the Systematics – Bibliology (Part Four):The Canonicity of the Bible

Transcript

JRS 29
7/16/2023
Summer in the Systematics – Bibliology (Part Four): The Canonicity of the Bible
Selected Verses
Jesse Randolph

Good evening, and welcome to our fourth installment of Summer in the Systematics. Our summer-long study of Bibliology, the Doctrine of the Bible, also known as the Doctrine of Scripture. So far in our study we’ve now covered three topics. We’ve covered the authority of the Bible. We’ve covered the inspiration of the Bible and we’ve covered the inerrancy of the Bible. That was like a month ago when we went through that topic. There’s been a lot going on in between.

But tonight, we’re going to move into our fourth topic of discussion under this broader heading of Bibliology, or the Doctrine of the Bible. We’re going to look at the canonicity of the Bible. I’m actually going to teach multiple lessons. I haven’t yet decided if it will be two lessons or three lessons on this topic of the canon of Scripture. Tonight, I know this, we’re going to be looking more at the marks of canonicity or the characteristics of canonicity. That is, why it is that some books of the Bible “made the cut” so to speak and why they are among the 66 books that now sit in our laps. Next Sunday night, and potentially the Sunday after that, we’re going to go more into the history and the process of how the canon was formally recognized. Putting that in more basic terms, we’re going to look at how we got our Bible. So that will be at least next week and maybe into the following week. But we should be able to, with the Lord’s help, at least start putting a dent in what is a huge and major topic.

Now, when we approach this topic of canonicity, we are inevitably asking a series of related questions. Such as how did we get our Bible? Which books belong in the Bible? How many books belong in the Bible? Why are there only 66 books of the Bible? How were these books collected? Who decided how were the books of the bible collected and preserved. Here’s the last one, who decided which book was to be included in the canon? Those are all really good questions to ask and to think about and to wrestle through. I’m going to do my best tonight to not only tee up these questions for all of us, but who knows maybe even to provide some answers so that we have that answer for that hope that lies within us as it relates to Scripture.

So, we’re going to have four major headings tonight, for the message tonight. Thus, we have a worksheet with four blanks or four headings on it. The four headings that I’ll work through tonight do correlate to those four blanks you see on your worksheets. I’m going to lay out for you, right out of the gate, the four headings. If you want, you can start filling in those worksheets now and then backfill the remaining material later. Our first heading will be canonicity defined. Second will be canonicity determined. Third will be canonicity discovered and fourth will be canonicity delimited. Canonicity defined, canonicity determined, canonicity discovered, canonicity delimited.

Alright, with that let’s jump right in starting with our first major heading, canonicity defined. Now, when we discuss our subject for this evening, canonicity, as with anything in the realm of theology we have to be very careful with the terms and the definitions we use. I’m reminded of what my theology professor, Jim Mook, would always tell us students. “He who controls the definition, controls the fight.” Or “he who controls the definition wins the fight.” So, let’s look at a couple definitions of this term canonicity. Here’s a definition from Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix. They say, “Canonicity is the study of the recognition and collection of the books given by God’s inspiration.” It’s helpful. Here’s another by Floyd Barackman. “Canonicity concerns the right of any literature to be accepted as the Word of God.” Here’s one more from Lewis Sperry Chafer. “The investigation of the canon of the Bible is an attempt to discover the true basis of its authority.”

