Gooding, David: 6 - The Canon of Scripture: New Testament

And so, once more, a very good evening to you. Now, our lecture last night concerned itself with the canon of the Old Testament. Before we move on to other things, as God willing we shall tomorrow night, the question of the manuscripts of the, of the Bible and what is called textual criticism, and then the whole question of the translation of the Bible and what translations are better than other translations. Before we do that, we must spend one more evening, this time on the canon of the New Testament. A question, of course, that we shall pose right at the beginning for the New Testament is the same as the question we posed last night for the Old Testament. Who decided which books should be included in the New Testament and which books should not be included? There were, as we know, though it is not so well known perhaps as the it is known for the Old Testament, there are a very large number of apocryphal New Testament books. Many books written by the, uh, some very often unknown people, sometimes under the assumed name of Paul or Peter or Nicodemus or so on. Then, of course, there are the works written by the so-called Apostolic Fathers, Christian leaders who immediately followed the apostles in different parts of the empire. Then there are the works of the church fathers, as they are called. So who was it that decided which books should be put in the New Testament and be regarded as specially authoritative, uniquely authoritative, to form what is called the canon of the New Testament. Who decided it? Who collected them and put them together? And when was that done? And on what ground was it done? The short answer to the question, how did they decide what books to choose, is that they decided them in the first place because of their intrinsic authority. Because men saw in those books the words of the Lord Jesus, the words that he spoke when he was here on earth, the words that he spoke when he rose again from the dead and spoke to his apostles before he ascended. And what is more, all those words he continued to speak from his throne in glory by the power of his Holy Spirit. They recognized this authority inherent in his words. Secondly, they recognized the authority of Christ and of the Holy Spirit in the apostles whom Christ had appointed and charged. The power of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them filled both their oral ministry and their written ministry. That is why the books were received. There were, of course, books written that are now included in the New Testament that were not written by apostles, such as the Gospel of, uh, Luke and the Acts of the Apo- uh, Acts of the Apostles written by Luke, and those that were brothers of the Lord Jesus when he was here on earth, but were not then believers. But these too were accepted on the ground of their inherent authority being self-evidently the word, the inspired word of God. That on the objective side, the power that the books had in themselves. Then, of course, in those that received them, and still in those who still receive them, was the work, the witness, and the authentication in the hearts of men and women, produced by the Holy Spirit. It is by his ministry that people are enabled to perceive the truth and authority of the books of the New Testament. Now, last night we noticed that the Jews accepted the canon of the Old Testament. They were responsible for its formation, and they never did accept the Apocrypha. And to the very present day, Orthodox Judaism does not accept the so-called Old Testament apocryphal books as being the word of God. That, of course, is important because it was to the Jews, according to Romans eleven, that the oracles of God were committed. It was not, they were not committed to the Christian church, of course, which was not then in existence. The Old Testament oracles of God were committed to the Jews. It is right that we give them, uh, the respect due to them. But of course, the supreme reason why we accept the canon of the Old Testament, the Jewish a can- canon without the Apocrypha, is because that canon was authenticated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he was here on earth. We did observe last night that in the second and third centuries onwards, many Christians came to accept the Apocrypha as though it were part of the Old Testament. Uh, we reminded ourselves that some very important and significant Christian scholars who were great authorities in the early centuries never did accept the Apocrypha. Many did, however, and uh, that has remained a dispute in Christendom until this present day. Tonight we shall see a very different picture. When it comes to the canon of the Old Testament, once it was settled, there have been remarkable unity in all sections of Christendom, both Orthodox Christians and heretical Christians even. There has been an extraordinary agreement and unanimity on what books constitute the New Testament canon. So now, uh, we begin our study of this matter, uh, wherein lies the, uh, reason why the, uh, books of the New Testament were received as canonical and placed in the canon. We start, of course, as I've said, with our Lord's own authority. The authority of his words spoken orally in his own earthly ministry. It is important that we begin there if we're going to be true to history. We don't start with the written New Testament. Do you notice that? We start with our Lord's oral ministry. That's where the first authority of the New Testament lies. And we shall all easily record his words, uh, when he was here on earth, some of them in his earthly ministry. Uh, he said to the astonished onlookers, as he spoke to the, uh, uh, paralytic, thy son, thy sins are forgiven thee. When the onlookers questioned that, he said, but that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sin. When he came down from the mount, uh, uh, from delivering what is called the Sermon on the Mount, multitudes followed him, we are told, because he spoke with authority and not as the scribes. By that time, of course, there were no prophets in Israel except John Baptist. Eh, the prophets had been silent for centuries. And when the rabbis studied Holy Scripture in their beta midrashim, as they called them, then they had the habit, when they said anything, they said it not on their own authority, they said it in the name and in the authority of some previous rabbi. You'll find it all over the place if you care to read the Jewish Talmud, which is a