Lesson 12: The Closed Canon, Part 2

All right, let's begin with prayer. Our Father, we are grateful to You for bringing us here together this morning. We are thankful for this place to gather, for the freedom to do so. We are thankful for the health and good spirits that we are in and the ability to gather together as Your people, with Your people, for our edification and our encouragement and our equipping for life and ministry.

We're thankful for Your work, for Your Word and for the work of Your Word that You do by the power of Your Spirit in our lives. We thank You for giving us Your Word and preserving it for us, and we pray now that as we talk about how You have done that work, that You would help us to understand how You have worked and what You have done and help us to appreciate and understand the treasure of Your Word to us that You have given to us in Scripture.

And may we respond with hearts of gratitude and love and obedience, and we pray Your blessing upon this time. Help us to think clearly, we ask, and help me to communicate clearly, in Christ's name.

Amen.

The Closed Canon and the End of Revelation

All right, we are in lesson 12, the closed canon. I don't know if this will take us the entire rest of the Sunday school time to go through this, but this subject might engender a little bit of discussion.

I don't know what it has in the past, but we shall see. And then I've got a couple more, two more lessons after this, no sorry, three more lessons after this, and then we will be done with this series.

I'm looking forward to getting back to sitting in adult Sunday school class rather than teaching adult Sunday school class. I need that time during adult Sunday school class to finish downloading my sermon and figure out what I'm going to preach on.

So our question today is, is the canon open or closed? That's what we're going to address. So we're in number four, is the canon still open? Roman numeral number four in lesson 12, and that's what we're going to be talking about, is is the canon still open or is it closed?

Now when I say is the canon open, what I mean is, are we still adding books to Scripture? Are we still adding modern day revelations or continuing revelation to the canon of Scripture or not? Now to the question, is the canon still open?

There are only two possible answers to that question, what are they? It's either yes or it is no. Those are the two possible answers to that question, is the canon still open? Either yes it is, meaning that revelation is continually going on and we ought to be open to adding other books to those 66 books that we have in our Bible, or the canon is closed.

Now who would determine whether the canon is still open or whether it is closed? Who would determine that? Would the church determine that? Would we as God's people determine whether or not the canon is open or closed?

Who makes that determination? Who determined whether there was going to be a canon to begin with? And what makes a book canonical? God is the one who determines if a book is canonical, right? So when did canon actually come into existence?

When does an authoritative writing exist? When God speaks. If God doesn't speak, then there's no authoritative writing or there's no authoritative revelation,.

Correct?

And therefore there's no canon. There's no book to add to the canon. If God doesn't write any books, then we don't just go out and grab books that we think are really good spiritual guides and just start collecting them together and say, this is going to be our Bible.

That's not how it works. We don't determine what is canonical. We don't determine the canon. We discover the canon. So really the question is, is a book authoritative? And if it is authoritative, then it is because God has spoken it.

If God has not spoken it, it's not authoritative and therefore it is not canonical. So ultimately God is the one who determines whether a book belongs in the canon or not by virtue of the fact that He gives the book and speaks through that human author to write.

That book.

That's what gives it its canonicity. So there are only two possible positions then. Either the Bible has been completed or God is still speaking today and therefore we are still adding authoritative revelation to that canon.

It is either yes or no. Is the canon still open? Yes or no. I'm going to argue today for a closed canon. So in case you're new here and you're not quite sure where I'm at on this position, is Jim really open to it?

I'm not at all open to a continuing canon or an open canon. I believe in a closed canon and I'm going to argue that today and possibly even in a way that will make some of you uncomfortable if you think that God is speaking to you in still small voices, whispers, nudging, promptings, and impressions.

Because that issue is connected to the open or closed canon question. And as you'll see that as we get to the end, okay? Let me give you some arguments in favor of a closed canon. This is letter A. Here's the first argument.

Why Modern Revelation Cannot Be Canonical

And that nothing today could meet the qualifications for canonicity. And which of the five qualities of a canonical book would a modern day revelation not meet? It's not apostolic, correct? Because there are no apostles today.

That's right. Yeah, an apostle had to have been a witness to the resurrected Christ. Now of course Jesse DePlantis and Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland and some of those guys would say that they've seen the risen Christ.

They get trips to heaven all the time. So they would make that claim and thus they would say that they have the ability or the office of apostle today. But there is no apostolic office today. So therefore it wouldn't be apostolic.

What other criteria or what other quality of canonicity would it be lacking? What was the fifth one? Remember what the fifth one was?