Those are each good and helpful definitions but I’m already getting a little bit ahead of myself because I’m using a word, and I have used it several times already, canonicity, which has a word within it that requires further definition, and that word is “canon.” What do we mean by that word “canon”? I can tell you right away what we don’t mean. We don’t mean anything related to gun powder or American Revolution armaments. No, this word “canon” or it’s kanon in Greek or qaneh in Hebrew. This term originally meant a rod, a ruler, a measuring stick of some sort. Any sort of unit of measurement. But as time went on, and as biblical history unfolded the term was broadened to mean not just a physical rod or a physical stick or any sort of physical unit of measurement but rather a standard. A rule of conduct for faith and for practice. In fact, that’s how we see the term used, kanon in Greek in Galatians 6:16. It says, “And those who will walk by this rule [kanon], peace and mercy be upon them. Or Philippians 3:16 “let us keep living by that same standard [kanon] to which we have attained.” Now as far as this term, “canon” being mentioned with reference to the Scriptures, the first record that we have of that happening was actually with Athanasius of Alexandria. He lived as you can see here, from 295-373 A.D. and he first applied that term “canon” to Scripture in his letter concerning the decrees of the Council of Nicaea which was published somewhere around the year 350. A.D. In those writings, in those letters, Athanasius referred to an extrabiblical writing known as “The Shepherd of Hermas” as not being part of, in his word, the “canon.” Which means if Athanasius in 350 A.D. Is saying that The Shepherd of Hermas is not a part of the canon, well there must be some canon that he’s saying The Shepherd of Hermas is not a part of. So that’s the first time we see that term used in extrabiblical literature. Well shortly after Athanasius there was the Council of Laodicea. Same Laodicea that John wrote in Revelation, but this is much later, 364 A.D. At this Council of Laodicea there was employed the terms canon or “canonical” to refer to books that did belong in the canon of Scripture, vis-a-vis those that did not. This was the first sort of formal council-based recognition of there being a canon of books that are biblical versus books that are outside the canon.

Now this word “canon” is used in a lot of different ways by different authors, even today. Even theologians today depend on who you are reading and the purpose for their writing. Here’s Floyd Barackman again. Even here in his definition he gives this idea. These two meanings of the term canon today. He says, “Canon refers, one, to the standard that a literary work must meet before it is recognized by God’s people as Scripture and, two, to the collection of books that meet this standard.” Similar is Charles Ryrie who says, “The word canon has a twofold meaning. It refers to the list of books that met certain tests or rules and thus were considered authoritative and canonical. But it also means that the collection of canonical books becomes our rule of life.” See what these two theologians are bringing out is that there’s this distinction being made in the literature between that collection of books that make up the Scriptures, what we know as the canon. The very standards by which those books are deemed to be canonical. You have to be kind of careful with definitions and terms as you read books on this subject to see what the author is actually intending.

Now before we go much further, with this part of the message tonight, we need to flesh out more in terms of our definitions of “canon” and “canonicity” by taking some time to work through some synonymous for these two concepts. See, even before there was such a thing or a thought of “the Christian canon” or before there was a recognized body of what we would come to know as the “Christian Scriptures” the way that we could think of those, the Jewish community of the Old Testament era, they were already collecting and preserving the Holy Scriptures going all the way back to the days of Moses. In doing so in such a way that recognized the authority of the books they were collecting and assembling. As each of the 39 books of the Old Testament books were written, they were quickly recognized in Old Testament times as being of God and therefore precious. This started all the way back to the Law, the five books of Moses. Consider these words from Joshua 1:7-8 where it says, “be careful to do according to all the law which Moses, My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.” So already the Law is considered treasured and precious right after the Law is given. Or consider I Kings 2. Here we have David’s instruction, his charge to his son Solomon where he says, “Keep the charge of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn.” So now we’re hundreds of years after the Law there’s already that, again, that emphasis of keeping the Law, preserving the law, maintaining the law, doing the Law. So precious was this law of Moses and so sacred were its words considered that the Law was specially treated and stored beside the ark of the covenant that was first, in the Tabernacle where the law was given a special place. It says, “It came about, when Moses finished writing the words of this law in a book until they were complete, that Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, ‘Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you’.” It was precious and preserved and kept in a very special place. That continued on in the days of the Temple. This is Tabernacle times in Deuteronomy 31 but then when the Temple was built, the sacred writings were preserved there as well. This is II Kings 22. This is that scene where the law is rediscovered during the reign of Josiah. It says, and these are Temple days, “Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, ‘I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD.’” So, it’s already there. This is a reference again to the days of Josiah and the Temple. Even then moving further down the historical track of Israel we are now in Nehemiah 8:1. This is post-exilic, meaning this is after Israel’s defeat, after Israel’s deportation, after Israel’s exile, after they come back to the Land to the rebuilt temple. Look at Nehemiah 8:1. “And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel.” The Law has made it from the Tabernacle to the Temple to now the rebuilt Temple in the days of the return to the Land. This special protection, this special treatment that was given to these five books of Moses is alone evidence that these books were considered to be sacred writings. If I can be so direct with this to say that these books were considered “canonical,” to be preserved to be part of God’s written revelation.

