It Is Written: From Abel to Zechariah | Luke 11:47-52, Matt. 23:29-36

So I want, today I want to continue to dig into our understanding of the

Old Testament and the Old Testament canon. And in particular, Jesus' view of the

Old Testament canon. Dig further into that. Specifically from Abel to Zechariah, as we'll see what that means today.

So turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke chapter 11. Verses, starting in verse 47.

Luke chapter 11, verse 47. God's Word says, this is

Jesus speaking. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, for you build the tombs of the prophets, but your fathers killed them.

So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers, because it was they who killed them.

And you built their tombs. For this reason also the wisdom of God said, I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute.

So that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation.

From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God.

Yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation. Woe to you, scholars of the law, for you have taken away the key of knowledge.

You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering. Sharp words there from Christ.

Now let's turn to the Gospel of Matthew, the parallel passage in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 23.

In verse 29. Matthew 23, verse 29.

And again, Christ our Lord speaks strong words and says,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous.

And say, if we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

So you bear witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?

On account of this, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes.

Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.

So that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth.

From the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. This is

God's holy word. Amen. So you can see from these parallel passages that where I derived the title of the sermon today, it is written from Abel to Zechariah, to Zechariah.

And these are incredibly strong indictments of Christ our

Lord against the elites of his day, the scribes in particular, and the

Pharisees as well. And these passages are just so full of incredibly important truths and information that we can glean from, including with respect to the

Old Testament and how we are to understand the canon of scripture of the Old Testament. And in light of the

Apocrypha, distinguish from that as well. So one thing I want to point out at the start is you'll notice in these passages that this is one example of many where Jesus himself sometimes was the one who provoked the confrontation.

He initiated and provoked it. If you turn back with me to the

Gospel of Luke in chapter 11, verse 45, if we back up a few verses there, we'll see what happens to get more of the context there.

In Luke 11, verses 45 through 46, this is almost comical if it wasn't so utterly serious of the condemnation that he's denouncing them with.

It would almost be comical. But Jesus, or it says the narrative, the

Gospel says, Now one of the scholars of the law answered and said to him, to Jesus, Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us, too.

But he, Jesus, said, Woe to you, scholars of the law as well. So, oh, he's going to let him have it, too.

For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

And those are the verses that precede the ones we read earlier. Woe to you again, scribes and Pharisees.

You build the tombs of the prophets, but your fathers killed them and on. So we see very clearly a lot of modern churches and movies and Christians have a very seriously imbalanced misunderstanding of who

Christ was and is as a person. People think is this meek and mild, you know,

Jesus, who's a pushover and just gets thrown around everywhere. And no, he wasn't just he didn't just turn the other cheek at times.

Sometimes he actively confronted and provoked a confrontation and launched direct attacks and denouncements, condemnations of the of the harshest kind to men like the scribes and the

Pharisees, the hypocrites, the religious hypocrites of the day. And we need to take important note of that and lessons from that.

Passive pietism was not the appropriate action or response.

That is not he's not just the lamb, the meek and mild lamb. He is also the

Lion of Judah. Amen. Jesus was a man's man, a true man.

And he spoke harshly when he needed to. And so must we at times when it calls for it, especially when there is hypocrisy and stubbornness and unrepentance.

So and and, you know, speaking of the scribes and the

Sadducees and so on. Last time I mentioned that the Sadducees, they deny the resurrection, as the scriptures say.

And I quoted from FF Bruce, where he says that it would be understandable if the Sadducees did not accept

Daniel, which contains the most explicit statement of the resurrection hope in the whole of the Old Testament.

And I was thinking about this later on. And I realized, well, maybe. But I think another possibility and more likely scenario is that the

Sadducees may have still accepted, quote unquote, the book of Daniel as canonical, but simply explain it away to deny the resurrection of the dead.

And this is what you see liberals and heretics do both then and now.

You find them doing the very same thing. They will affirm the word of God.

They will affirm scripture, but then deny it by how they define it or not define it or or their teaching.

And this happens all the time. This is one of the main tactics that false teachers, heretics, liberals do.

They will affirm something and then deny it by re explaining it or redefining it. Just like Jesus told the once again, the scribes and the

Pharisees, this people honors me with their lips. They'll profess to know me and believe in me.

But their heart is far, far from me because they don't believe the truth of what

Jesus said and the word says. So we have I think this is the more likely scenario with the with the

Sadducees, where they simply just explain the book of Daniel away somehow. And you again, like you have heretics like areas where they would affirm the same vocabulary, the same doctrine, quote unquote.

But then explain it away and say, well, no, Jesus was not God fully. He was a creature.

He had a beginning. There was a time when this when the sun was not. And that's why the early church had to create how to formulate creedal and doctrinal language to refute the heretics like Aryans against them.

