The Doctrine of the Word of God

The Old Testament Canon

The Bible began when God wrote the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets and gave them to Moses on Mount Sinai. These tablets were deposited in the ark of the covenant and constituted the terms of the covenant between God and Israel. This collection grew as Moses added to it and eventually become the Pentateuch. After the death of Moses, Joshua also contributed to this collection. Further additions were made by the Prophets. The last book to be added to the Old Testament was Malachi, that was written around 435 B.C.

The Jews continued to write historical books afterwards, but they did not include them in the Old Testament. They believed that prophecy had ceased, and the canon of Scripture was sealed. That is why, when the altar of burnt offering was defiled by Antiochus during the intertestamental period, the Jews tore it down but could not decide what to do with the stones, so they stored them, waiting for a prophet to rise and guide them. They understood that prophets had ceased to appear among them. The belief that the writings of the Apocrypha were historically reliable but not the inspired Word of God was also held by the first century Jewish historian Josephus. Rabbinic literature reflects a similar conviction in its repeated statement that the Holy Spirit departed from Israel. The Qumran community also awaited a prophet whose words would have authority to supersede any existing regulations. Other similar statements are found throughout the Apocrypha. Thus, writings subsequent to about 435 B.C. were not accepted by the Jewish people generally as having equal authority with the rest of Scripture.

In the New Testament, there is no record of any dispute between Jesus and the Jews regarding the extent of the canon. There was full agreement that additions to the Old Testament canon had ceased with the Prophet Malachi. The New Testament quotes the Old Testament over 295 times, yet not even once is the Apocrypha quoted. This confirms that the New Testament authors recognized only the established Old Testament canon as the Word of God.

The Apocrypha was never accepted by the Jews as Scripture. Since the early Christians were also Jews, they too rejected the Apocrypha. However, the use of Apocrypha gradually increased in some parts of the Church until the time of the Reformation. Although Jermone included the Apocrypha books in his Latin Vulgate translation completed in 404, he himself considered them to be deuterocanonical. Melito, the bishop of Sardis, writing around 170, left us a list of the Old Testament canon that does not include the Apocrypha. Origen also excluded the Apocrypha from his list of Old Testament books. Similarly, in 367, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, listed all the books of our present Old Testament canon (except Esther) in his Paschal Letter.

It was not until 1546, at the Council of Trent, that the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the biblical canon.

The New Testament Canon

It is not only the Old Testament that is God-breathed, but the New Testament is also equally inspired. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would bring to the disciples’ remembrance all that He had said. This indicates a special superintending work of the Holy Spirit, whereby the disciples would be able to recall and record without error everything that Jesus had taught.

Peter shows not only an awareness of Paul’s written epistles but also a willingness to classify them as scripture. Similarly, Timothy quotes Jesus in Luke 10:7 and refers to His words as “scripture.” Paul also instituted several rules for church worship at Corinth and claimed for them the status of God’s commands.

Thus, the early Church automatically accepted as part of the canon the written teachings of the apostles. These books included Matthew, John, Pauline epistles, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, & 3 John, and Revelation. However, the existence of some New Testament writings not authored directly by apostles shows that there were others in the early Church to whom Christ also gave, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the ability to write divinely inspired words. In these cases, the early church had the task of recognizing which writings bore the marks of divine authorship.

The books that were not written by apostles are Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrew, and Jude. For these, the church had the personal testimony of living apostles to affirm their divine authority. Paul likely affirmed the authenticity of Luke and Acts, and Peter likely affirmed the authenticity of Mark. Similarly, Jude was accepted because he was the brother of James and of Jesus. The acceptance of Hebrews as canonical was urged by many in the church on the basis of an assumed Pauline authorship. However, others—such as Origen (d. 254)—rejected Pauline authorship. In the case of Hebrews, the words were ultimately found to be self-attesting to its divine origin. In 367, the 39th Paschal Letter of Athanasius contained an exact list of the 27 New Testament books we have today.

The Authority of Scripture

The Scripture is Inerrant. This means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. Since the words of the Bible are God’s words, and since God cannot lie or speak falsely, there can be no error in Scripture. The Bible is the ultimate standard of truth against which every other claim to truthfulness is to be measured. No fact will ever turn up that God did not know about ages ago and take into account when he caused Scripture to be written. Every true fact is something that God has known already from all eternity and is something that therefore cannot contradict God’s speech in Scripture. Though, scientific or historical study can cause us to reexamine Scripture to see if it really teaches what we thought it taught. We should never fear but always welcome any new facts that may be discovered in any legitimate area of human research.

Our ultimate conviction that the words of the Bible are God’s words comes when the Holy Spirit speaks through them to our hearts and gives us an inner assurance that they are truly God speaking to us. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, a person will not accept the truth that Scripture is, in fact, the Word of God. But for those in whom God’s Spirit is working, there is a recognition that the words of the Bible are indeed the words of God.

The words of Scripture are self-attesting. They cannot be proved to be God’s words by appealing to any higher authority. If such an appeal were necessary, then Scripture would not be our highest or absolute authority—it would be subordinate to whatever standard was used to validate it. If we ultimately appeal to human reason, logic, historical accuracy, or scientific truth to prove that Scripture is God’s Word, we are placing those things above Scripture and assuming them to be more reliable or authoritative.

The fact that all the words of Scripture are God’s words does not mean that God dictated every word to the human authors. Rather, God’s providential oversight and direction of each author’ life ensured that their personalities, backgrounds and training, abilities to interpret events, access to historical data, and individual circumstances were exactly as He intended. As a result, when they came to the point of writing, the words were fully their own, yet also fully the words God wanted them to write—words He would claim as His own.

Bibliography

Athanasius, “Select Works and Letters,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4, ed. Philip Schaff & 

Henry Wace (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980)

Eusebius Pamphilus, Ecclesiastical History, trans. C. F. Cruse (New York, NY: Dayton & Saxton, 1842)

Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, trans. H. St. J. Thackery (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926)

Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised Edition (London: Penguin Books, 2004)

Jermone, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, vol. 6, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (New York, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893)

Legacy Standard Bible (Irvine, CA: Steadfast Bibles, 2021)

Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, The Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, vol. 14 (Abany, OR: Sage Software, 1996)

Talmud Bavli, trans. Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (The William Davidson Talmud), Sefaria, accessed March 27, 2025 [https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Talmud]

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol 1, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1983)

The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, trans. Joshua Schreier (2022), Sefaria, accessed March 27, 2025 [https://www.sefaria.org/Shir_HaShirim_Rabbah]