The Normative Status of the Written Old Covenant
Pastor Ostella
3-10-2002
Introduction
Walking in Christ involves adherence to the faith received and passed on in the form of sacred tradition (cf 1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15 and Biblical Tradition, 3-3-2002). It is part and parcel of submission to Christ as Lord to "continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith you were taught" (Col. 2:6). Furthermore, submission to Christ summarizes submission to the authority of the triune God. That is the commitment we make in baptism (Matt. 28:19-20, cf. the call to commandment keeping until the end of the age). Therefore, the saving commitment by which we begin the Christian life is a commitment to live under the authority of His word, fine print and all.
But how do we know the limits or boundaries of this fine print? How many pages of fine print are we committed to in the first place? Or better how many books make up the writings to which we are obligated as Christians?
With these questions in mind, what I propose to show this morning is that Scripture itself leads us to the conclusion that the normative status of the written old covenant is not due to church tradition. Instead, it rests firmly on the authority of Christ. I will deal with this claim in two ways. We begin with the testimony of Christ and then we interact with the opposition of the Roman Church to this testimony.
1A. The testimony of Christ (to the normative status of the old covenant, cf. 2 Cor. 3:14)
1B. His testimony to the OT in general
1) He testifies to a written unit with three divisions
In summary of His attitude toward the OT, Jesus appealed to its three basic divisions when he spoke of "the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms" (Lk. 24:44; reference to the Psalms at the least locks us into the third division called "the Writings" in Jewish tradition). Because all that is written (v. 46) therein about Christ must be fulfilled (v. 44), and because all that was spoken in Scripture is to be believed (v. 25), then in summary fashion Jesus testifies to the authority of all the books of the Hebrew Bible. "All that the prophets have spoken" refers to their preached word preserved in writing (on the various designations of the written old covenant Warfield gives a helpful summary with key passages showing how it is called law, prophets, law and prophets, law/prophets/Psalms, sacred Scripture, and simply Scripture, Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 230-31).
2) He testifies to a written unit with binding authority in Matthew 5
Jesus firmly states His position (amen, truly, I tell the truth). He speaks of all the parts implying a whole that He calls the Law (Matt. 5:18) and Law and Prophets (v. 17). "Not the smallest letter" and "not the least stroke of a pen" are phrases that graphically inform us that every single part of the whole will remain with binding authority. There is emphasis here by saying "a whole in its several parts" remains binding (will not disappear).
It is important that we carefully observe how the parts are described. He does not speak generically of parts in relation to some abstract whole. He describes the parts by reference to the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet and to the slightest stroke of a pen in written Hebrew. He has Script in mind. The implied whole about which He is speaking is Scripture. By His authority Jesus binds His followers to a particular set of writings; His people are bound to them because those writings in total have a binding authority, down to each and every part.
Finally, the binding authority of this written whole extends to the very end of history. The Hebrew Scriptures have abiding authority "until everything is accomplished." This last phrase does not mean accomplishment in the sense of fulfillment; it is a different word than fulfill (v. 17). It is literally "come to pass" in the sense of take place or happen (cf. how Bahnsen develops this point, Theonomy, pp. 76-82). Thus the Hebrew Scriptures have a binding authority right through until the very last thing takes place in the history of heaven and earth.
3) He testifies to a written unit with well-known features
Basic to being a Christian is being a follower of Christ who is devoted to His every word. He tells us that the OT is the bread of life by which man is obligated and blessed to live: "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4). Important here is the fact that Jesus refers to Scripture, to what is written, when He presses us to live by every word from the mouth of God. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who directs the Christian to the authority of the OT.
Each answer to the tempter is prefaced with the phrase, "it is written" (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10). By baptism and temptation, Jesus inaugurated His ministry of preaching the gospel of the kingdom (Matt. 4:17, "from that time on Jesus began to preach"). Two fundamental and wonderful commitments set the tone of His entire ministry as shown by the baptism and the temptation. In obedience to the Father in heaven, He set His head like a flint to the baptism of suffering on the cross for us and by means of His temptation He directs us to the writings (the Scriptures) as our final authority. He tells us in effect: "this is what I am going to do for you and this is what I expect from you who follow in my steps, you are to live by the written words of God."