And so to denounce their false teaching because they denied that Christ was truly God. So these are very important lessons and takeaways, even going back to the times of Christ.

It's it's it's very easy for people to say and to claim lip service to Christ and yet distort

Scripture and Christ to their own destruction of themselves and their followers.

That therein lies the danger of of that and why and why it's important to be discerning

Bereans and take heed to the testimony of the faithful church. Like I've been preaching on these past few

Sundays. So that's very important that we understand, beloved.

And now another big question here with respect to the passages that we read about in the

Gospels. You'll find that Christ says, for you build the tombs of your of the prophets, but your fathers killed them and take note of that.

And then notice that he also uses very similar phrases that we come across before.

So that the blood of all the prophets write all the prophets, which is often a phrase used to refer to the entire

Old Testament. With the because the understanding is that those who wrote

Scripture are prophets of God. And so that's what these common synecdoches are found throughout the

Scriptures and in Christ's own vocabulary frequently used. And one big question here is, who is

Jesus referring to by Zechariah? Who is Zechariah?

The Zechariah that Jesus is referring to. And you'll see in the Gospel of Luke that he says, he says, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God.

And then in the Gospel of Matthew verse in Chapter 23, he says in verse 35, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous

Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakaya. So there's an additional qualifier there, the son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

OK, so there's a bit of a discussion going on here about who

Jesus was referring to. So there is an explicit mention here of Zechariah, the son of Barakaya.

And that name also is the name of the prophet Zechariah, who wrote the book of Zechariah, the minor prophet in the

Old Testament. And in Chapter one, verse one, it says right there, the Zechariah, the prophet, son of Barakaya.

And so that that brings us to an important question that we need to answer for to understand this properly.

Is this the Zechariah that Jesus is referring to? And when we look at it carefully,

Jesus is making a very strong statement that everybody is is assumed to understand.

This is meant to be common knowledge, knowledge that you find like in Wikipedia or something.

This is well understood to the people in his day. You murdered Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God.

So this was well understood knowledge that everybody knew and understood at that time.

And so was this the case with the prophet Zechariah, the son of Barakaya, who wrote the book of Zechariah?

Well, it turns out that there is no biblical account of this prophet

Zechariah's death at all in Scripture. And there's no evidence placing his death as a murder between the altar and the sanctuary or the altar in the house of God, like Jesus explains.

So it doesn't seem like Jesus is referring specifically to that prophet.

It's not mentioned. So and again, we need to keep in mind that Jesus was referring to a very specific murder that everybody knew and understood.

There wasn't a question as to like he wasn't appealing to some Gnostic hidden knowledge.

Right. And so is it could have could he have been referring to somebody else than another prophet by the name of Zechariah?

Because there were several Zechariah's. And so what about the other prophet

Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the son of Jehoiada? Let's turn there now, beloved, to Second Chronicles, chapter 24 in the book of Second Chronicles, chapter 24 and verse 20.

And we'll see what God's word speaks to us there as we make sense of the whole counsel of God with the analogy of Scripture and comparing

Scripture logically, consistently and within its context.

So Second Chronicles, chapter 24 and verse 20. God's word speaks and says,

Now the spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest.

Jehoiada is the priest. And he stood above the people and said to them, Thus says

God. Why do you trespass against the commandments of Yahweh and do not succeed?

Because you have forsaken Yahweh. He has also forsaken you.

So they, the people of Israel, conspired against him.

And at the command of the king, they stoned him to death. Where?

In the court of the house of Yahweh. In the court of the house of Yahweh.

Take note of that. Thus, Josiah, I mean, sorry. Thus, Joash, the king, did not remember the loving kindness which his father,

Jehoiada, had shown him. But he killed, he murdered his son, the son of Jehoiada being

Zechariah, the prophet. And as he, Zechariah, died and said he died, he said these words.

May Yahweh see and avenge. May Yahweh see and avenge.

Now, does that ring any bells to what Jesus said? Because, remember, Jesus said, may the

Lord see this and require an accounting of what you murderers have done against the prophets.

Right? That's what Jesus basically, he parallels many of these, parts of this passage.

He says, it may be charged against this generation.

The blood of these prophets, including Zechariah, will be charged against this generation.

And that's what Zechariah himself cried out on his execution, his murder.

May Yahweh see and avenge. May he see and avenge me. May the

Lord see this and require an accounting of this wickedness. So, now, in light of this, this is coming together,

I think, a little bit more clear now. It seems, Jesus seems to be pointing to this

Zechariah rather than the other Zechariah, the son of Berekiah. Because we have to consider, again,

Jesus is bringing up things that everybody must have had access to and understood and was familiar with.

Even though there is something that we need to reconcile because he did say son of Berekiah. And Zechariah here is the son of Jehoiada.

