Justifying the New Testament Canon – Part 1

An earlier article focused on challenges to the current canon of the New Testament reviewed by Albin Huss, formerly professor of New Testament at Lancaster Bible College, Capital Seminary and at Calvary Baptist Seminary, Lansdale, Pennsylvania on November 20 at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Gap Center for Biblical Studies in Gap, Pennsylvania.

The Christological Basis of the Canon

Two subsequent lectures on November 21 focused on justifying the current New Testament canon. Huss said that the Old Testament scriptures find “their fulfillment, their telos” in the “person and work” of Jesus Christ. This point tends to be overlooked in discussions about the canon. Jesus’ claim to fulfill Old Testament prophecies from his reading of Isaiah (Lk. 4:15-21) is clear, and as is the same claim before his ascension (Lk. 24:25-27). At the Transfiguration, God the Father said that Jesus’ words were authoritative (Lk. 9:35). Jesus’ words, and thus his gospel are “formulated in Old Testament language,” and speak of salvation in eschatological terms. This “Christological clamp” connects the New Testament with the Old Testament. This gives the Bible “canonical coherence.” This is understandable because Scripture has “one divine author.” Quoting Alister Begg, Huss said of Jesus “in the Old Testament he is predicted, in the gospels, he is revealed, in Acts, he is preached, in the epistles, he is explained, and in Revelation, he is expected.”

Intercanonical Expectation

How did the first century Christians understand the canon which was developing in their day, and how does this square with the Christological understanding of the canon Huss outlined? He said that to grasp the understanding of canon in the first century we must look to the high eschatological expectation of that day, and the covenantal nature of canonical documents. One line of attack against the New Testament documents is that their authors did not understand them to be sacred scripture, and that the first followers of Jesus had no expectation of a Christian canon.

However, Huss said, the covenantal connection between the testaments, and their Christological orientation shows that the first Christians indeed would naturally have expected covenantal documents to be written. Messianic expectation was high during second Temple Judaism, Huss said (the period from the rebuilding of the Temple after the Babylonian captivity until the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70). People were “in a posture of waiting.” They were “waiting for God’s redemption, the inbreaking of the kingdom.” He noted that Old Testament writings, including Old Testament apocryphal writings, “have clear eschatological expectations, including the return of Israel from exile and a future messianic period.” In the period the future kingdom, “all nations would worship God.” The Old Testament, Huss said, “is a story in search of an ending.” This need is then answered in the New Testament. The apostle Nathanael was told that the messiah had been found, Simeon in the temple “was waiting for the consolation of Israel,” as was the prophetess Anna.

Jesus’ first followers would naturally have understood Jesus’ coming kingdom as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and a covenant fulfillment. They thus naturally would have expected “new covenant documents” for the new kingdom. Just as the “great redemptive act of the Old Testament,” namely the exodus from Egypt, was followed by the giving of the Law and then the prophets (particularly with the prophecy of a law-giving prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:18)) so the New Testament begins with the gospels and their great redemptive act (Jesus’ death and resurrection). This is followed by the story of the apostolic church in the in the Book of Acts, the theological writings of the epistles, and the prophecy of Christ’s return in the Book of Revelation.

The Covenantal Nature of the New Testament Canon

Huss emphasized the covenantal nature of these new books. “The air breathed by first century Judaism was one of covenantal language. The Mosaic, Abrahamic, and Davidic covenants were all part of Israel’s history.” The Qumran documents, he said, show how Jewish communities in Jesus’ day were framed around the concept of covenant. Christ’s institution of communion (Matt. 26:27-28) and Paul’s references to it (I Cor. 10:16-21, 11:29-34) show that it was understood as “a new covenant meal.” Similarly, Paul declared himself and other apostles “ministers of a new covenant” (II Cor. 3:6).

This covenantal language, Huss said, shows that the idea of an authoritative canon for the new covenant existed from the first century A.D. on, well before the time of Constantine and the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century. Indeed, there is an “inscriptural curse” at the end of the Book of Revelation, perhaps applying only to that book, but which occurring at the end of the Bible can be understood providentially as applying to the whole New Testament, or the whole Bible, and which commands everyone not to add or subtract from the words of the written covenant (Rev. 22: 18-19). This, Huss said, is a “recapitulation of the inscriptural curse” of Deut. 4:2. There is also the instruction in the New Testament that it is to be read publicly (Col. 4:16, I Thess. 5:27, I Tim. 4:13), which is “a hallmark characteristic of a covenantal document.” The very use of the term “New Testament” shows its covenantal character.

The role of the apostles was “key” in establishing the New Testament documents as an authoritative revelation from God. The apostles were understood “as having the very authority of Christ himself.” The apostles were sent out “to preach and to have authority” (Mk. 3:14-15). Huss referred to I Cor. 14:37 (“if anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things that I am writing you are a command of the Lord”). Another “key passage” is II Pet. 3:2 (“I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles”). This establishes the “bi-covenantal nature” of Scripture. Not only the Scripture of the Old Testament, but that of the New Testament is authoritative. Church fathers “clearly viewed the writings of the apostles as authoritative scripture.” This establishes the “bi-covenantal nature” of Scripture.

This bi-covenantal scripture was centered around Jesus. As Biblical scholar Michael Kruger has said, “Jesus was not just another prophet, but ‘the prophet,’ not just a king like David, but the King of David, not just one who worships at the Temple, but who is greater than the Temple.” New and final revelation centered around Jesus would naturally have been expected. The authority of the apostolic testimony to Jesus, the canon of the New Testament “was woven into Christianity from its very earliest stages.” Just as the old covenant was based on “accepted written documents,” so the first century Christians “would likewise looked for a similar charter.” Huss said that “it would have been unthinkable that God should have left his people without an enduring written record.” The bi-covenantal structure of the Bible, in view of the Old Testament prophecies of a new covenant, “was woven into the very fabric of Christianity from the beginning.”

A further lecture by Albin Huss endeavored to answer to some of the most common challenges to the canon and will be covered in a subsequent article.

It can be viewed here.

More from IRD:

The Question of the Biblical Canon

Challenges to the New Testament Canon