“Article 4 is a list of the canonical books
Article 5
We receive all these books and these only as holy and canonical, for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith. And we believe without a doubt all things contained in them—not so much because the church receives and approves them as such but above all because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that they are from God, and also because they prove themselves to be from God. For even the blind themselves are able to see that the things predicted in them do happen.
Article 6 is a list of the apocryphal books and an explanation of the difference between the apocryphal and canonical books”
Let’s take an imaginary trip to a kickball field. Two kids are arguing about whether one of them got tagged out. “You were out.” “Was not.” “Was too.” “Who says?” “I say.” “Who put you in charge?”
Now that might seem silly, but there is a lot going on in those words. A clash of opinions becomes evident to both parties. “You were out.” “Was not.” “Was too.” Evidence is required. “Who says?” There is an appeal to authority. “I say.” The validity of the authority is called into question. “Who put you in charge?”
That, in many ways, is the same debate we’ll think about tonight. We’re considering what’s in the Bible and what’s not. “The book of Tobit is in.” “Is not.” “Is too.” “Who says?” “I say.” “Who put you in charge?” Now this debate about what’s in the Bible matters more than that debate on the kickball field. It matters more because more changes if the validity of the book of Revelation is denied than if the validity of a force out at third is denied. It matters more because adding contradictory rules in kickball only messes up a game; adding contradictory books of Scripture messes up the faith. What’s in and what’s out matters a great deal, and that’s what we are focusing on tonight from the Belgic Confession. What’s included and what’s excluded from Scripture is crucial to our faith. That’s the claim of this sermon: what’s included and what’s excluded from Scripture is crucial to our faith.
We will study this in three points. First: canonical books. Second: the testimony of the Spirit. Third: proving themselves.
First: canonical books. We read through the list of canonical books. The word canon in “canonical” means rule or standard. Scripture is the rule of faith. It is the standard of faith. This is the answer to the question, “who says?” Well, the Bible says. Genesis says. That’s what Jesus thought. When he was asked a trick question about marriage, he said, ‘Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female…”’ He appealed to Genesis. “Who says?” “Genesis says.” He did the same with Exodus. When he was asked a trick question about the resurrection, Jesus said, ‘have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Peter did the same with Leviticus. He wrote, ‘Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”’ We are a church. That means we take Scripture is our authority and therefore it matters what’s included in Scripture. We are encouraging reading through the Old Testament in two years because everything that God said matters.
Now the authority of the sixty-six books of Scripture—39 from the Old Testament and 27 from the New Testament—was assumed in the early church. It wasn’t until Marcion brought an alternative collection of books that the church decided to make the canon official. Marcion thought that the Old Testament picture of God was an unworthy representation. He thought that it pictured God as malicious and cruel. His canon consisted of only 11 books—a shortened version of Luke—some shortened letters of Paul, and none of the Old Testament. The church wanted to make clear that each of the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament were authoritative. That’s when the canon as we know it was established.
We read through that list of books, and you might have had some questions. Article 4 says that 1 and 2 Chronicles are also called Paralipomenon—meaning “the things left over.” 1 and 2 Chronicles includes what was left out of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, hence, “the things left over.” The Belgic calls the entire book of Psalms the Psalms of David because David wrote more of them than any other author. It’s still referred to that way. Charles Spurgeon’s famous work on the Psalms, which is still widely read today, is called The Treasury of David. The book of David is just shorthand for the Psalms. The Belgic included Lamentations with Jeremiah because it was written by Jeremiah. If you look down at the New Testament, you will see that the author lists Hebrews among Paul’s books. This is probably not the case, but the point here is that Hebrews is in the canon.
Now there are letters written by the apostles which were not included in the canon. Not all of Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth are included. When we finish our study in Colossians, we will see that Paul had sent a letter to the Laodiceans that he wanted the Colossians to read. Although some scholars think that letter may have also been sent to Ephesus—the letter to the Ephesians—they aren’t sure. What is clear though is that such letters have not been preserved and were not considered part of Scripture by the early church. As one scholar helpfully put it, “no books [which are] truly canonical have perished, and if any have perished, they were not worthy of this character.”
This is the list of the books that the early church considered canonical. They didn’t consider the gospel of Thomas or the Acts of Philip or the Apocalypse of Paul authoritative. The book The Davinci Code popularized the idea that they were considered authoritative, but the idea that these early works were considered factual makes for a great story and that’s all it is.
This is the Scripture the church has always recognized. We recognized the Old Testament because the Jews recognized Genesis through Malachi. When it comes to the New Testament, we recognize Matthew and John because they were written by apostles. Mark was most likely written in interview with Peter. Luke and Acts were all based on eye-witness testimony. The letters of Paul, Peter, and John are from apostles. James and Jude were recognized leaders in the early church and half-brothers of Jesus. Revelation was likely written by the apostle John. That leaves Hebrews, which was originally attributed to Paul but was almost certainly someone else with connections to the apostle—Barnabas is often a suggestion.
The apocrypha is different. If you turn to Article 6, you can see that list. Now these were Jewish works, and there is no proof that the Jews ever considered these to be part of Scripture. Their modern canon certainly doesn’t include any of these books on this list. I visited a synagogue when I was in Savannah. I thumbed through their Bibles in their sanctuary—no apocrypha.
The Roman Catholic Church did include these books. This was unfortunate. They were widely read in the fourth century church as devotional literature. Even Augustine argued that even though the Jews didn’t approve of them, the church had the right to declare them Scripture. That’s what the Belgic Confession takes aim at in Article 5 with the words, “not so much because the church receives and approves them.”
We don’t believe the apocrypha has any authority. This means we don’t hold to purgatory, a doctrine which finds its origins in the book of 2 Maccabees in which people pray for the dead to be forgiven. This means we don’t wrestle with the book of Tobit’s implication that you can have your sins forgiven by giving alms to the poor.
