The Canon of Scripture | Part 2

The New Testament Canon

In the Old Testament, canonical writings had the authority of an Israelite lawgiver, prophet, or leader behind them. In the same way, the New Testament canon rests squarely on the shoulders of the apostles—those commissioned by Jesus to testify of Him.¹ “It [was] primarily the apostles who [were] given the ability to from the Holy Spirit to recall accurately the words and deeds of Jesus and to interpret them rightly for subsequent generations.”² Jesus promised this empowerment in John 14:26: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” The Spirit gave the apostles the ability to accurately recount the words and works of Christ. The New Testament is composed of their own writings or the writings of those who were endorsed by them.

Furthermore, Jesus promised them additional revelation through the same Spirit. John 16:13-14 says, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” The apostles had the unique ability to understand and speak authoritatively about Christ—His person and all of His commandments.

This reality was not lost to the apostles. Peter, in his second epistle, instructs his readers to “be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior” (2 Pet. 3:2). Two things are noteworthy here. First, Peter lays the Old Testament (the words spoken before by the holy prophets) beside the apostolic commands, giving them equal weight and creedence. Second, he, speaking of himself and all the other apostles, says they are “the apostles of the Lord and Savior.” Apostle means “delegate, messenger, one sent forth with orders.”³ Peter here says that Jesus sent them for the purpose of representing Him—speaking in His place. When the apostles spoke, they spoke the words of God.

Paul also understood this. A significant portion of 2 Corinthians is dedicated to his defense of his own apostleship—his right to speak the commands of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 14:37 he says, “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord [emphasis added].” He claims that his instructions are not merely his own, but are ultimately commands of the Lord.⁴

The apostles not only claimed divine inspiration for their own writings, but they also endorsed others. Peter, in reference to Paul’s letters, says:

The longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures (2 Pet. 3:15-16).

Graphe, the word translated “scriptures,” is used fifty-one times in the New Testament, each time referring to the Old Testament Scriptures.⁵ Again, we have a parallel between the accepted Old Testament writings and the apostolic New Testament writings. Peter clearly understood that Paul wrote on par with other Scripture.

1 Timothy 5:17-18 is a similar case. “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.’” Paul references two Scriptures here. The first is taken from Deuteronomy 25, but the second is word-for-word from Luke’s gospel.⁶ “So here we have Paul quoting a portion of Luke’s gospel and calling it ‘Scripture,’ that is, something that is to be considered part of the canon.”⁷

Apostolicity is foundational to the New Testament canon. What, then, do we do with books that were not written by apostles but are generally accepted as Scripture—Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, and Jude? Some are easily explained by their writer’s close association with an apostle. For example, the gospel of Luke and the Acts (also written by Luke) would have been endorsed by Paul since he and Luke ministered together for many years. Similarly, Peter would have endorsed Mark’s gospel. And Jude was likely accepted because of his connection with James and because he was Jesus’ brother.⁸

This leaves the book of Hebrews. Some accept it based on a presumed Pauline authorship, but we simply do not have enough evidence to support this claim. As Origen said, “God alone knows who wrote it.”⁹ But we do have at least two other tests for canonicity. First, we have self-attesting books, those that bear witness to their own divine authorship because of their supernatural content.¹⁰ Second, we have the witness of the early church. Was the book accepted as Scripture by the Christian community?¹¹ Though Hebrews was a late-comer, it was accepted into the canon by the early church. And, on the former qualification, Grudem notes:

The intrinsic qualities of the book itself must have finally convinced the early readers, as they continue to convince believers today, that whoever its human author may have been, its ultimate author can only have been God himself. The majestic glory of Christ shines forth from the pages of the epistle to the Hebrews so brightly that no believer who reads it seriously should ever want to question its place in the canon.¹²

A complete list of the entire New Testament was a bit slow in coming, though portions of it were very quickly accepted. The four gospels were circulating as a unit sometime around the turn of the first century, as were the thirteen letters of Paul.¹³ More books were added as they spread and were recognized as canonical. Though various church fathers compiled lists of books and letters that were accepted as Scripture (all twenty-seven books were accepted by at least one of these by A.D. 170),¹⁴ Athanasius was the first to give our list of twenty-seven books—sometime around A.D. 367.¹⁵ In the following century, several church counsels confirmed the same list, firmly establishing the New Testament canon.¹⁶ “It should be noted that there is no dispute from the fifth century on in the Christian Church as to the canon of the New Testament. All branches of the Christian Church, Catholic and Protestant, accept the same twenty-seven books of the New Testament.”¹⁷

The broad arch over all of this is, of course, God’s hand in the development and establishment of the New Testament canon. And it makes sense that the same God who inspired men to write His Word would also actively orchestrate the assembly of each piece into one Book. We must not place our confidence in a collection of historical observations (though they are necessary and worthwhile). Rather, our confidence is in God’s faithful preservation of Scripture as one aspect of His loving, gracious care for His people.

Just as God was at work in creation, in the calling of his people Israel, in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and in the early work and writings of the apostles, so God was at work in the preservation and assembling together of the books of Scripture for the benefit of His people for the entire church age. Ultimately, then, we base our confidence in the correctness of our present canon on the faithfulness of God.¹⁸

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1. Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 1999), 122-123.
2. Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 60.
3. “Strong’s G652 – Apostolos,” Blue Letter Bible, accessed March 02, 2019, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G652.
4. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 61.
5. Ibid.
6. See Luke 10:7.
7. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 62.
8. Ibid.
9. John C. Wenger, Introduction to Theology (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1954), 171.
10. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 63.
11. Henry Clarence Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 60.
12. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 62-63.
13. Wenger, Introduction to Theology, 170.
14. Ryrie, Basic Theology, 123-124.
15. Wenger, Introduction to Theology, 171. See also Grudem, Systematic Theology, 64.
16. Ibid, 172; We must remember at this point that these counsels do not make any writing divine. They merely recognize those writings which are divinely inspired. See part one of this article for a more thorough treatment.
17. Ibid.
18. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 66.