Right? But remember, remember when I mentioned a few sermons ago, where the book of Chronicles is listed in the

Tanakh, in the Hebrew Tanakh, the Hebrew canon, the Hebrew Bible, where is the book of Chronicles listed?

And remember that all of those first and second books, they're listed as one book. Okay? And in the

Hebrew Bible, the book of Chronicles is listed at the very end of the

Hebrew Bible. At the very end. So, what

Jesus was saying, in effect, is the blood of Abel refers to the first martyr, which was in the first book of the

Bible, including the Hebrew Bible, the book of Genesis. Because the Genesis is the first book of the

Torah, of the law of Moses, the law of God. Abel is the first martyr in that book.

So the blood of Abel, the first martyr in history, really. And the blood of Zechariah points to the son of Jehoiada in 2

Chronicles, because it refers to the last prophet who was killed in the last book of the

Hebrew Bible. Right? It was 1st and 2nd Chronicles listed at the end of their

Bible. So, not historically last, but canonically last.

In the canonical order of the Hebrew Scriptures. Even though Ezra and Nehemiah chronologically follow or come after Chronicles, but they were listed before the book of Chronicles.

So that's very interesting here. Fascinating. This is almost the equivalent of saying, from Genesis to Revelation, is what

Jesus was saying. It's an expression of saying, the whole Bible. You murdered the prophets from all the

Scriptures. From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah from 2 Chronicles. And so, to kind of give some more context here,

FF Bruce, in his very helpful book on the canon of Scripture, says this.

Zechariah, who was around 800 BC, was not chronologically the last faithful prophet to die as a martyr.

Chronologically. Some two centuries later, a prophet named Uriah was put to death in Jerusalem, because his witness was unacceptable to King Jehoiakim.

That's in Jeremiah 26, 20 -23. Okay? But Zechariah is canonically the last prophet to die as a martyr, because his death, his murder, is recorded in Chronicles, the last book in the

Hebrew Bible. Right? So I think this is making more sense now.

It's coming together a little bit better, I think. Notice, too, those parallels that Jesus states with the account of Zechariah from 2

Chronicles. He's paralleling that specific account. Okay?

And that's very important that we understand this. And pretty much the early church understood this.

The reformers understood this in the same way. They generally saw that this was pointing to this account of 2

Chronicles. Because Jesus is so clearly paralleling what happened to that Zechariah, the prophet.

Where he is killed between the altar and the house of God, or the altar and the sanctuary, which is the same thing.

It means the same thing. And charges that generation against those murderers of the prophets, their fathers who murdered them.

And because they also build, even though they build the tombs of the prophets, but their fathers killed them.

And they bear witness against themselves, because Jesus says, you all are murderers, and you would have killed them all the same.

If you had been alive back then. You're murderers, because they also sought to kill

Christ. Right? That's the parallel as well. And so it's very important that we understand these things.

And not get confused by these different situations and these different Zechariahs that are in the

Bible. And to that end, I wanted to clarify something

I also mentioned in my last sermon. Where I said that 1 and 2 Chronicles is not explicitly quoted in the

New Testament. But then I thought about it and said, wait a minute. But Jesus is pointing to Zechariah from 2

Chronicles right here. So we have to be careful when we get information from certain sources.

Because they may interpret things a certain way as to think, well, that's not that Zechariah.

So therefore Chronicles wasn't quoted or referred to. I said, well, yes it was. Jesus did refer to it.

Right? And remember, in the Hebrew Bible, 1 and 2 Chronicles was one book.

One book. So yes, Jesus did refer to Chronicles. Right?

He referred to very clearly with all of these parallels. The preponderance of clear parallels and evidence is referring to that prophet.

Even though he stated in the Matthew account, the son of Berekiah.

The person referred to seems very clearly to point to the

Chronicles. The Zechariah from Chronicles. So that's a very powerful statement there that Christ is making for us.

Now, in light of that, okay, there's the two

Zechariahs. Are there any others that we may also want to consider? There are others.

What about in the New Testament? Because some people claim that, well, Jesus was prophetically prophesying the death of Zechariah.

Of some Zechariah. In the future. In the New Testament. It's like, well, that doesn't make any sense.

Because he said past tense. Their blood was shed. He's pointing to the past.

And he's saying you murdered them. Past tense. Not in the future. He didn't say you will.

But he said he was killed. Between the house of God and the altar.

Or the sanctuary and the altar. So that doesn't really make sense. But let's see.

I want to explore this again. Because it's important to be familiar with these apocryphal stories.

And speaking of such extra biblical traditions. Which, again, many other traditions hold to.

Roman Catholic. Eastern Orthodox. They hold to these sources as authoritative. And they use it to color their understanding of what the

Bible says. Remember the proto evangelium of James? That's the one that says that it denies that Jesus had a natural human birth.

