It Is Written: The Canon of Scripture Alone | Isa 55:7-11, Rom 15:4-6, 1Tim 3:15

All right, beloved. Before I begin reading the sermon text,

I hope everyone had a blessed time of Eucharist this past Thursday.

I know to our some of our guests that we don't that might throw some people off like what are we

Roman Catholic? No, we're not Roman Catholic. The word Eucharist just means Thanksgiving in Greek. So that's what

Thanksgiving is all about. So I hope everybody had a blessed time with friends and family on that day.

To begin to begin today's sermon, go ahead and turn with me in your

Bibles to the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah chapter 55 starting in verse 7.

Isaiah 55 beginning in verse 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh and he will have compassion on him and to our

God for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my ways declares

Yahweh. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bare and sprout and giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

So will my word be which goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty without accomplishing what it pleases me and without succeeding in the matter for which

I sent it. Amen. Let's turn over to the New Testament now the letter to the

Romans in chapter 15 in verse 4. Romans chapter 15 verse 4.

God's Word speaks to us once again and says for whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through the perseverance and encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

Now may the God of perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.

So that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And a final verse

I wanted to turn to again in the New Testament is to the letter of 1st

Timothy chapter 3 verse 15. 1st Timothy chapter 3 verse 15 where we find here where we read what is spoken to us by God.

But in case I the Apostle Paul am delayed I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God which is the church of the

Living God the pillar and support of the truth. This is

God's Word. Amen. So this these verses here focus on the central theme of the scriptures and specifically on the canon of scripture alone which is the sermon title for today.

In the Isaiah passage we find the immediate plan of God to deliver and abundantly pardon the people of Israel through repentance and trust in his

Word. All of which is guaranteed by the promises of his

Word there in that passage. But we also see a larger ultimate purpose or principle that is confirmed in the

New Testament that God accomplishes multiple things beyond his immediate purpose for what he wrote or spoke.

A manifold purpose and we see that in verses 10 through 11 from Isaiah 55 where God's Word says for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bare and sprout and giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater so will my word be which goes forth from my mouth.

It will not return to me empty or void without accomplishing what pleases me and without succeeding in the matter for which

I sent it. For which I sent it. So yes, we see here that there was an immediate purpose for God speaking those things to Israel to abundantly pardon them and have compassion on them and give them hope.

But also there is a deeper purpose, a more ultimate purpose that we also find confirmed in the

New Testament. That God's Word, God's Word, notice he said my word which goes forth from my mouth.

Even though God used men and prophets and apostles God's words are his words that come from his mouth.

They are God's words, God's breath, so to speak. And we find that that this is what we find.

God's Word will accomplish all of God's purposes. Not just his immediate purpose to the people of Israel, but also his ultimate purpose to his church.

To his church, his bride, his people. Just as Romans 15 says, right?

This is what the New Testament in various places comes confirms for us. For whatever was written in earlier times in the

Old Testament was written for who? For our instruction, for the church's instruction.

So that through the perseverance and encouragement of the scriptures we, we might have hope.

And now may the God of perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.

So that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. So this is a very clear, when we exercise the analogy of Scripture and interpret

Scripture with the rest of Scripture, this is what we find. That God ultimately wrote down his words centuries, thousands of years ago for our instruction, our instruction.

Including the early church's instruction and the church's instruction now. Now. This is an amazing promise from from God's own words and God thus therefore providentially guaranteed that he would preserve his words but for us by writing them down, by writing them down.

Which as we saw in previous sermons makes them permanent on the earth.

To not only for the church to equip his church, to build up his church both then and now, to not only recognize

God's words and identify them as God's written word, but also to receive them, read them, understand them, believe them.

That through the perseverance and encouragement of the Scriptures, the writings, we might have hope.

We, then and now, God's people. This is an amazing truth.

And you'll notice that it also talks about in Romans being of the same mind.

Obviously that entails having the same mind and one accord regarding what the

Scriptures are that were breathed out and written down by God himself. This is what

God has promised to give us even thousands of years in the past.

Now you might also be thinking why on earth did I read from 1st Timothy 3 15 on a sermon that's about the canon of Scripture.

Why would I read that verse? So I want you to think carefully with me right here throughout the sermon, okay, this is a very important passage that we need to connect with regards to the canon of Scripture.

