Teddy James

AFA Journal staff writer

December 2015 – For children, nothing is slower than Christmas morning. The excitement over unwrapping gifts makes sleep impossible. When morning arrives, they sneak to the Christmas tree for a peek or run loudly to Mommy and Daddy’s room to start Christmas morning early. As children grow, they often tend to lose the awe of Christmas morning, replacing it with normalcy and mundane predictability.

In a similar sense, newborn Christians may initially behold Scripture for what it is: God’s gift through which He reveals Himself. Unfortunately, somewhere along the journey of Christian living, some lose that fascination, and their encounter with the Word becomes an unexciting routine.

Likewise, babes in Christ see their Savior as the ultimate gift from a loving Father, but with time, the newness may grow dim. Dr. Gareth Cockerill, vice president for academic affairs and professor of biblical interpretation and theology at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, recently spoke to AFA Journal about reviving a reverence and awe of both the Holy Scriptures, known as the Canon; and the Son of God, the Christ of Christmas.

Understand its history
“The origin of the New Testament canon begins in the Old Testament,” Cockerill said. “The Jewish religion was based on a covenant and thus was written down. It is only normal that early Christians, believing Jesus had fulfilled Old Testament promises, would write His story down.”

This writing included the four gospels, which early Christians saw as more than mere biographies. Cockerill said, “By 150 A.D., Irenaeus, an early church father, confirmed the Gospels in all of his works. Around the same time, Tatian, a pupil of Justin Martyr, took a Syriac translation and compiled the Gospels into one narrative called the Diatessaron.” These two facts show the Gospels were widely accepted and used before the close of the second century.

Cockerill said, “In 325 A.D., after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Council of Nicea met to discuss six to eight books many Christians had accepted as Scripture but others questioned. This was not forming the canon. This was tying a ribbon on the gift that was already established as Canon.”

Although the Council of Nicea did not use his terminology, Cockerill notes five criteria a book had to meet to be considered canonical.

Of utmost importance was apostolicity. Canonical books had to be written or approved by one or more apostles. Canonical books also had to be antique, written in the era of the apostles; orthodox, agreeing with the Old Testament revelation of God; catholic, universally accepted; and traditional, seen as Scripture from the time of their writing.

He said, “Apostolicity was crucial because it was the authority of Jesus who appointed the 12 apostles and sent them out with His official authority. They were witnesses to His life, death, burial, and resurrection. No one in the early church debated inspiration, inerrancy, or infallibility. They were assumed to be true because they were writing under the authority of Jesus.”

Understand its purpose
No leader in the early church had to sanction the books of the New Testament to give them authority. Cockerill said, “These books were written assuming authority. It is blatant in the Gospels and Paul shows this in many of his introductions. His identification as an apostle is not window dressing. He is announcing the authority God gave him to give the gospel and instruct people how they should live in light of it.”

For those early believers, Scripture was more than a book to read and place back on a shelf. The words were life.

Cockerill noted believers had to trust in the gospel explained through these books. He said, “It is hard for us to grasp the reverence, the awe, early Christians felt for Holy Scripture. It was authoritative. It was apostolic. Most importantly, it was the source of the gospel. This is where they found the truth of Jesus.”

Not only did the early church find the truths of Jesus in the Scriptures, they also found the person of Jesus there. The New Testament provides all the early church needed to know about both the historical and theological reality of Jesus. In the Gospel of John, the apostle uses the Greek word logos, translated in today’s Scripture as “word.” He says, “In the beginning was the word…” To the first people reading it, logos was a pregnant word. Cockerill said, “Logos invoked the idea of life, rationale, structure, and expression of meaning. Invoking it in his introduction, John gives readers an accurate biographical picture of Jesus and a full theological treatment of the Son of God who took on flesh and dwelt among us.”

Understand its use
For an early church to have a book of Scripture, a literate individual had to copy it by hand. Most people in early centuries could neither read nor write and this impacted the style, structure, and use of the New Testament. Cockerill said, “The biblical books were written to be heard, to be read aloud by the few who could read and listened to by the rest.”

These special readers were also the keepers and protectors of the books. Part of the desire for standardizing the canon was rooted in the fact that under persecution, keepers could surrender noncanonical books, but they would surrender their lives before giving up canonical books.

Canonical books were central to the worship of the early church. Early church services consisted of reading large blocks of Scripture with little commentary. Cockerill said, “One thing many modern churches lack is prolonged reading of Scripture. In many modern services, pastors present their ideas, weaving Scripture in as support. The early church would not consider that a Christian worship service. They saw these books as a means through which God confronts believers in Christ and draws them to Himself. It was Holy Scripture and the sacraments that made up a worship service. Much of the modern church has lost the reverence and awe that defined first century gatherings of Jesus worshippers.”

This Christmas, as Christians across the world celebrate the incarnation of Christ, Cockerill emphasizes that there are two types of incarnation: “As we have the Son of God taking on human form, we have a parallel in the Word of God taking on human word. Just as Jesus is 100% God and 100% human, so Holy Scripture is 100% God’s word and 100% human word.”  

More than academics by Teddy James
As I majored in biblical studies in college, the Bible was a textbook in many classes. After graduation, it was hard to stop viewing it as such.

Recently, I have been reading through the Gospel of Mark with my wife and children. When we read about Jesus performing miracles, my young children looked at me with wide eyes and asked, "How Jesus make people feel better?"

I became inspired anew by their wonder at the stories of Jesus. As I prayed for God to warm my heart to Scripture, I began going through AFA’s Behold Your God series (afastore.net) and again studied the development and transmission of the Bible. I am still traveling this journey, and God is fanning the coals and renewing my passion for His Word.

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More resources
▶ Christian Faith in the Old Testament: The Bible of the Apostles by Gareth Cockerill
▶ Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament by Michael J. Kruger
▶ The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce M. Metzger
▶ The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce
▶ The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism by Roger T. Beckworth
▶ “10 basic facts about the New Testament canon every Christian should memorize” by Michael J. Kruger (michaeljkruger.com)