Concerning the Holy Scriptures, the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith makes the following statement:
“The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience, although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in divers manners to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased”.
The confession then continues to set out the assets of the Word of God; its indispensability, its identity, its authority, its sufficiency, its clarity, its availability and its finality. The Baptist Confession of Faith is not alone among the historic confessions and creeds of the protestant church in such clear declarations concerning the Word of God, the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration to name two, make similar statements.
So then, one may ask, if this is the case why is there so much confusion, and dare one say, ignorance with regard to knowing and accepting the sufficiency of God’s Word. One reason is that many Christians do not accept the historic confessions and creeds of the church, they consider them as being rather old fashioned, and therefore irrelevant to our modern society, or as is more likely, they have never been introduced to them.
As a result many Christians have little understanding of the importance of God’s Word, and therefore do not see it as a sure foundation on which to build their Christian experience. Therefore, as the apostle Paul warns in his letter to the Ephesians, they find themselves being: “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Ephesians 4:14).
False doctrine is ever present in the church, and more so today than in the past, it is a fact that Satan is out to deceive believers into thinking that they need to take into consideration new information that has come to light since the formulation of the Word as we have it today in order to get a true understanding of Jesus Christ.
One such approach is The Quest for the Historical Jesus which is an attempt to use historical rather than religious methods to construct a verifiable biography of Jesus. The assumption is that before the modern period no one studied Jesus historically, by which is meant no one subjected the New Testament sources to critical evaluation with respect to their historicity.
So-called modern research into the historical Jesus began with the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a time when man began to use his reason to discover the world, casting off the superstition and fear of the medieval world. The effort to discover the natural laws which governed the universe led to scientific, political and social advances. Enlightenment thinkers examined the rational basis of all beliefs and in the process rejected the authority of church and state.
In the Enlightenment, the church's assumption that what the gospels and the rest of the New Testament intend about Jesus is historically accurate was called into question as a matter of principle. No longer was the authority of the Scriptures and the church accepted as a point of departure; rather "Reason" was to rule all of life and especially academic life. Such an approach surely diminishes the authority of the Word of God and sets reason above divine enlightenment.
Another approach that has just appeared is “The Lost Teachings of Jesus”. This apparent new revelation is the result of 20 years research into world religions, and another 5 years research on early Christianity by Steven S. Sadleir, detailed in his upcoming book “Christ Enlightened”. Mr Sadleir is a retired economist and investment banker and meditation teacher who states that “What was lost has been found, and you owe to yourself to discover it”.
Detailing the contents of his free course of study he states on his web site, and I quote:
“Over the past 60 years hundreds of archaeological excavations in Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and other sites has brought to light these other "lost gospels" and they give us a whole new perspective on what Jesus taught and what the first few generations of Christians practiced. For decades now leading scholars from the best universities around the world have been translating these ancient texts into English and much of what has been literally buried in the desert sand has arisen and his word has come a second time. Now we know what the first Christians believed and practiced, how Jesus was teaching them The Way”.
He continues:
“I have spent the last five years studying what these scholars have unveiled and it will blow your mind. I was raised Baptist, and was given a very cut and dry version of what the message of Jesus was, but now I have a much bigger and broader perspective of Christ's teachings. What has come to light is a powerful means to realize God through Christ's teachings; there is more to it than faith and belief, there is enlightenment. The apostles Thomas, James, Philip, Mary and others all had gospels that were read and studied by the descendents of the first disciples, including the followers in Nazareth and in Galilee; now we know what they had to say, and what they had to say will change your life”.
(www.christenlightened.com)
One of the doctrines that Scripture affirms for itself is it’s own sufficiency. The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness in the Scriptures. We need nothing more. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 affirms not only the authority and inspiration of Scripture, but also it’s sufficiency.
Further to this, we see that since Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of the Scriptures, and He Himself is the culmination of God's plan of redemption, the need for further revelation has vanished (Hebrews 1:1-2; 1 Corinthians 3:9-10). Jesus is the end of all things, only the apostles were given the authority to record the life and teachings of Christ in the Scriptures, and to add to what God has given us is strictly warned against (Revelation. 22:18).
Satan will not cease in his attacks against the Word of God and we can guarantee that these will become worse as time passes, but as Christians we have a responsibility to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).
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