That passage in 1st Timothy 3 15, which is really about the church of God, obviously.

So this is the focus for today's message, the canon of Scripture alone.

The writings of Scripture, what they are, how to identify them, and to continue defending the doctrine of Scripture alone.

So the Scriptura by digging into these passages that reveal to us what

God has spoken to us and written down, as well as the means that God used to preserve them and give them to his church.

Hint, hint. Pay, pay, pay careful attention to that. As well as the means

God used to preserve them and give them to his church. Now I also wanted to briefly recap and make a correction from last sermon.

I don't remember if it was the last sermon or the one before that, but when I read from 2nd Timothy 3 16, 2nd

Timothy 3 16 says, All Scripture is God breathed.

It is breathed out by God. But I commented on this passage by saying that the

Scriptures, what is written and only what is written is God breathed.

And this is, I actually misspoke there. That's not true. God's spoken word is also

God breathed. Because it has the same authority and it comes from God himself.

Whether God spoke it or wrote it down, it is God's breath. Even though in this passage particularly, the focus is on describing the writings, the graphe, the graphe, what is written down.

That all of God's Scripture is breathed out by him, is

God's breath. But that doesn't mean that God's spoken words through the mouth of the prophets is not is not

God's breath. It is. Because the spoken prophetic words of God, which he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, which is exactly what

Zechariah prophesied when full of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of Luke chapter 1.

They are equally authoritative and equally God's breath. With, but there's, remember, there is a difference in that writing them down makes them endure, makes them more permanent on the earth, right?

Amen. That writing, the act of writing them down makes them permanent and final and final.

Because they're likewise, there is no real difference between the oral and written traditions of the apostles, of God's apostles, except that what is written down is more final.

It is more final. It is more permanent, which is what we saw in the passages in Acts 17, right?

In Acts 17 and 2nd Timothy 3 as well. They are more final and more permanent, just as 2nd

Peter chapter 1 also says. Because it was breathed out by God and inscripturated by God, the ultimate author.

Okay, so nothing else, beloved, is God breathed. Nothing else.

Nothing else has that kind of authority. But God's spoken and written words, especially

God's written words, nothing else has that kind of permanence. Because the grass withers, the flower fades.

When the breath of Yahweh blows upon it, surely the people are grass.

Even we are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our

God stands forever. Amen? That's Isaiah chapter 40, verse 7 through 8.

Now, another brief follow -up to the passage that we focused on last week.

If you turn with me back to 1st Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6, this will help us to cement our understanding of these passages and these doctrines in the ultimate authority of Scripture alone.

1st Corinthians chapter 4. Verse 6.

Here, God's Word speaks to us and says, Now these things, brothers,

I, the Apostle Paul, have applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to go beyond what is written down, so that none of you will become puffed up on behalf of one against the other.

For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did not receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

As if you had not received it. So here's a very important action on our part.

We are commanded, we are commanded by God to subject every and any truth claim, any tradition to this test, to the

Berean test, the Scripture test, the it is written test, the do not go beyond what is written test, the

Jesus test. We have to ask ourselves the question regarding any truth claim, any tradition.

Does it nullify or contradict the written Word of God at any point?

Are your doctrines, your commandments, your traditions in any way contrary to God's written

Word or not contained in it? Are they beyond what is written?

No matter how biblical they may claim to be. Because beloved, understand this principle.

Even when the tradition is claimed to be an inspired, infallible tradition, an additional complement or supplement from the

Apostles that supposedly does not contradict Scripture, which by the way are the claims of many religions such as Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and several others, other cults, more modern cults.

Even when they claim such things, this nevertheless still violates

Paul's explicit command, God's explicit command, to not go beyond what is written.

To not go beyond what is written. That is our ultimate standard, beloved. That is why we hold to the doctrine of Scripture alone.

We cannot go beyond what is written down. Amen? Now again, we have to keep in mind, we have to have balance.

This is not to say that we cannot hold to any traditions outside of the explicit statements of Scripture, right?

That's the twisting or the misrepresentation of Sola Scriptura.

That's Solo Scriptura. That's the misrepresentation.

However, our traditions must be, we all have them. We can't avoid traditions.

That's not the issue. We can't avoid having traditions. Our traditions, however, must be consistent with Scripture.

