We pray all these things and
let us again absorb this information so we can glorify you, Lord God. But we pray all these things
in the name of Jesus Christ, the great God and Savior, our
Lord, our high priest, our only mediator. Amen. I have about 10 of these, I think
it's my third edition of a definitive look at Oneness Theology in Light
of Biblical Trinitarianism. It's a book on the Trinity, but
it's a polemic against Oneness Theology. Oneness Theology is
a theology that teaches God is unipersonal. It teaches that
Jesus is the name of this unipersonal God, and sometimes he comes out
as a father, sometimes he's a son, sometimes he's the Holy Spirit.
You have to find out in Scripture, according to one of theology,
what mode or role is Jesus talking in? Of course, this was refuted
by the early church. It has been refuted by Christian
orthodoxy as non-Christian because it denies that the Son of God
is eternal. It denies that Jesus Christ as
Son existed before Bethlehem. And Jesus said in John 8, 24,
unless you believe, that I am, you will perish in your sin.
That I am the Eternal One, you will perish in your sin. You
cannot deny the eternality of the Son and say you're saved,
because you deny Christ. You cannot deny that the Son
became flesh and be saved, because that's the Son of biblical revelation. It was the Son who incarnated
Himself voluntarily. It was the Son that became flesh
and died on the cross. One of the theology holds to
The view that the Father, who is Jesus' mode before Bethlehem,
actually took flesh, but He actually did not become flesh. He just
took flesh, and that flesh was called Son. So it's heretical.
There's probably more than 25 million oneness advocates. And it's just an attack on the
biblical doctrine of the Trinity. And we as Christians must be
equipped to share the basics of the Trinity. I've heard so
many bizarre explanations from Christians what the Trinity is.
Three people in one person. I mean, just weirdness. We have
to be equipped if we want to glorify God. One God revealed
in three distinct persons, co-equal, co-distinct, co-existent. This is the God that revealed
Himself in the Holy Scriptures. This is the God that saves. Jesus
Christ was the second person of the Holy Trinity. He's distinct
from the Father. He's fully God. but yet distinct. One God, three persons. So this
was this book actually deals with Oneness Theology. Some of
the arguments like I'm the father of one, Jesus must be claiming
to be the father and all these other arguments they pose. And we as Christians need to
defend the biblical doctrine of Trinity and affirm our faith,
affirm the God that we serve because it glorifies God. Jesus
is Lord means nothing unless you're talking about the Jesus
of biblical revelation. So I have about 10 of these left.
If you want to get one, let me know afterwards. Thank you. Now, we are going to deal with
a different topic. If you were here earlier, we
talked about some of the basic nuts and bolts we dealt with
in regards to the reliability of the New Testament. Now, why
that's so crucial is because there's many who do not deny
the Old Testament scriptures. But they deny the New Testament
Scriptures. Why? Because it has and centers
around the person of Christ. And this Christ claimed he was
the only way, the very means of salvation. This Christ claimed
that he was God. One of my favorite passages where
he claims to be God, I like the ego, a me passages, the I am. There's another one. In John
5, again, Muslims will always say Jesus never claimed to be
God. I don't know what the Bible they're reading, because again,
in John, seven absolute times, Jesus claims to be the I Am,
and the Jews understood this. They wanted to kill Him for it.