That he was just beamed into the world. Right? And part of it was to preserve the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Which both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox believe. And unfortunately, it appears that Luther and Calvin may have also held to that.

But where we can say confidently is, okay, but they're not our final standard. We can disagree with Calvin and Luther.

Because they're not our final authority. What is our final authority, beloved? Sola Scriptura.

Amen? The scriptures alone are our final infallible rule of faith. It's not any one man,

Calvin or Luther. Even though they said a lot of good things and correct things that we heed to.

And we take their understanding and traditions that have been passed down to us.

In the Reformed faith, the Reformation faith, the Protestant faith. We hold on to those things that agree with scripture.

But we also need to draw the line where they disagree with scripture. Because they also disagree at times.

Now, we see here the same infancy gospel of James.

This apocryphal gospel with Gnostic elements. There's another account here about Zechariah, the father of John the

Baptist. You remember him in the gospels. This is what it says. King Herod, at that time, searched for John the

Baptist. And sent officers to Zechariah, who is the father of John the

Baptist. Saying, where have you hid your son, John the Baptist? And he, answering, said to them,

I am the servant of God and holy things. And I sit constantly in the temple of the Lord. I do not know where my son is.

And the officers went away and reported all these things to Herod. And Herod was enraged and said, his son is destined to be king over Israel.

So he thought John the Baptist was going to be the king to replace him. Or something, usurp him. And he sent to him, and again saying, tell the truth.

Where is your son? For you know that your life is in my hand. And Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, said,

I am God's martyr. If you shed my blood. If you shed my blood. If for the

Lord will receive my spirit. Because you shed innocent blood at the vestibule.

At the porch of the temple of the Lord. Okay. And Zacharias was murdered about daybreak.

And the sons of Israel did not know that he had been murdered. But at the hour of the salutation, the priest went away.

And Zacharias did not come forth to meet them with a blessing. According to his custom. And the priest stood waiting for Zacharias to salute him at the prayer.

And to glorify the Most High God. And he still delaying, they were all afraid.

But one of them ventured to go in. Note that, okay. Ventured to go in the temple.

And he saw clotted blood beside the altar. Inside the temple.

Okay. And he heard a voice saying, Zacharias has been murdered. This is presumably like an angel or God or something.

Zacharias has been murdered. And his blood shall not be wiped up until his avenger come. Okay. So that's interesting.

So this apocryphal account of the gospel. The infancy gospel. The apocryphal gospel of James.

Is trying to fill in which Zacharias Jesus was talking about.

Oh, it must be this Zacharias. The father of John the

Baptist. Who prophesied and he said his name will be John and all that stuff.

And he was silenced because he questioned. He denied.

He didn't believe God's word. So, okay.

Does that make any sense? Biblically at all. And I want to call in our friend's help.

From way back in the 340s A .D. Good old Jerome.

Very old school, way back then. Before the middle ages, the medieval times.

Still in the early church. Jerome who translated from the

Hebrew Bible. He was one of the few people at that time to actually know Hebrew.

And who translated the Hebrew Bible into what is called the Latin Vulgate. Which became the Bible for the next, pretty much the next millennia or so.

Particularly in the western church. And he also remember, if you recall, held to the 22 book

Old Testament canon. He distinguished the Apocrypha as books that were useful to be read in church.

But not on the same level as canonical Old Testament scriptures.

Because they were not canonical according to the Jews, the

Hebrews. So, he has a commentary. He wrote a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew in this passage.

And he said this regarding the slain Zechariah that Jesus referred to. Others want this

Zechariah to be understood as the father of John. He's talking about this Apocryphal Gospel.

They approve of certain daydreams from Apocryphal writings. That say he was killed because he had predicted the

Savior's advent. Since this view does not have the authority of the scriptures.

They are not scripture, in other words. It is rejected with the same facility with which it is approved.

Okay, so that's pretty well put there. It's hard to put it any better than he did.

So, this is important that we not get deceived from.

Because you'll hear other people and Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and folks like that. Try to bring in these other foreign traditions from other writings that are not biblical.

That are unbiblical, contra -biblical, contradictory to what scripture teaches.

And we need to be careful to mark these things out and not be deceived by them. And to take heed to sound men who understood these things well.

Soundly as well. Now, I encourage you to look at the sermon notes. Because I included a picture here of Solomon's Temple.

And it's important to understand. Because Jesus is pointing to geographical and architectural parts of the temple.

When he's referring to Zechariah being slain. And because you'll notice when

I read the apocryphal account from the Infancy Gospel of James. It actually contradicts the biblical account.

Because it claims that Zechariah was killed by the altar inside the temple.

Inside the temple. But Jesus and 2 Chronicles state that Zechariah was killed outside of the temple.

In between the altar and the court. Okay? So, I don't know if you can see this picture here.

But I'll share it with you all so you can see it. And study it. But the temple. King Solomon.