They cannot contradict Scripture, and they must be judged and corrected by Scripture when they err, when they are wrong.

We must reform them according to Scripture. They must be, and they cannot be considered, this is the one of the most important things, they cannot be considered higher than or even on the same level as the

God -breathed Scriptures. Because they are not the written,

God -breathed words of God of the Old and New Testaments. They are not on the same level of authority.

That is where so many go wrong in our day, in various different ways.

So remember, beloved, that Scripture alone does not mean

Scripture and nothing else at all. No other church authorities, teachers, creeds, confessions at all, which actually contradicts

Scripture. But rather that Scripture is our only final, ultimate, infallible, sufficient,

God -breathed authority, Sola Scriptura. We as believers, then, must submit all tradition, including oral tradition, to the written

Scriptures, just as we saw from passages like Acts 17 and 2nd Timothy 3 15 through 17.

Just like the noble -minded Bereans, the more noble -minded Bereans, the God -breathed

Apostles themselves, and Jesus himself did. This is, beloved, the

Jesus test, the Berean test, the Scripture test, the it -is -written test, and the do -not -go -beyond, what -is -written -down test, no matter how divinely inspired or infallible a tradition may claim to be.

Okay? Do not exchange, beloved, the solid rock foundation of Christ's own words, these words of mine, for the imbalanced, contrary, unstable traditions of Sam, which inevitably leads to a cascade of errors and false doctrine.

Now, that being said, there's another major objection to the doctrine of Scripture alone, which many hold up against us, like Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and which many have been led astray to fall away from the truth of Scripture alone.

It's very important that we understand this carefully, and that is the question, how do we, as Protestants, know what

Scripture is? How do we know what the Scriptures are? This is the most common objection by those who oppose the

Protestant faith. One example is the Roman Catholic apologist Philip Blosser.

He says, "...Sola Scriptura is inconsistent because the Bible contains no inspired index of its own contents, its own books, and cannot even be identified as a divine revelation except on the extra -biblical grounds of tradition, of extra -biblical tradition, but in violation of the

Sola Scriptura principle." Now, is this true, beloved?

Well, no. The short answer is no. This is demonstrably false and makes several false assumptions.

But we need to dive carefully in how we respond and understand this. You know, people like him, like Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and even

Bible scholars, even Bible scholars who have written on the subject of the canon will make false claims and assumptions like this, that Scripture itself does not claim to be

Scripture at all. What? Have you read?

Have you not read? That's what Jesus would have told these folks. Have you not read? What the

Apostle Paul said, "...if anyone thinks he is spiritual, let him consider the fact that I am writing the commandments of God."

That's false, beloved. There are many explicit statements in the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, where the authors realized and understood that they were writing

God's words. "...Thus saith the Lord." Hello? That is an absolutely, blatantly false and foolish statement to make.

And this is just one of many examples. It is written, the

Scripture cannot be broken. There is so, this is, this is why we need to understand this doctrine and what

Scripture itself says about Scripture. Amen?

Now, it clearly claims to be in numerous places, like I said,

Old and New Testaments. This, beloved, is the question of the canon, of the canon of Scripture.

What is it? What does that mean? I've been using that word. What does it actually mean?

Now, I thought Easton's Bible Dictionary, an older dictionary, you can look it up online, had a very helpful entry on, on, on the canon.

The word canon means something straight, or something to keep straight, and hence also a rule, or something ruled or measured, a standard.

It is a standard, a rule, an authority. It came to be applied to the

Scriptures to denote that they contain the authoritative rule of faith and practice, the standard of doctrine and duty.

Right? So the canon of Scripture, because you have canons of all kinds of stuff, about the

Western canon of literature, and all kinds of stuff, but the canon of Scripture specifically refers to the books of the

Bible recognized to have defined authorship and authority, to be breathed out by God, in other words.

Okay? Now, and Easton's entry continues, a book is said to be of canonical authority when it has a right to take a place with the other books which contain a revelation of the divine will.

Such a right does not arise from any ecclesiastical authority, from any church authority, but from the evidence of the inspired authorship of the book.

And to that I would add, along with apostolic authority, onto authenticity and witnesses.

The New Testament canon was formed gradually under divine guidance. The different books, as they were written, came into the possession of the

Christian associations, the Christian churches, which began to be formed. They were copied and disseminated amongst the churches, which began to be formed soon after the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts.