Now the authoritative and self-authenticating nature of the Old Testament Scriptures was not reserved or limited to the writings here of Moses. In fact, it carried over to later Old Testament authors where their writings were also deemed precious and protected and Scripture. Consider in Daniel 9:2, where Daniel here recognizes the words of the prophet Jeremiah as being “the word of the LORD.” Look at Daniel 9:2, “in the first year of his reign,” he says, “I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.” So, he’s referring, Daniel is, to Jeremiah, not to Moses here, but Jeremiah, another prophet, his writings as the word of the Lord. Or then in I Kings 16. Here the author refers to the writings of Joshua as “the word of the LORD.” It says, “In his days Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho; he laid its foundations with the loss of Abiram his firstborn and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which He spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.” All this to say, when it comes to the Old Testament there was this immediate awareness that the books we now know as “the Old Testament” were truly from God. In other words, the Old Testament books themselves testify in various respects to their own canonicity.

We see a similar phenomenon in the New Testament where New Testament authors similarly recognized both their own writings and writings of other New Testament authors as being God’s revealed word or to borrow our term, canonical. For instance, we have evidence within the New Testament itself of its divine authors understanding that their own writings were authoritative, that they truly were the words of God. We have Colossians 4:16, Paul to the church at Colossae as we’ve been studying says, “When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.” There’s an inherent authority to that letter. That’s why Paul is saying it has to be read in the open assembly. Or I Thessalonians 2:13, Paul here has awareness of what he is saying as being authoritative and from God. He says, “For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” One more is I Thessalonians 4:15 where Paul here says to the church at Thessalonica, “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” He’s talking about the rapture here and he’s saying, “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord,” he knows through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration that he’s speaking on behalf of God. There’s something sacred about what’s being communicated here. The New Testament authors, there were instances where they not only knew what they were saying was authoritative and from the Lord, but there are also instances where they acknowledged the writings of other New Testament authors as being divine Scripture or as we would say today, in the canon or canonical. We see this happening in two primary places. One is in I Timothy 5:18 and what we have here as Paul writes to Timothy is this quotation from Deuteronomy 25:4 being linked to another quotation from from Luke 10:7 and the key here is that both are called Scripture. When he says, ‘You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,’ and “The laborer is worthy of his wages’,” we have both an Old Testament quotation there and a New Testament quotation there and they’re both equally called here by Paul, Scripture. The other example is in II Peter 3:15-16, where Peter refers to the writings of Paul, his contemporary, as “Scripture.” He says, “and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” See only a very brief period of time had elapsed between whatever Paul had written in his letters and now what Peter is writing here in II Peter 3. But the evidence is there that Peter acknowledged Paul’s writings, although they weren’t all that old at this point, as “Scripture.”

We’ll get into more next week, but it was at this event called the Council of Jamnia in 90 A.D. that the Old Testament canon was formally and outwardly recognized. It was at the Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. that the New Testament canon was formally and outwardly recognized, at least, by formal church council standards. But as we round out our time on talking about “Canon Defined,” I don’t want us to lose sight of this fact. Which is that the formal recognition of the canon by church councils is a completely different issue from the topic of when the canon was actually formed. See the books in the canon were canonical the very moment they were breathed out by God and the canon officially closed when the Apostle John finished the book of Revelation, Revelation 22:21 with the word “Amen” from Patmos around the year A.D. 95. That’s when the canon closed. After A.D. 95 men, and creeds, council and councils and churches, they took pains in their study and in their research to figure out and to affirm and to attest what comprised the canon. But it was already inherently true of those same 66 books that they were canonical. The moment they were breathed out by God they belonged in the canon of Scripture. They were Scripture. They’ve always been Scripture. The canon was formed then, not in 397 A.D.

