The Regulative Principle of the Study of Canon
Man left on his own can never know the will of God and His plan of salvation. It is then necessary that when God speaks man must receive His Word “without question and without compromise. Therefore it is extremely important that we know what God has spoken, and where we can find an accurate and reliable record of what he said.”1
The Reformers of old held the Bible as the “unquestioned standard by which all matter of faith and practice must be examined.”2 They generally referred to this commitment by the Latin phrase sola Scriptura, or Scripture alone.
Etymologically, the word “canon” means “reed” in its Semitic origin. In “ecclesiastical usage, kanon refers to the normative ethical and doctrinal content of the Christian faith.”3 The apostle Paul uses this word in 2 Corinthians 10:13-16 (NKJ) 13We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us -- a sphere [tou/ kano,noj] which especially includes you. 14 For we are not overextending ourselves (as though our authority did not extend to you), for it was to you that we came with the gospel of Christ; 15 not boasting of things beyond measure, that is, in other men's labors, but having hope, that as your faith is increased, we shall be greatly enlarged by you in our sphere [to.n kano,na], 16 to preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man's sphere [kano,ni] of accomplishment. (Note also, “The phrase eis ta ametra [in verse 13 and 15, translated “beyond measure”] is an idiom; literally it means "into that which is not measured," that is, a point on a scale that goes beyond what might be expected.4 )
According to Burridge, the word kanon here is used as a “metaphor taken from the athletic contests at Corinth . . . The running lanes were marked out by a line that kept the runners in their assigned lane. The line was called a kanon.”
Simply put, the apostle Paul was teaching the congregation that “God marked out such a lane to guide the apostle into truth. Paul was led by God in all his writings.” The canon was created by God and as such all his spokesperson would operate within that canon. The divine act of keeping the Biblical writers from stepping out of bounds was divine inspiration. This understanding is contrary to Prof. Bautista’s claim that the writings were “given canonical status” by the church, as if the church confers this status on the writings. The canon was already in place during the writing. It now depended on the church to recognize and receive which writings God has inspired.
Packer explains
The important thing to grasp as one surveys the intricacies of the history of the canon is that what the Church believed itself to be doing was not creating the New Testament, but recognizing it. God was held to have created it, by inspiring the books destined to compose it; the Church sought merely to discern which books those were.5
To prioritize Scripture as a divinely given, authoritative, normative book must influence any form of inquiry concerning it. The reason behind this is “the function of the canon is normative for the text-community dialogue it reflects.”6 The dialogue existing between canon and community is what Frame calls the ethical of the Church to an authoritative Scripture. Allegiance to the word of God is allegiance to God Himself. This is how one must speak of text and community in dialogue. This community aspect must serve as a paramount presupposition for those who study Scripture. An outsider would have different presuppositions. That is why apologetic energies were extended by the Judeo-Christian communities to those outsiders who wish to devalue the normative ethic in the interaction of text and community.
Van Kooten summarizes well a Christian view of the Biblical canon,
No one individual or group of individuals held a conclave and decided that the written messages of the prophets should be collected and called Scriptures. No formal declaration of canonicity was needed. The prophets were very conscious that they carried a message from God and that their writings were meant to be read and followed by the people (Deut. 31:9, 24-26; Josh. 1:8; II Kings 23:2-3; Ps. 119:96, 105, 142; Isa. 8:19-22; 51:16; Jer. 36:5-18; Mal. 1:1). In one form or another it is stated over 3, 000 times in the Old Testament that “God said.” The devout heard and recognized these words and their written form to be divinely obligatory. These writings were gathered into a body and were known and accepted by the Old Testament [saints] as Scriptures, the Word of God.7
Packer summarizes well this view with a fitting illustration,
The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon that Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity, by His work of creation, and similarly he gave us the . . . canon, by inspiring individual books that make it up.8
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1Burridge, “The Canon of Scripture,” available at www.girs.com; INTERNET.
2ibid
3David Dunbar, “The Biblical Canon, “in D.A. Carson and John Woodbridge, Hermeneutics, Authority and Canon (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie, 1986), 300.
4NET Bible footnote
5James Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word of God (1958; London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1963 reprint), , 66.
6Donn Morgan, Between Text and Community (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1990), 15.
7Tenis Van Kooten, The Bible: God's Word (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1972) 124.
8Packer, 81 |
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