And slowly, thus slowly, the canon increased till all the books were gathered together into one collection containing the whole of the 27

New Testament inspired books. Historical evidence shows us that from the middle of the 2nd century, okay, around the 150s, 170s, this

New Testament collection was substantially such as we now possess it today. It's an amazing thing to study, beloved, and it's an important thing to study because this is one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented, and assaulted doctrines of our faith.

Now that being said, we must also first understand, we must also first understand that there are three canons of Scripture, okay?

There are three canons of Scripture. There are, first of all, two basic canons.

There is the divine canon of God and the church canon, the church's canon.

Now the church canon has two canons and you might guess what they are.

That would be the Old Testament canon and the New Testament canon.

To God, God has only one canon because that's all the books that he wrote down.

So God only has one canon. But to us, the church, God's people, there is the

Old and New Testament canons. The reason for that is because God used different means and criteria to give each one to his people, okay?

They are similar, but they're also important distinctions and differences between the two canons.

The divine canon, the divine canon of Scripture, therefore, this is what we must understand, okay?

Listen carefully. Stems from the necessary reality that God himself wrote down only certain books, only a certain number of books, and not others.

It is a derivative, again, a necessary derivative of what

God supernaturally wrote down, okay? That's what the canon, the divine canon, is.

By the simple act of God writing certain books down, that necessarily creates a divine canon because God wrote some down and he did not write others down, okay?

That's the first basic ultimate canon that we need to understand.

So we can identify the books that God himself wrote down,

God's divine canon, the exact divine canon of Scripture, which

I'm calling the church's canon or canons, the two canons.

But the church's canon, nevertheless, must be distinguished from the divine canon, and it's important that we distinguish them, okay?

Here is one of the critical distinctions for this, the reason for this.

The canon of Scripture, therefore, is not primarily nor exclusively a human or church construct, okay?

Which is what many others claim, like Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.

They will often claim that it is primarily even, or like the quote that I read to you, you don't have any clue what the canon is unless you have an infallible magisterium, quote -unquote, the

Church of Rome telling you what it is, right? That is what they claim, but that is utterly false.

That is a misunderstanding of the canon of Scripture because the canon, the divine canon of God, exists first and foremost because God himself breathed out and wrote down a certain collection of books.

So it's not a human construct. It is a divine byproduct or derivative of the books that God did design to write down through his apostles and his prophets and his apostolic, the apostolic associates, prophetic associates.

Okay, this is a critical distinction that undermines the entire argument that many others will claim.

Well, you need us to tell you what the Bible is for you. So how can you say that you have the Bible unless you look outside of the

Bible? This is a theological question, right? Because we need to first understand what

God did to write them down, okay? Now the church's job then is to recognize and receive the books that God wrote down by using

God's providential means and spirit that he gives to us, okay, including the testimony of the early church during and after the apostles, okay?

Oh, now we're starting to see why I quoted 1st

Timothy 3 15. God used certain means to give us his canon to his church.

The church canon that we know as believers as the church is a derivative, a byproduct of the divine canon.

Okay, that is very important to understand. Because God, and here's what another reason why we distinguish the

Old Testament canon from the new one, the New Testament canon. God entrusted the Jews with the

Old Testament oracles of God according to Romans 3 2 and Acts chapter 7.

And I'll deal with the Old Testament later on because it's a more controversial topic since we have different Old Testament canons according to the different religions.

Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, etc. We have different Old Testament canons. But likewise or similarly,

God entrusted his apostles and prophets to write down the New Testament scriptures for the church to receive them and to uphold them and to continue to do so to this day.

Why? Because as we read in 1st Timothy 3 15, the church,

God's church, continues to be the pillar and support of the truth. Now, what is the truth, beloved?

Is the truth the church? Is the truth the magisterium of Rome? No. The truth is the truth of God's Word.

Amen? The truth is what God wrote down. Thy word is truth.

The sum, the entirety of thy word is truth. That is what the church is.

One of its functions, one of its roles is to support, to be the pillar and support of the truth of God's Word, God's written

Word. God called, sanctioned, and ordained prophets with prophetic authority, divine predictions, miracles, signs, and wonders in the

Old Testament to confirm that the words were from God Himself. And he similarly called, sanctioned, authorized, and ordained apostles and prophets with authority, miracles, signs, and wonders to confirm the divine origins of the preaching, teaching, and writings of the apostles and their prophetic associates.