It should be noted that the very phrase "it is written" speaks of a source where what is written can be found. In other words, without identifying the OT per se or citing a particular section (i.e., Isaiah says, etc), Jesus can simply say, "it is written" and His hearers know that He is referring to the authority of God contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. That is where "every word from the mouth of God" is to be found; that is where the ultimate norm or standard of belief and practice is given. The Scriptures are being referred to as a unit that possesses absolute authority over the mind and conscience because "in all their parts and in every one of their declarations" they are "clothed with the authority of God Himself" (Warfield, Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 240). Such authority obviously does not belong to every literal writing or to every single thing that is written. There is thus a great difference between things written (lower case "w") and things Written (higher case "W"). In the context of the proclamation of the kingdom of God by the Lord Jesus, there is a distinct body of documents that can bear the title, the Writings or Scripture. In this context, all that needs to be said is "it is written" and everyone knows that reference is being made to divine revelation, which is the word of God preserved in written documents.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus appeals to these written documents known to his listeners. He appeals to them as the authoritative and self-attesting words of God that are to guide our steps. He appeals to them as a unit that binds the consciences of men in its every part.
One thing is clear in all the debates between Jesus and His Jewish opponents, they were in agreement regarding the "one well-known authoritative documentation of the Divine word" (Warfield, Ibid. 235). It is God's divine word that is written down in documents that form a unitary whole and that have absolute authority. Therefore, Jesus gives His imprimatur, His authoritative stamp of approval (or authorization), to the normative status of the Hebrew Scriptures of the OT.
Jesus authorized the OT for the Christian church. There was no question between Him and His listeners as to what made up this distinct body of writings. Jesus definitely disputed with the Jews regarding interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures but He never questioned the Scriptures themselves. Instead, He recognized their authority, submitted Himself to their authority, and He called us to submit to their authority. He did this in many ways and one striking way is by appealing to what is written. To be sure Jesus spoke with divine authority in all that He said. So we might conclude that nothing more is needed. But something more is needed: we need to follow His example and live by what is written. On His authority we are directed to the written authority of the OT.
2B. His testimony to the thirty-nine books of the OT in particular
What we have said so far confirms the authorization of the Hebrew Bible by Christ. But how do we know what books make up the Hebrew Bible and are these the same books as we have in our English versions?
We have to do some historical digging to answer these questions. Like it is in the matter of textual criticism, so it is on the specifics of the OT canon, the Bible is given by God and placed in the stream of human history. This is part of the down to earth character of biblical revelation and God's dealing with man in a historical way.
So, how do we know what books made up the Hebrew Bible to which Jesus referred as the written word of God? (Is it a compromise of Sola Scriptura to go outside of the OT to historical sources to find out what particular books constituted the Hebrews Scriptures to which Jesus testifies? No, Scripture nowhere condemns using historical sources. We must simply recognize the lack of divine inspiration for all extra-biblical sources.)
It is helpful if we phrase the question like this: "how does our Lord's testimony verify the Old Testament that we have today in our English Bibles?" The answer is that the well-known Hebrew Old Testament witnessed to by our Lord is the same as our Old Testament with a difference merely in numbering and arrangement. Pointedly, we can trace things from Christ to the present English OT by looking at Josephus and then by matching the Hebrew with the English.
1) Looking at Josephus
Sometimes the Hebrew Bible was thought to contain twenty-two books and other times it was thought to contain twenty-four. Josephus, a Jewish historian (37-95) says that the well-known three divisions of the Hebrew Bible contains twenty-two books. He calls these writings canonical stating that no more have been added from the reign of Artaxerxes (the time of Malachi) to his time (about 90 AD). A little later when actual lists are given, they match up one for one with our English thirty-nine books (Archer 62-65; Young 183-184).
2) Matching the 39 of the English OT with the 22 or 24 of the Hebrew OT
On the following diagram of the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible, the numbers indicate how the twenty-four components of the Hebrew Bible are identical with the thirty-nine books of the modern English translations.
LAW: 1Genesis 2Exodus 3Leviticus 4Numbers 5Deuteronomy
PROPHETS
Former: 6Joshua 7(Judges) 8Samuel 9Kings
Latter: 10Isaiah 11[Jeremiah] 12Ezekiel 1312 Minor
WRITINGS
Poetry/Wisdom: 14Psalms 15Job 16Proverbs
Rolls:
17(Ruth)
18
Song of Songs19
Ecclesiastes20
[Lamentations]21
EstherHistory: 22Daniel 23Ezra-Nehemiah 24Chronicles
A twenty-four book Old Testament is obtained by counting the twelve Minor Prophets, Ezra-Nehemiah, both Samuels, both Kings, and both Chronicles each as a single unit. To arrive at twenty-two books, Ruth is counted as one with Judges and Lamentations is merged into a single book with Jeremiah.