You say, you're not even sure.

We went through this list like four weeks ago or whatever it was. Okay, the fifth one was that it had to be, it was widely accepted. Books that were canonical were widely accepted by the church. They were accepted by God's people or recognized by God's people.

Okay, so if a modern day revelation came, if somebody had a modern day revelation and we would have to ask the question, well is this the same, of the same quality and kind as what was revealed in the New Testament era?

It's not apostolic. It wouldn't meet that criteria of being authoritative because it comes from an apostle. And how do we know if they were messengers of God? Because they did signs and wonders. They performed signs and wonders authenticating the fact that they were God's messengers.

So the fact that God spoke through those apostles in the writing of Scripture, God authenticated them as His voice, His mouthpiece, His messengers by giving them the ability to perform signs and wonders.

And that is, those were the marks of an apostle. So a modern day revelation could not be apostolic and authoritative in that sense. It wouldn't be marked by coming from somebody who had the ability to perform signs and wonders and it wouldn't be accepted by the whole church because more of the church has existed in the last 2 ,000 years than exists today.

There's more dead church behind us than there is living church today. And therefore, even if every Christian on the face of the planet decided to accept another book as canonical, you would still have the bulk of the church that has lived who would have never had access to that revelation.

So it wouldn't match up with those qualities. Let me give you a second argument and that is that the apostles knew that the writing of Scripture was coming to an end. The apostles knew that the writing of Scripture was coming to an end.

And Jude makes reference to the faith that was once for all delivered, past tense, to the saints.

Right?

Even in Jude's day, he recognized that there was a body of doctrine, a body that regulated the faith that had been delivered to the saints. He speaks of the delivered once for all faith to the saints.

And Jude, writing toward the end of the New Testament time of revelation, Jude didn't write early on. He wrote later toward the end of that, around the same time as 2 Peter, so you're talking about 63, 64 A .D., somewhere in that neighborhood that Jude was writing.

So here, 30 years after the resurrection of Jesus, Jude referred to a faith that had been once for all delivered to the saints. Jude doesn't speak of the faith and of Scripture and of the content of faith as something that was continuing to be revealed generation after generation as if revelation was going to continue to go on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, into the future beyond Jude's own lifetime.

So Jude described in the past tense the faith that was delivered. Paul speaks, I think, in 1 Corinthians 13, it's my interpretation of the end of that love passage where he talks about tongues being done away with and knowledge…tongues being done away with and…how does he say it?

That's not in front of me right now. He talks about those revelatory sign gifts there at the end of 1 Corinthians 13. It's my conviction, and I know this is not where John MacArthur would be at, it's not where your MacArthur Study Bible would say, but it's my conviction that Paul there is describing the end of New Testament revelation and the coming of the full revelation in Jesus Christ and the writings of Scripture that that in itself would do away with the need for sign gifts, the revelatory sign gifts.

That's my position on that. All right, and Revelation 22, 18, and 19 warns against adding to the book. Now, arguably that refers primarily to the book of Revelation, but I also believe that that is a solemn warning of the Holy Spirit concerning all of Scripture because there are other parts of Scripture that warn against adding and subtracting from God's Word.

So the whole notion that you and I can add or that anybody would add to what God has already written and presume to call that Scripture, Scripture warns against that. So the apostles themselves knew that Scripture was…the writing of Scripture was coming to an end.

There is nothing in the New Testament written by any apostle that commanded anyone to look forward to revelation that would be happening after the lifetime of the apostles. Think about that for a second.

There's no instruction from the apostles during their lifetime that would instruct Christians who were to come after them to be expecting further revelation from the next generation of church leaders.

When Paul was nearing the end of his life and he wrote to Timothy, he pointed Timothy.

To Scripture.

He said, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for these things. And he points to Scripture as the inspired and inerrant and infallible authoritative rule and he points Timothy back to that.

Paul never said, look, Timothy, Scripture is really good, but you need to be listening for more revelations after I'm gone. I mean, Scripture has its place, but be open to what the Spirit of God may reveal in every generation to come.

Paul never said that. Peter, at the end of his apostolic ministry, when he knew that his life was coming to an end, and Peter said, this earthly tent that I'm in, I'm certainly going to cast this off soon, going to be with glory.

He didn't point his readers to the next generation of leaders who would also be giving further revelation. Instead, Peter said that we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention, to pay heed.

