The Need for Canon

Marcion, the son of the bishop of Sinope, who was brought up in the apostolic faith, is the first person known to have published a fixed collection of New Testament books. The early church, however, expelled Marcion in 144 A.D. for being a heretic. What were some of Marcion’s heresies?

1). He rejected the Old Testament.
2). He did not believe that Jesus entered human life by being ‘born of a woman’ (Gal. 4:4).
3). His version of the New Testament removed the account of the birth of John the Baptist.
4). He also removed the birth of Jesus, finding the whole idea of conception and child birth disgusting.
5). He replaced ‘Thy kingdom come’ in the Lord’s Prayer with ‘let Thy Holy Spirit come on us and cleanse us’.
6). Many verses were removed from Romans (1:19-2:1; 3:21-4:25; most of chapters 9-11; and everything after 14:23.

Marcion quite enthusiastically began propagating a strange brand of Christianity as he rejected also the Gospels of Matthew and John. After his departure from the church, he swayed a large number of people to follow his aberrant belief system and teachings. He wrote a book called Antithesis which was basically a list of contradictions and a critique of teachings in the Hebrew Bible that he could not reconcile in his mind. Polycarp, the famous student of the Apostle John, is quoted as saying that Marcion is ‘the firstborn of Satan’.

It is easy to see why a standard for scripture was needed, given the rise of Marcion’s school of thought. But the widespread view that the church was responding to Marcion’s heresy by creating the canon of scripture is not entirely correct. The teachings of the apostles was fixed. It was Marcion who had separated himself from orthodox positions of theology and his view of the apostolic writings was plain wrong. F.F. Bruce, in the The Canon of Scripture, states that because of Marcion’s opposition to the holy scriptures, the church first became rightly conscious of its heritage of apostolic writings. In other words, the church did not decide they needed to make up a list of God-inspired books to combat heretics like Marcion, but rather were awakened to the fact that the writings existed and they must be recognized and viewed as authoritative. The challenge to the church and its early leaders was to develop a method by which the God-inspired writings were established. This led to the canonization of scripture.

What is ‘Canon’?
Canon is a word that means ‘measuring rod’. It is the standard by which we measure or evaluate.

After the apostles died, there was a need to preserve their teachings due to the rise in heresy, beginning with people like Marcion who were espousing false doctrines. The heresies needed to be exposed, confronted and corrected. Since there was no official list of inspired writings at the time, the early church fathers had to evaluate these writings to recognize which books were authoritative. Athanasius first applied the term ‘canon’ to Scripture in the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea (360 AD).

Two major schools of thought on determining canon:
1). The church decides which books of the Bible are authoritative (Roman Catholic position).
2). The writings themselves testify that they are of God and therefore belong to the collection of books that are present in the Bible on the basis of divine inspiration (Protestant position).

Again, it is important to note that churches or its councils did not ‘decide’ or ‘pick’ which books would be considered part of the canon of scripture, but rather ‘recognized’ which ones were inspired by God. “A book is not the Word of God because it is accepted by the people of God. Rather it was accepted by the people of God because it is the Word of God. That is, God gives the book its divine authority, not the people of God. They merely recognize the divine authority which God gives to it”.

Source: The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1999, page 21.

Author James White gives some helpful insight, on this topic which will be paraphrased here:
1). Canon of scripture came into existence once the Spirit of God moved upon the very first author of it. That writing has the infallible knowledge of God and his stamp of approval upon it.
2). Canon of scripture happened over time, and with the unfolding of God’s revelation it remained current and infallible.
3). Canon of scripture exists whether or not there is a recognition of it.
4). Canon of scripture is not dependent on humans beings, churches, councils or anything else in this world.
5). The preservation of scripture is entirely dependent upon the purposes of God and He will see to it that it will remain and will be sufficient to accomplish all of His good will.

