Today we accept the twenty?seven books of the New Testament as authoritative and can do so without the slightest doubt. We depend on the early Christians' decision that each of the twenty?seven books has apostolic authorship or authorization. We do this since the early Christians were in a much better position to judge. The reason for this lies in the concept of apostolicity, which limits itself to a certain place and time. The recipients of each writing were in the best position to know where the writings came from. Thus we accept their decision and can do so with confidence since the Holy Spirit was at work guiding their decision.
The apostles or other early church leaders did not explain how the actual canonization process occurred. At first each of the apostle's writings were acknowledged individually as authoritative. There was no canon that made them authoritative. But as time passed, several factors caused a need for a canon of authoritative written Word.
The church gathered together the writings that were accepted as the apostles' from the very beginning. This was no real problem for the church since it as a whole generally acknowledged the same writings. Those that were questioned were small in number and were disputed by only a few. Generally, when this questioning occurred, it was done in later times by obviously false teachers or occurred only in isolated areas of the church. Today when, we study these early writings, we have not only the early writings testimony that they are Scripture, but also internal evidence shows they are a special, stand-alone class of writings.
In summary, the New Testament is our authority in religious matters because it is tied to Christ and the historical-redemptive events. Christ established the means by which it was written. He directed the apostles and their associates to give His Word and sent the Holy Spirit as a guide. The early Christians accepted the apostolic word as Christ's Word because of its supernational origin and character. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the early church gathered together the apostles' writings that God wanted preserved, thus completing the last step in recording the final written revelation of God to man, the New Testament.
From chapter 2 of Authority of Scripture, © copyright 2000 by Leland M. Haines, Northville, MI.
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