Peter pointed his readers back to Scripture. The apostles, in their writings, never pointed the readers to anything outside of what was God was delivering through them in their time. So the apostles expected themselves that that revelatory act of God would come to an end and was coming to an end.

Number four, or sorry, number three, under arguments in favor of a closed canon, number three is there's no need for additional revelation because Scripture affirms its own sufficiency. And therefore, if you want to argue that the canon is open, that we need something more, you have to be saying something implicitly about Scripture.

And what is it? It's not enough, it's insufficient. You have to then argue that God has not given to me everything that pertains to life and godliness. Robert Morris, whom I quote in my book, God Doesn't Whisper, he makes the argument that if it were not for a continuing private revelations that God has given to him, he would never know how to pastor the church, he would never be able to pastor because he could never make all the decisions that are required for being a pastor if God wasn't speaking him and giving him direction in all of those decisions that he was making.

So what is a pastor of a church arguing when he makes a statement like that? He's saying the Scripture is not sufficient to tell him how to pastor a church. How inept is the Holy Spirit that He would give us this book and not in it give us the instructions necessary to pastor a church?

I've pastored this church for 25 years and I've never once felt like I needed some special revelation or to make a decision, not once. And if I were to argue that I would, I would be arguing that Scripture itself has not given me sufficient information, therefore it is insufficient, it is lacking, and it is inadequate to equip us for every good work, including works of service.

Yeah, very implicitly, Rick said, he's also saying that he himself is the final authority in the church, right? If God tells me to do something, then does it really matter what Scripture says? You have no right to question if God gave me the instruction to do X, Y, and Z in the.

Church.

Yes? Yeah.

Yeah, she was speaking in German, so let me translate that for you. She said that Deuteronomy 29 .29 says that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, and so there are certain things that God has not revealed to us.

There are certain things that He keeps to Himself. Yeah, very good point. It is a form of Gnosticism, yes. The idea that I can know something that's not available to other Christians, it is an implicit form of Gnosticism, a modern-day form of Gnosticism, yep.

Yeah, Ken. Yeah, so the question is about the Mormon church and what would have caused them to accept modern-day revelations, a further revelation or a second revelation of Christ. And of course, Joseph Smith's own pet doctrines would have been motivation enough because he can't find those in Scripture.

So as is typical of most cult leaders, whenever they cannot find the doctrines that they want to believe in Scripture, then they just have to argue that Scripture either has been misunderstood or it's not been translated accurately or not been conveyed to us accurately, not been preserved by God, and therefore additional revelation to correct what has been corrupted is necessary.

And that's the argument that the Mormon church makes.

Okay?

Any questions? All right. So there's no need for additional revelation, number three. Number four, the New Testament instructs us to test all teaching by what has already been delivered. In other words, Paul always compares teaching and false teaching in his day to what the Scripture has said, and we likewise, 2 Peter and Jude, we are commanded and encouraged to compare whatever new fashionable, vogue teaching comes along by what has been already delivered to us.

There's no instruction in the New Testament that we are to seek whatever the Spirit of God is saying in the day in which we live and whatever revelation is given and then compare false teaching with that because that gets you into a position where you're basically asking Joseph Smith, are your doctrines in keeping with what God is saying?

Well, yeah, I feel I'm speaking it to my heart. So of course what I'm teaching is right in keeping with what God is revealing today,.

Right?

Because it's in keeping with what He's revealing to me right now. So then there becomes no objective standard by which you test false doctrine. Yet the New Testament commands us to test all teaching by what has already been revealed, not what would eventually be revealed in generations to come.

And number five, the early church did not allow for additional revelation. Remember there were men like Montanus, we talked about him several weeks ago, who believed that God was revealing things through him in a modern prophetic office in the second and third centuries after the apostles and he was roundly condemned by the church fathers because the early church fathers, none of them believed that the canon was open.

The early church fathers all pointed back to the apostles and said, they are our lights, they are our guides, they are the standard. It was the apostolic writings. They pointed back to what had already been delivered.

So until rather recently, it has been almost heretical, certainly aberrant to suggest that God was continuing to give revelation and that the canon was open. It's only in recent times that this whole idea that we can continue to get revelation has become fashionable within the evangelical church.

All right, so those are my five arguments in favor of a closed canon. First of all, it wouldn't have the marks of a canonical book. It couldn't because it would be given late and it wouldn't be apostolic.

The apostles knew that the writing of Scripture was coming to an end. There's no need for additional revelation. The New Testament instructs us to test all things by what has already been delivered, not by what would be delivered, and the early church did not allow for additional revelation.