See, the Jews were much smarter than the cults today. The Jews
understood what Jesus was claiming. The cults just deny it. In John
5, verses 17 and 18, Jesus says, Father is at work to this very
day. I am at work. And John the Apostle
says, not only was he loosing, literally, or relaxing the Sabbath,
but he was even calling God his Father, making himself equal
with God. That's why the Jews sought to
kill him. Not only what, again, those Those
tenses there, imperfect tenses, show that this wasn't the first
time he was relaxing the Sabbath. This wasn't the first time that
he was calling God his father. But evidently, he had been doing
this. Now, it's recorded here, but
because of the imperfect tense, the repeated action, he must
have been calling his father God. So they sought to kill him
because he was making himself equal with God, says John. So
now we're talking about not the reliability of the New Testament,
but the development of the canon of the New Testament. In Proverbs
30, 5 and 6, we read that every word of God is tested. He is
a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words,
or he will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. As mentioned,
today you can go to most bookstores you can find bookstores and you'll
see books called the Lost Books of the Bible or something like
that. You'll turn on the History Channel and you'll hear and watch
segments or whole shows on the secret books of the Bible or
the Lost Books and of course that's question begging, it's
assuming that these books that someone has were lost, that they
were supposed to be in the New Testament canon. First of all,
to get familiar with some of the words canon, when we say
the New Testament canon, it literally means a measuring rod. And it was used by the early
church. It came to be used by the church to denote a list of
authoritative books or the list of the apostolic books When we
say, when I make the statement or someone else says every book
was written in the New Testament by an apostle or someone with
apostolic authority, every book. So if a book came along that
was after the apostolic age, it wasn't a book that was God
breathed out. And we'll look at some of these
details. In other words, every book of the Bible that we have,
the 27 books of the New Testament, where theophanous does God breathe
out. Since the reliability of the
New Testament constantly is attacked due to the main theme, Jesus
Christ as Savior, and Jesus Christ as God, and Jesus Christ as the
only means of salvation, Christians should be aware of the nature
of the formation of the New Testament. In other words, how do we get
these 27 books? As mentioned, Paul in 2nd Timothy
316 says that all pass all scripture was God breathed out. Now here
in 2nd Timothy 316, Paul's intention was not to provide some kind
of canonical list, but rather to express the very nature of
scripture as God breathed out. Historically, as with the doctrine
of the Trinity, The New Testament canon was developmental, as we'll
see. That is, subsequent to the death
of the apostles, the formal New Testament canon, or list of authoritative
books, developed over time. However, what we find clearly
within the pages of the New Testament is a functional canon. I'll demonstrate. First of all, when Paul says
in 1 Timothy 3.16, or Second Timothy, that all scriptures
God breathes out. It is not limited to just books
in the Old Testament. In fact, there was a functioning
canon within the New Testament. As mentioned before, earlier,
I quoted a passage that came to us in 2 Peter 3, 3, 15 and
16, where Peter says some of Paul's letters are hard to understand. that the ignorant or Amethyst,
literally unstudied and unstable, twist to their own destruction
as they do other scriptures. What is that saying? He says
Paul's writings are hard to understand, but of course, they're only hard
to understand for the Amethyst, for the unstudied. But Peter
says they twist, these people, Paul's letters as they do other
scriptures. So here we have Peter establishing
the letters of Paul, he uses it in the plural, as graphe,
as scripture. Also, we see in 1 Timothy 5.18,
Paul establishes Luke as scripture when he says this in 1 Timothy
5.18, For scripture says, You shall not muzzle the ox while
he is threshing. That comes from Deuteronomy 25,
25-4. And he says, the laborer is worthy
of his wages. Now, both Deuteronomy and this
phrase right here, the laborer is worth his wages, we can only
find it in Luke, in Luke 10-7. That's the only place where we
find a Scripture in which Paul repeats. For Scripture says,
the laborer is worthy of his wages, Luke 10-7. Now, if you
notice, Deuteronomy and Luke 10 7 are presented with the phrase
or preceded by the phrase Scripture for Scripture says So we see
that Paul establishes Luke as Scripture just says Peter establishes
Paul's letters as Scripture also It gets worse for the skeptic
in reference to the Apostle Peter Jude in verse 7 remembers what
quote was spoken beforehand by the apostles. And then in verse
18, Jude quotes. Second, Peter, three, three.
Now, the contextual correspondence between second Peter two and
Jude six unquestionably substantiates that either Jude quoted from
Peter or the converse, they're saying the same thing. And you
says, as what was stated by the apostles. As the New Testament record shows,
immediately after the New Testament letters were written, they were
collected, they were circulated, they were read, and they were
quoted. Now, this was all in the first
century. As soon as they were written,
they were collected, circulated, read, and quoted. Now, some passages
show that. We don't have to go through all
of them. Revelation 1, 11, they were collected. In Colossians
4.16, we find that they were circulated. And also we know
they were circulated from 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16. Paul's letters
were hard to understand for the unstudied, that they twist, showing
that Peter's audience, at least in Peter's mind, were familiar
with the letters of Paul. They were also read in 1 Thessalonians
5.27, Paul says this, I adjure you by the Lord to have this
letter read to all the brethren." And they were quoted. Soon as
they were written, collected, circulated, read, and quoted.