rec- uh, a record of these things. When our Lord spoke, he didn't speak in the name of any other rabbi, and that is what got the crowd, wasn't it? The crowds and multitudes followed him. He spoke to them as one having authority, not as a scribe. And you remember in that sermon how he impressed himself on the multitude. You have heard how it was said of all time, but I say unto you, putting himself not only on the level with other and above other rabbis, but putting himself in the same role as Holy Scripture. I say unto you. And when he concluded that sermon, he concluded with the solemn words, he who hears my words and does them is like a man who builds his house upon a rock, and when the storm comes, the house still stands. He who hears my words and doesn't do them is like a man who built his house upon the sand, and when the floods came, come, they will destroy the house. And he's making his words, and whether men obey his words or don't obey his words, the criterion of the very final. That is the living Lord Jesus in the days of his flesh. I needn't remind you, need I, of the many times he said, verily, verily, I say unto you. But in perhaps the most famous verse in which those words were spoken, listen to the rest of the verse. Verily, verily, I say unto you, who who hears? And he doesn't say who who hears God's word. He says he who hears my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life. And he proceeds in that famous chapter, John chapter five, that records his words. He re- he proceeds to say that when it comes to the final judgment, it will not be the Father who sits upon the great white throne. For the Father judgeth no one, he says, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all shall honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. The verdict in the final day will be our blessed Lord who deliver it, who delivers it. He has the authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man. That is a marvelous thing, isn't it? And we may pause for the moment to let our souls be refreshed by the memory of that wonderful statement. You'll see he is to be judge in the final day, and says he, think not that I shall accuse you to the Father. I shall not accuse you. The word that I have spoken will judge you. Man's attitude to the words of the Son of God will be the thing that will be the criterion of their judgment in the coming day. He is the judge at the final assizes then, but even as he stood on earth, what a wonderful thing it was. He said to his contemporaries, verily, verily, I say unto you, who he who hears my word and believeth on him that sent me has already, as the preachers remind us, has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed out of death into life. Has everlasting life. Everlasting life is the life of eternity, you'll see. You will remember how our Lord uses the words Matthew, when he says, when the Son of Man comes in his glory and the nations are brought before him and he judges them. Then those on the right side, the sheep, shall go away into eternal life. Yes, eternal life is the life of the ages. And yet, this verse is saying to us, you can have it now. How can you have it now? And how can you know you have eternal life now? Why, because it is the judge himself who stands in front of you. And he says, all judgment has been committed to the Son. Listen, verily I say to you, I who am to be the judge in the final day, I'm saying to you now, he who hears my word and believes him that sent me has eternal life, already has the light of the ages, and shall not come into judgment. How can he say that? Because he's going to be the judge. He should know. But has already passed over from death to life. There are people that say, are there not, um, you shouldn't try to anticipate the final judgment. That is precisely what you should do, what you need to do. You can anticipate the final judge now, because to meet Jesus Christ is final. When the Lord gives his verdict, he who hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment. That isn't a tentative statement to be revised next year or at the final great white throne. It is the final word of the final judge. Marvelous, isn't it? When you have met the living Christ even now. And many other such sayings there are, are there not, uh, uh, by our Lord Jesus. Let's remind ourselves of the one we had the other night when we were talking about what inspiration means, and it involves verbal inspiration. In John chapter seventeen, we have the record of our Lord's prayer to his Father as he gave a report of his earthly ministry. And he's talking of the men that have come to believe, and he rehearses the process by which they came to believe. I have given them, says he, thy words. So the words that Christ gave were the very words of God. The New Testament books are seen to have intrinsic authority as they carry the words of our Lord's earthly ministry. Yes, but it's not only the words o- o- of his ministry before he died. After he rose from the dead, he came to his apostles, didn't he? He appeared to them in the upper room and to some of them on the road to Emmaus. He appeared to about five hundred brethren at once. He appeared to the disciples, to the eleven at last, and led them out to Mount Olivet and charged them for their worldwide mission. Those words too came with authority, didn't they? Listen to the words that he spoke, was it on the mountain in Galilee, according to Matthew's last verses. He came and said to them, all authority is given to me in heaven and in earth. Therefore go and make disciples of all men, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. Mark these, uh, awareness of his divine authority, all authority in heaven and on earth. When he was about to, to, uh, leave his apostles, he charged them to wait for the Holy Spirit, who should continue to speak to them the words that our Lord had yet to speak. So let's, uh, now just go back a little piece. We now have in the New Testament the words of our Lord when he was here on earth. But his words when he was here on earth included his choice of his apostles and his delegation to them of authority. So we read in Matthew twenty and verse forty these words: He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, and so forth. He, so Matthew says, called unto him his twelve disciples and gave them authority. And because he gave them authority, then it followed that those who received them were receiving Christ. In other places, he put it the other way round. He who