I’m going to have to constrain myself here because there’s so much that can be said. There’s so much popular literature out there today. I mean, Dan Brown’s book twenty years ago, “The DaVinci Code” tried to debunk this notion. You know “People” magazine, “Time” magazine, you know, around Easter or Christmas will try to debunk this notion. The bible was created in the fourth century they’ll say. That’s hogwash. That’s nonsense. The Bible was formed as God formed it as He moved in these authors as He breathed out His word through them in the very year that those words were breathed out. But as we’re going to see a little bit later, it took a little bit longer for humans like us, churches and councils, men to figure out what He breathed out.

Alright, I want us to consider this quotation from Ivor J. Davidson. Not a Christian as far as I can tell. More of a church historian. It’s just an interesting take on and distinction between when the canon was actually formed versus when it was formally recognized. He says, “At one level, it might be said that Christians created their Canon,” we would disagree with that, “for the decisions as to which books were in and which were out were obviously made by Christian leaders over a period of time and in response to particular internal and external challenges. At another level, however, these believers would have claimed that they were simply recognizing an authority that had already come to be appreciated by a large number of Christians,” true. “Rather than imposing legitimacy on a particular set of texts, they were, as they saw it, acknowledging and conserving the inspired authority that was already inherent in these works according to their origin, content, and proven usefulness over time.” Those last two slides we would agree with. The first one we would not. Now, this by the way of when the Scriptures became Scripture versus when the Scriptures were acknowledged as Scripture is really what separates the Roman Catholic view of Scripture from the biblical view of Scripture. The view of the Roman Catholic Church is that the Bible is an authoritative collection of writings, but that the authority of that collection of writings was conferred by the Church itself when the Catholic church decided this is Scripture. The biblical view, by contrast, as I have already said a couple of times, understands that the canon is a collection of divinely authoritative writings and that its authority is inherent, not derived from any human agents or agencies or churches. God’s people do not create God’s Word. God’s Word creates God’s people. Tt’s really important that we get that straight. For instance, I Peter 1:23 says, “for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” God’s people don’t create God’s word. God’s word creates God’s people. Or James 1:18 says, “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” God’s people don’t create God’s word. God’s word creates God’s people. Here’s MacArthur and Mayhue on this topic. They say “It is not a church or the people of God that determines which books to make authoritative. Rather, the people of God recognize the inspired nature that these writings already possess. Rightly understood, the canonization of Scripture is a process not of conferring,” that would be the Catholic view, “but of recognizing authority.” Or John Calvin says, “Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd than the fiction, that the power of judging Scripture is in the church, and that on her nod its certainty depends. When the church receives it, and gives it the stamp of her authority, she does not make that authentic which was otherwise doubtful or controverted, but acknowledging it as the truth of God, she as if duty bound, shows her reverence by an unhesitating assent. As to the question, how shall we be persuaded that it came from God without recurring to a decree of the Church? It is just the same as if it were asked, how shall we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Scripture bears upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth, as white and black do of their color, sweet and bitter of their taste.” That’s a good word.

We’ve worked through our first heading this evening, canonicity defined. In doing so we’ve looked at some definitions of “canon” and “canonicity.” We’ve looked at some synonyms for both terms as we looked at the Old Testament and New Testament examples of recognizing that what was being breathed out was God’s word. We’ve looked just now at the fact that the canon wasn’t and ultimately isn’t defined by men, or creeds, or councils or churches. That now brings us to our second heading on your worksheet there, canonicity determined. Now, what do I mean by that, “canonicity determined”? I mean this. Over the centuries there have been several inadequate theories proposed of what determines canonicity. That is, whether a book has rightly identified as being a part of the canon and those many inadequate theories are set against the one and only theory that works to help understand how to define canonicity. You’ll see what I mean in a second.