Right? This is very important to understand, beloved, because God, having spoken long ago to the fathers, in who?

In the prophets, in many portions and in many ways. In these last days, spoke to us in His Son, Jesus Christ, who appointed

His apostles to write His words down for the church to receive.

I like what Benjamin Keech, an early Reformed Baptist, says in his book,

Tropologia, A Key to the Open Scripture Metaphors. Very helpful description that he gives here.

To foretell, to predict, so plainly, such remote particulars and events that depend on the mere motions and acts of future persons and their wills is an evident mark of omniscience.

Therefore, we are forced to conclude that the scriptures that are filled with so many evident and certain predictions and prophecies must certainly proceed from the finger of God.

Amen. Now, he continues, those writings in the doctrine that were confirmed by many and real miracles must be of God.

That's how he authenticated his message to to his people. And the books and doctrines of the canonical scriptures were so confirmed by these miracles and signs and wonders.

The Lord openly worked many and great wonders, such as Satan himself cannot imitate, such as exceed the power of any, yea, of all the creatures in the world.

The most malicious enemies could not deny these wonders to be divine. He wrought, he performed these wonders by the hands of Moses and the prophets,

Christ and his apostles, for the confirmation of his truth and ultimately his written truth.

These miracles were recorded and attested by eye and ear witnesses of unquestionable credit.

These things were done, these things done were matters of fact, easy to be discerned as raising the dead to life, curing the blind.

They were not done once or twice, but very often, not in the night or in a corner, but in the open light, in the midst of the people, in the presence of great multitudes who were generally enemies to those that wrought or performed these miracles, such that even the enemies of God could not deny them.

So not only, beloved, is the New Testament canon derived from the

New Testament writings, because they are God -breathed and because they say they are, in many cases.

The New Testament was also written down by the apostles and authorized prophetic biographers of the miraculous and supernatural ministry of Christ and his apostles, either directly by them or by their supervision, their guidance, their influence, their leadership, and was further confirmed and received by the early church, by the church in history.

Therefore, beloved, we can have certainty, we can have certainty as to what the divine canon of Scripture is, if we use the means and the criteria that God gave us to identify and receive the books that he himself wrote down.

We don't need an infallible, quote -unquote, magisterium or authority. We can have certainty by discerning and recognizing the means and criteria that God used to give us his books, because that's what it says in Romans and ultimately in Isaiah, right?

He wrote these things down for us, beloved, so that we might have hope and encouragement in the scriptures themselves.

So this is similar to the doctrine of assurance, because we can have assurance by virtue of the criteria that God gives us to judge if we are truly saved and know that we are saved.

And similarly, and even more so, we can have certainty as to what the divine canon of Scripture is, which is the church's canon that was handed down to God's people by God through his means and his criteria.

So that brings us to a very important principle now, beloved, and that is, if God alone be true, and every man a liar, like Romans says, then we can only trust

God himself and whatever means he may have appointed and ordained for us.

That's a very obvious maxim and principle that the Bible gives us.

We can only trust God and the means that he gave us to know what his scriptures are.

Now that brings us to the next question. What is this criteria that God has given us to discern his writings?

What criteria did the early church use to identify and collect the New Testament? Okay, and I want to quote from an excellent article by a

Reformed Bible scholar. His name is Michael Marlowe. I highly recommend his article, which

I included in the sermon notes, but he describes that, generally speaking, it was a bottom -up process.

So it was the opposite of what many of these traditions claim, these Roman Catholic, Greece, and Orthodox churches claim.

It was a bottom -up process, not a top -down hierarchical process that somebody up at the top said, this is what

Scripture is, and then they disseminated it from a hierarchy down to the other lower levels.

That's not how it happened in history. It was the elders of the early

Christian churches which decided to use certain books as Scripture in their own local churches.

Very, very fascinating, very interesting. The elders had approved certain writings and rejected others as they became available, and as it turned out, by the grace of God, most of the churches were by the year 170 in agreement, having approved the same books independently.

It was a bottom -up process, and so that was what happened.

The elders were the ones primarily trying to figure out what the Scriptures were in order to preach them and teach them to the church, to their local church.