Hence, the first century enjoyed and recognized Apostolic teachings
contained in the letters of the original apostles. So they indeed
had a functional canon that was sufficient for the proclamation
of truth. Now. Of course, we can spend
a whole lot of time on this issue, but I'm just going to go over
some basics, the criteria. Of what's known as Kansas City,
what was the the the test or the standard, the acid test that
the early church used to determine what books were apostolic or
that is canonical. First, there were reasons to
establish a recognized or list of authoritative books, or there
was reasons to establish the canon. Number one, books were
prophetic. Since they were written by an
apostle slash prophet, they were valuable and hence they were
all preserved. Number two, there was demands
of the early church because they contain the words and actions
of Jesus Christ and the Apostolic teachings. These books provided
theological, ethical instructions for edification, encouragement,
so on and so forth. So that, as Paul says, the man
of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So it was
necessary to have a collection of the New Testament books that
could provide authoritative norm for faith and practice. Three, heretical challenges. When heresies begin to emerge,
the church quickly, not like today, the church quickly refuted,
sharply refuted them by church councils or ecumenical councils.
Of course, today, nothing ever happens like that. But the early
church, they took this seriously. They took doctrine very serious.
In fact, if you look at history on the issues at Nicaea, When
Arius the heretic was preaching his watchtower theology, that
Jesus Christ was created, it wasn't something that they swept
under the carpet. There was fighting in the streets
over this issue. That's how important it was. Heretical challenges was another
reason why they had to establish a canon. And also because some
people would purposely misrepresent or forge documents allegedly
from an apostle, the church found it utterly crucial to establish
what books actually belonged in the canon. Number four, this
is a very important reason to establish the canon for missionary
purposes. Because the rapid spread of Christianity
throughout the countries, there was a need to translate the actual
Bible into other languages. 5. Persecution. In times of persecution,
it was important for the church leaders, quoting from F.F. Bruce, to distinguish between
those books which might, as a last resort, be handed over to the
police, and those which must be preserved, if needed, at the
cost of life itself. It is erroneous to assert that
the church created the canon. We see this assertion all the
time, as mentioned, for some reason, for a lot of reasons,
the skeptics and non-Christian cult and even Christians, unfortunately,
have this notion that the Roman Catholic Church went into a tall
building at Nicaea and the issue there was actually the canon.
What books were in, what books were out? Well, number one, there
was no such animal as the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, if
we were at Nicaea in 325 and I went up to the to somebody, how about the, well,
actually the Roman Bishop wasn't even there. He sent one of his
deacons. But if I asked someone, hey, are you a Roman Catholic?
People look at me, what's a Roman Catholic? We're all Catholic.
We're all the universal church. There was no established Roman
Catholicism. That was years later. So it's erroneous to assert that
the church created the canon. The church did not make or produce
the canon. But rather, it discovered what
was already recognized by people before them. Now, there is a
contrast here. Actually, this comes from Nix
in a great book that he wrote on this issue where he contrasts
faulty views with correct views regarding the New Testament canon.
Incorrect view, the church is the determiner of the canon.
The correct view is the church is the discoverer of the canon. Incorrect view. The church is
the mother of the canon. The correct view. The church
is the child of the canon. The church is the regulator of
the canon. Incorrect. Correct view. The
church is the recognizer of the canon. Incorrect view. The church
is the judge of the canon. The correct view. The church
is witness of the canon. The church, incorrect view, is
the master of the canon. The correct view would be the
church is a servant of the canon. So, it's plain and obvious when
we look at the record that the early church followed this paradigm
here in the apostles in terms of procedure and canonization. Again, the ground of canonicity
was really inspiration. Hence, the New Testament authors
wrote as God the Spirit moved them to write. The instrument
of canonicity, the very instrument that God employed was the apostles
or those with apostolic authority. To say again, the absolute canonical
test was apostolicity. Was it written by an apostle
or someone with apostolic authority? That's what they mean. Are there
new apostles today? No. There was a prerequisite
to that. That's a decidedly biblical term.
I like what Ignatius says. Church of Antioch, he was a leader.
He may have known John, but this guy was a leader of the Church
of Antioch. He says, when I write, I don't write like Peter or Paul. They were apostles. I am not.
