October 2, 2003

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602. Or toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

The Sufficiency of Scripture and the Problem of Recontextualization

And indeed this is a live program and that means we invite your participation today at 877 -753 -3341. We've got a lot to get done, obviously, since early, very early tomorrow morning. Way too early tomorrow morning we are going to be leaving for Utah.

And I've got still way too much to get done between now and the time we leave in the morning. Not for the debate. See, there's the notes and some questions and some documentation and that we're ready for.

But I'm only going to have a few hours back home on Saturday afternoon before heading, actually Saturday morning, before heading to Brazil. So way too much to get done. So we could really use your assistance today in determining the direction of the program at 877 -753 -3341.

No, I do not have a housekeeper, so I'm pretty much safe. For those of you who have any idea what in the world I was talking about there. My how interesting things have happened in the national media.

I'm personally sick and tired of hearing about California. I just, I personally believe that we should just sort of do a little sawing right along the Arizona-California border, right along the Colorado River Valley.

Give it a little push and just let the whole left coast just sort of float on out there and do its thing. It's just too weird, you know what I mean? Yes, the earth, open up and swallow the whole kitten caboodle.

I mean, pretty state, you know, some of it. Anyways, some of it looks like between here and Yuma, which if you've ever driven between Phoenix and Yuma is bad stuff. But anyway, I'm tired of hearing about all that.

And it has somewhat eclipsed more important issues like the Ten Commandments and issues like that. But, you know, that's the way, yeah, Arizona would be pretty. We'd have some beachfront property. All of a sudden, Yuma would be a beach resort.

Wouldn't that be great? Talk about growth. You know, Yuma is that place where you stop to eat at the McDonald's. That's the only reason Yuma existed for a long, long time. But now, now even Yuma is growing.

But anyway, 877 -753 -3341. Boy, did I step in it last time around. You know, I was just sitting here Tuesday morning, and I was reading my Volume 2 of Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. And I was reading neat stuff by various and sundry of the Orthodox Reformed.

I love to use that term, Orthodox Reformed. I bet you an Orthodox person, as in the religious tradition of Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Greek Orthodoxy, Russian Orthodoxy, so on and so forth, that would pick this book up would just have a cow at the constant utilization of the term Orthodox in regards to the Reformed.

But anyway, I was just reading it and enjoying it. And, you know, I had read some stuff about canon issues and textual issues. There's all sorts of neat stuff. And I did mention Cardinal Bellarmine. You know, I mean, these guys, Cardinal Bellarmine is just an enemy of the faith.

That's the only way to describe him. Isn't it fascinating that the Post-Reformation Roman Catholic response, the Counter-Reformation response, was to engage in the very same kind of anti-biblical attacks, focusing on canon issues, alleged textual corruptions, and so on and so forth, that we have in so much of today's secular attacks upon Christianity.

And I was just thinking about stuff like that. I was looking at that. I picked up the latest edition of Viewpoint that had arrived in the mail and was just making some comments. And when I read one particular quote from the article, specifically a quote by John Jefferson Davis, just in passing, I knew that there were people in the channel who would go, Hey, I've heard that very sentiment before.

That sentiment was, the quote was, does not take adequate account of the social context of the theological task and the historicity of all theological reflection. The method tends to promote a repetition of traditional formulations of biblical doctrine rather than appropriate re-contextualizations of the doctrines in response to changing cultural and historical conditions, etc.

And I said, Yeah, I know you've heard that. You've heard that somewhere before. And I made mention of that. And I guess I'm not, I guess other folks can put up their websites and they can throw barbs out there about sloganeering, about people who just have these Greek Hellenized doctrines, these pure doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide and sola deo gloria.

And these are just these doctrines that have no impact on life, allegedly. Has anyone ever met anyone who thought those doctrines had no impact on life? I haven't. I mean, talk about the straw men that are out there.

It's absolutely incredible. But anyway, and other folks can put up their websites and they can talk about this stuff every day and just bang away on it and that's perfectly fine. But if someone dares to say, You know what?

I don't think there's any need for all this new stuff. I don't think there's any need for all this, you know, we're talking about re-contextualizations. Well, what does that mean? I mean, it's a big word.