So, very important to understand. Again, this dismantles so many of the claims that you hear from others to try to refute our understanding of the

Scriptures, and of Scripture alone, and of the canon, and how we obtain the canon from God.

Now, this is the major criteria, beloved. This is what we need to understand.

The early church elders used the primary criteria of apostolicity, apostolicity, of apostolic authenticity, to determine what was authoritative

Scripture, breathed out by God. That was the primary criteria that they used. Okay.

They received the writings of the Apostles, Marlow explains here, and their closest companions, and the writings endorsed by them.

The entire Old Testament was received by the implicit endorsement of the Apostles, just such as from passages like Romans 3, where it says that the oracles of God were entrusted to the

Jews. The Gospel of Matthew was written by an Apostle. The Gospel of Mark was written by the

Apostle Peter's closest disciple. The Gospel of Luke was written by the Apostle Paul's close companion.

The Gospel of John was written by an Apostle. The Acts of the Apostles were was written by Paul's close companion,

Luke. Thirteen letters were received from Paul. The epistle to the

Hebrews was received as from Paul. They thought, the early church thought it was written from Paul, by Paul.

The epistle of James comes from the brother of the Lord, who exercised authority in Jerusalem with the

Apostles. James was an elder of the early church, the apostolic church. The epistle of Jude was from another brother of the

Lord. The two epistles of Peter are from an Apostle. The three epistles of John from an

Apostle, who also wrote Revelation. That's all of them, beloved.

Notice how closely they were all identified with Apostles in some way, either directly or by association, prophetic association, and apostolic association.

The early churches did not receive them from strangers. Okay. That's the question that Marlo asked.

How did they know that these writings were not forgeries? The early churches did not receive them from strangers.

These documents were hand -delivered by friends of the Apostles to elders, who also knew the

Apostles personally at first. Forgeries would be obvious, especially if the writings promoted strange doctrines and heresies, and if they were written after the

Apostles had died. So these writings had to be written within the first century, beloved.

It had to be written during the time of the Apostles, because they are the ones who wrote down the

New Testament and their associates. Many of these other false Gospels, Gnostic Gospels, were influenced by Gnosticism, and they have a completely different, utterly contrary worldview from what the

New Testament teaches. Utterly contrary. It's the opposite. It's almost the opposite of the

New Testament. However, that being said, it did take some time for the early church to fully recognize the entire

New Testament, beloved. Even though very early on, and there's correlation here, we can see that Michael Marlowe and the scholarly works he consulted agrees with Eason's Bible Dictionary that I read earlier.

Very early on, 170s, around there, the church had recognized most, if not all, of the

New Testament, but it took time in part because the church was also careful. They tried to be careful to discern them.

Some disagreements, Marlowe explains, arose along with the rise of heresies, okay, like Gnosticism.

The elders of the churches became wary and even began to doubt some of the writings they had formerly received as copies from other churches, such as Hebrews, James, Jude, 2nd

Peter, 2nd and 3rd John, and the Revelation of John. These, by the way, are the books listed at the end of our

New Testament, okay, and there's a reason for that. Those were the more contested books, and they were contested for various reasons, or disputed, or debated.

The author of Hebrews does not identify himself, right?

James was not an apostle, and his message seemed to contradict Paul's message. So there we see the early church kind of debated this.

Luther was not the first one to struggle with recognizing James' scripture. The early church also had tried to discern these things carefully.

Jude was not an apostle, and he quotes books which the churches did not receive as scripture, right, like the book of Enoch.

2nd Peter, it seems, was not widely distributed at first. The author of 2nd and 3rd John does not identify himself plainly in the letter, so that was part of the struggle there.

The author of the Revelation identifies himself as John, but does not say that he is the Apostle John, and the style of the book is obviously very different from the

Gospel of John. Nevertheless, the majority of the churches received and used these books without really questioning them, while vigorously rejecting all others, beloved.

So this is what the church undertook to identify God's written words.

When we examine how the early church recognized the New Testament canon, it makes good, consistent, biblical sense.

Biblical sense. It's what did the Apostles teach and write down, and their associates.

There's another good quote from Michael Kruger, who has written several books on the canon, which I heartily commend to you all.

He says, when Jesus ascended, the New Testament did not immediately descend.

There was a process. It took time. A progression to canon formation, yet not one without precedence.

Based on the Old Testament, even a divinely ordained and orchestrated precedence.