Today, there's no distinction. You can go out to most churches
and you'll see, you know, Apostle Bill Wednesday night, you know,
get your prophecy, bring your checkbook. Now, the central or
main principles utilized to determine canonicity was as follows. The
main principles, what did they use to actually determine what
books were apostolic or canonical? Again, as seen immediately after
the New Testament books were written, they were collected,
circulated, quoted, and read in the original churches. So
this process molded and shaped the post-apostolic churches of
canonization because they saw Paul's letters or Paul's commandment
to have these letters read. They were they were read, they
were circulated, they were quoted. So what they did, they followed
that biblical paradigm. So the central principles utilized
by the church to determine what was canon and what was not canon
or what books were God breathed out were as follows. Principle
one, apostolicity. Since the New Testament was built,
says Ephesians, on the foundation of apostles and prophets, New
Testament, the indispensable test for New Testament kineticity
was apostolicity. Thus, every New Testament book
was written by a foundational apostle or one that had apostolic
authority. Principle two, antiquity. I mentioned
this before. Simply, if a book was written
by an apostle, it had to belong to the apostolic age. Writings
after this could not be apostolic. Simple. Most of the false or
pseudepigraphical books, the false writings, were way after
the first century. It can't be apostolic. For example,
also, even though the highly regarded shepherd of Hermas.
Hermas may have been the one Paul was giving a greeting to,
and he wrote a work called Shepherd that was quoted much. It was
found in one of the earliest canons, the moratorium fragment,
and some early codexes. Its late date for composition
precluded it to have canonical status. It's too late. Furthermore,
most of the false writings were rejected for that reason,
wrong time, too late. Principle three orthodoxy. In
other words, it had to agree doctrinally with the totality
of scripture. Can't be any contradictions.
For instance, the Gospel of Peter we talked about how there was
blatant contradictions the again not written by Peter was a it
was a pseudepigraph a book a false writing of the gospel of Thomas
the gospel of Philip all these books had Blaring contradictions
that were consistent not to Christianity, but to narcissism So it had to be Orthodox principle
for it Catholic city now when we say Catholic and we're dealing
Historically, we mean universal. We don't mean the Roman Catholic
Church So principle four is catholicity. The universal church collected,
recognized genuine apostolic writings. And if a book only
had local recognition, and that's it, it was not likely to be accepted.
If no one else heard about it, it probably wasn't apostolic. Naturally, the New Testament
books that were first collected and circulated, quoted, read
by the original churches became universally recognized. Everyone
knew about it. Principle 5, traditional use.
Similar to the principle of Catholicity, books that were collected, circulated,
quoted, and read by the original churches were, of course, known
among the churches. And they looked at the church's
habitual use of these books. Apostolic books, New Testament
books, were read by the universal church. They were traditionally
known as apostolic. As mentioned before, the Council
of Nicaea 325, the New Testament quotations from the early church
fathers were so abundant that almost every single passage can
be found. In fact, the whole, as mentioned,
the New Testament can be virtually reconstructed just on their quotations. So the 27 books of the New Testament
were traditionally treated as scripture. So if a church leader
in the third or fourth century submitted a book and was claiming
it was apostolic, but no one knew about it, he would have
much difficulty trying to gain acceptance. And then principle
six, inspiration. The church believed that only
the Theophanous, that God breathed out books, were canonical. Thus, inspiration was the means
by which the revelation of God was brought into the written
record. The vocabulary belonged to the
New Testament authors, but the message was God. Paul wrote,
says Clement of Rome, with true inspiration, he says. So, inspiration,
therefore, was the criterion of verification as to what books
were apostolic and hence canonical. Now, categorizing the canon,
we have a different issue here. After a century, probably after
Origen, around A.D. 235, he categorized books, because
keep in mind, by the 3rd century, there was a lot of books floating
around. Tons of different... The Gospel of Thomas was around
then, and all these either false books or questionable books,
they were all floating around, so Origen, who was one of the
first textual scholars. He's a little bizarre, but he
was a textual scholar. He categorized the books in three
different groups. Acknowledged or undisputed, disputed by some
and false. But it wasn't until the early
church historian, Eusebius, one of our first church historians. Until him, what he did, he actually
gave us a better, he modified that. And he gave us four different
categories of where all these books landed, all these books
that were around. First, there were books that
were accepted by all, books that were disputed by some, and books
that were accepted by some, and finally, books that were rejected
by everybody. Everybody. First, the books that
were accepted by all. Again, we're looking in the third
and fourth century. The books that were homo legumina,
or accepted by all, literally to speak the same, use this great
term, were the four Gospels, Acts, the Epistles of Paul, 1st
and 2nd John, and Revelation, although Eusebius went back and
forth in Revelation. So these were the books that
nobody questioned. Again, there weren't emails,
they had no fax machines, the church was in the West, the church
was in the East, so communication was very slow. Accepted by all and then there
was the books anti-legumina literally spoken against and these were
books that were disputed only by some Not by the majority and
these books included James 2nd Peter 2nd and 3rd John Jude and
Revelation and there were some reasons James why was James disputed
by some and Seem like James was, you know, if you look at on the
face, it's the only time in the New Testament where the words
faith without or faith alone is used and it's used in the
negative sense where James says, therefore, we're not justified
by faith alone. Faith alone is only used in James. That phrase
Catholics attack us. They say, show me where faith
alone is used because we say we're saved by faith alone. Of
course, my response to that is that Paul used language that
was stronger than if he would have said faith alone. He says,
apart from faith, without works. I mean, he says things that are
stronger than just saying faith alone. But of course, James is
not talking about justification in the same context as Paul.