The early church fathers certainly condemned that revelation. Look to the apostles and the writings of the New Testament as a closed canon. Okay, so any questions on those five? All right, let's talk in letter B here about some false views of revelation then.

False Views of Revelation and Continuationism

Some try and respect the idea of a closed canon while at the same time arguing for continuing modern day revelations in some form. This is a very, it's an inconsistent position to have, theologically speaking.

It's also very difficult to navigate because it puts you in this position where you're trying to almost invent a category of revelation that Scripture knows nothing about. I'll demonstrate to you what I mean by that.

So, here are some false views of revelation. First, that there is such a thing as modern day prophets. People try and allow for a modern day, thus saith the Lord in the church. So, Sam Storms, for instance, in his book, Practicing the Power of the Spirit, he is a Reformed continuationist, so that means that he would be Reformed in his soteriology and even his eschatology.

He would hold to the five points of Calvinism, he would be considered a Reformed teacher and would affirm the gospel the same way that we do, but he believes in continuing revelations. So, in his book, Practicing the Power of the Spirit, he actually argues for a way of encouraging the prophetic office within your own church and allowing people to have times inside of the worship service to stand up and to give prophetic utterances.

And even if they're wrong, then you need to come alongside of them and teach them how to be right in the uttering of their prophetic proclamations. Okay, so now that's somebody who theologically would agree with us in terms of the gospel and much of our doctrine, right?

He would be in our camp, but Sam Storms would argue that God is continuing this revelatory and prophetic office. Wayne Grudem is another one that would believe that. Wayne Grudem would be theologically where we're at on 95 of theology, but he believes in continuing revelation.

John Piper is another one. Mark Driscoll was another one. Mark Driscoll argued for revelatory dreams where God would reveal things to him in visions while he was in counseling situations, and some of it was nearly pornographic, what he said God was revealing to him.

Who's another one? Okay, those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head that would be where we're at theologically but would believe in continuing revelation. So they would say that there is an openness or a continuation of this prophetic office within the church today, and that we actually have prophets who are giving revelation today.

Now, all these men would say that the canon is closed, okay? They would all say the canon is closed. God is not adding to Scripture at all. Sixty-six books, that's all there is. We're not adding the Apocrypha.

We're not adding on after the book of Revelation. They would say that the canon is absolutely closed, but they would say that God is continuing to reveal things today, and He is continuing to speak through prophets today and in the church today through words of knowledge and revelations, possibly dreams, possibly visions, nudgings, promptings, still small voices, impressions, private revelations, all of that.

So they want both of these worlds. Okay, now I hope that you are seeing how these two things cannot possibly go together. And why is that? If God speaks, it is what? It's going to be Scripture. It is authoritative.

It's inerrant. It is infallible.

Right?

If God speaks, it has to have those qualities. Now if it is authoritative and inerrant and infallible, then it is what?

Scripture.

So the question is, how can God speak in a non-Scriptural way? How can God speak in a non-authoritative voice? And see, this is what they have to argue, that they would actually say, Matt Chandler has said, he's another one that would be theologically almost where we're at, identical in terms of other theologies, but he would believe in continuing revelation.

Matt Chandler would say it's possible for us to, instead of saying, thus saith the Lord, like Scripture says, instead we would say, I feel the Lord is telling me, or I feel the Lord is impressing upon me, or I kind of sense that the Lord is directing me and giving me this to say to you.

And so he would believe that God is still speaking through us, but because we are unable to appreciate it, because we are unable to receive it, or we're unable to hear it correctly, that it might be, in fact, we would get it wrong, and we could actually receive a fallible or errant, and it's non-inspired and in a non-authoritative sense.

So they have to argue that God is speaking, but He's speaking in a non-authoritative way, or a non-inspired way. And some of those that I critique in God Doesn't Whisper, like Priscilla Schreier and Bill Hybels and others, and Charles Stanley, they would say, God is still speaking, but it's not on par with Scripture.

That's the phrase that we use continually. It's not on par with Scripture. Why is Scripture that par? What makes Scripture, Scripture? What makes Scripture authoritative, inerrant, infallible? What gives it those qualities?

Is it the fact that it's just written down? Does it have those qualities because it's in writing?

No.

Does it have those qualities because it's old? Hold on, let me walk through this real quick. Does it have those qualities because it's old? It's older revelation, therefore it has those qualities. Or does it have those qualities because God spoke it?

