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100 What Do the Christian Scriptures Claim for Themselves?
apostle Paul confronted those in the church at Corinth who claimed to
receive revelations from God, he did not deny it, but he subordinated
it to his own apostolic word: “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or
spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you
are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not
recognized” (1 Cor. 14:37–38).
God may lead us to see things and know things, but all our revelatory
experiences with God are subordinate to Scripture. Therefore, we
are not infallible. God is. And the word he inspired is. We may experience
the powerful, personal dimension of God’s word as the Holy Spirit
makes it real and personal to us (Rom. 5:5). But God has bound his
infallible word to the writings—the Scriptures.
Thus, there is a sense that Jesus and we are inside the drama of redemptive
history and a sense in which we can view it as whole through
God’s inspired word. We are in the story. And we can read the story. The
written record of God’s dealings with creation is our only authoritative
guide for understanding the story we are in. Only God sees things
whole and sees them perfectly. He has inspired a book that gives the
only infallible record of God’s nature and will and plan.
Therefore, when Jesus comes into the world, he is coming as part of
the ongoing history of redemption. Indeed, he comes as the capstone of
the history of redemption (Matt. 5:17), the fulfillment of what the Old
Testament was pointing toward (Rom. 10:4; cf. Luke 24:27). But here
is the crucial thing concerning the Old Testament. When Jesus comes,
he finds the Old Testament is complete and closed. He does not write
the last chapter of the Old Testament canon. The canon is closed. The
drama goes on. But Act 1 of biblical history is complete, and fixed, and
written. Though Jesus was active in the Old Testament (cf. John 12:41),
he now meets the Old Testament from the outside. It is a book. And he
is reading it, though he once was acting to bring the book into being.
As the apostle Peter said,
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the
grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring
what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when
he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
(1 Pet. 1:10–11)