James is dealing with behavior before man. How do you demonstrate
your actual justification by what you do to man? That's how
you demonstrate it. That's James whole thesis. Show
me your faith. I'll show you my faith by what
I do. We are saved through faith alone. We're not saved as faith
as the cause, but faith is the instrument that God used. Faith
alone, the sole instrument, the very ground or cause of our salvation,
of course, is the crosswork of Christ and his life. But true
faith. Will show works, so James point. That you're saved by faith only.
Yes, that is true. But if you're actually justified,
you will show it by what you do. Whereas Paul's thesis is
you're actually justified through faith before the Lord alone,
without works. Chris Ergon without work. So, those were the books disputed
by, or was in the category of disputed by some. 2 Peter, I
already mentioned this, it was written so much different than
1 Peter. 2 Peter was written as this vulgar kind of common
Greek with not great grammar, whereas 1 Peter, beautiful literary
Greek. Well, of course, 1 Peter 5 answers
the question that we have on that. Peter uses an amanuensis,
a secretary. He says, through Sophanas I wrote
to you. So, eventually, 1 Peter got accepted
by everyone, as with James. And 2 and 3 John, interesting
why these were disputed by some, because they were so short. And in Revelation, people went
back and forth. Again, these are books that were disputed
only by some and early on. Then there was the books. Apocrypha
or Notha accepted by some. We have the disputed by some.
Now we have books that some of the church fathers accepted it
as scripture. Some. These would include the
Epistle Barnabas, one of the earliest documents we have written
around 80, 70. Clement's first epistle to the Corinthians. The
teachings of the apostle or the Didache written around 80, 100. Hermes is the shepherd, as mentioned.
Polycarp the epistle to the Philippian church Some accepted it some
of those books Then we have the categories of books that no one
accepted. They all rejected it except liberal
scholars today And they're about 2,000 years too late, but the
ones back then said these books are not they're just heretical
and these would include Let me quote what Eusebius says about
them, these pseudepigrapha books. Under the names of the apostles,
such books as the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, Mary, Matthias
and others, or the Acts of Andrew, the Acts of John or other apostles
have never been cited by any of the succession of church writers. And then he talks about these
books by saying this type of phraseology used Contrast the
apostolic style and the opinions and thrusts of their contents
are so disconnected From true orthodoxy that they show themselves
to be forgeries of heretics Accordingly they ought not to be reckoned
even among spurious books, but discarded as absurd So those
are the categories but then As mentioned, before long, when
churches had more communication, more study, they were all accepted
as Theoponistos. In terms of the earliest list,
who were the ones that made the earliest list of the Bible, of
the books of the Bible in the New Testament? Some of the earliest full list,
one of the earliest ones is 367 by Athanasius. dealing with the full 27. Now,
there were earlier lists. There was a heretic in 150, Marcion,
who liked Paul. And he didn't like the God of
the Old Testament. He was a Gnostic. He thought
the Old Testament God was evil and would never create something
as evil as matter. And Jesus was a good Eon or God. And the father that Jesus talked
about wasn't the evil God in the Old Testament who made things.
So Marcion, he lists Paul's letters, except the pastorals, and this
expurgated or edited version of Luke. That's it. That was
his canon. But nevertheless, it was a canon.