doesn't receive you doesn't receive me, and who doesn't receive me doesn't receive the Father who sent me. The authority of the apostles then. And the early church, and from those times onward, received the books that the apostles wrote because they recognized the authority given them by the risen Lord. Let's go back over some well-known scriptures then, and think quite clear- carefully again about the, uh, authority given to the apostles. Uh, let's go back to John chapter twenty, John chapter twenty, Where we have a very interesting account of something our Lord said and did when he appeared to his apostles on the first day of the week after his resurrection. Uh, verse nineteen of John twenty: When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had said this, he showed unto them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus therefore said to them again, Peace be unto you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive you the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven unto them. Whosoever sins you retain, they are retained. They are exceedingly important words, emphasized by this very eloquent gesture. The Lord Jesus breathed on his apostles and said, receive you the Holy Spirit. Now I'm aware that those verses have troubled the expositors, and various views are held about them. One of the early problems that some people feel is, how did the apostles then receive the Holy Spirit in the upper room? If, according to Acts chapter one, when the apostles were speaking to the Lord Jesus, he indicated that they hadn't yet received the Holy Spirit and told them to wait in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high, when the Father should send them the Holy Spirit of promise. You'll see the problem. How could they have received the Holy Spirit in the upper room when, according to Acts, they didn't receive him till the day of Pentecost? I want to suggest how we should understand them best by pointing out that verse twenty one puts the whole thing in its context. On that first Lord's Day, Jesus said to them, peace be unto you, as the Father has sent me, even so I send you. This is our Lord's, uh, commissioning of his apostles to go forth and preach. As the Father sent him into the world and endued him with the Holy Spirit, he was ever full of the Holy Spirit, and he was led of the Holy Spirit, and he was anointed of the Holy Spirit. When he stood up to preach in the synagogue of Nazareth, he said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he hath anointed me. As the Father sent me into the world, I sent you into the world. So now he repeats it. As the Father sent me, even so I send you. What was to be their task as he sent them forth into the world? Well, verse twenty three tells you, whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven unto them. Whosoever sins you retain, they are retained. And again, arguments have raged, haven't they, as to what our Lord meant by those words. Some have said, well, now this is an example of discipline in the church. And they will quote to you what happened to the unfortunate or the sinful Ananias and Sapphira, as recorded in Acts chapter five, who lied to the Holy Spirit and dropped down dead, the husband first and the wife subsequently. And they say, there you are, there's an example of an apostle exercising his authority to forgive some and consign others, uh, to their death unforgiven. But it seems to me that if we would understand these words of our Lord to his apostles in the upper room, we must let the apostles themselves show by their behavior how they, uh, took them. Yes, you will read the account of Ananias and Sapphira in the Acts of the Apostles, which is the story right from the start of how the apostles went forth from the upper room and began their ministry. But whereas you will read one story like that and another story of Paul's who smote the false prophet blind in pathos, the rest of the Acts of the Apostles is full of the forgiveness of sins, is it not? And a warning, uh, of why sins won't be forgiven. And of course, that is the way the apostles understood what the Lord had said to them. Also, you notice, for instance, on the day of Pentecost, what happened. Peter had preached, and the crowds were pricked in their hearts, and they came clamoring around Peter, and they said, what shall we do? They had become aware of the enormity of their sin. They had crucified their very Messiah, and God had intervened and raised him from the dead, and they saw themselves to be in a grievous plight indeed, murderers of the Messiah, whom God now had raised from the dead. And they came clamoring around the Apostle Peter and said, what on earth shall we do? I meant to get forgiveness. He told them what they were to do. He said, you'll repent, that's what you'll do. And then you'll be baptized in the name of Jesus, that's what you'll do. Unto the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And I want to ask you, what authority had Peter to say that? I'd like you, if you will, in your minds, to contrast yourself with Peter for a moment. If you were confronted with somebody asking you, uh, look, I've sinned grievously and I do repent, and how can I get forgiveness of sins? What would you do? And what would you say? I fancy many of you would say, well, it's not for me to tell you. Uh, look, this is what the Bible says. You know, read this epistle here, uh, and it says, you'll see that we are, uh, received forgiveness through the Lord Jesus. We're redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Don't listen to me, look what scripture says. That's what you would say, isn't it? Hope so, anyway. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, what did he say? What, what will you do? Well, it's not for me to tell you. Uh, I mean, you read the New Testament. Oh, well, well, no, of course he didn't, did he? Because there wasn't any New Testament. You say, how difficult for Peter. Wouldn't it have been better if he'd have had the epistles? My dear good chap, he wrote them. He and Paul and James, it was he who wrote they who wrote the epistles, of course. We, of course, wouldn't dare to write epistles of that sort or claim for them inspiration if we wrote them. We, when we're pointing a soul to Christ, quote those epistles, but we shouldn't forget that what we're quoting is Peter and Paul and James and John. And long before they wrote the epistles, with apostolic authority, they, by word of mouth laid down the conditions upon which people could be forgiven and warned the populace wherever they went of those things which, if they did, they would never be forgiven, namely if they rejected the Lord Jesus as Lord and Savior. What authority did Peter have on the day of Pentecost to lay down the conditions on which people could be forgiven. You have it here in the upper room, as our Lord now indicates to them by what I believe personally was a symbolic action. He was going to give them authority to forgive sins, so that is to say, to lay down the condition on which people could be forgiven and what things they were that if people were guilty of them, they would not be forgiven. And, uh, the authority? Why this, receive the Holy Spirit, he said. I take it that this was a deliberate gesture. He breathed on them. What reminiscence that is of the word inspiration, isn't it? The word of God is inspired, we heard the other night. That is to say, it is God breathed, God breathing out to inspire his servants who should be his witnesses, uh, orally and in writing. It is what our risen Lord did. He breathed out on them. Here was the inspiration, in the technical sense. That was the authority behind the mission that they were then to fulfill. And of course, that is the point, isn't it, when we come to read the, um, uh, the, um, uh, the Acts and the, uh, Epistles. There the apostles offer us forgiveness. Dare we trust them? On what authority do they do it? They do it because they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Inspired, if I may say, in a truly technical sense, by Christ as he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. So then our Lord also, uh, did some other things that we must briefly look at. You have doubtless seen them many times, but for completion's sake, let's look at them once again. Let's read John chapter fourteen and verse twenty six. Verse twenty five shall we read to begin with. John fourteen twenty five. These things have I spoken unto you while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. Now, these words are very often taken by us today as a tremendous comfort, uh, you'll see the comforter, the encourager, the exhorter, the advocate, the Holy Spirit sent not only to the apostles, but to all God's people. And certainly he brings to our memories in times, very often in times of need, or in times when we would go astray, or in times when we need to be encouraged. He will bring to our memories things that we have heard in scripture, heard from the Lord through his preachers and all through scripture. He will bring them to our memories, and I'm not denying that. But I want to point out that, strictly speaking, this promise in all its fullness was made to the apostles, and for them it has a special meaning. He says, when the Holy Spirit is come, he shall bring to your remembrance the things that I said unto you. Said? When did he say them? Well, from the time of John's baptism, when they began to accompany him, right up to the time, uh, when he was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. All those many things that he said to them. How would they remember them? And how could you be sure they got them right? Now, I'm not talking about you, dear me not, of course not. You tonight will remember every word I said, so that when you get home, if somebody asks you, what did the preacher say tonight, you will start at the beginning and go through it all. Um, but that's only a short sermon, isn't it? You think of all those three years, the multitudes of words that the apostles heard the Lord Jesus say. How would they remember them all? And that's an important question, isn't it? Because how are we sure that what we have in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and John, are the words of the Lord Jesus correctly remembered. The messages he gave reported, if not verbatim, word for word, yet reported truly. And the sense of them given, and the drift of the sermons rightly understood, remembered, and written down. How can we be sure of that? I ask the question because nowadays liberal theology denies that they are necessarily the words of the Lord Jesus. They are very often the inventions of the church in later ages and all that kind of thing, or that the apostles misheard what the Lord said or twisted it a little bit, perhaps unintentionally. But here, John is telling us what the Lord Jesus actually said, and here is the Lord's own provision, that the apostles would remember what he said. And that is the authority that lies behind our gospels, of course. That is important point, uh, number one. Then let's look further to John, uh, uh, uh, John chapter sixteen. John chapter sixteen. And we take up there at verse thirteen, or verse twelve rather. I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. How be it, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth, for he shall not speak from himself, but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak, and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. It is likewise an exceedingly important statement. For the Lord Jesus, about to go to Calvary, says, I've still many things to tell you. You cannot hear, uh, bear them now. Well, when would he tell them then? Now the Lord explains the things that he is going to tell them after he has gone away. It will be the same Lord Jesus speaking as he, the one who spoke on earth. I have many things to tell you. You cannot bear them now, but I'm going to tell you how and by what means. Well, he now explains. He, he, how be it when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth. Oh, you say, I see. The Lord Jesus spoke to them when he was on earth, and when the Lord Jesus went to heaven, it was the Holy Spirit who took over and spoke to them. No, you haven't got it quite right. But the Lord goes on to explain, doesn't he? The Holy Spirit shall guide you into all truth, that is true, but he shall not speak from himself when he guides you into all truth. He will not take the initiative. He will be the voice, so to speak, that conveys the message. Who will the speaker be? Well, he shall not speak from himself, but whatever he hears, he shall speak. Hears from whom? Well, hears from the blessed Lord himself, of course, the risen Lord Jesus Christ, that's who. For he spoke to his apostles when he was on earth, and then when he went to glory, he continued to speak those many things that he had to say that he couldn't say when he was with them. And he spoke them. And he spoke them through the Holy Spirit whom he sent, but it was the Lord speaking. And if you say to me, but Mr. Preacher, prove that if you can, that's a tall order. Well, I'll give you an example of it. Our Lord appeared to John the Ba- John the Apostle on the Isle of Patmos and gave John to see him in all his splendor. And when eventually he laid his right hand on John and said, Rise, John. Now what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches that are in Asia. Each of the letters that John was told, uh, to write began with the Lord Jesus. These things says who? Well, the Lord Jesus, of course. Variously described, he that walks in the candlesticks, he that holds the seven stars in his hands. So the Lord speaking. The Lord speaking to John, dictating to John the letter that John now writes. But when each letter comes to its end, it ends like this. