Is the Bible the Final Revelation from God?

I would argue that the New Testament of the Bible teaches that there is no further divinely inspired written revelation to come.

The Bible is God’s final and complete divine revelation to mankind.

Heb 1:2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

The word “spoken” is in Greek the aorist tense, indicative mood, and is a third person singular verb. The aorist tense is similar to the past tense in English. The indicative mood is the grammatical mood of reality. This revelation was final because made by one who in all He is and does, reveals the Father.

Jud 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

“Once” is literally “once for all.”

The faith was complete and entire in Jude’s day; it is now contained in the written Scriptures of the New Testament, with no need for additional revelation or doctrinal development.

Remember that Jude identifies himself as the brother of James (Jude 1:1), and both were sons of Mary the mother of Jesus (Mark 6:3). This places very high authority upon what Jude has declared.

Since the faith was declared complete as to its doctrinal content by Jude in his day, there is no need and no expectation for any supposed further divine revelation. All claims to such further revelation from whatever source must be false.

This means that no church, denomination, or even world religion can make a true claim to have further written divine revelation that supplants or even supplements what we already have from God recorded in the Bible.

Muslims believe their holy book, the Koran, supersedes what is given in the New Testament. They claim that Mohammed is the final prophet from God. That does not square or agree with what the New Testament teaches.

Roman Catholics sometimes make the claim that their church has traditions which preserve truths from the time of Christ that were not included in the writings of the New Testament (John 20:30;  21:25). Sometimes they claim that there has been further doctrinal or theological development since New Testament times and they are the custodians of that new body of truth. Such claims do not square with the fact that Jude claimed to possess the full body of truth in his day, “the faith once [for all] delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3).

Mormons claim to have new divine revelation received by their prophet Joseph Smith now recorded in the Book of Mormon. Once again, such a claim contradicts what is declared in the New Testament, and so must be false.

We need to take care that we go by the Bible alone. The Bible declares it is the complete and perfect revelation from God. It contains all the divine revelation God intends for us to have until the return of our Lord Jesus Christ in person at His promised (John 14:1, 2, 3) second coming (2 Timothy 3:15, 16, 17;  Isaiah 8:20;  Psalm 19:7, 10;  1 Peter 1:24, 25;  1 Peter 2:2;  2 Peter 3:18).

 

 

This entry was posted in Bible Historicity and Validity, Doctrinal Discussions, What the Bible says about itself and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Connect with Facebook

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.