We’re going to start with some of these inadequate theories of canonicity and we’ll work through them one by one, and we’ll get to the only one adequate view. Here’s the first inadequate view of canonicity. Age determines canonicity. This theory says that the canonicity of a book is determined by its antiquity, by its age. They’ll say, this theory will, that a book eventually came to be venerated because of its age so therefore it’s canonical. But this theory misses the mark for multiple reasons. First, there are many old books mentioned in the Scriptures themselves which are not in the canon. By definition of not being in the canon but having been mentioned in the canon they are actually older than the books that are in the canon. What do I mean? Like for instance the book of Jashar in Joshua 10:13, not in the canon. But it’s mentioned in Joshua 10:13 as a book that already existed when Joshua wrote those words, but it’s old, not canonical. The book of the Wars of the Lord in Numbers 21:14. Also an old book, also not in the canon. The books of the acts of Solomon in I Kings 11:41 same thing. The book of the genealogy mentioned in Nehemiah 7:5, old book, noncanonical. The records of Nathan the prophet, the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, the visions of Iddo the Seer all mentioned in II Chronicles 9:29. All old books, not in the canon. Not only that, we think of what I Kings 4:32 tells us of King Solomon, that “He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005.” Yet, we only have a fraction of those proverbs in the 31 chapters of the Book of Proverbs, and we have only one of those songs, in the Song of Solomon. Meaning, there are a bunch of aged writings of Solomon that we don’t have, that didn’t make it into the canon.

Similarly, the New Testament refers to books that are now apparently lost, aged books, old books like Paul’s sorrowful letter to the church at Corinth that is mentioned in II Corinthians 2:4. A letter that was written between his first and second letters to the Corinthians. Or what about the fact that it is even said of our Lord that there are many other things He said and did that are not recorded. John 20:30, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.” Or John 21:25 says, “And there are also many other things which did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” From John’s perspective here, Jesus did things, many more things and inevitably said things, many more things that no books could contain all that He did and spoke. Only the essentials were included. So, the sorrowful letter of Paul, the other sayings of Jesus, there’s certainly are all “old” and “aged” by now but the age of those books and sayings and writings alone don’t make them canonical.

While we’re on this topic of age determining canonicity though, there’s another factor that undermines this view and it’s something we’ve already seen. That we actually have biblical evidence of books that were in the canon, placed in the canon at a time that they were not aged, and they weren’t old like the book of Moses. The book of the Law was immediately recognized as being from God and therefore canonical right as it was written. It wasn’t aged. It wasn’t old. We just saw Daniel referring to Jeremiah, which was not old at that time, calling it the “word of the Lord.” We just saw Peter referring to Paul’s writings as Scripture when those writings were still very much new, not aged. All that to say, this view doesn’t hold much water.

Here's another view that’s out there especially at relates to of course the Old Testament canon. It says the Hebrew language determines canonicity. Now I love the Hebrew language. I would say that Hebrew was probably one of my favorite courses in seminary. I’m a weirdo like that. But this view doesn’t work either, and for many reasons. For starters, there are many Hebrew apocryphal books which were rejected by the Jews! We know that from this Council of Jamnia which we’ll get into next week. It was held in in A.D. 90 and the Jews, the Hebrews themselves denied that certain Hebrew scriptures were canonical way back then. The fact of the matter is not all books written in Hebrew were accepted and recognized as being canonical. We’re going to go on a jet tour of some of those books next week. We’re going to get into the apocrypha, we’re going to get into the pseudepigrapha, all the wacky things that were promoted in those books and so clearly lacking the marks of divine authority or authorship. Not only that, though, this whole the “Hebrew language determines canonicity” argument is completely gutted by the fact that what do we have in the Old Testament canon? We have several sections of Scriptures, these where the text is not in Hebrew. It’s in Aramaic. In sections of Daniel and in Ezra we have Aramaic language that’s canonical. So not only is the “age determines canonicity” view inadequate, the “Hebrew language determines canonicity” is also inadequate.

Here's a third one, religious value determines canonicity. It has been suggested over the years that the religious value of a book, and that’s obviously very subjective for certain people, is determinative of its position and placement within the canon. But this puts the proverbial cart before the horse. We’re going to see later that while it is true that a book without any sort of spiritual value would be rejected as non-canonical, it’s also true that not every book with some semblance of spiritual worth is automatically canonical. If that were the case, every moderately orthodox Christian book or moderately orthodox commentary should be considered part of the canon. Or every one of Spurgeon’s sermon transcripts or every one of Gil’s pamphlets should be considered part of the canon. That’s not how it works though. What this view does is it confuses cause with effect. It’s not religious value that determines canonicity. It’s canonicity which determines the religious value of the book. Here's more from Geisler and Nix on this topic. They say, “The books of the Bible are not considered God-given because they are found to have value in them; they are valuable because they are given of God, the source of all value.”