It sounds real nice. But what does re-contextualization mean? Does that simply mean communicating the same eternal truths in different words and different languages and always looking for ways to be a better communicator of the gospel?

That's generally not, you know, that's a nice way of putting it, but that's generally not how it ends up working out. You know, I see that phrase re-contextualizations all the time. I got used to it in seminary and I didn't go to exactly a conservative seminary.

And so, you know, I look at that stuff and I go, You know what? I am content with God's truth. And so I, you know, there's some folks just really not happy that for some reason I would go, You know what?

I'm not following the pied piper. I'm not joining this group that's all of a sudden going, Well, you know, I think there's, you know, we just need to get all these traditions together and we need to learn from one another.

Well, sorry, but I don't understand how I'm supposed to learn from a tradition that is fundamentally incorrect in its understanding of the very message of the gospel. And the only way I can understand that assertion is if I don't believe that the message of the gospel is actually clear enough for anybody to know and identify a right version of it from a wrong version of it.

And I have problems when folks say, Well, you know, we really can't go to the text of Scripture because, you know, everybody is so culturally influenced and, you know, I've been very falsely accused. And I do mean falsely accused.

And those making the accusations know it's a false accusation. At least they know that I say it is. They may disagree, but they haven't demonstrated why. That I somehow think that I am free of all cultural restraints.

And no one, no one who knows me or has ever even dialogued with me on whatever, make that kind of statement. But there are those making that statement. It's a misrepresentation. And I've tried to explain that that's why you do exegesis.

That's what the rules of hermeneutics are all about. It's that they are meant to allow you to deal with the text in an honest fashion from all sorts of different cultures. They are meant to protect the text from the insertion of my cultural norms upon it.

That's what exegesis is all about. And that's what you're supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, there are those who don't think that you can really do that. So the conversation doesn't get very far, unfortunately.

But, you know, that's the way it works, I guess. So, anyhow, oh, you can call in on anything. Actually, we've got one call already, and I'm thankful for that. And that number again is 877 -753 -3341. And we can talk about that and talk about all sorts of other things as we move along this Thursday afternoon.

Of course, no dividing lines next week, unless for some reason someone decides to just take the audio or something from the debate to tomorrow evening and throw it out there or something. I don't think there's any reason to do that.

So probably no dividing lines next week. And should be able, yeah, should be able, Lord willing, on the Tuesday of the week after to be able to get back to a regular schedule of the dividing line for at least a little while there and not going to be going out of town.

So, 877 -753 -3341, let's go ahead and start. Well, I don't know if we can take this call after the comments that I made, though, because this is from California. And, therefore, this would be a transcontinental call because we already have jettisoned California into the sea.

It's its own continent. And given how wonky California is, I would assume that once we dismissed it from the continent it's currently attached to, it would immediately begin to float southward toward Australia and would eventually attach itself just north of New Zealand.

And then the Aussies and the Californians could get together. And can you imagine what would happen if you put California politics together with Australians? Oh, boy. It would just keep floating further left.

That's right. It would never be able to go right. It could only go left. So, that's California. So, let's go ahead. This is definitely a long-distance call. I didn't know we could take intercontinental calls, but we will take a call from outside the United States and talk to someone, Micah in California.

Hi, Micah. Hi there, Dr. O. Dr. White, how are you doing? Who? Who? Oliphant? Oh, I've never heard of that name before. Yeah, I know it from the recall. It's probably the pot smoke drifting it away. Yes, yes.

But the earthquakes will eventually fall off into the sea anyway, so you won't have to worry. Well, you know, we can always hope for the big one, and that would definitely get... The imprecatory prayers, huh?

Yes. The imprecatory prayers, yes, uh-huh. Well, actually, yeah. I was having a talk with my wife last night regarding charismaticism, and I came out of the charismatic church and came from a charismatic background.

And so I have some insight on it, however, regarding their Seventh-Day Adventists. So they, I guess they have an extra-biblical revelation from a woman named Ellen White. Uh, yeah. Well, it depends on which Seventh-Day Adventists you're talking to.

I mean, the original Seventh-Day Adventists, the hardcore Seventh-Day Adventists, would definitely view Ellen G. White as having sort of a prophetic role. But there are Seventh-Day Adventists today that would not believe that her writings are anything more than the writings of, you know, a very insightful type of person.

