The Church and the Bible (Part 1)
The Church’s teaching that Scripture is now closed is wrong. When the 3rd Century Church met and decided which of their inherited writings were to be declared canonical and final, on what authority did they make this stand? Has God Himself declared it so? By making this claim the Church has pre-empted God and declared it impossible that He might raise up for Himself a prophet to speak words of admonishment to the Church, a prophet whose words carried all of the authority that the Church has decided can only reside in the books which they have declared Canonical.
The tradition of the Church that there are no further words that God will speak to it is a curious one indeed. This notion not only effectively silences God, if indeed He can ever be silenced, but also gives rise to the legitimisation of the persecution of His spokesmen. For if a man sent by God arrived to speak God’s words to the Church, the Church would feel justified in declaring the man a fraud and an impostor.
It was never the habit of the Jews to declare that their scripture was sealed. If God raised up a prophet, even if the prophet’s words were ignored, the Jews eventually incorporated the words that the prophet had written or spoken into their sacred writings. For they recognized, even belatedly, that the prophet was from God and his words were important and true and worthy of respect. Unfortunately the words were honoured but the message was lost and this too is a deep problem in the Christian community.
Not only do Christians hold in great honour the words they deem to be Scripture, but they do not live by these words and no longer understand what the words themselves mean. This should not surprise us for the Jews did not understand the words which Jesus spoke. In fact He spoke to them in parables “lest they see with their eyes, understand with their heart and return and be saved”. His words are often enigmatic and can only be understood by those “to whom it has been given”. It is this “to whom it has been given” which I wish now to investigate.
After His resurrection Jesus explained to the travellers He met on the road to Emmaus all that the Scriptures revealed concerning the Christ. Even while their hearts burned within them, marvelling at the mystery which Jesus was revealing to them, they did not recognize who He was. It was only when Jesus gave them Communion, blessing the bread and giving it to them, that their eyes were opened.
This surely has a deep message for Christians who believe that Scripture alone gives them all the insight they need to have faith, to be guided in their lives and to know all the things pertaining to salvation. The apostle Paul knew a thing or two concerning faith and said to the Corinthians, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God”. This leads me to say that Scripture is always secondary to the Spirit concerning our ability to have faith in God.