Tonight 6/6 at 7:30 we will hold the third lecture of series three on “A Theological Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text: The Connection Between Apostolic Preaching and the Written Word of God.”
According to 1 Thess. 2:13, Paul’s preaching was received as God’s Word –“ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.” The Author of the Apostolic tradition is Christ. In 1 Cor. 11:23 reads, “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you” in that Paul’s gospel is revelation received directly from Christ – Gal. 1:12, “For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ.” Apostolic preaching is a legally binding declaration of Christ that, to use contemporary terms, will stand up in court. Indeed, the declaration of the word of God is to be understood primarily as an Apostolic work –John 15:26-27, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.” The “Comforter” [paraclete], advocate, helper, comforter, representative, aid, is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth sent from the Father by the Father and Son who witnesses to the person, word, and work of Jesus Christ. The Apostolate [ye] would also through the Spirit bear witness to Christ because they had been with Christ from the beginning.
This Apostolic witness through the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ provides the matrix for a New Testament canon. The central thought is that the authoritative preaching of the Apostolate brought about the emergence of a new authoritative body of material, the New Testament, to stand alongside the Old Testament.
In a series of articles on Canonicity, Dr. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.’s article entitled “The New Testament: How Do we Know For Sure?” argued for a redemptive-historical formulation of canon,[1] contending
“We ought not, then, look for an Archimedean point outside the New Testament canon. Yet, in another respect, the Canon does point back beyond itself – to God, its origin and author. The collection of New Testament documents is not a historical phenomenon to be explained in terms of purely immanent factors—contingent factors, in turn, without an ultimate explanation. The New Testament is not a collection that “just happened.” Rather, it is that historical phenomenon by which God, the sovereign Architect and Lord of history, asserts and maintains himself as Canon.[2]
[1] Definition: κανόνι, kanoni – from the Hebrew qaneh meaning “reed,” or “measuring rod.”
[2] Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., “The New Testament: How Do We Know for Sure?” Christianity Today (Feb. 5, 1988), 29. Much of the following material is taken from lectures on Canonicity at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, given by Dr. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. and to whom I am deeply indebted.
Don’t miss the systematic study of Apostolicity and its role in canonicity tonight at 7:30.
Standard Sacred Text.com 