But that's the more modern, less radical view of it. Gotcha. I mean, it's not like it's scripture or something. Let's put it that way. Right. Um, and that's sort of, that was sort of the same reply and response that I would have given someone when I was a charismatic.

And we talked about prophecy, the quote-unquote gift of prophecy. We always said, well, this isn't on the... In dealing with scripture, though, and reading it, I'm finding that, you know, if you claim to be speaking from God, then it's...

The question would be, what is the best argument against such ongoing revelation? Yeah, well, uh, unfortunately, I tried to engage someone in a discussion not too many weeks ago who came into our chat channel, which I'm sure you would know nothing about.

And, you know, chat channels and things like that is probably not part of your experience. But this individual was saying that they are, they're Reformed in their soteriology, which, that's fine, whatever the term Reform means anymore.

And, but then they said, but I also believe that God continues to communicate with his people today. Well, okay, I mean, I can understand that statement. And I can accept that statement. I mean, I don't think God has left us without any communication.

It's the mode and means of that communication that we need to examine and consider. I mean, the Word of God is alive and powerful, and the Spirit of God applies the Word of God. And God does communicate with his people today in that fashion without violating the sufficiency of Scripture.

But it became very clear very quickly that that's not what this person was talking about. They started talking about the very words that God had spoken to them, that God had given them specific oral interpretations of passages and had commanded them to do specific things.

And so I asked a very basic question. I said, alright, were these words that you could write them on a piece of paper? And if you did write them on a piece of paper, what would they be? Would they be Scripture?

And if they're not Scripture, then what kind of revelation, what kind of meaning are you attaching to the idea of God spoke to me and said this? If it's God speaking, then why isn't it Scripture? And I just wanted to find out if this person had ever thought about that.

I mean, there's an argument that could be made from a charismatic position that would at least give them some sort of a basis for still meaningfully holding to Sola Scriptura. And it would sort of go along these lines, though I've not had one really offer this to me.

It's just one that I've thought through. And that would be, well, obviously there are things that are not contained in Scripture that were spoken by prophets and apostles in their ministries. And if the Spirit gave them those words, but then did not want those words to be preserved for the edification of the entire church, that would be a kind of revelation that was limited in time at that point, but does not end up being transferred down through history, etc., etc.

And I could at least, if there would be at least some demonstration of, you know, I've thought this through. I'm very concerned about Sola Scriptura. I'm very concerned about the normative nature of Scripture and maintaining all that kind of stuff.

That's generally not what you get. What you get is just this idea that, well, God speaks to me in a way He doesn't speak to you, evidently. And this is what He said. And you sort of go from there. So, if someone were to present, I would call that the best-case scenario.

I mean, it's fairly clear how to respond to someone who says, oh, no, what God says to me is equal in authority to what He said to Paul, or something like that. That's one thing. But as you said, that's generally not what's said.

What generally is said is, well, it has to be consistent with Scripture. It's not on the par of Scripture, but it's still God speaking. Okay, well, where do we have this kind of sub-theanustos revelation?

And especially, what are the guidelines that are to be used in recognizing whether it is or is not God, quote-unquote, speaking? What are the guidelines that God has given to us to test these things?

And if it goes beyond the testability by Scripture, if it's something that cannot be examined in the light of Scripture, then how are you supposed to verify it and know that what you're feeling, or what you think you're hearing, I guess, is in reality in accordance with what God has provided in His Word?

And so, you know, the problem in dealing with this on just a theoretical level is that you don't have anything you can sink your teeth into to examine in the way that people examined the writings of the New Testament, for example, in regards to consistency.

If you're just dealing with a theory, someone could say, oh, well, I would never believe anything that was not absolutely consistent with God's Word. Well, let's get some examples. Let's turn on the channel between 20 and 22 here in Phoenix.

And let's listen to what is said in the name of God over and over and over again and examine it for consistency. Well, when you do that, what are you called? You're called a heresy hunter, and you're a doctrinaire, and you're narrow, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

And so, you know, that's why I asked for specifics from this fellow. Well, what does God say? And if you wrote it down, would it be revelation? And if it's just, quote-unquote, private revelation that has no binding authority upon anyone else, then why would you share it with anyone else?