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says. A wonderful example of what the Lord Jesus is promising in, uh, John sixteen, isn't it? The risen Lord now saying the things that they couldn't bear while he was on earth, they wouldn't have understood them, but continuing to speak them through the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit not speaking from himself, but listening to the Lord Jesus, and what he hears the Lord Jesus say, he channels to the apostles. Shout hallelujah. But do it in a very subdued way, don't offend anybody, but shout hallelujah nonetheless. Fancy that. We are hearing, as we read the words the apostles wrote, we are hearing the living voice of the living Christ in glory, speaking to us. For what he spoke through his spirit to the apostles, and they wrote in his word, he speaks still. Imagine if you took a passage from the New Testament in prayer to the Lord Jesus and said, Lord, I don't quite understand, uh, what you mean, uh, when you said this. Do you suppose the Lord would answer, what, what is that? You say, well, this verse here. Oh, oh, I said that a long while ago. I forgot I said that. Of course he wouldn't. What he said then, he still says. It is a word of the living Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't it glorious? And you see, uh, as he, the Lord of glory, spoke to them through the Holy Spirit, this, he said, would be what the result would be. He should guide you into all truth. There is the promise of a completed canon. One day the message would be complete. He'll guide you into all truth. And then it says in verse fourteen, he shall glorify me, shall he take us, for he shall take us mine and shall declare it unto you. All things whatsoever the Father has are mine. Therefore said I, he taketh of mine and shall declare it unto you. Oh, glorious words. Uh, the Holy Spirit coming from the risen Christ as the holy, as the risen Lord speaks to his people through the apostles by the power of the Holy Spirit. This was the first supreme mission of the Holy Spirit. He glorified Christ, didn't he? What happened on the day of Pentecost, of course. When Peter came to the end of his tremendous sermon on the day of Pentecost, he said, you know, it was promised, the Holy Spirit was promised, and this is what is happening now. God has sent forth his Holy Spirit upon us, as the prophet Joel said he would. It has happened not simply after Jesus rose from the dead, not simply after Jesus ascended. I tell you, says Peter, it is the Lord Jesus who has shed forth the Holy Spirit. Having received the promise of the Spirit from the Father, he, the Lord Jesus, has shed forth the Holy Spirit, whom you now see and hear. And then he made the logical deduction. Who then is Jesus? If Jesus of Nazareth has the power to shed forth the Holy Spirit, who must Jesus be? Holy Spirit isn't so much s- uh, stuff, is he? I say it reverently. He is the third person of the Trinity. Jesus of Nazareth, now exalted to glory, sends forth, sheds forth the Holy Spirit. Who is he? I tell you, says Peter, drawing the deduction from this, that God has made him both Lord and Christ, dispenser of God the Holy Spirit. And all those lovely epistles of Paul, bringing home to his believers as the Lord, the risen Lord, spoke to him, and the Holy Spirit conveyed the message. The Christ, firstborn of all creation, for whom, in whom, through whom, and for whom all things were made, and now the firstborn of the dead, that he might be first in everything. Son of the owner of the universe, not a leaf that or a flower that blossoms, not an angel that flies, not an animal that breathes, not a galaxy that whirls in space, not a human that ever lived was made of for any other reason than for Christ. Glorious, isn't it? And it is the authority of the Lord Jesus. Before he died in his earthly ministry, after he rose from the dead here on earth, and as he has ascended into heaven. That gives the books of the New Testament their authority. And finally, the Lord said to them, he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. There is the Lord telling them that they should be told things prophetic. He should declare unto you things that are to come. You'll see it happening in the epistle. You'll see it happening supremely in the book of the Revelation. That being so, the question now, we come to the practical question. How and when and by whom were the books of the New Testament recognized in scripture? And how was agreement reached? And how did they then come, these books, uh, that were recognized to be the inspired word of the risen Lord? How did they come to stand in, in one book that we now call the New Testament? Here, I think we would be wise to remember the course of things that actually happened in history. First of all came the oral stage by the apostles. So, uh, in one Thessalonians two four and then in two thirteen, Paul, for instance, points out to the Th- Thessalonians what happened when he came to Thessalonica. He had been entrusted with the gospel, he says, and so we speak. And then he adds, eh, lower down the passage, uh, two thirteen, And for this cause we thank God without ceasing that when you received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectively works in you that believes. The first stage in recognizing the authority. How did people come to recognize it? Well, first they recognized it at the oral level. Just like when our Lord preached the Sermon on the Mount, they recognized he spoke with authority. So these pagan Thessalonians, they heard Paul preach as a man entrusted with the gospel, and as they listened to him preach, they accepted what he said, not as the word of men