Who May Canonize Scripture?

It is the position of this book that prophets alone could canonize the Scriptures. The Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox recognize that apart from an infallible or authoritative determination, we cannot know what is canonical and what is not. However, we have already seen that neither church has an infallible tradition or even a non-changing viewpoint on canon. There is another option:

It is the Protestant position1 that the same inspired prophets who gave a revealed text that was infallible also gave canonical status to that text the moment it was written. The formation of every facet of the Scriptures was a prophetic task. Christ used the phrase “the prophets” to refer to every book of the Old Testament (Luke 24:25-272), and Paul used the phrase “the prophetic Scriptures” to refer to all the New Testament Scriptures that were giving “the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began” (Rom. 16:25-26). Peter speaks of the New Testament Scriptures as being “the prophetic word confirmed” (2 Pet. 1:19 with vv. 19-21). According to Scripture all prophecy was inspired and all Scripture was prophecy.3 Only the prophets could add to the canon and only the prophets could close the canon.4 The whole canonization process was prophetic.

One must not think of canonization as the church giving its imprimatur to a book that was not previously recognized as canonical. Even as a book was being written it was recognized as being prophetical (Rev. 1:3; 22:7,9-10,18-19; see Ex. 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Numb. 33:2; Is. 34:16; etc.). Chronicles repeatedly makes mention of the Scriptural status of Samuel-Kings. The histories also refer to the Prophets, and vice versa. 2 Chronicles 36:21 quotes Jeremiah 25:11 as authoritative. Daniel 9:2 quotes the same passage as being one of “the books” of the Bible. Jeremiah 26:18 quotes Micah 3:12. The Old Testament prophets frequently recognized previous prophetic writing as part of Scripture.5 For example, Zechariah 7:12 accuses the people saying, “Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.” He is referring to a body of writing that was already composed of law and prophets, but the phrase “former prophets” implies an ongoing prophetic inscripturation that was happening even with the book of Zechariah.6 The Bible is seen as either “the book” (Psalm 40:7), “the book of the LORD” (Is. 34:16), “the book of the Law” (Neh. 8:3; Gal. 3:10), “the Law of the Lord” (Ps. 1:2; Is. 30:9) or other titles showing the unity of Old Testament Scriptures. Each of these references implies a canonical status that the Scriptures already had.

As we will see in chapters 6 and 7, the Bible anticipated the prophetical writings of the New Testament and gave a beginning and an ending point to those writings (Is. 8-9; Dan. 9:24-27; Zech. 13; Joel 2:28-32). The prophet Moses anticipated the coming of Christ and His revelation (cf. Deut. 18:15,18 with John 1:21,25,45; 5:46; 6:14,7-40; Acts 3:22-26; 7:37). Thus the Old Testament ends by anticipating the Revelation of Christ (Malachi 3-4) and the New Testament begins by referring to Malachi (Luke 1:17) and other connections with the Old Testament (Matt. 1-3; etc.).

New Testament prophets also recognized and upheld other prophetic Scriptures. For example, they treated the Old Testament as being a fixed canon of Scripture made up of the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17; 7:12; 22:29,40; Luke 16:16; 24:44; John 10:34-35; 19:36; Acts 18:24; 28:23; Rom. 1:2; 1 Cor. 14:21; 2 Tim. 3:15). The whole canon of the Old Testament together is called the Scripture (John 10:35; 2 Tim. 3:15; Matt. 5:17; 7:12; 22:29,40; Luke 16:16; 24:44; John 10:34-35; 19:36; Acts 18:24; 28:23; Rom. 1:2; 1 Cor. 14:21; 2 Tim. 3:15) and the New Testament writers quoted the Old Testament over 1600 times, with many more allusions. Even the very order of the books in the Jewish Bible is implied in Matt. 23:35 and Luke 11:51. These last references are very significant because 1) they endorse the Hebrew canon, which excludes the apocrypha found in the Septuagint,7 2) and they imply the then-current view that prophetic revelation ceased in the Ezra/Malachi period.8 This second implication also excludes the pre-Christian apocryphal writings.

Even the New Testament canon was determined by first century prophets.9 We will see that the apostles were indeed prophets when writing or speaking infallibly and thus called the New Testament writings “the prophetic Scriptures” (Rom. 16:26). John’s apostolic book of Revelation was “the prophecy of this book” (Rev. 22:7,10). Paul said, “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual,10 let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37). Recognizing 1 Corinthians as a canonical text was obviously a duty of New Testament prophets, not of uninspired churchmen. These prophets were present in every city of the empire (Acts 20:23) in order to confirm the “mystery” of New Testament revelation (see Eph. 3:2-7; Rev. 10:7; Heb 2:3; Rev. 19:10).11 Thus it wasn’t just Paul who was commissioned to help others to “see the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden” (Eph. 3:9; see v. 3), but this was the function of all God’s “holy apostles and prophets” (Eph. 3:5 in context). Paul prophetically revealed Luke to be Scripture (1 Tim. 5:18). Peter by inspiration lumped all of Paul’s letters in with “the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:15-16), and as a representative of the inspired prophets (see 2 Pet. 1:19-20) said, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place” (2 Pet. 1:19). It is possible that Peter and John had a role in finalizing the gathering of canonical books, much like Ezra by inspiration finalized the canon of the Old Testament. Ernest L. Martin hypothesizes,