That was the earliest one. But the earliest full canon,
367 Athanasius, in his 39th Easter letter. He'd write a letter every
year when he was emperor in Alexandria. And in his 39th letter, he lists
all 27 books. Again, he didn't invent it. He
just recognized what was codified years before. In 393, you have
the regional council of Hypo. And they recognized the 27 books.
And there was another regional council in 397, the council of
Cartlidge. And they recognized the 27 books. as belonging in the New Testament
canon. But again, these 27 books, which
were universally confirmed at these councils, agreed with the
27 books we have in our hand today. And again, to say again
and again and again, at these official councils, the early
church did not invent or create the New Testament canon, nor
did they accept or reject books based on church authority, but
rather at these councils, the church merely codified what was
already recognized by the earlier church fathers who follow the
paradigm we find in the Bible, collected, quoted, so on and
so forth. What was already recognized, they just codified it by the
people of God. So the next question is, now
that we have some idea of the development of the 27 books,
is the canon closed? I know you can turn on Christian
TV and you'll see it's not closed because there's a constant stream
of divine revelation. There's a constant stream of
prophetic revelation. Things are going to happen next
year and the year before. Every year is either the year of prosperity
or in 2007, painfully watching something
where it was the year of angels. So every year there's something.
And all that says is that the canon was never closed. So if you get up here and I'm
just believing you and you say, I have a word from the Lord,
what I'm going to do, I'm going to quickly go to the back of
my Bible and write it down, because isn't that not theophanistic?
Now, of course, we have the LDS Church, the Mormon Church, Roman
Catholic Church, and Word of Faith Churches, who believe that
the Bible is not closed. The New Testament still has room
for more of a revelation. That's the whole idea behind
prophets. But we can demonstrate that the
canon is closed, meaning there's no new books. God's revelation
is done here. We can demonstrate this, that
it's closed theologically, historically, and this is the last part, and
providentially, which is most important. Every non-Christian
cult or world religion, as mentioned, has some reason why sola scriptura
doesn't work. They all have some reason why
it doesn't work. In fact, the Roman Catholics sneer at the
phrase of sola scriptura. For in the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, 1994, I'll read it, Rome officially pronounces, said Trent,
both Scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored
with equal sediments of devotion and reverence. Scripture and
tradition. Which tradition? Well, church
fathers. Well, which one? And what method,
their material verses they mention, or there's not even agreement
within Roman Catholicism. Men can err. Popes have erred. But you can trust Scripture.
It has not erred. The LDS Church, likewise, sees
the Bible as inferior compared to their other three standard
works. And I think I quoted this before
in their eighth article of Faith. They say, we believe the Bible
is the Word of God, insofar as it's translated correctly. We
also believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. So, the Book
of Mormon is the Word of God, but the Bible, well, if it's
translated correctly, it's the Word of God. And we saw with
Joseph Smith how he perverted many passages in here in 1844
in his inspired so-called version. I'm sorry, 1834. Now that gives the Mormon Church
room to add to the canon since they don't see it as authoritative.
There are other standard works, Pearl Gray Price, the Book of
Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, those are authoritative. Those
are the rule of faith, the regula fidei for the Mormon Church,
but not the Bible. Because nobody knows how to translate
it or no one knows what scribes, evil scribes may have done. Of
course, they just say that with the passages that controvert
Mormonism. But what they really mean is, and it's really funny,
because what they really mean is that they think the actual
text was corrupted. That's different than a translation.
They think the actual Greek manuscripts, like someone in the second or
third century dug up every single manuscript and just changed it
here, which is an impossibility. No one had ecclesiastical power
to do that. and tell me that someone dug
up every single manuscript and changed it at different places.
Who? What is the evidence of that? It's just so utterly absurd. Two ways of denying scripture
alone. We call it canon addition and
canon reduction. Canon addition As we just talked
about, the LDS Church, Roman Catholic Church, many charismatic
denominations engage in what's known as canon addition. They're
adding to the canon. In these cases, a preacher will
assert that God told him something normally at three in the morning
and bestowing on him some new revelation that he will give
either his TV audience or his audience in the church. And they're
adding to the canon. God said this. And canon addition
in any form is an incoherent means of hearing from God. You
can't trust it. You can't trust feelings, can
you? And the inherent problem is a
lack of objective verifiability. You can't verify
it. You can't falsify it. Well, it
contradicts the Word, but what are you going to say if I tell
you the Lord spoke to me and He wants you to move to Wisconsin
tomorrow? He's going to speak to you about
it. Adding or modifying to what God had already said in His Word. That's canon addition. Now, who
was the first to add to the canon or add to what God had already
said? First one historically, who? Genesis. Satan. Did he not add to what? God had
said, so did Eve, actually. And we've seen Rudolf Bultmann's
demythologizing scripture and Marcion's canon, the LDS church
to remove such or distort such passages. And a scripture is
an open canon subject to any person's claim of what God said.