This is the first temple. Not the second temple that was rebuilt. The Herod's Temple was much bigger.

And it looked different. But King Solomon's Temple that he built. There was a big burnt offering altar outside.

Which was used for burnt offerings. And next to it. There was the temple itself.

And inside there was also an altar for incense offerings.

And there was a Holy of Holies in the sanctuary. That's where the sanctuary was. So, Jesus is saying.

In between the altar and the sanctuary. Zechariah was killed.

So, he's saying. He was killed outside. In between the altar and the temple.

In the inner court. It was called the court. And that's what 2nd Chronicles refers to it as.

It says. They conspired against him at the command of the king.

They stoned him to death. In the court of the house of Yahweh. And Jesus clarifies that.

Expands on that. And says. Yes. You killed him between the altar.

The burnt incense altar. And the sanctuary. Or the house of God.

Which was the main temple. But the apocryphal account says.

He was slain inside. In the altar inside. So, it contradicts.

This guy didn't really understand. How the Hebrew temple worked.

Right. And by then the temple. Herod's temple was already rebuilt. And that was a different temple.

So, it didn't look the same. So, but anyway. That's what Jesus was talking about.

Okay. So, it's important that we have a proper context of that. It's very helpful to see it. And because it's very clear what

Jesus was referring to. Now, I want to help us understand further here.

On the aspect of why we do not hold to the apocryphal books as scripture.

Which came after the last book of the Old Testament was written.

Malachi. Okay. Jesus. Notice what he says.

The blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. Right. 2nd Chronicles. The last book of the Hebrew Bible.

The Torah. The Nevi 'im. And the Ketuvim. The prophets. The last book of the

Ketuvim. The writings was 2nd Chronicles. The last part of the

Tanakh. The Ketuvim. Okay. Jesus did not include any other martyrdoms from the intertestamental period of the apocryphal writings.

And there were other martyrs. Which even the book of Hebrews alludes to. They were sawn in half and all this stuff.

They were persecuted for the sake of a greater resurrection. That's pointing to the Maccabean martyrs.

In the book of 1st and 2nd Maccabees. These are apocryphal books. But Jesus doesn't point to them.

He doesn't include them. He stops at Zechariah. Right.

So that's important that we understand these things. Neither does he mention the execution of John the

Baptist. Right. Who Jesus said was the greatest of the prophets.

Right. He was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. And note also, this is important.

Did John the Baptist write anything? As far as we know, he did not. Right. He didn't write a book of the

Bible. Jesus is making a specific point here. Jesus is pointing us to a canonical, the canonical end point of the

Old Testament. With the blood of Zechariah. Who was slain, murdered between the altar, the burnt incense altar, and the sanctuary.

Or the house of God. From Solomon's temple.

The first temple. Right. It's making a very specific point. Why didn't

Jesus include those other martyrs? Including John the Baptist. Jesus is pointing to us in a different direction.

In the canonical direction of the last writings of the martyr.

The last martyr of the last book of the Hebrew, the Old Testament. I think that's a very clear case that's being made there from Christ.

And yet, you see, you will find

Roman Catholicism and some Eastern Orthodox churches.

Nevertheless, regard these apocryphal books to be divinely inspired words of God. And therefore, as part of their scripture and their canon.

But we don't. Because Jesus didn't. And the apostles didn't. Did they allude to them?

Yes, they did. But they did not regard them as scripture. Right. We have to make that careful distinction.

Even ancient Jewish tradition, like I've already mentioned. Ancient Jewish tradition, especially rabbinic tradition, rabbinic

Judaism. Clearly held that prophecy had ceased after the time of Malachi.

This was well understood by pretty much all the Jews. Prophecy had ceased with Malachi, who was thought to be the last

Old Testament prophet. And so there was great distress in Israel.

Such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them.

Among Israel. That, beloved, is a quote from the apocryphal book of 1st

Maccabees. Even those apocryphal writings had this understanding.

That the prophets had ceased. There were no prophets. And there was great anxiety and distress in Israel because of that.

The prophets had stopped coming. So it doesn't make any sense.

Why would their writings be scripture if they're saying there's no more prophets anymore? They're recognizing that.

Even in the books that they consider to be scripture. That others consider them to be scripture.

And again, according to the Jewish Talmud. There's a section called the

Sotah 948b. In the Talmud. As the sages taught in a

Baraita. From the time when Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi died.

The divine spirit departed from the Jewish people.

As these three were considered to be the last prophets. This is from the

Jewish Talmud. It's not coming from a Christian source. It's from the

Jewish people who had this understanding themselves. Very clearly, this was their understanding.

And to further bolster this. There's a very prominent

Yale history professor and scholar. His name is Yaroslav Pelikan. Who was a former

Lutheran pastor. Who became an Eastern Orthodox member. In 1998.

