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CG: "When you say 'closed cannon of Scripture' are you referring to the first time the cannon was closed or the second time in the 1500's?"

Heb. 1:1-2:

"In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...".

God's speaking to us by his Son is the _culmination_ of his speaking to mankind and is _his greatest and final revelation_ to mankind.

(The exceptional greatness of the revelation that comes through the Son, far exceeds any revelation in the Old Covenant as noted over and over again in the first and second chapters of Hebrews.)

Once the writings of the New Testament apostles and their authorized companions were completed, we have everything that God wants us to know about the life, death, & resurrection of Christ, and its meaning for the lives of believers _for all time_. In this way Hebrews 1&2 shows us why no more writings can be added to the Bible after the time of the New Testament. The canon is now closed.

It is not accidental that the apostle John wrote that warning (about adding or subtracting to the words of Scripture) in the very last chapter of the very last book of the Bible. [Rev.22:18-19]

For many books, their placement in the canon is of little consequence. But just as Genesis must be placed first (because it tells us of creation), so Revelation must be placed last (because its focus is to tell us of the future and God's new creation). The events described in Revelation are historically subsequent to the events described in the rest of the New Testament and require that Revelation be placed where it is.

Thus, it is not appropriate for us to understand this exceptionally strong warning at the end of Revelation as applying in a secondary way to the whole of Scripture.

Placed here, where it must be placed, the warning forms an appropriate conclusion to the entire canon of Scripture. Along with Heb.1&2 and the history-of-redemption perspective implicit in those verses, this broader application of Rev.23:18-19 also suggests to us that we should expect no more Scripture to be added beyond what we already have.

The warning God gave through John in Rev.22 shows that God himself places supreme value on our having a correct collection of God-breathed writings, no more, no less. He's quite able to see to it that we have them. The closed canon we have today is God's doing. What we have didn't depend on men.

In fact, some of the earliest writers CLEARLY distinguished the difference between what they wrote and the writings of the apostles. In A.D.110, Ignatius said, "I do not order you as did Peter and Paul; THEY WERE APOSTLES, I am a convict; they were free, I am even until now, a slave".

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would see to it that the disciples would be able to remember and record without error all that he had said to them when he was with them. [John 14:26; 16:13. See also: 2 Pet.3:2; 1 Cor.2:13; 1 Thess.4:15; and Rev. 22:18-19].

So in compiling the canon of Scripture, the work of the early church was not to bestow divine authority or even ecclesiastical authority upon some merely human writings --- but to RECOGNIZE the divinely authored characteristics of writings that already had such a quality.

This is because the ultimate criterion of canonicity is divine authorship --- (as Jesus promised) --- NOT human or ecclesiastical approval.

CAVEAT: I realize that unless one has "the mind of Christ" he will consider the infallible Word of God (Scripture) as "foolishness" and won't be able to discern spiritual truth from error, so what I wrote above is only for those who have "ears to hear".