Then how, for example, can anyone question the LDS church? How
can you question it if God said it? Who can question the ex-cathedra
pronouncement of the Roman Pope, Pope Pius IX, what he said in
1870 when he said, I am tradition. How can you question it? And
that was when the doctrine of ex-cathedra started, which says
whatever the Pope says behind the throne, ex-cathedra, from
the throne, is infallible as Peter was. Can't question it. Fides implicita is a Roman Catholic
doctrine that tells you to submit to Rome no matter what. Blind
faith. Fides implicita. It's a closed
canon. We find internally and externally
God's revelation for the church is complete. Theologically, historically,
and providentially, theologically, as mentioned, every book was
written by an apostle. Subsequent to the Old Testament
canon, these writings alone were the books that were God breathed
out. The apostolic age ended with
the death of the apostles. And these were those upon which
the church was built. So it can may be concluded that
God's last day revelation is completely complete, completely
complete in terms of what he wrote, what he said. It's closed
historically. There is no evidence that anyone
ever possessed a special gift. Of apostolicity, no evidence
of that. after the death of the apostles.
There's no evidence that a letter was authentically apostolic or
that it was missing from the New Testament canon. The church
drew a sharp distinction between apostolic writings and the writings
of others. And finally, the canon is closed providentially. Most
important, God's sovereignty. Close it. It's up to God what
books are there and what books are not. God's providence secured
that his word would be complete. God promised that his word would
endure forever. And since God orchestrates all
things after the counsel of his own will, the New Testament canon
is really a matter of providence. A historical selection process
undertaken by fallible humans, fallible institutions, Originally
established, the canon is no reason, because there were fallible
men, is no reason to reject the role of providence. Of God in
these affairs, the 27 of the books, 27 New Testament books
were theophanous to us. God breathed out. As the Holy
Spirit enabled them to write, ultimately, though, is the sovereignty
of God that determined, decided what books were in. What books
were not? Ephesians 2 20 says, consequently,
you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens
with God's people and also members of his household
built on the foundation built scenarios. There is a completed
action. It was built, not it may be built or it's being built. but built on the foundation of
the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as a chief cornerstone. So what was the New Testament
built upon? The apostles and prophets. And
who holds the whole thing together? Christ. He holds it together. That's what a cornerstone does.
It connects two intersecting walls. That's what it does. It
doesn't say capstone. It's cornerstone. In Him, the
whole building is joined together and raises to become a holy Temple
of God. All Scripture is breathed out
by God. That's why it's useful and profitable. That's why, because of Scripture,
the man of God can be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In other words, Scripture is
sufficient. These 27 books are sufficient. These are the ones that God gave
us by His sovereignty, by His providence, that were built on
the foundation, the Church was built on the foundation of the
apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone of prayer. Lord God, we thank you that you,
by your providence, provided both the Old and New Testament
for us, for our instruction, for our theology. Lord God, let
us never grow weary in reading the pages of Scripture. It's
good for the soul. Lord God, let us take Scripture seriously
and fear distorting it. Before we provide an interpretation,
Lord, let us let us have a fear that to be accurate in our presentation. Thank you, Lord God, for opening
our eyes as your people so we can understand the truth contained
in Scripture. And thank you for sending your
son to die on the cross, to empty himself, taking the very nature
of a man, becoming in the appearance in human likeness, becoming obedient,
even deaf on a cross. And we thank you that he glorified
you by his life and his cross work in which are the very grounds
of our salvation, the very basis of our justification, the imputed
righteousness of Christ. Thank you, Lord God, that indeed
that you saved us, that you redeemed us. Now let us glorify you in
everything we do. We pray all these things in the
name of your Son, Christ the Lord Jesus, Lord of glory, God
in the flesh. In his name alone, Amen.