He had this to say on the closing of the Old Testament canon of scripture. He wrote this in 2005.

Shortly before he died. After he became Eastern Orthodox. Take note of that. He says this.

Additional light on the process. By which the Jewish canon was formed.

Has come from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The books included in them.

Suggests that the Torah and the Nevi 'im. The prophets. The law and the prophets.

Had been standardized by about the 4th century BC. That's the 300s

BC. Okay. Together with. Together with most of the

Ketuvim. The writings. The third part. But some of the

Ketuvim. Some of the writings. Were still in dispute until the assembly at Jamnia.

Which was an assembly of Jewish rabbis. From about 90 to 100 AD. Now.

This is very interesting because. Even though Pelikan. He had some liberal and ecumenical tendencies.

Yet nevertheless. And he also became Eastern Orthodox. He nevertheless argues that the

Old Testament canon. Was mostly settled by the 300s BC. Okay. And this is coming from somebody who is not friendly.

He's just not Protestant. And yet. He is recognizing that historically.

You can't deny it. This was the case. And even so.

Because he does have liberal tendencies. Nevertheless. It was widely understood.

I just read from the Talmud. By the Jews. Even before the 300s. And even before 400

BC. That the last Old Testament prophet Malachi. Marked the beginning of the years of silence.

Because the Spirit had departed. The Spirit of God had departed. From Israel.

From the no more prophets. They understood that.

And that was in the 400s. When Malachi died. So that's when they realized.

There was no more. There was no more prophet. And so there was an anticipation.

They were waiting eagerly for a prophet. Because even the book of Malachi does anticipate.

It prophesies that a prophet was coming. But it didn't say when. Exactly.

And yet. There was a recognition. By the Jewish people. That the Spirit had left.

And the prophets had stopped coming to Israel. Okay. Very important. To understand this carefully.

So therefore all of those writings. That were after the time of Malachi. Are not scripture.

And that's all of the apocryphal writings. They all are written after. So.

This is very critical. To understand. Beloved.

And again. There was great distress in Israel.

Such as had not been since the time. The prophets ceased to appear among them. From 1st

Maccabees. From an apocryphal book right there. And that's just one reference. There's other references in those books.

Say similar things. Now another thing here. Pelikan also puts too much emphasis.

On what happened at the Jewish assembly of rabbis. At Jamnia. It was not a Christian assembly.

In this assembly. Those rabbis did not take the books out. They didn't take any books out of the canon.

He misleadingly says that they did. And that they included some. And that they took some out. That's not true. They didn't do that.

And no binding canonical decisions were made. At all. They didn't make any binding canonical decisions.

They simply discussed. Whether some books should be taken out. That were already regarded as scripture.

They questioned whether they should take them out. Certain books like Esther or Proverbs or Solomon.

Because there weren't explicit references to God. Or there were certain things that they seemed to contradict. Or things like that.

They discussed them. Whether they should take them out. But they didn't change anything.

They kept the same canon that they had. The 22 book canon. Or the 24 book canon. So don't be misled by that.

Beloved. And they also discussed. Whether some books defiled the hands or not.

Whether they defiled the hands. Or made your hands unclean. And it's a little counterintuitive. That saying is counterintuitive.

Because you would think. If it's a holy book. It would make you clean. But no.

They meant. If it's a holy book. It would make you unclean. It would expose your uncleanness.

So if you handle these books. They would make you unclean. And that's what they said were.

The books that God wrote. The inspired books. And that's what they discussed. Are these books canonical.

In the sense that they make your hands. They defile or make your hands unclean. Those books are scripture.

Any other books do not make your hands unclean. Right. But they didn't change anything.

They didn't change anything. Even then. After Christ came and died.

And rose again in the 90s AD. And they tried to distinguish themselves.

From the Christians. Actively so. They still kept the same canon.

That they always held to. Now. That. I want to make sure that.

We understand those things. But it's very important that we. Understand this. Now. With respect to.

This brings us to. Leads us to another issue of. Differing levels of authority.

Within the canonical. Writings or books of scripture. Itself. Right. Are there different levels of.

Authority. In the Bible. Between. Certain books. Like the

Old Testament. The New Testament. The law. The prophets. The writings. Are there.

Different levels of authority. That in those books. How do we understand that authority.

From those books. And I want to. Clarify some things

I said. Which I may have. I may have overcorrected something. From a previous sermon. Because I had said something along the lines of.

There are no differing degrees of authority. In different books of the Bible. There's no.

There are certainly no degrees of inspiration. All scripture is equally. Breathed out by God.

But that's not the issue. The issue is. Are they all equally authoritative. That's the issue.

So. And and. I. I had said.

That there's no. Difference in authority. Of all the books of the Bible. Including the Old Testament.

But I had also. At the same time. Clarified. That. All scripture.