Why would you even make some big deal of it? And normally when I start pushing, I discover that in reality, these individuals, when you start asking about, you know, meaningful theology and doctrine and really dealing with the text and doing the work that is required to deal with the text in a meaningful fashion, that's what they're actually trying to avoid with the sort of spiritual aspect of things.

And so, you know, it's a difficult issue to deal with for one simple reason, and that is, the narrative elements of the New Testament text are written during a period of time of inscripturation. And so, the difficulty that has always been faced is codifying the differences between a period of inscripturation, when scripture is still being given, and the normative experience of the Church.

And some would argue, in essence, that the normative experience of the Church should always be the same, that there's always inscripturation going on, but that has not been the viewpoint of the vast majority of those who have named the name of Christ, no matter what century you want to go to.

There was very early on a recognition that just as in the Old Testament, there had been a period of revelation, followed by the codification of that, the canonization of that, the recognition of that, the normalization of that, that the same thing was true with the New Testament.

But, if you're going to argue for this kind of continuing revelation, you have to go to those narrative sections of the New Testament where you're talking about inscripturation, you're talking about a special time that the vast majority of folks would agree is not taking place today.

And it is interesting to me that whenever you get these movements, you can go back to the Montanists in the early Church, who were sort of crypto-charismatics, all the way up through the Mormons, which you don't want to put them, I'm not saying within the Christian Church, but they claim that and they claim an open canon and things like that.

Each one of these groups, when they start, they are very much intent upon this broad charismatic capacity of revelation and so on and so forth. However, over time, that will inevitably change as canons are developed within that movement to sort of control where it goes.

I mean, if there are no canons, there's no rules, there's no constraints, then no movement can long last. And the leaders of those movements begin losing control as they start developing followers who claim the same insightful revelations that they do.

And so all of those movements... When was the last time there was a quote-unquote revelation in Mormonism? I mean, when it started off, it was an almost everyday thing with Joseph Smith. But that doesn't happen at all now.

Why is that? Well, because there has been a change over time and they just can't allow this freewheeling, you know, I'm just going to go out in the woods and have a quick conversation with God type thing.

So it's hard to deal with on a theoretical basis unless someone can lay out on the table, here's what I am claiming is revelation, now let's examine it. And man, I tell you, I get a lot of really, how dare you even ask to examine this type of responses from people when we attempt to discuss it.

I've actually experienced the same thing at one point. I was actually kicked off of leadership of a... I was teaching young children and they actually kicked me out of the church because of that and the other sign gifts that they were...

One of the interesting things that came up in the discussion was how God's words were infallible. For example, a man ends up going to Nineveh and then preaching that, you know, 40 days, and then it doesn't happen.

God instead saves Nineveh. So it was this person's inclination that there can be profit because of this God in a sense. Yeah, the Jonah example came up a lot back during the Brownsville revival phase and it comes up all the time when people are trying to introduce a level of, quote unquote, prophetic responsibility that is lesser than Deuteronomy 13 and 18 and allows for this kind of sort of spontaneous, the Lord spoke to me but don't hold me as accountable as a scripture writing prophet type situation.

I think it's a gross misreading of Jonah because when Jonah gets angry and wanders off and sits under the plant, whatever that plant was, then in his response to God, Jonah says, I knew that you were going to do this.

I knew that you're a God of mercy and people are just assuming that they have a verbatim accounting of all of Jonah's preaching and that there is no element of repentance or anything whatsoever in that, that they had never heard of Jehovah before.

They had no idea that whether Jehovah would or would not be merciful and there's all these assumptions that are read into it which go against God's own statement in Jeremiah that when he proclaims judgment upon a people it's within the context of seeking, many times it's in the context of seeking their repentance and that's what it's designed to bring about.

Bruce Ware addresses this issue in regards to open theists in God's lesser glory. It's funny, I've had to defend Jonah against the charge of false prophecy by Mormons who tried to use him to deflect the documentation that Joseph Smith was very much involved in false prophecy and didn't know the future and so on and so forth even though his false prophecies were considerably more specific than something along those lines.