It has those qualities because God spoke it. And when God speaks, it must be authoritative, inerrant, and infallible. It cannot be otherwise. God cannot speak a non-authoritative word. God cannot speak a fallible word, and God cannot speak an errant word.

And therefore, Scripture is infallible, inspired, inerrant, and authoritative, if it has those qualities because God spoke it. And God cannot speak a non-authoritative, errant, infallible word. Then tell me how it is that God can continue to speak, and yet it not be on par with Scripture.

See, in order to hold to both of these, they have to create an entire category of revelation that Scripture knows nothing about. Scripture knows nothing about errant revelation, errant God speaking. God speaking fallibly, where He gets it wrong once in a while.

He tries His best, but He gets it wrong. Scripture knows nothing of that category. Scripture knows nothing of a category of prophets that are from God and speak for God, but are inaccurate. They get it wrong sometimes.

They hear it wrong sometimes. See, I believe that God, because He is sovereign, has the ability to speak, and He also has the ability to make sure that the person to whom He is speaking hears and understands perfectly and conveys perfectly exactly what it is He is saying.

He has the ability to do both of those. And the failings and frailty of the human person to whom He is speaking is irrelevant to God's ability to clearly communicate and to make sure that what He says is conveyed and understood perfectly.

Okay? So, Angelica, do you have a question real quick? Go ahead. Try it. Yes. Well, hopefully the Lord will ensure that you're able to clearly communicate to me.

Go ahead. Okay. It's a very good question.

So, when I say that God has spoken in Scripture or God speaks in Scripture, we do believe that God speaks through His Word. But the way that God speaks through His Word is when somebody takes His Word and studies His Word and comes to the meaning of that Scripture and then communicates it to you.

When you hear the meaning of Scripture as the author and the Spirit of God intended it, not a special meaning that He gives to Scripture outside of what the author intended or what it meant 2 ,000 years ago.

When you are reading through Scripture and you hear the meaning of that passage in your mind and your heart and you understand it, you are hearing God speak to you, but it is Scripture itself that is the voice of God.

It's not a voice of God that is attached to Scripture. So, I'm reading through Scripture and I come across a passage that says, children are a gift from the Lord and the person who has the person is blessed who has a full quiver.

And I read that in Psalms 103, I think, or something like that. And I read that passage and I think, there's the word children that really spoke to my heart. I think the Lord is leading me to start a children's ministry.

Is that what that meant back then? No? Okay, so if it didn't mean that back then, it doesn't mean that now. What does it mean now? It means that children are a gift from the Lord and the one who has those, that is one way that God blesses those people.

So, when I read that passage and I understand what God is saying, I'm hearing the voice of God, but through Scripture because I'm understanding the text. The text itself is the voice of God. So, when I say there's no modern-day prophets, I'm not saying there's no modern-day teachers, nor am I saying that God no longer takes His word and ministers to our heart, sanctifies us and uses His word in our hearts because I think that He does.

If I believe that God didn't do that, I would never preach another sermon. Because my only hope is that in all the effort that I put forward on a Sunday morning, to prepare for a Sunday morning, that I'm expecting and hoping and trusting that God is going to take His word and what He said and wrote back then, and that He is going to take that word and apply it and use it in the hearts of everybody who is here.

That's my prayer and my hope. So, God is speaking through the mouth of the preacher or teacher because He's speaking through the word. And so long as the preacher is accurately communicating what God said, God is speaking through that to the person who hears that.

But the message is the same. The application might be different, but the message is the same. So, I'm not saying God doesn't use modern-day teachers or modern-day preachers. I'm saying God is not continuing to give revelation that is outside of, apart from, and different than Scripture today.

Does that make sense? Does that help clarify that? Okay. Any other questions on that? Yeah. Hold on right here. Yeah. Yeah, so the two witnesses in Revelation. So, I think, let me rephrase the question and see if I'm asking it correctly.

Does that mean that God is never going to speak authoritatively in the future? That's the bottom, that's underneath your question, right? I don't necessarily, the idea that there is a closed canon today does not mean that God cannot give further revelation at a future time that is authoritative, inerrant, and inspired.

I think that during the millennial kingdom, during the earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, that there will be some sort of revelatory office at that point. Whether the two prophets in Revelation are new prophets in the sense of an Old Testament prophet, or whether they are just men who stand up and preach, I don't know.

I don't know that I would have to say, I don't know that we'd have to say that that is additional revelation. But Joel's prophecy that young men will dream dreams and old men will have visions and that the Lord will speak, in the coming millennial kingdom, I don't know how the Lord Jesus Christ ruling on planet Earth can speak in a non-authoritative, errant way.