Is equally authoritative. But within the context of. Progressive revelation. That's what

I try to clarify. It's within the context of. Progressive revelation. So there is a sense in which.

All scripture is authoritative. As God's word. But there's another sense in which.

Sometimes. Later revelation. Especially the New Testament. Has greater.

Final authority. It has the last word. Okay. It has the last word.

So. We need to carefully understand. That there are. In some sense.

Differing levels of authority. In the books of the Bible. The New Testament. Is the final permanent.

Last word of God. That word. Is the final word. That it also.

Speaks to. And interprets. The other writings. That came before it. Okay. That's what.

We need to understand. The Old Testament. Does not interpret. The New Testament.

That way. It is interpreted. By the new. The other way around. Right. So.

And I was trying. To distinguish. Our. Protestant view. From like. The Eastern Orthodox view.

Which says that. There's different levels of authority. But I'm not. On that sense. They're actually. That they're.

In some sense. Correct. There are different levels. Of authority. That we need to reckon. Recognize. Biblically.

And not only that. There's other senses. In which we must. Distinguish the authority. Of God's writings.

Because. In another sense. To. The Old Testament. Law of Moses. Right. The Torah.

The Pentateuch. Is the. Foundation. For. Everything.

That follows it. It's the. Foundation. It is the. It's the canon. Within the canon.

In a sense. It's the law. The law. The law.

Was. The basis. The foundation. And the basis. To judge. What happened.

Later on. In the Old Testament. That was it. It was the law.

God. Judged Israel. According to the law. Of Moses. Did you obey it?

I will bless you. Did you disobey? I will curse you. I will judge you. According to the law. Of Moses.

And. So. It. It. It.

From. Everything. From. Israel. Becoming. A nation. On. To the kings. Of Israel.

And the. Divided kingdoms. And. The prophets. And the covenants. That follow. The law.

Of Moses. Was at the foundation. Of it all. Okay. So there are different levels. Or understandings.

Of authority. That we need to. Balance out. Carefully. Distinguish. Carefully. In scripture. Rightly. Dividing.

The word. Of. Of. Truth. Okay. Now. This creates a problem.

For. Like. Roman Catholic. Or Eastern Orthodox. Because they'll say. Eastern Orthodox.

For example. Will say that the. Apocrypha. Are second. They're. Deuterocanonical. In terms of having.

Secondary authority. Even though. They were written. After the Old Testament. Was.

So there's a bit of a. There's a bit of a. Contradiction there. And also. Because prophecy. Had ceased.

According to. The Jews themselves. According to the. Apocryphal writings. Themselves.

So that. Again. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. To hold those. As authoritative. God breathed.

Writings. And. Um. And it's worse.

For the Roman. Catholic. Church. Because they hold them. As. Equally authoritative. As everything else. The. Apocryphal writings.

So. To. To. To. Kind of. Bring it all together. All. Scripture. Is authoritative.

But the New Testament. Is the final. Written word. Of God. Which makes it.

More authoritative. Because. It is the final. God breathed. Written word.

That divinely. Expands on. Fulfills. Continues. And even. Abrogates.

The. Old. Testament. Because. The covenant. The old covenant. Is done away with.

And the New Testament. Explains that. It's obsolete. Hebrews. Right. It says.

It's done away with. It's obsolete. We are under a new covenant. Now. And the new covenant.

Is explained. In the New Testament. So. And also.

Like I mentioned. The New Testament. Interprets. The old. The earlier revelations. Of the

Old Testament. I like. How. Augustine. Had a very.

Helpful. Maxim. For us. To. How. Do we understand. The relationship.

Between the old. And the New Testament. He said. The New Testament. Is in the old.

Concealed. It's in the old. Hidden. Concealed. The old.

Testament. Is in. The new. Revealed. Right. It's in the

New Testament. Revealed. It's showing. Look. This is fulfilled. Here. From the

Old Testament. Prophecies. And stuff like that. It's in the New Testament. Revealed. So.

That's very. Helpful. To. Understand. Now. This brings me. To a public service.

Announcement. Our. Very important. Because there's things going on. That we need to be aware of.

That are. These. Understandings. Are being challenged. By certain. False. Teachings. Now.

Our understanding of the New Testament. Must. Also be. Grounded in. The Old Testament.

As. It's continuation and fulfillment. Not completely. Detached from it.

Right. That. That's what the. Heretic. Marcion. Did. He just threw. Out the whole.