We’ve just gone through some of the deficient theories of canonicity that have been advanced through the years. If these are deficient views, how should we think of canonicity? What is the one adequate view? Well, the view that, the only view that works, the only view that’s orthodox, the only view that’s true is that canonicity is determined by inspiration. I’ll say that again. That’s the one idea I want you to go home with tonight. Canonicity is determined by inspiration. The two go hand-in-hand. Again, here’s Geisler and Nix. They say the subject of the “canon” "is the second great link in the chain from God to us.” So, if the canon is the second great link in the chain what’s the first link? Well, the first link is inspiration. The inspiration of the Bible which we looked at a couple of lessons ago. An inspiration, you’ll recall, is the means by which the Bible received its authority as, using II Peter 1:21 “men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” It is one thing for prophets to receive a message from God. That’s inspiration. It’s another thing for that message to be recognized by the people of God. That’s canonicity. It’s the inspiration of a book which determines its canonicity. God gives divine authority to the book the minute the prophets of God received that book, that statement, God then reveals Himself through those men, those inspired authors, and then His people recognize what He has said through them. That’s the whole process. Here’s Herman Bavinck on this subject. He says, “The canonicity of the Bible books is rooted in their existence. They have authority of themselves, by their own right, because they exist.” Meaning the Bible is self-authenticating, and the canon is self-revealing. Here’s Geisler and Nix again, “Canonicity is determined by God and discovered by men.” That’s really important. Canonicity is determined by God; the books are the word of God the moment they are breathed out by those authors and later discovered by men.

Alright, we’ve looked at the definitions of canonicity. We’ve looked at the determination of canonicity. Next, we’re going to look at the discovery of canonicity, canonicity discovered. This idea of “discovering” canonicity as I’m presenting it here is only to say that while the Scriptures are self-authenticating and that they were immediately a part of the canon as soon as they were breathed out by God, the people of God nevertheless played a role, albeit not a determinative one in discriminating and deciding which books and writings truly were from God. Again, while men and churches and councils don’t determine canonicity they did recognize and discover authenticity. There’s a major difference there. Here are a couple of quotes from two different theologians on this topic. R.C. Sproul says, “These men,” speaking of the people from the councils years ago, “these men did not believe they were creating the canon, rather, they were simply recognizing and submitting to the sacred truth inherent in the ancient texts while avoiding those considered errant and of questionable authorship.” Here’s Ryrie. He says “the books were canonical the moment they were written. It was not necessary to wait until various councils could examine the books to determine if they were acceptable or not. Their canonicity was inherent within them, since they came from God. People and councils only recognized and acknowledged what is true because of the intrinsic inspiration of the books as they were written. No book of the Bible ‘became canonical’ by action of some church council.” So again, men and councils did have to consider what books should be recognized as a part of the canon and some decisions and choices had to be made as God guided people and groups to make correct choices within certain guidelines to collect the various writings that were out there to say, yes this belongs in the canon, and this is truly of the canon, or this is not.

What were those guidelines? What were the tests that men like this had to employ to determine, to recognize, to discover, if a book was canonical or not? Well, there are basically five. Different authors have different ways of expressing this. I’m going to go with Geisler and Nix. They have a great book called “From God to Us” that lays this all out. Here are the five tests that have been used historically. First, is the book authoritative? That is, does it claim to be from God? We’re going to go through these in more detail. Second, is the book prophetic or apostolic? That is, was it written by a set-apart servant of God, a qualified servant? Third, is the book authentic? That is, does it tell the truth about God and His relation to man? Fourth, is the book dynamic? Meaning does it contain inherently the life-transforming power of God? Fifth, has the book been accepted by the people of God? That is, for those to whom it was originally written, was it recognized as truly being from God?