To get thirty-nine books from the Hebrew Bible, we must simply count the books individually separating Samuels, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Judges-Ruth, Jeremiah-Lamentations into two each and the Minor Prophets into twelve individual books.
In broad strokes, the movement historically from the Hebrew Bible to the foremost English text, the King James Version (KJV) of 1611, took the following form. The Hebrew was translated into Greek in the Septuagint (LXX, 250-150 BC), the Septuagint was translated into Latin in the Latin Vulgate (AD 400), and the Vulgate made its impact on the translations into English including the King James Version.
We can now sketch the changes of number and order in the process of translation.
The users of the Septuagint did three things. First, they changed the Hebrew order into a topical arrangement in the pattern of law, history, poetry, prophecy. Second, they included additions to the Hebrew Bible. These additional books are called the Apocrypha. Third, they placed the Minor Prophets before the Major Prophets. Thus, the Greek Old Testament (excluding the Apocrypha) did not end with Malachi but with Daniel. Also, note that the Hebrew Bible ends with Chronicles. The end of the Old Testament in various versions has the following pattern:
Hebrew - Chronicles
Greek - Daniel
Latin - Malachi
English – Malachi
The Vulgate translation from the Hebrew to Latin by Jerome did two things: 1) it placed the apocryphal books after the New Testament indicating a separation from the Old Testament, and 2) it placed the Major Prophets before the minor. The Minor Prophets end with Malachi.
The English versions maintained the topical arrangement of the LXX (law, history, poetry, and prophecy) and not the three-fold division of the Hebrew Bible. As to order, they followed the Vulgate. So the Major Prophets precede the Minor Prophets; the Minor Prophets end with Malachi. The number and precise identity of the books derive from the Hebrew Bible in keeping with the testimony of Jesus to Old Testament Scripture (and thus excluding the Apocrypha from the body of authoritative writings).
The relationship of these versions regarding arrangement, order, and number can be viewed diagrammatically as follows:
Sources for the English Pattern
Topical arrangement-- LXX
Order of books-- Vulgate
Number and precise books-- Hebrew
Therefore, precisely the thirty-nine writings of the old covenant are authoritative for Christians today preeminently because of the testimony of Christ to the well-known and categorized Hebrew Scriptures.
2A. The opposition of Rome to the testimony of Christ
I want to mention some basic arguments used to draw us away from the thirty-nine books attested to by Christ. It is important that we interact with some of them because the stakes are high. Do we or do we not have every OT word that proceeded from the mouth of God? Roman Catholicism claims that we do not, a fact that argues in the big picture against Protestantism and for Catholicism since our theology is shaped by our standard.
One of the twenty-one arguments against Sola Scriptura is the claim that the Protestant Bible is missing seven books. According to Peters, Protestants have "deleted seven entire books from the Bible" (Sola Scriptura? 55-56). Protestants call the books in dispute apocryphal and Catholics call them the "second" canon or "deuterocanonical" books.
The term apocrypha literally means hidden (cf. cryptic in middle of the word; it refers to something ambiguous, obscure, and doubtful). Apocryphal books are books that have an ambiguous value. In relation to the OT, the Apocrypha are books that Protestants exclude from the OT but that Catholics include in the OT. The ambiguity concerns whether or not the words of these books are the very words of God given to guide His people.
There are three basic arguments used to show that the Apocrypha is to be included on an equal par with Scripture versus the testimony of Christ to the Hebrew Bible.
1) First, they are included in the LXX and it is the LXX that is cited by NT writers. The Jews had been dispersed throughout the known world and that world was deeply impacted by Greek culture right down into the days of the Roman Empire. As the gospel went out to the Jews first and then to the Greeks, it did so in the international language of Greek (cf. how English is the international language today). Understandably, the Greek NT has quotes from the Greek OT. But as the argument goes, the Greek OT contains the material we call the Apocrypha so the Apocrypha should be acknowledged as OT Scripture for the Christian.
The problem with this argument is that it is too general. It is like saying that because something in a basket of scrolls is considered Scripture then all the scrolls in the basket must be Scripture as well. The LXX is a basket that preserved a collage of scrolls of various levels of value. Some were interpretations of the Scriptures (as was the Book of Sirach) that would be like having the Bible and Calvin's Institutes in the same basket or on the same library shelf.