The Second Epistle of Peter is actually the key to the first canonization of the New Testament. It is an official statement to show how he and John (not long before Peter’s death) gathered together some written records which the apostles themselves either wrote, or authorized to be written, or sanctioned already existing works into a position of canonicity. Peter’s second epistle was written, among other things, for the express purpose of showing that the apostle John and himself were the ones ordained of God to leave Christians with the canon of the New Testament. It is not the later church who collected the 27 books of the New Testament… it was the apostles themselves who canonized the New Testament. Probably with Paul’s writings in hand, Peter then wrote his second epistle… sending it along with the writings he and Paul had collected to John… who would be the last remaining apostle…and who would perform the final canonization.12

Though a canon was being pulled together and would be completed with the book of Revelation when “the mystery of God would be finished” (Rev. 10:7),13 it is still clear that the books were canonical the moment they were written. For example, Paul quoted Luke 10:7 as already being a portion of Scripture (1 Tim. 5:18). Peter quoted all of Paul’s writings as having already been added to “the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:16). Jude assumed that his readers would have 2 Peter in their canon already when he quoted 2 Peter 3:3 in Jude 18. Paul treated his own writings as being “the word of the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:15) and praised the Thessalonians that they welcomed Paul’s words, “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe” (1 Thes. 2:13). Obviously the recipients of these books received these books as canonical Scripture. The very juxtaposition of the Old Covenant with the “New Covenant” Scriptures (see 2 Cor. 3:6,14) implies that the new should be read like the Old – as a canon of books given by inspiration of God through prophets.

We will later demonstrate that the canon was closed by AD 70. If this is true, there would have been no confusion in the early church as to what was Scripture and what was not. There was no wait of years before the churches read the New Testament books as Scripture. Instead, the New Testament books were read as already being part of the Scriptures as soon as they were written (1 Thes. 5:27; Col. 4:16; Rev. 1:3), and were immediately copied and circulated to other churches to be so read (Gal. 1:2; Col. 4:16; 1 Thes. 5:27; 2 Pet. 3:15-18; Rev. 1:4,11), and the copies of the growing canon were archived in every church (see 2 Pet. 3:15-18). All of this flies in the face of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theories of canonization and supports the Protestant view that the books of the Bible became canonical the moment they were written. It should be pointed out that many books have been written to demonstrate the falsity of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theories on a historical basis,14 but this is seeking to show that the Protestant presupposition is a Biblical one.

Two more points need to be made with respect to the prophetic function of canonization before we dig deeper into the exegetical evidence. First, the prophetic vision was anticipating a time when God would “seal up vision and prophet” (Dan. 9:24) and thus close the canon. Once the law and testimony was sealed in 70 AD15 (Is. 8:16), the Scriptures would be sufficient, and the only authority for the church would be the infallible Bible: “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Is. 8:20). If the canon was closed in 70 AD (as we will clearly prove below), then all post-70 AD apocryphal writings are also ruled out. Likewise, since God commanded us to live “by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3), and since He promised to preserve the canonized Scriptures to all generations so that they could live by it (Deut. 29:29; Ps. 111:7-8; 119:160; Is. 8:16; 40:8; 59:21; Dan. 12:4; Matt. 4:4; 5:17-18; Mark 13:31; Luke 16:17; Heb. 2:2; 1 Pet. 1:25), it rules out the possibility that we might find a lost book of the Bible in our own day.

The second point is that Old Testament prophets self-consciously realized that the Scriptures were being “written for the generation to come; and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord” (Ps. 102:18). In other words, God was selecting books for the canon based on the needs of the New Covenant community, not just the needs of the Old Covenant community. Peter says, “To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel” (1 Pet. 1:12).

This means that the canon was developed to give the Kingdom generations all the information they would need until eternity. Paul said, “Now all these things …were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor. 10:11; cf. 9:10 and Rom. 15:4). Though the Old Testament saints were commanded to live by the progressively unfolding Scriptures (as well as by other revelation from God [cf. Heb. 1:1]), God always had in mind His purpose for a completed canon when he inspired and gave Scripture. If God excluded and included details within books with deliberate purpose (as we have seen) and if that purpose is for our present kingdom generation “on whom the ends of the ages have come” (as we have also seen) then it logically follows that God must preserve every book in the canon, and do so in every age, if His purpose for canon is to succeed. This rules out the discoveries of any newly found apocryphal Gospels, and it rules out the addition of books to the canon by the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent (1545-1563 AD).