We’ll take these one by one starting with is the book authoritative? You know, each book in the Bible bears some claim of divine authority. In some cases, like in the case of the Old Testament prophets it’s right there in the front of the introduction, thus saith the Lord.” In other cases, it’s more the nature of the exhortations or the pronouncements that reveal the book’s divine origin. In some cases, the didactic portions, meaning the teaching portions of the book, make it clear about the weighty responsibilities that God is placing on the people being addressed. In other cases, the historical portions of the book, testify compellingly and accurately to the way God worked among His people. Which matches up with the extra-biblical historical record. Using examples and standards like these if a book lacked any evidence of having the authority of God. It was not considered canonical. It was not deemed as truly having come from God.

Here's the next one, is the book prophetic or apostolic? See, inspired books come only through Spirit-moved men known as prophets or apostles . . . or men who are exercising a prophetic gift, which in those times were still operative. Or men, like Mark or Luke, who were very close associates of people who had the prophetic or apostolic office or gift. II Peter 1:20-21, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” In addition to that example, we have Paul, going to great pains in Galatians 1:1, laying out his apostolic credentials here. It says, “Paul, an apostle, not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead.” Paul here is using this language to showcase that his letter should be accepted because he was an apostle. He was “not sent from men nor through the agency of man.” Rather, he was an apostle, sent by “Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead.” Therefore, his writing should be accepted as authoritative as apostolic. Other books, by contrast, go the other way. Other biblical books where they warn those who receive a writing that’s not from an apostle or from a prophet, to reject their writings. We see an example of this in II Thessalonians 2:1-2, where Paul warns against receiving writings which claimed to have apostolic or prophetic authority but didn’t. It says, “Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.” He’s saying there are going to be false messengers out there. We see another warning like this in II Corinthians 11:12-13, about those who would falsely disguise themselves as being true apostles. He says, “But what I am doing I will continue to do, so that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are,” meaning apostles, “in the matter about which they are boasting. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” Then, we have John’s warning, the Apostle John’s warning about false prophets here in I John 4:1 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The question is as it comes back to canonicity and evaluating a particular book, was the book written, edited, endorsed by an accredited agent of God, like a prophet or an apostle? Or did the author at least have a relationship with a prophet or an apostle? Like Mark or like Luke? Which would then raise their book to the level of having apostolic authority.

Here’s our next test, is the book authentic? Another hallmark of a book’s canonicity is its authenticity. Any book that has factual or doctrinal errors, is not, could not be of God. It wouldn’t be inspired by God. Could not be considered the word of God. Should not be considered a part of the canon of scripture. So, you just have to ask the questions. Can what’s recorded in that book be traced back historically, to actually be verified to have been true? Does it measure up with other sections of scripture? Is the book factually accurate? We know from scripture, that God cannot lie. So, His word must be, and it is true and it’s consistent. So, if it contains any contradictions of, or disagreements with other aspects of God’s word. Well, that scripture or purported scripture cannot actually be scripture. It cannot be inspired. It cannot be canonical.

Here’s our next test, is the book dynamic? Now, this test, admittedly, can be a little bit more difficult to nail down than some of the others. But what this boils down to, is, does the writing in question have the ability and the track record of transforming lives? We know from scripture, that is what scripture does. If it’s scripture, it will be like, Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Or think of the words of Paul here, in II Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” This is speaking to the transformation that the word of God will bring in the life of the believer. Or one verse before that, Paul speaks of “the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Or think of the words of Peter, who spoke of the edifying and the evangelizing power of the word of God. We’ve already seen this one tonight. I Peter 2:2 “but you have been born again not of seed, which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring,” sounds like dynamic, “word of God.” Or finally, I Peter 2:2 “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.” So, the word of God, if it truly belongs in the canon. If a book is being presented for inclusion in the canon, it must have some dynamic power in the life of its audience.