merely, it was a word coming out of a man's mouth. They accepted it as the word of God, as indeed it is the word of God, says Paul. So many accepted the authority of the apostles' spoken message, long before they had any written Bible. That oral message was inspired just as the apostolic writing was inspired, of course. So there was, first of all, that stage. But then there came, you'll see, uh, uh, the continuing stage. For instance, Acts two forty one and forty two, when the crowd in Jerusalem got converted on the day of Pentecost. You say, well, the first thing they did was to start Bible reading. Well, yeah, they had the Old Testament, uh, to read, but it says in Acts they continued in the apostles' teaching. Yeah. I hadn't got any New Testament, but I had the apostles, and the apostles were able to, uh, tell them what subsequently they would write in the epistles. They continued in the apostles' doctrine even before they had a written New Testament. That was the first stage. And of course, that was a stage that lasted quite a long while, didn't it? As Paul went round the different parts of the empire, for instance, right up to AD sixty two or sixty four when he was eventually beheaded. There were many places that had no New Testament. The first they'd ever heard of the gospel was as Paul orally preached to them. It was the word of God, and they received it, and they believed it, and assemblies were formed, even though they didn't have a New Testament written. Nonetheless, authoritative. But then, of course, there did come the written stage, didn't it? Didn't there? And, uh, Paul, uh, says to the same Thessalonians in his second epistle, chapter two, verse fifteen, So then, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by this epistle. So they had his word, his spoken word. Then subsequently they began to have the written word. And so writing to the Corinthians, one Corinthians fourteen thirty seven, The things I write, he says, you better recognize it, are the commandment of the Lord. And our Lord commanded John, as we have earlier saw- saw, what you've seen, write in a book. So there came the second stage, the written, the writing of the New Testament. We ought to see at once what that implies. The New Testament wasn't written all at once, was it? It was written little by little, a bit here, a bit there, a bit somewhere else. Paul wrote some letters to the Galatians. They got those letters, uh, that letter. He wrote a letter to the Galatians. He wrote two at different times to the Thessalonians. They got those letters. When they got the letter to the Galatians, who knows? But there were some decades, were there not? When what you had of the written New Testament were certain books written at different times, and some sent here and some sent there and some sent somewhere else, do you see, before they were collected into a book. It is the fact that by the time the second epistle, uh, uh, of Peter has written, Peter in his chapter three and verse sixteen can make mention of all Paul's epistles. This is what he says in all his epistles. It doesn't mean they, uh, Paul had finished writing, but all his epistles, at least up till now, contain this. So now he's aware of a number of epistles by Paul. And by the time you come to Jude, Jude talks about the faith that has been once and for all delivered to the saints. Came a time, of course, when they realized that there were no more things coming from the inspired apostles. That time was at an end. So let's think about that again. Were the, uh, the things that were written down, were they at once put in the book called the New Testament? No. You'll remember Acts chapter uh fifteen when Paul and Barnabas went up to Jerusalem and the church assembled, at least the teachers and the elders and the apostles assembled, and gave their unanimous verdict on this foundational question. Do people have to be circumcised to be saved? And the apostles and the church, they, uh, came to the conclusion, no, that is not so. It is by the grace of the Lord Jesus, not by works and circumcision, that, uh, we shall be saved, even as the Gentiles are saved that way. That is our belief, says Peter. So it seemed good to the apostles and the Holy Spirit to send a write a letter. So they wrote a letter, and they sent it to Antioch. What was that? Well, it wasn't even a whole book, was it? It was just a letter. Came from the apostles, the elders at Jerusalem, and Paul and Barnabas and Silas took it to Antioch, and they got it there. And then wherever Paul went on his missionary journey, he took this letter with him to show to all the other believers around about the place. And as yet it was only a bit of a book. It was eventually taken by Luke the historian and put in the Acts of the Apostles. So there were different stages in the writing of the New Testament, weren't there? It is very likely, and some scholars think it is, uh, almost certain, that, uh, when our Lord was here on earth, do you see, uh, and he called Matthew to be his apostle. Matthew had worked in the income tax department. Can't tell you what I think of that, but, uh, do you see, uh, when he got, uh, converted, he gave that up because they weren't respectable people, the early income tax, uh, inspectors, like all income tax inspectors are now very worthy people and doing a proper job, of course. We don't necessarily like what they do, but, uh, we, we, we pay our taxes as the Lord told us to. Yes, of course so. So we honor them. But the tax inspectors like Levi or Matthew were a bad lot on the whole, do you see? When he got converted, he gave it up. But he was trained in keeping records, wasn't he? Look the wonderfully beautiful way he has recorded the gospel messages of the Lord Jesus in his, in his gospel, ooh, in order, uh, putting them in groups of things that are similar groups, do you see? Uh, oh, he's got it marvelously arranged, typical civil servant, do you see. And some people say, of course, well, he would have known shorthand, because shorthand was very widespread in those days and in use. Any competent secretary, uh, could do shorthand in those days, and it is highly probable that Matthew, as he listened to the Lord Jesus, um, took notes, shorthand notes maybe, probably in Aramaic. Later they had to be translated into Greek, and it was in Greek that he wrote his gospel. So there were stages in the writing, even of the books of the, uh, New Testament. And inspiration doesn't mean that they just sat there and some voices spoke inside