Source: Scripture Alone, James R. White, Bethany House, Minneapolis Minnesota, 2004, pages 102-103

The Old Testament Canon was Established Using Three Principles

1). The book was written through the process of inspiration and confirmed by the author himself.
a). 2 Samuel 23:1-2
b). Isaiah 1:1
c). Jeremiah 1:1-2

2). The book writer’s contemporaries frequently recognized the book.
a). Exodus 24:3
b). Jeremiah 26:18
c). Daniel 9:2

3). The book writer’s contemporaries were committed to preserving the book as part of God’s Word.
a). Deuteronomy 31:26
b). 1 Samuel 10:25
c). Proverbs 25:1
d). 2 Kings 23:24
e). Daniel 9:2

The Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) were written by Moses

Jesus Referred to the OT at Least 14 Times

On marriage, He quoted from Genesis (Mark 10:6-8)
Regarding the commandments, He quoted Exodus (Luke 18:20)
On the subject of the teachings of Moses, He quoted from Deuteronomy (Luke 10:26-28)
He mentions David in a quote from 1 Samuel (Mark 2:25)
He confirms that the Queen of Sheba was a real historic person when he quotes 1 Kings (Matthew 12:42)
In citing a passage from Psalms, He called it Scripture (Mark 12:10)
He refers to the prophet Isaiah by name (Matthew 13:13-14)
The book of Daniel prophesies about the abomination of desolation, which He discusses in Matthew (Matthew 24:15)
On the subject of mercy, He quotes Hosea (Matthew 9:13)
He refers to the book of Jonah as an illustration of His own resurrection (Matthew 12:40)
On the subject of His betrayal, He cites a passage from Zechariah (Matthew 26:31)
He quotes the prophet Malachi (Matthew 11:10)

In addition to actually quoting the Old Testament, there are many instances of Jesus recognizing people from the OT

Abraham (John 8:56)
Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32)
Isaac and Jacob (Matthew 8:11)
Moses (John 7:22)
David (Matthew 12:1-3)
Solomon (Matthew 6:29)
Elijah (Matthew 17:11)
Elisha and Naaman (Luke 4:27)
Isaiah (Matthew 8:16-17)
Zechariah (Luke 11:49-51)

Jesus Also Recognized OT Events

The Creation Account (Matthew 19:4-5)
Noah’s Flood (Matthew 27:37-39)
Manna (John 6:31)
The Law was given by Moses (Matthew 8:4)
The Prophets were persecuted (Matthew 5:11-12)
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 10:14-15)
The destruction of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 11:21-22)

Jesus totally trusted the teachings of the OT and believed that they spoke with full authority when He said in Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’”.

Source: Jesus View of the Old Testament

Jesus and the Writings of Moses

God speaks to the serpent in Genesis 3:15 – “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

This is a direct prophecy of the death blow that Jesus would deliver to Satan.

God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son in Genesis 22:2 – “Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”

This is another prophecy about Jesus. It’s easy to see the parallel: one and only son, being offered as a sacrifice. This is exactly what God did with Jesus. Abraham was obedient to this because He expected God to raise Isaac from the dead because God promised a blessing through Isaac. And we know that Jesus was also raised from the dead, giving the blessing of eternal life to all who will believe.

At the burning bush in Exodus 3:13-14, Moses asks God, “What shall I say is his name” when the people want know who sent him to bring them out of Egypt. God responds by saying, “I AM has sent you”. I AM is God’s way of describing Himself. He is saying that He exists independently; without any outside influence; with all authority and power. He is ‘I AM’!

Jesus refers to Himself as ‘I AM’ in John 8:58 when He says, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” Not only is Jesus validating the writings of Moses, but this is a directly claim that He is God.

The Israelites in their wanderings became thirsty and so God commands Moses to strike the rock at Horeb in Exodus 17:6. When he did so, the people drank freely.

Jesus claimed to provide living water in John 4:14, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” And then in 1 Corinthians 1:1-4, we are told that Jesus Christ is that rock mentioned back in Exodus 17.

The references to Christ in the Old Testament are numerous. The point here is that Moses wrote about Jesus, long before Jesus came on the scene as a man. Jesus rebuked the people in John 5:39-46, because if they really believed their scriptures, they would have known Him. “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.“