  1. As will be seen in the second half of this book, this was also the position of the early church and of pre-Christian Jews.↩︎

  2. See also Matt. 26:56; Luke 18:31; John 6:45; Acts 3:18,21; 10:43; 26:27; Rom. 1:2; 16:26; Heb. 1:1.↩︎

  3. See chapter 8 for a critique of the charismatic assertion of the opposite.↩︎

  4. F. F. Bruce states, “Any inspired writer was ipso facto a prophet” (Canon of Scripture, p. 71). The Jewish Encylopedia states, “Every word of Holy Writ was inspired by the Divine Spirit… Every Biblical book was said to have been written by a prophet… There is thus an unbroken chain of prophets from Moses to Malachi… Only words regarded as having been inspired by the Holy Spirit were included in the canon” (Jewish Encylopedia, volume 3, p. 147).↩︎

  5. See Appendix B for a demonstration of prophets quoting prophets as Scripture.↩︎

  6. Harrison and Robinson say that Zechariah 7:12 is the “locus classicus in the OT, teaching the inspiration of the prophets; it is the OT parallel to 2 Tim. 3:16” (R.K. Harrison, & G.L. Robinson, “Canon of the Old Testament,” G.W. Bromiley, gen.ed., International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, revised, Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979, p.593).↩︎

  7. The murder of Zechariah is recorded in 2 Chron. 24:20-21, the last book in the Jewish arrangement. This is clearly a reference to the order of canon found in the Hebrew canon since Uriah was chronologically the last to be murdered (cf. Jer. 26:23), but Zechariah is the last to be mentioned in the Jewish canon. Just as we cover all 39 books of the Old Testament with the phrase “from Genesis to Malachi,” Jesus covered the same books with the phrase “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah.”↩︎

  8. The books in the Hebrew canon pre-date the apocrypha, and if inspired revelation ceased in the Ezra/Malachi period (see proof of this below), then ipso facto, the apocrypha are excluded from the canon. Josephus represents the almost universal view among Jews that the Old Testament canon was closed in the time of Malachi (445-432BC). G.L. Robinson and R.K. Harrison, in commenting on the Josephus passage, said, “It is the uniform tradition of Josephus’ time that prophetic inspiration had ceased with Malachi (ca. 445-432 B.C.)… [for Josephus] …Prophecy had ceased, and the canon was accordingly closed” (International Standard Bible Encylopedia: Fully Revised (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), volume 1, p. 598).↩︎

  9. In a Journal article, Robert Thomas points out that “apostolicity cannot account for the inspiration of all the books that the church eventually recognized as part of the NT canon” (p. 8) and “to limit the determination of canonicity to apostolic authorship alone is precarious” (p. 6). He adds, “The first test a work had to pass to gain recognition as inspired, then, was either apostolicity or propheticity” (p. 24). In Robert L. Thomas, “Correlation of Revelatory Spiritual Gifts and NT Canonicity,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 8, no. 1 (Spring 1997). We will deal with this subject in much more detail on chapter 8.↩︎

  10. This could be rendered “a prophet or inspired” or possibly “a prophet or spiritually gifted” (NIV; Weymouth; God’s Word; see TNIV) or “a prophet or to have the Spirit” (BBE), or “a prophet, or to have spiritual powers” (NRSV). The amplified version renders this verse: “If anyone thinks and claims that he is a prophet [filled with and governed by the Holy Spirit of God and inspired to interpret the divine will and purpose in preaching or teaching] or has any other spiritual endowment, let him understand (recognize and acknowledge) that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord.”↩︎

  11. We will delve into this important subject in much more detail in part 2.↩︎

  12. Ernest L. Martin, The Original Bible Restored (unpublished class notes, 1984), 16; revised and expanded as Restoring the Original Bible (Portland, OR: ASK Publications, 1994), chap. 17, “The Canonization by Peter,” https://www.askelm.com/restoring/res023.htm.↩︎

  13. See my detailed treatment of Revelation’s closing of the canon in chapter 7 (especially the section on Revelation 10:7 and 22:18-19).↩︎

  14. Leon Morris summarizes the overwhelming historical evidence when he says,

    The church never attempted to create or confer canonicity. The decrees of the councils dealing with the matter, never run in the form: ‘This Council decrees that henceforth such and such books are to be canonical.’ The decrees rather run in the form: ‘This Council declares that these are the books which have always been held to be canonical.’ The Synod always contents itself with saying which books are already accepted as canonical. It often speaks of the accepted books as those which have been ‘handed down.’ It never attempts to confer canonicity on a book which lacked it, nor to remove from the list a book which was agreed to have had it… Canonicity is something in the book itself, something that God has given it, not a flavored status the church confers upon it. The church made no attempt to do more than to recognize canonicity and it could do no more. (Leon Morris, “The Canon of the New Testament,” Encyclopedia of Christianity, volume 2, edited by G.G. Cohen, Marshallton, Delaware: The National Foundation for Christian Education, 1968, pp. 337-338, as quoted by Dr. Robert Fugate in his doctoral thesis, The Bible: God’s Words to You (Whitefield Theological Seminary, 2008), since published as Robert E. Fugate, The Bible: God’s Word to You; A Presuppositional Guide to the Reformed Doctrine of Scripture (Omaha: Lord of the Nations LLC, 2012))

    ↩︎

  15. I give detailed proof of this point in chapters 6 and 7.↩︎

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