their head. Luke tells us that when he set about writing his gospel, he consulted the sources. By his time, and that was before AD, uh, sixty two, wasn't it? I should have thought. By his time, he knew of several who had taken in hand to write accounts of our Lord's ministry on earth, and he was able to study what they wrote, and then he was able to interview those that had been eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus. He used sources. That doesn't contradict the fact he was inspired, but he diligently looked up the sources and investigated eyewitnesses. Maybe because he was a medical doctor and could do it, eh, uh, you'll see, in true proper fashion, he even consulted the Virgin Mary, because who lies behind the stories of the nativity and Mary's conception and birth and the timing of it that you have in Luke's gospel? Well, it must be Mary. And who did she tell? Maybe he consulted Mary before the Lord called Mary home. But he used sources, and he consulted documents that are already written. What they were, we're not told, whether complete gospels or partial records of what the Lord Jesus said. Luke, uh, consulted them and, uh, was of course guided by the Holy Spirit in writing his own gospel. It is an interesting fact that some sayings of the Lord Jesus, there must be multitudes of them, were not recorded. There's one, for instance, that is not recorded in the gospels, but comes out when Paul was talking to the elders at Ephesus, and he told them they ought to remember the word of the Lord Jesus that he spoke, saying, it is far better to give than to receive. That is not in the Gospels. It was spoken by the Lord, so Paul tells us, but um, um, it, well, God didn't guide the apostles to put it in the Gospels. We have then what the risen Lord, supervising his apostles and his prophets and his history writers, decided that we should have, and that is enough. Right, so there were different stages then of the thing coming together. When did, uh, the, uh, epistles, uh, and the gospels begin to be put into a, uh, collection, so to speak? Well, look again, if you care, at this, uh, slide I showed you the other night. Yeah, let me put this away. That you may remember, if you were here, you saw it, uh, on Saturday or some night, I forget which, and that is a page of the Chester Beatty papyri, a very early papyrus, written about the year uh two hundred. and it is a copy of Epistles of Paul, you'll see. And, uh, it contains about ten of Paul's epistles in this one big fo- uh, folio, you'll see. Here ends, uh, you'll see the, uh, Romans, here. It is followed, this is the next book, uh, next epistle, and it's followed by Hebrews. Do you see? Hebrews comes before Galatians and Corinthians, and in this collection, Corinthians comes before Galatians, do you see? And so forth. It's a different order from what you have in your Bibles, because this is one of the, uh, a copy of one of the very early collections of Paul's epistles. And as they came to hand, somebody collected them. We don't know who. But there's reason that why scholars think that by the years eighty to ninety AD, there was a collection of Paul's epistles made from the various parts where they had been sent from all over around the empire. They were beginning to be collected by the years eighty to ninety. Subsequent, uh, papyrus groups, uh, that belong to this kind of thing, they also are in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, contain other parts of the New Testament written, these copies written, uh, in about the year two hundred and fifty. but they go back, of course, to things from which they were copied. There were beginning collections of both the Gospels and the Epistles. Uh, later, of course, as things went on, uh, you got complete copies of the New Testament, uh, uh, you see, copies of the complete New Testament. Here is a much later manuscript. This is the famous Codex Sinaiticus, you'll see. Uh, oh, sorry, I got a piece of paper underneath it, sorry. These modern inventions are difficult things, aren't they? Don't attempt to read it unless you want to, you'll see. But look at the script. It's delightful, isn't it? Do you wish you could write like that? Look at that marvelous script. And compare it, you see, with this thing here. That's your early brothers and sisters writing, you see, and it's on papyrus, which is the cheap material that they could get hold of, for many of them were poor. Look at the script. Now look at that. That's a professional job, isn't it? It's difficult to believe it's done by hand. Look at the regularity of the letters. Work of art, isn't it? You'll see, but that's a fourth century vellum manuscript, you'll see. And now that contains not the complete New Testament, but that contains most of the books of the New Testament. You have to come to the Codex Alexandrinus, uh, to get a complete New Testament, uh, you'll see. But, um, here is on the way. And now a great deal of care is being taken in writing it out. Though you notice there, we shall come back to that tomorrow, God willing, you notice this stuff at the top here? You can't read it there, but there's a little word here that says above, amno in Greek, above, and there's a, a little arrow here, and that is to indicate that the scribe, when he wrote this, expert though he was, he left a bit out, and uh, it's had to be added at the top with a note in the margin here, uh, please look at the top to get the bit that was uh, left out. How they're beginning to write with very great care, of course, professionally, and checking what they've written, and when bits have been left out, they're checking the copy from which it was made, and they're adding it in, you'll see. Eventually, of course, all the books of the Bible, uh, you'll see were, uh, all all the books of the New Testament were agreed upon by the churches at large, but not without some disputes. Here is Professor Birdsall's, uh, little chart of some of the main, uh, stages in the coming together of the books of the New Testament, eh, uh, recognized as being inspired, uh, and authoritative books, do you see? And you'll notice that by the time AD one thirty to two hundred, Irenaeus of Lyons, do you see? He, uh, uh, accepts virtually all the New Testament books. Similarly, uh, the, uh, Muratorian canon accepts even more. In Eusebius's time, some were still disputed, says Eusebius, you see. Whereas when you come to Athanasius' uh, letter, he has accepted the lot. Now, why were some disputed? We have to face those facts, we