But as noted, Josephus (37-95 AD) spoke of only twenty-two books that the Jews considered divinely inspired and to which they dared add or subtract nothing. These are the books authorized by our Lord.
2) NT quotation (or allusion)
How should we reply to the claim that the Apocrypha is quoted or alluded to in the NT?
a) OT scholars (like G. D. Young, Revelation and the Bible, ed. Henry, p. 175) categorically state that "there is not a single quotation from any of the 14 or 15 books" of the Apocrypha. They are not quoted "as inspired Scripture, or as authority, or in any way…for any purpose." The burden of proof is placed on those who advocate such quotation. The entire case is highly suspect. For example, an Apocraphyal work states "Here come your sons whom you once let go, gathered in from the east and the west" (Baruch 4:37). It is claimed (Peters, fn41, p. 72) that Jesus alludes to this text when He says, "many will come from east and west and take their places at the feast with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob in the kingdom" (Matt. 8:11). However, there is only similarity and nothing more. There are many OT passages that use the language of east and west that could be alluded to and there is no evidence showing that it has to be the apocryphal book and not a canonical book that is cited. This is an example of how frail this argument is from alleged NT quotation and allusion. This explains the categorical conclusions by Young.
b) But we can make the further point that even if they were cited or alluded to in the NT that would not indicate canonicity. Writings other than the Hebrew Scriptures are quoted in the NT. Enoch is quoted in the book of Jude (v. 14) but this is not part of either the Hebrew Scriptures or part of the Apocrypha. Paul quotes from pagan Greek sources (Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 15:33). Whatever else may need to be said about these citations, this much is clear for this debate: simply quoting a source does not authenticate it as having divine authority for NT writers.
3) The church fathers (church tradition)
Do the early church fathers quote from these books as authoritative (cf. Archer, OT Introduction, 65ff)? It is better to say that some of them do and so of them do not. Jerome (about 400 AD), for example, who translated the Scriptures into Latin put his translation of the apocryphal books on a secondary level recognizing only the twenty-two books of the Hebrew canon. Augustine is inconsistent and can be quoted in favor and in opposition to the Apocrypha. Athanasius (died 365 AD) who is highly regarded in Catholic tradition because of his work on the doctrine of the trinity says, "There are, then, of the Old Testament twenty-two books." He also speaks of other books "not included in the canon" but "appointed to be read." This is that basket of books of various kinds where all are considered valuable but only the Hebrew Scriptures are equal to the thirty-nine books of our English Scriptures are of divine authority.
As far as church history is concerned the decisive moment was at the Council of Trent (1546) when the Catholic Church declared an anathema (a curse) on all, like the reformers, who do not accept the apocryphal books. From this source they get validity for such things as praying for the dead and Purgatory (Peters, Scripture Alone? 59). Catholics had a theological axe to grind by adding to the canon in their opposition to the reformers. Plainly, the case is not that Protestants deleted but that Catholics added to the OT canon. And they did so in direct contradiction of the testimony of Christ to the well-known body of Hebrew writings.
Conclusion
Therefore, precisely the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament are authoritative for Christians today preeminently because of the authority of Christ. They give us the gospel (Rom. 16:25-27) in the new wine of fulfillment (Matt. 5:17) that has ethical relevance for life in the kingdom of God (Matt. 5-7; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).
Thus the Old Testament books are important for the Christian. They are to be read for guidance and nurture (Ps. 119:105, 18, 34-37). They deserve reflective meditation and prayer. In this way, the Christian fulfills his duty to live by the Old Testament bread of life in serving the Lord of the new covenant. By these words, the Christian walks in the way of the Spirit and finds renewal by the sovereign working of the Spirit (Scripture says is equivalent to what the Spirit says; the written words are equal in authority with God's creative word, 2 Tim. 3:16).
To be sure, the Old Testament is passed through the shifting screen of fulfillment to its present relevance for us. There are changes; there is the new wine of fulfillment. The old wineskin structure of kingdom promise extended up to and included John and now there is a new covenant structure or pattern of life (Matt. 11:13). But with all the change from the old order to the new our basic posture and attitude is to be focused on the continuity of Old Testament with the New Testament (Matt. 5:17). By the authority of Jesus, the Old Testament is authoritative bread for life. By His example and instruction we glean from it the new wine and the new wineskin of fulfillment. To be consistently Christian we must acknowledge that the Old Testament is our supreme authority and judge in faith and practice.