SECOND LONDON BAPTIST CONFESSION 1.2-1.3

-We are looking at the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith as an example of a summary of important biblical teachings that tell us that truth which ought to affect the way we live. The Baptist Confession is separated into 32 different chapters with several paragraphs in each chapter that give us a brief glimpse of matters of faith and life that are very important for us.

-The first chapter deals with the subject of The Holy Scriptures. Paragraph 1 summarized the fact that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God and is the only sufficient rule and standard for faith and living. Although Scripture doesn’t tell us every single truth that there is to know (like the physics of flight or mathematical equations), everything contained in Scripture is truth as it is written in its historical, literary, and cultural context. As we continue the study, the next two paragraphs really go together, and this is what they say:

Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century I. The Holy Scriptures

1:2 The Holy Scriptures, or the Word of God written, consist of all the books of the Old and New Testaments. These are:

THE OLD TESTAMENT: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

THE NEW TESTAMENT: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation.

All of these are given by the inspiration of God to be the standard of faith and life.

1:3 The books commonly called the Apocrypha were not given by divine inspiration and so are not part of the canon or standard of the Scriptures. Therefore, they have no authority for the church of God and are not to be recognized or used in any way different from other human writings.

-What these paragraphs address is the subject of the canon of Scripture. When we speak of the subject of canon, we are not talking about a big gun that makes a very loud boom. The word canon in this context talks about something that meets a standard. The word itself originally referred to a reed that was used to make sure things were aligned. The word then came to mean that which meets a standard or rule of measurement. For our purposes, it means the books that met the standards for being included as the Word of God. It is the books that were recognized as being inspired based on certain rules and standards. Any books that did not meet those standards and rules were excluded.

-Let me give you an example from a different area of literature. Throughout the history of the Star Wars movies, hundreds of books were written that continued the saga and expanded the story. Beginning in the early 1990s there were books written that told the story of what happened after the Return of the Jedi movie from the Original Trilogy era. The fans loved these books, and they held these books to be what actually happened in the story. This was their Star Wars canon. But then in 2012, Lucasfilm was sold to Disney, and Disney did not want to have their hands tied to all those hundreds of books that had been written. So, what Disney did is announce that none of the books written before they bought Lucasfilm were canon—and they were relegated to Legends status (myths and fables that were no longer part of the actual story). Only books that were published after Disney bought Lucasfilm would be considered canon—that is, only those books would officially be part of the Star Wars story (they met the rules of what would be included and recognized as Star Wars). {Frankly, after seeing the sequels, I like the book stories better....}

-Now, to bring it back to our subject for tonight, there were hundreds upon hundreds of books written during Old Testament and New Testament times that claimed to be revelations from God. But not all of them were accepted as such. At stake in this subject of canon is the very important concept of inspiration. Only those books who could be demonstrated to have been inspired by God were included as canon. What is inspiration? E.J. Young gives this definition of inspiration:

According to the Bible, inspiration is a superintendence of God the Holy Spirit over the writers of the Scriptures, as a result of which those Scriptures possess Divine authority and trustworthiness and, possessing such Divine authority and trustworthiness, are free from error.

-Only those books that demonstrate inspiration are included in the canon and recognized as authoritative and sufficient. The Holy Spirit inspired the authors to write what they wrote, and only those writings are included in the canon. The Jews before the time of Christ had the Old Testament canon already founded, and it is the 39 books that we find in our Old Testament, as listed in paragraph 2 of the 1689 confession. The church in early centuries recognized 27 books as having been inspired—the 27 books in our New Testament as listed in paragraph 2 of the 1689 confession. Only 66 books have been recognized as canon, as authoritative, as having met the measure of demonstrating inspiration.

-Although, when you consider this, we have not been just given an inspired book, but an inspired library—this is the miracle of the Bible. As theologian B.B. Warfield stated it:

The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Volume 1: Revelation and Inspiration II. The Structure of the Bible

No less than sixty-six separate books, one of which consists itself of one hundred and fifty separate compositions, immediately stare us in the face. These treatises come from the hands of at least thirty distinct writers, scattered over a period of some fifteen hundred years, and embrace specimens of nearly every kind of writing known among men. Histories, codes of law, ethical maxims, philosophical treatises, discourses, dramas, songs, hymns, epics, biographies, letters both official and personal, vaticinations,—every kind of composition known beneath heaven seems gathered here in one volume.

-66 books, 30-40+ authors, 1500 years, one story of redemption. And all of it was inspired by God. There are several verses that speak on this concept of inspiration, and we will just highlight a couple:

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Peter 1:20–21 ESV

20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

-The Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God. It is all well and good, but what rules and standards demonstrated that something met the standard? For the Old Testament, an author had to have been a recognized prophet of God in some capacity. Obviously Moses was a special prophet who was communicated to by God in a special way:

Numbers 12:6–8 ESV

6 And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”

-The gift of prophecy was continued after Moses as God commanded these men to write His words. We see this with Joshua:

Joshua 24:25–26 ESV

25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and put in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem. 26 And Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone and set it up there under the terebinth that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.

-Samuel wrote God’s words:

1 Samuel 10:25 ESV

25 Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home.

-The historians (most likely prophets we know) chronicled what God wanted remembered:

2 Chronicles 20:34 ESV

34 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, from first to last, are written in the chronicles of Jehu the son of Hanani, which are recorded in the Book of the Kings of Israel.

-The people we call proper prophets were told to write for the Lord:

Isaiah 8:1 ESV

1 Then the Lord said to me, “Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters, ‘Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’

-The rule for the development of the New Testament canon was that the book had to be written by an apostle or someone who was clearly connected with an apostle. So, Mark’s gospel probably comes from his notes from Peter. Luke is associated with Paul. It was the apostles that were told by Jesus:

John 14:26 ESV

26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

-And later:

John 16:13–14 ESV

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

-Only the 66 books that we find listed here are canon. However, there are many other writings that purport to be from prophets or apostles, but are not. In paragraph 3 of chapter 1 of the 1689 confession, it specifically calls out the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha are books that were written in the years of silence, we might say between Malachi and Matthew. They are usually added onto after the Old Testament. These books are included in the Catholic bibles, but are not included in the Protestant Bibles because they were not inspired and not recognized as canon. The Jews never recognized these writings as canon. They were found as addendum to the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and Jerome included them in the Latin Vulgate translation (although, Jerome himself said that these books were not canon but merely helpful and useful books).

-We know that these books were never recognized by the early church as being part of the Bible. On of the earliest Christian lists of recognized Old Testament canon comes from Melita, bishop of Sardis, and he wrote in AD 170:

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine A. The Old Testament Canon

When I came to the east and reached the place where these things were preached and done, and learnt accurately the books of the Old Testament, I set down the facts and sent them to you. These are their names: five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kingdoms, two books of Chronicles, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon and his Wisdom,11 Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Job, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Twelve in a single book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra.

-None of the apocryphal books were ever included. While they are helpful in giving us insight into some historical points as well as the mindset of late BC Judaism, they are not the inspired Word of God. And the same can be said of what are called Pseudepigraphal books that purport to have been written by some Old Testament hero, but really weren’t since they were written up to thousands of years after their life. These give us insight into cultural concepts of the day, they are not Scripture. The same can also be said of books to have been written after the first century claiming to be Scripture and are not (such as the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Judas, and the like).

-God inspired only 66 books, and only those are canon. And these books give us God’s plan of redemption, and they all lead to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray that these books lead us to the truths of God and salvation for those who have not yet believed. Only these books lead us to the fountain of life, and only these books will sustain our spiritual life.