So it might be that God would give further revelation in the millennial age, in the kingdom age. But all we're talking about now is in this age, until that coming kingdom, should we believe that there is currently revelation being given, or that there has been additional revelation since the time of the apostles.

And I would say no. Yeah, their coming is specifically promised in Scripture.

Yeah.

Right, yep, good point. It wouldn't be justified to say, because God has promised another, if those two revelation prophets are actually authoritative, inerrant prophets. In that sense, the fact that God has promised that those two men would come does not give me justification to say that I'm speaking, or that God's speaking to me.

Yeah, Aaron. Yep.

Yeah, that's right. Back, it was a year ago now, we did discuss the difference between illumination and revelation. Revelation is the act of God giving content, revealing truth. Illumination is the act of God opening our eyes and our hearts.

It's not Scripture that needs to be illuminated, but our hearts and minds need to be opened and illuminated to understand and see what is there. And so that's the two different functions of the Spirit of God.

One is revelatory, one helps us to understand what has been already revealed. Yeah. Jess, did you have a question? Yeah, the question is, if a continuationist says that they have sign gifts and they're giving continuing revelation, wouldn't that be a form of Gnosticism?

And it would be a form of Gnosticism, yep. Okay, any other questions? Let me pause for a moment. See, I know that there are a lot of people that are new here that have come either since last September.

If you are new and you want a copy of God Doesn't Whisper, because you don't have it yet, you're free to take a copy, see me afterwards, I'll make sure you get a free copy of that book, because of a generous donor who made that possible.

So I realize that there are people who have come since September when we gave those away. And I deal with this issue, this continuing revelation, in greater detail in that book. Alright, any other questions about that before we move on?

Okay.

So, one false view of revelation is the notion that there are modern-day prophets, people within the church that God has raised up who are giving continuing revelation. And of course, they have to invent, again, a category of prophecy and prophet, an office within the church that is errant and fallible and can get wrong.

And this is an idea of prophecy that is imposed on Scripture from outside, not something that Scripture itself teaches. Under the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, if a prophet got it wrong, he was stoned.

And now today, they want to say, well, yeah, but in the Old Testament, you had to have 100 accuracy, but not in the New Testament. In the New Testament, you can get hit or miss, you have 10, 20 accuracy, and that's pretty good for a New Testament prophet.

Do you see anything like that in Scripture? That you can have that kind of inaccuracy in a prophet? Why would I think that the office of prophet has deteriorated since the Old Covenant? Is there anything about the New Covenant and what we are given in the New Covenant that is inferior to the Old Covenant?

No, but they have to argue that the office of prophet is not nearly as good. God was able to speak perfectly under the Old Covenant, but now you get to the New Covenant, the fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ, and now our prophets, they're hit or miss.

Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. Now they're hit or miss. So you have to invent, in order to hold on to closed canon and modern day revelations, you have to invent an office of prophet that Scripture does not describe, and you have to invent a view of God's revelation that Scripture does not describe, namely that God can get it wrong.

All right, second, the voice of God in private revelations, that's number two, and we've already talked about that. All right, letter C, the implications of an open canon. Before we move on to that, are there any questions or comments on that issue?

We're all good on private revelations?

Yes.

That's all right. You're the only one asking questions today, so it's good. Cessationism, so cessationism is the belief that, it's not the belief that all the gifts of the Spirit have ceased, it is the belief that certain gifts of the Spirit have ceased, namely the miraculous, or the sign gifts and the revelatory gifts that were part of the New Testament church, that those gifts have ceased.

Okay, so I'm, this is the difference between a continuationist and a cessationist. So I am a Reformed cessationist, meaning I would affirm the Reformed doctrines of the Christian faith, while at the same time believing that the sign gifts, namely word of knowledge, prophecy, the apostolic gift, that those gifts are no longer given.

Now listen, unless you believe that there are modern-day apostles, you are a cessationist. Even if you believe, see, Matt Chandler, who are the other ones I named, Wayne Grudem, they would not argue that there are modern-day apostles today.

And they would say, but we're not cessationists. Well hold on a second. Apostles were a gift to the church, right? If God is no longer giving us apostles, then that gift has ceased, has it not? If that gift has ceased, then you believe at least one gift of the Spirit has ceased, and if you believe that at least one gift of the Spirit has ceased, then you are a cessationist.