Right? That's what we need to understand, and we can have great comfort, and hope, and trust in what

God did with his early church to give us the canon of Scripture.

Not only that, beloved, here's a very important lesson, and a very important takeaway, that I want us to close today with, and to meditate on.

This is amazing to meditate and to contemplate.

The canon of Scripture is, in fact, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, shining examples of how

God uses his church in history to be the what?

The pillar and support of the truth. This is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, examples of God using his church, and specifically his early church to be the pillar and support of the truth, to give to us his authoritative list of writings,

God's writings. As Protestants who confess Scripture alone to be the ultimate foundation and authority, and who deeply appreciate church history and secondary authorities, we also gratefully acknowledge the divine providential role that Scripture describes, and that the early

Christians played in compiling the New Testament canon, the New Testament list of books.

For us too, not just for them, but for us as well. They handed it down for us.

So we do not need to struggle individually today to figure out which books are

Scripture. Beloved, they did it for us. That was their task.

God uses means to build his church then and now. God used his early church to build his later church on the what?

On the foundation of what? The apostles and the prophets. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 19, where we unpack this even more from God's breathed out written word.

Ephesians chapter 2. Turning there,

I forget to mention that even though the Gospels were not explicitly told who wrote them down, there was a very early on early acceptance and identification of the

Gospels from the early church. There was one of the first books to be identified, the four Gospels, and only four

Gospels. It was solidified very early on because of the recognition of the apostles and their associates from which it came from.

Now, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 19 and on,

God's word speaks to us and says, so then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, alienated, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, with the saints, and are of God's household.

Just like 1st Timothy 3 15 says, having been built, we beloved, we beloved, that includes us, having been built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles and prophets,

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building, the entire building of his church, being joined together is growing into a holy sanctuary in the

Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the

Spirit. This is how, beloved, we can have confidence in the books that God wrote down, because he built the foundation of the church on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

Is it on them, specifically? No, it's on what they were ordained and called by God to do, to prophetically, authoritatively, and authentically write down God's truth.

Because the church, which includes the apostles and prophets, are the pillar and support of the truth.

The prophets and apostles are not the truth themselves, because they spoke from God. They spoke

God's words on the earth and wrote them down to make them permanent for the church back then and the church today.

For us, beloved, who are part of the church being built up into a magnificent sanctuary, a holy sanctuary in the

Lord, beloved, that should give us great hope, comfort, and encouragement, beloved.

Amen. The church is not the truth itself, nor is the church the infallible authority.

Contrary to what many other people claim, and churches claim, and traditions claim. Rather, God delegated authority to her, primarily through the apostles and prophets, so that the church could receive and collect

God's ultimate authority. The final written

God -breathed scriptures, the Theopneustos of God, the breath of God, written down.

And the church is thus tasked by her Lord and Master to teach them, to preach them, to confess them, to live them out, to apply them, and to uphold the very same faith, which was delivered, when beloved, once and for all, to the saints, back in the first century, written by the

Apostolic Prophetic Associate Jude himself. All the way back then, the faith that was delivered once and for all to the saints, by who?

The Apostles and Prophetic Associates, beloved. That should give us great comfort and encouragement, and give us a solid foundation to build on our understanding that Scripture alone is the sole, final, ultimate, infallible, sufficient rule of the church.

Amen. Let us now close with a word of prayer.

Our gracious, precious Lord and Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your gracious spirit and means of grace that you have given us,

Lord, to guide and to build your church into the holy sanctuary that it is, Father.

Even though this is a complex topic that requires some study and careful understanding of how you worked and how you use your people, your prophets, and your

Apostles, and their associates, to write down what you spoke authoritatively,

Father God, to what you breathed out, with your own breath, using holy men of God, your holy men, your holy

Apostles and Prophets, to give us your written word, Father. We thank you for these things.

Help us, Lord, to deepen our understanding of these immensely important doctrines,

Father. Help us to understand and to not be shaken by the false the false understandings that so often attack our faith today, these

Protestant doctrines, these biblical doctrines, Lord, that the early church also recognized, embraced, and passed down to us.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for these things, that through them, through your writings, we may have encouragement and hope,

Father, that you have given us. We thank you so much, Lord, for your written final word. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. The Word of God which saves us. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the

Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area, or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcasts, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com.