Power In His Presence

SINCE THE CANON IS COMPOSED ONLY OF INSPIRED WRITINGS, ARE ALL THE BOOKS OF EQUAL VALUE? WHAT WAS LUTHER’S VIEW?

A. ALL THE BOOKS OF THE CANON ARE OF EQUAL VALUE

The whole books in the bible are all birthed by the Holy Spirit of God and it is profitable for perusals and studying. The inequality some people and theologians annexes to the bible doesn’t dilute its inerrancy. Though some scholars are still bickering and arguing on some books of the bible viz, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and revelation and others as lacking the taste of inspiration, but needless to say, those books passed the test of being part and participle of the canon. Irrespective of how a book of the bible is viewed, it emanated from the “Breath of God”. Every book in the bible is of equal magnitude and significance; though some cultural principles are obsolete and inapplicable now. 

Biblical inspiration may be defined as God’s superintending of the human authors so that, using their own individual personalities (and even their writing styles), they composed and recorded without error His revelation to man in the words of the original autographs. Inspiration means that “the Holy Spirit of God superintended the human writers in the production of Scripture so that what they wrote was precisely what God wanted written.”

God the Holy Spirit so supernaturally directed the human writers of  scripture, that without waiving their human intelligence, individuality, literary style, personal feelings or any other human factor, His own complete and coherent message to man was recorded in perfect accuracy in the original languages of scripture, the very words bearing the authority of divine authorship.

2 Pet. 1:21, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy spirit.”

2 Tim .3:16a, “All scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable”. The Holy Spirit communicated to the human author God’s complete and coherent message to that generation and all future generations of history. The human writer wrote down in his own language and within the framework of his own personality, the divine message to man. God used the writers’ vocabulary, intelligence, personality, feeling and
individuality. Inspiration guarantees that the whole books in the Bible are all accurate and of the same value.

B. LUTHER’S VIEW CONCERNING THE CANON

Luther allows the canon to stand as it was established by the ancient church. But he makes distinctions within the canon. It is these “distinctions” that are often seen as removal(many theologians and biblical scholars have the belief that Luther removed totally some books from the canon). From a research i made, Luther explained that he understood the Biblical books in an order based on how clearly “Christ the gospel of free grace and justification through faith alone” was enunciated. He considered this to be the apostolic standard by which all was evaluated.

Paul Althaus a scholar of Luther explains,

“It was particularly within the canon that Luther practiced theological criticism of its individual parts. The standard of this criticism is the same as his principle of interpretation, that is, Christ: the gospel of free grace and justification through faith alone. This is what Luther means when he says that the standard is “that which is apostolic.” Luther’s concept of apostolicity is based not only on a historical factor, that is, that Christ himself called and sent out a group of witnesses. Rather, it is determined by the content of a book. An apostle shows that he is an apostle by clearly and purely preaching Christ as Savior. “Now it is the office of a true apostle to preach of the suffering, resurrection, and office of Christ.” This shows that an apostle is inspired by the Holy Spirit; and this gives him his authority and infallibility. Since apostolic authority manifests itself in the gospel of the apostles, the church recognizes the authority of the Scripture as being based not on the person of the apostles but on the word of God or the gospel which bears witness to itself. The apostolic character of a New Testament author manifests itself in the content of his writing and in the clarity of his witness to Christ.”

Certain books that did not express this were critically questioned by Luther: particularly James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation.

In terms of order, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation come last in Luther’s New Testament because of his negative estimate of their apostolicity. In a catalogue of “The Books of the New Testament” which followed immediately upon his Preface to the New Testament… Luther regularly listed these four—without numbers—at the bottom of a list in which he named the other twenty-three books, in the order in which they still appear in English Bibles, and numbered them consecutively from 1–23… a procedure identical to that with which he also listed the books of the Apocrypha.