Old Testament. Said no. We don't need that. That's the Jews. He was an anti Jewish. and he took out all the

Jewish sounding parts of the New Testament that's not that's heresy you can't do that that's

God's Word you can't take it out God's Word is still God's Word but we have to rightly understand its relationship to the

New Testament so we interpret the New Testament not independently of the old but as a continuation of it a sequel a consummation right a consummation the grand finale of the older Testament writings which is what the

New Testament itself does right and we understand we also understand the

Old Testament in light of the new we cannot understand the Old Testament apart from the

New Testament that's where a lot of other people get it wrong like Messianic Jews and people who try to interpret the old without considering what the new has to say about it you can't do that that's that's to undermine and deny the authority of Christ and the

Apostles in their writings which are more authoritative than the old that's back with that's completely backwards so we understand the old in light of the new with the interpretive keys of knowledge remember that phrase that Jesus used against the the scribes you withhold the keys of knowledge from the people we must understand the they obscured the scriptures because they did not regard what

Jesus said and the Apostles taught the key the interpretive keys of knowledge are the final word of the

New Testament that's it so here's another public service announcement very important while the

New Testament is based on grounded in the Old Testament and while the

New Testament furthermore clarifies and authoritatively interprets the old the old does not interpret the new because it is prior that's that's backwards like I've been saying right that's completely backwards especially when the new adds to or fills in or define something that the old is less clear about or obscure about or hides more one specific example of this is how in Isaiah 714 in the

Hebrew it says that the the young maiden will be with child and will conceive but in the

New Testament it says the virgin the virgin shall be with child and it's prophesying the virgin birth and the

Septuagint the Greek Old Testament changes that or it doesn't change it it translates the word young maiden which also means virgin in its translation and that's what they quoted in the gospel to point to the virgin birth of Christ so we take the

New Testament writing as the virgin shall be with child as that's what the

Old Testament pointed to that's what it meant even though the Jews now will deny that because they don't believe that Jesus was the

Christ right that is very important to understand that balance so even though the old doesn't form it informs the new it's the background in the context to the new it informs the new but it doesn't interpret it it doesn't override it and the other it's the other way around the new interprets the old right there's a balance there now here's where I want to issue here's where we need to be where a warning a takeaway and a warning there's there is an inverted hermeneutic going around called annihilationism or conditional immortality today and it's been going on for some time but it's called an inverted hermeneutic what do

I mean by that the Gnostics kind of did this themselves they thought that the Old Testament God was an evil

God and that because he was a because he created the material world and they thought the material world was evil and so they thought that Old Testament God was evil that's why

Marcion didn't like the Old Testament he was a Gnostic so they flipped the they flipped the good and bad around they call evil good and good evil they called

God evil and they believed some demiurge was the real

God or gods there was a system of gods so that's where it was all met they messed everything up they inverted they turned everything upside down and similarly annihilationism does this as well because it doesn't rightly interpret the

Old and New Testaments it uses an inverted clear hermeneutic to override what the

New Testament says with the Old Testament and that leads to false understandings of what the

New Testament teaches okay an example of this is how they define the word death or the understanding of death okay because they say according to them there is no such thing as eternal conscious torment or punishment that all everyone who is punished in hell or in the lake of fire eventually ceases to exist once they finish their punishment that God asked for them they cease to exist

God just simply annihilates them and they are look they they are completely destroyed cease to exist but is that how the

New Testament understands eternal death no it does not and they completely they try to take

Old Testament language which sounds like it's talking about destruction and expiring and annihilating to override what the

New Testament says because it's emphasizing temporal death and destruction but the

New Testament defines death differently beloved remember how it uses the word death if especially in Ephesians 2 right you were once what dead in your trespasses and sins now were you physically dead no were you conscious yes but you were dead in sin that's what the

New Testament is pointing to there is such a thing as eternal death that is still conscious even before we were saved we were eternally we were dead not eternally dead but spiritually dead and in that sense is what the

Bible talks about there is such a thing as eternal conscious death in the lake of fire so be careful when you hear a big name

Kirk Cameron recently came out and said that oh he's holds to annihilationism now that he believes that uh we don't that God doesn't eternally punish people in hell anymore and it's it's kind of a shame because his arguments are very they're very superficial he didn't really talk to you didn't really get good counsel or study this very carefully because what about the fact that people don't stop sinning in hell why is there an assumption that people stop sinning in hell in the lake of fire that's part of why the eternal the punishment is eternal because people don't stop sinning they don't get redeemed in the lake of fire so they never stop sinning and so God eternally punishes them and eternally pours out his wrath and his anger on them so these things are very important to understand beloved not just for the sake of knowing what is scripture and what is not but even what is sound doctrine with respect to eternal life eternal death and so on okay and it's happening right now before our eyes these movements are gaining traction so we have to beware we have to beware and I want to close out with this very helpful quote from well so it's some helpful quotes here by Louie got got

Louie Galston which I quoted before he's a Swiss Reformed theologian he says the whole tenor of scripture places the writers of the

New Testament in the same rank with the prophets of the old and even when it establishes any difference between them it is always in putting the last in date meaning the newer ones above the first in authority 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

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