Now there is some really good stuff in the apocrypha. Take Ecclesiasticus 1:9 for example, “There is one wise and greatly to be feared—the Lord sitting upon His throne,” or the prayer of Azariah—Daniel’s friend better known by his Babylonian name Abednego, “Blessed are You, O Lord, God of our fathers, and worthy of praise; and Your name is glorified forever. For You are just in all that You have done to us, and all Your works are true and Your ways right, and all Your judgments true.” That seems like a fair theological assessment for a pious Jew in exile to make about his situation. So, there are many proper statements in there. Article 6 says, “The church may certainly read these books and learn from them as far as they agree with the canonical books,” but notice that the canonical books are still the rule. We can agree with Ecclesiasticus 1:9 because it is just saying what the actual Bible says.
So we’ve seen a bit about why we accept the books we accept and reject the books we reject. Now we see another aspect of this acceptance. It is part of the Reformers’ response to the Roman Catholic church which said that the church has the right to decide what’s inside and outside the canon. It’s our second point: the testimony of the Spirit.
The Roman Catholic church accepted their canon because the church received and approved of those books. The Reformers accepted their canon, “not so much because the church receives and approves them as such but above all because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that they are from God,” as Article 5 puts it. So to put it too crudely—the Roman Catholic church says that, “we accept these books because they bear the stamp of approval of the church,” and Protestants say, “we accept these books because they bear the stamp of approval of the Spirit.”
We Protestants take the inspiration of Scripture by the Spirit as the end all and be all. We go back to John 14:26, “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you,” as the starting place for the gospels. We take 2 Peter 1:21 as our starting point for all Scripture, “prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” We then say that since all Scripture comes from the Spirit, it all bears the mark of the Spirit and that this same Spirit, “testifies in our hearts that these Scriptures are from God,” as Article 5 puts it. We say that we receive these books the same way Paul said the Thessalonians received the word of God, “When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” We look at Romans 8:16 which tells us that, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” and say that it’s also true that, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that these words are from God.”
Now there is obviously something experiential here. My hope is that you’ve had this experience. My hope is that this morning you took Paul’s words to the Colossians as the word of God because you believe Paul meant what he said, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” My hope is that you really do have this sense that God speaks through this book. My hope is that you experience this inner testimony of the Spirit.
My guess, though, is you know that this explanation wouldn’t be all that convincing for someone outside the church. You’re right. Paul said that’s how it works. He told the Corinthians, ‘The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
Just as no man can come to Christ unless the Spirit draws him so no man can be finally assured that this is the word of God unless the Spirit assures him. That’s what we as a church believe. That’s what the Presbyterians believe as well. Listen to how they put it in their Westminster Confession, “our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority… is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.” In many ways, when it comes to inspiration, Jesus’ words to his disciples is his word about the canon, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
There is another reason to accept the authority of these books and that comes from prophecy. That’s our final point: proving themselves. We believe these books come from God because the Spirit assures us that they are from God and, as Article 5 puts it, “also because they prove themselves to be from God. For even the blind themselves are able to see that the things predicted in them do happen.”
This is an argument from prophecy. God told Abraham that the Israelites would be enslaved for 400 years in a foreign land, and they were enslaved for 400 years in Egypt. The fact that, that Scripture was fulfilled is a reason to believe in the reliability of Scripture.
God told Isaiah about a man named Cyrus who would conquer Babylon and set the exiles free 100 years before Cyrus the Great became king. The fact that, that Scripture was fulfilled is a reason to believe in the reliability of Scripture.
When Jeroboam was erecting altars all over Israel, a prophet said, ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” Josiah did just that. The fact that, that Scripture was fulfilled is a reason to believe in the reliability of Scripture.
After Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, he said, “Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: at the cost of his firstborn son he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.” Hundreds of years later we read about, “Hiel of Bethel [who] rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua son of Nun,” as 1 Kings 16:34 puts it. The fact that, that Scripture was fulfilled is a reason to believe in the reliability of Scripture.
After he resurrected, Jesus told his disciples that they should have seen this coming. Not only did he rebuke them for ignoring the many times he told them that he would die and rise again, but he also called them, ‘“slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.’ We studied a couple of these passages from the prophets this past Advent. The fact that those Scriptures were fulfilled is a reason to believe in the reliability of Scripture.
These specific fulfillments show you the reliability of Scripture. So do the general fulfillments. By general fulfillments I mean passages like 2 Timothy 4:3, “the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” This is an accurate description of how it can go in the culture and in the church. It’s not a specific prophecy in the sense that, “this was fulfilled on December 8, 1541.” It’s general in that it’s been proved over and over again in church history. We humans would rather hear what we wish were true than the word of God.
I’m continually more convinced of the reliability of this book because it’s spot on about everything. People say they can’t believe in the Bible anymore because of hypocrisy in the church but the Bible tells us to expect sin in the church. That’s pretty much every letter to every church in the New Testament. People say that they have given up on the faith because their life has been so disappointing, but the Bible tells you to expect this life to be disappointing.
The Bible proves itself. Spurgeon was right. He talked about the Bible as a lion that, in an attempt to protect it from people, was put in a cage. Spurgeon thought there was a better way to take care of that lion. He said, “Pardon me if I offer a quiet suggestion. Open the door and let the lion out; he will take care of himself.” That’s what he said about the Bible. He said, “The answer to every objection against the Bible is the Bible.” The Bible can take care of itself.
That’s the final answer to that playground argument. “Who says?” “The Bible says.” “Who says?” “God says.” The question for each of us is, are we the kid saying, “Who says?” or are we the kid saying, “The Bible says”? Amen.