Getting Canonicity


The books of the Bible are known as the canon. The process of how the books of the Bible became the books of the Bible is called canonization.

The word canon comes from the Greek word that means a ruler or measuring rod.  Initially the word became the name for the standard for what books were worthy of being called the Word of God.  And as time passed The Canon simply became synonymous for the Bible itself. Scholar F.F. Bruce notes that the canon is "the list of the writings acknowledged by the Church as documents of the divine revelation.” (The Canon of Scripture, 17) Therefore when we talk about the canon we are referring to the books that were recognized as God’s Word.

So how did the canon come about?

The Old Testament

The Jewish Bible contains the same books in our Old Testament except they combined books like Kings, Samuel, etc. to a final number of 24 books in contrast to our 39.  Written primarily in Hebrew it had three major sections known as the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

The Old Testament canon is fairly easy to come to grips with because it was well established by the time of Jesus. Even when Jesus quoted the Old Testament he referred to it as Scripture.  For example, when he cites Psalm 118 in Matthew 21:42 he says about that Psalm, “Have you never read in the Scriptures…” Thus the question of canonicity for the Old Testament is hardly debatable seeing that Jesus testimony essentially affirmed Genesis through Malachi as being the inspired Word of God.

The NewTestament

We must remember that when we read about the Christians in the days of the apostles they didn’t have the New Testament put together for them. It was being compiled and assembled during their age.

“So what did they use?” you might ask.

First, they used what they already had – the Old Testament Scriptures. It’s ironic that the first Christians in the era of the New Testament didn’t have a New Testament as we know it. They kept the Hebrew Bibles they had at the time. However, now that Jesus had revealed himself as the Messiah, the Hebrew Bible took on a deeper and fuller meaning with Jesus filling up every nook and cranny of Old Testament Scripture.

But they also had the teachings of Jesus and not only  what he said during his three years of ministry but what he added through the power of the Holy Spirit in the words of the apostles He commissioned. As he reminded them in John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

Initially those teachings were passed down by oral tradition, going person-by-person, church-by-church, spreading it as far as possible. And these oral teachings were excruciatingly accurate.  It’s not like a game of grapevine today where the story gets more corrupted with each passing.  This was a culture, like many around the world, who almost took a scientific approach to passing down stories and teachings.  And that’s exactly what they did…they passed them down.

Paul alludes to that process in 1 Corinthians 11:2 when he applauds the Christians at Corinth in learning God’s truths (called traditions or that which is “handed down” from the apostles), “Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.” Thus, in summary, for the first fifty years of the Church most of the New Testament teachings were primarily in oral form but were beginning to be written down and collected.

But as those fifty years were going by, the Scriptures were being written. Listen to the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke, “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” (1:1-4)

Amazing!  Here we see both oral tradition and written word coming together. It is the passing of one phase to another. Luke wants those who have learned by hearing truths to learn now by reading them. A new day has dawned on the Church. Scripture is getting out.

Not only do you have Luke, Matthew, Mark, and John writing accounts of Jesus but you’ve also got apostles like Paul writing with divine authority to local churches  in places like Thessalonica, Corinth and Colosse.  But there’s a small problem: local churches are spread throughout different lands and countries.  And to complicate things there’s no fast-communication system…no internet, no telephone, no pony express.  Communication was something one took into their own hands.

The results were local churches possessing different amounts of New Testament Scripture.  One church might have Timothy and Luke while others might have Ephesians and John, while others might not have anything. But they were circulating! For example, we have a letter written to Corinth towards the end of the 1st Century by Clement of Rome in which he uses a free rendering of material from Matthew and Luke.  He also seems to be strongly influenced by Hebrews and is familiar with Romans and Corinthians.  There are also reflections of 1 Timothy, Titus, 1 Peter, and Ephesians. (Milton Fisher, The Canon of the NT in The Origin of the Bible, 69-70)

So what did Christians have at the end of the first 50 years of Christianity?  They had the Old Testament, oral tradition and abbreviated New Testaments floating around.

Collecting and Canonizing the New Testament

The next step was to collect the New Testament Scripture that was out and about in the churches.  And over the next 200 years that’s what happened! Now some might regard two centuries as not being very quick but one has to remember you’ve got these letters that were not only spread all over but they also had to be examined to see if they were Scripture or not.  This necessitates a longer period of time so everyone can get on the same page.

It is very important to note that the church in developing the canon didn’t make Scripture.  They only sought to affirm the Scripture that already existed and was being utilized by the local church!  In other words, God had written his word the very second the ink dried on the original manuscripts penned by Paul, John, or the other writers of Scripture, the Church was simply trying to publicly recognize them for the benefit for all Christians. They didn’t make the writings inspired, God had already done that, they simply tried to put them together for us! J.I. Packer writes, “The church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity.  God gave us gravity by His work of creation, and similarly He gave us the New Testament canon by inspiring the original books that make it up.” (God Has Spoken, 119).

But in recognizing the Scriptures a general pattern emerged.  A book which found itself in the canon was usually a book that had:

Remember, the Church didn’t produce Scripture; they simply looked around and saw what the churches had already embraced as God’s Word. F.F. Bruce comments, “A work which enjoyed only local recognition was not likely to be acknowledged as part of the canon of the [universal] church.  On the other hand, a work which was acknowledged by the greater part of the [universal] church would probably receive universal recognition sooner or later.” (The Canon of Scripture, 261)

That explains why some of the first books to be canonized were the Gospels because they were everywhere and everybody was already regarding them as Scripture.  It also explains why books like Jude and Revelation, because of their little circulation and popularity, took longer to make the canon.

This also helps us see the work of the Holy Spirit!  Jesus is the ultimate “Decider” of what is true or not.  So, by his Holy Spirit, he moved his church to accept works that would become the canon.  He led their hearts to resonate with that which was from him and to reject that which wasn’t. That should add confidence to the fact that the New Testament you hold in your hand contains exactly the 27 books Jesus wanted his Church to possess!

That’s how the canon came to pass.

Authored by Teaching Pastor Yancey Arrington

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24, ESV)