ought to know them. Why were some disputed? There were various reasons for it. Sometimes, of course, uh, uh, uh, certainly books that were written by apostles, that were recognized to be apostles, were accepted. We'll say. Accepted by, well, not everybody. You'll see when Paul's letter to Galatia went to Galatia to rebuke the Judaizers. Well, we hope most of the Galatians accepted it. I suspect some Judaizers didn't like it very much. I may have had, uh, qualms about accepting it, you'll see. Then there in other places, uh, uh, uh, uh, books that were, uh, used by heretics. Take the Gospel of John, for instance. That was disputed in some circles, apparently for the reason that certain heretics who were troubling the church claimed that John's gospel supported their views. It doesn't, of course, does the very opposite, but that is what the heretics put around, and that caused trouble in certain circum- circles. The Book of the Revelation was not much liked by many people when it first came out, and for some while after that, because there rose, uh, Christians who didn't like its teaching on the millennium, and therefore, uh, it was longer than some books in getting general recognition throughout the churches o- o- of Christ in the world, you'll see. Why, but by the time you come to, uh, uh, um, uh, Athanasius, for instance, then the disputes have largely ceased. More than that, if you read Professor Bruce Metzger, one of the world authorities on these matters, in his work The Canon of the New Testament, he will tell you that the main structure of the canon was fixed by the end of the second century AD. That is the form of the New Testament, its structure as to what books it should contain. Now that is extraordinary, given the ancient world and how you started with, uh, epistles going here and there and elsewhere. You will say to me, but was there no central authority in charge of collecting them all? Well, you will have to tell me the answer to that. I mean, Paul wrote a letter to Galatia. I'm sure it went round and people took it round, uh, and showed it to their neighbors and friends and what have you, didn't they? But Galatia was a long way off Rome, for instance. He wrote a letter to the Romans. How long was that before it got, uh, say, down to North Africa? Do you see, in those far off days? And how long would it have been before these began to come together, like we've seen in the Chester Beatty, and then later other books being added, and finally the whole lot, and finally everybody everywhere accepted those books. That was a, a, a, a, a long while, you may say, but if you consider the historical circumstances, the fact that the canon, this main structure, was in place by the end of the second century, that is a most wonderful thing. Finally, and I mustn't keep you any longer. We shall have to consider that at the beginning of our talk tomorrow. Eh, but I want to make one very big point. Please, please get hold of it. We've talked about how long did it take for the church at large to recognize all the books that we now have in the New Testament canon. Please see that when we talk about the church at large recognizing the books, that should not be understood as meaning that it was the church that gave them their authority. The church didn't give any book its authority. That is an exceedingly important point to get hold of. The church didn't give the New Testament its authority. Secondly, would you notice, please, we'll say it again tomorrow if we remember it's so important. The books of the New Testament didn't get their authority by being put in the canon. So here's a book, it didn't have any authority, but when it was put in the canon, then it got authority. No, no, no, no, that's not the way it was. The book had the authority in and of itself. Then its authority was recognized, and because it was recognized as having authority in itself, it was put in the list of books. That was the way round it is. That is exceedingly important. It was not the church that gave authority to the books of the New Testament. It was not being in the canon that gave the books their authority. It was completely the other way round. It was because they possessed the authority of being inspired by God, being inspired by the risen Lord, because they already had that authority, that the authority became recognized. And then when it was recognized, it was advertised by being, uh, put into the list of the books that the church receives. And that will have all sorts of im- important practical implications, and we need to know it and get hold of it in our witness for the Lord. Because in many countries and in some circun- circles in this country, you will be told that it's the church that tells you, for it's the church that gave you the Bible, and because it was the church that gave you the Bible, the church is the one that must be allowed to interpret it and tell you what it means. That is not true. The church did not give us the Bible. The church was given the Bible. And the Bible carried its own authority. The authority being acknowledged, the books were regarded as canonical. But we've covered a lot of ground tonight, so let's now terminate our study. Let's do so with thankfulness to God for the wonderful treasure of his word, spoken to us by the Lord on earth after he rose from the dead and spoken to us from the glory of his Father's throne. Shall we pray? Blessed Lord Jesus, our hearts rise to thee in gratitude and thanksgiving for this wonderful word of the Lord that thou has given us. We treasure it, blessed Lord Jesus, the words that thou did speak here on earth, the words that thou hast spoken in glory. We bless thee, thou art the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thou dost speak them still to our hearts by thy Holy Spirit. We thank thee, Lord, for sending thy Holy Spirit, that we might freely grasp and know and enjoy the things that are given us thus from thy throne. Help us to treasure thy word. Help us, Lord, diligently to try to understand its historical dimension and how it came to be, so that we might help those who labor under false ideas, that they cannot read the Bible or that they must rely upon the church to interpret it, or whatever it is. We pray like Tyndale of old, that thy word may so be circulated that all, even the boy behind the plow, might come to see that this is the word of God, read it, learn it, receive it, and be saved. So part us with thine evening blessing, we pray, for thine own name's sake. Amen.