Nothing new there at all. Boy, you've opened a Pandora's box though. The next two callers want to discuss the same thing. Great, great. That'll be good, I'll be able to take notes listening to that stuff.

Okay, alright. I really appreciate it. Well, you enjoy yourself there in that state you're in. You bet. Okay, talk to you later. Bye bye. 877 -753 -3341 is the... Why did somebody put the wrong phone number in the channel?

3342, I ain't getting to it, I don't think. 877 -753 -3341, we'll talk with Rodney and Jason, but first we'll take our bottom of the hour break and come right back right after this. Okay, well, maybe we'll not come back right after this.

I can't hear anything. It's dead, Jim. Hang on just a second. Hey, you said... Yeah, I did, I said it. Excuse me, it says, ready for a break.

Yes, it does, and here it comes now.

I'm going to post that in the channel so everybody can see. Bye.

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In his book, Is the Mormon my brother? James White demonstrates how this fact alone means Mormons and Christians are irreconcilably at odds at faith's most basic level. Is the Mormon my brother? is now available from Alpha and Omega Ministries Book Ministry.

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Now the pilgrim's brought to you in.

The Best-Case Charismatic Argument and the Need to Test Prophecy

That was a refreshing, refreshing break. Boy, you know, tomorrow night at this time, let's see, 4 .30 is, I think it's 5 .30, 5 .30 up in Utah right now. We'll be, we'll be setting up in Orson, the Orson Spencer Auditorium, campus of the University of Utah, and I will have, I will have enjoyed a crisp meat burrito at taco time by now.

At least 500 milligrams of sodium flowing through my, through my veins. Causing all sorts of havoc, I'm sure. My blood pressure will be through the ceiling. That'll be great. Anyway, yes, I could have used a little bit of that right during that break there.

877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with, oh no. Every call we're getting is from outside the United States. First we had Micah in the, the, the nation of California. Now we have Rodney in the nation of California as well.

Hello, Rodney. Hi, how you doing? How are you hearing us out there in the middle of the Pacific?

Oh, I'm doing fine here in the California.

Did you know that, did you know that you can wear dresses to work now? Yeah. Isn't that great? We can, we can do all sorts of things. It's, it's, it's amazing. Doesn't it, don't you ever like when you're driving down the freeway, you know, sort of look around at people around you and get sort of scared?

Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. I just wondered. All right. Well, according to our professional call screener, who is just, I mean, took years of training in, in giving me succinct, clear explanations of exactly where everybody's coming from, all I got was same subject.

I could have said ditto. Ditto. Ditto would have been, ditto would have been shorter, but ditto would have been unpopular today. So, anyway. So, continue on with Micah's question, I guess. Yeah.

Let me ask you to define that.

Continued revelation is in the sense of scriptural revelation? Yes. Okay. That's prophetic. So the canon is still open. Rodney, when you say you believe in continued revelation, what has been revealed since the revelation of Jesus Christ contained in the New Testament from your perspective?

I'm LDS. Oh, okay. All right. But I didn't fall in. That's all right. That's all right. That helps me understand, you know, you're not coming from the same position that Micah was, in other words. Yeah, exactly.

And that definitely helps. But I would point out a couple things. First of all, if the argument is, well, this would violate God's unchanging nature, I find that a little bit unusual coming from the LDS perspective in light of Joseph Smith's assertion that we have imagined, supposed that God is God from all eternity.

I'll refute that idea and take away the veils that you may see. So the idea of an unchanging or immutable God is not a part of classical historical LDS theology in the first place. So just simply on a philosophical level, I've never understood how the LDS church could really make an argument along those lines.

But leaving that to the side, I would point out that revelation took place in what we might call spurts in the sense that there were entire generations when there was no active scriptural revelation, both during the period of the Old Testament, 400 years between Malachi and the time of Christ.

The Jews themselves recognized that the bath kol, the voice of God, had departed from Israel at that time. And the New Testament writers seem to see the revelation of Jesus Christ as culminative. I mean, they view the Old Testament revelations as pointing to the culmination of what God is doing in Christ Jesus.

And when that culmination takes place, you have the explication of that through the apostles of Christ. But what is missing in what they delivered to us? They are called the foundation of the church, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.