Last, is this one, has the book been accepted by the people of God? Has it been accepted by the people to whom it was initially addressed? To be God’s word. To recognized as God’s word, it must first have been recognized by His people. Now, admittedly, in some cases, there was not immediate recognition of God’s word as God’s word by His people. There were some cases where God’s word was immediately recognized as God’s word. They acted upon it as such. Like The Law with Moses. Like Daniel quoting Jeremiah. Like Peter quoting Paul, as scripture right away. But in other cases, we don’t have that clear evidence of how a book of the Bible was received right away in its initial audience. That’s where all the hard work went in, in later councils and creeds or in councils and church assemblies, to figure out, to do the hard work, do the research, as to how well received this book was, when it was first written to its respective audience. Because communication went slower back in those days, because travel was slower back in those days. It simply took time, for instance, to learn, well how well was the book of Colossians received by the believers at Colossae? How well was Paul’s letter to Philemon received by Philemon? It took time to acknowledge and research and figure out, as the years went on, just how well received those books were by their initial audiences. That gets to what we’ll get into next week, in terms of how the canon took form and shape, as the hundreds of years after John at Patmos unfolded.

We’re three points in. Got one more to go. One more blank on your worksheet, to fill in, canonicity delimited. I just mentioned it, but when the apostle John, on the island of Patmos, around the year A.D. 95, scrawled out the word “Amen”, in what we now know as Revelation 22:21 the canon of scripture at that point, was officially closed. Now again, it took some time for the church to discover, using those tests, those five tests that we just went through. Which of the books of antiquity bore the marks of canonicity, and which did not. But the canon closed at that point. The canon is complete. The canon, to use our “D” word here, is delimited. The canon is closed. What that means is that the various books which have been put forth by cult groups and false teachers over the years which are often placed alongside the bible as being at least equally authoritative to the bible, they’re not. That includes books like “The Book of Mormon.” Or the “Doctrine and Covenants,” “The Pearl of Great Price,” other Morman writings. The prophecies of Ellen G. White, with the Seventh Day Adventist movement and of course, in our day, “Jesus Calling,” where if you look at the introduction of this book, Sara Young is really putting herself out there as being essentially a prophet. She’s getting new revelation from God, she’s saying. Well, these writings have no business competing with what God has divinely and completely revealed for all time. The canon is closed. What this also means is that any so called prophetic utterances or visions that people claim to receive today as though this is some sort of era of new and fresh divine revelation being received, well those claims are bogus. God has spoken. He has spoken completely to us. He has said what He needed to say to us in the 66 books in the Scriptures. The canon is closed. And last, what this means is that we should not live in light of sort of hyped-up expectation that any more books of Paul or Peter or Luke or James are going to be discovered one day. That a message in a bottle is going to wash up on a shore somewhere. Nor should we think that even if more books by those men were discovered that that would somehow mean that the canon is re-opened and it’s time to add a 67th book to the canon. No. Even if an additional letter of Paul were discovered today that would not make it canonical. I mean, surely a man as prolific as Paul, wrote other things during his lifetime, if not other letters to other people at least a grocery list. Right? It doesn’t mean it’s in the canon. It was not the writer who’s inspired. It was his writings that were inspired and even then, not necessarily all of them. The canon is closed.

On that note we’re going to end with this quote by F. F Bruce, a New Testament scholar in the early 20th century. He says, “The suggestion is made from time to time that the canon of Scripture might be augmented by the inclusion of other ‘inspirational’ literature, ancient or modern, from a wider cultural spectrum. But this betrays a failure to appreciate what the canon actually is. In the canon of Scripture, we have the foundation documents of Christianity, the charter of the church, the title-deeds of faith. For no other literature can such a claim be made.”
Indeed. We have our foundation. We have our charter. We have our “title-deeds of faith.” Now, the canon is closed. There we have it. Here are our four points again in case you missed any of these. Canonicity defined, canonicity determined, canonicity discovered, and canonicity delimited.

Let’s pray. God, thank you for these basic reminders of how you have worked in moving men to breathe out Your word. Thank you that we have confidence knowing, based on what you have revealed about Yourself in the Old and the New Testaments, that what You have given to us is all that we need pertaining life and godliness. Thank you for the work of faithful men throughout the years after the canon was closed who worked diligently to understand, to study, to research which books had those marks of canonicity, and which did not. But thank you that we can have assurance that it’s not those men that we have our hope in it’s You. The One who actually gave us those books as You moved in men as they spoke as from You. But thank you that we can hold in our laps or on our phones the very written revelation of the very living God. Thank you that you have spoken to us so that we may navigate this life and do so faithfully. Thank you for this time this evening. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.