What is missing that the church would need? Because I'm very convinced that the need of revelation, the purpose of revelation is for the guidance, enlightenment, sanctification, and comfort of the church.

And so it would seem to me if the quote-unquote canon remains open, that there would be entire segments of time during which the church exists when something that was needful for the church to know was not in her possession.

And when I examined the LDS scriptures, and this is what I did say to Micah, you've got to admit, I said one of the hard things is many of these discussions are theoretical. You need to have something specifically you can sort of dig your teeth into.

And I think you'd have to admit that many of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, for example, were only relevant at the time they were written. I mean, there were specific commands to a specific person.

Well, Section 114, Doctrine and Covenants, David W. Patton, set up your business, go on a mission, that type of thing. But is that revealing something that was needful to the church? I don't see anything in the Book of Mormon.

Certainly, obviously, in the Book of Great Price and things like that, I see revelations that are directly contrary to Scripture. So what would be missing that those books would allegedly need to reveal to us?

Obviously, I would disagree, especially on the atonement issue. In fact, I would see major conflicts between the Book of Hebrews and its teaching and that of Joseph Smith, even the early Joseph Smith.

I believe there's a massive difference between the Joseph Smith of 1830 and the Joseph Smith of 1844. And you might, in fact, agree with that. I don't know. I do. Yeah, I see a real difference there. But I guess my question would be, if continuing revelation is normative, can there ever be a final and full revelation that is applied in the sense of the Spirit of God giving insight and understanding without the need for new revelation?

I think there are some. Do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah, but aren't those things clearly revealed in Scripture already?

Exactly. That's my point. Well, I understand that.

But my question is, in light of the initial statement that you made, that is that the continuing revelation is normative. Even from your perspective, there was no continuing revelation, even granting the Book of Mormon.

Okay, let's step onto your ground for a moment. There was no revelation from 421 A .D. until 1830? Right. So doesn't that militate against your own position? Uh... But would you believe that there was or was not a Christian church during that time?

Oh, certainly. I believe.

So you hold to a form of the great apostasy? Do you hold to the necessity of Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods and limit revelation to a priesthood concept or not?

No. No, it's not, I think. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to... I have to keep asking questions because it isn't the normative perspective, which would raise numerous other issues in the sense of the same theological authority that gives you the Book of Mormon also gave you the Doctrine and Covenants and later, I guess you could argue, not until the 1880s, the Pearl of Great Price, but I suppose you could argue a disruption of authority between Joseph Smith and LDS Church in the 1880s.

But in either case, it does sort of put you in a position of sort of picking and choosing what elements you are going to accept and what elements you don't. I certainly would agree with you that there is a vast difference in the theology of the Book of Mormon with that of at least the Utah version of the Doctrine and Covenants and the later revelations of Joseph Smith, but I think that tells you more about Joseph Smith from the start than it does the theory that says, well, Joseph Smith got started on the right track but eventually bounced off the right track.

I wouldn't see that as a really strong alternative. But, be it as it may, the initial statement, and we've got some other callers we need to get to, the initial statement was, well, I see this as a normative thing, and yet I think not only have we pointed out that there were periods of time when there was not that kind of situation, you said there were 1400 years of it, and my assertion would be that when you have the revelation of Jesus Christ, you have everything leading up to him, you have the change of Hebrews chapter 1, where the old way was using prophets and speaking to the fathers, but now in these last days, I think the concept of the last days is also important as well, you would not need revelation past the last days.

And the ushering in of the preaching of the gospel, I think likewise would then enter into this idea that there would be a need for a continuing revelation. I think that God can reveal with finality and with sufficiency the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then apply that truth, that gospel, throughout whatever period of time he chooses to continue to draw in his elect people.

And I don't think it would require a constant giving of new revelation, and in fact, even from your own perspective, if you limit yourself to the Book of Mormon, I don't know what your theories in the Book of Mormon are, but the historic LDS viewpoint is that the finality of that revelation took place in 421 AD, so there would be no continuation beyond that, outside of the idea of prophets and apostles adding to that, which again takes us back to, well, does that mean there cannot be a culminative revelation, to which everything was pointing?