GraceLife Thoughts – Questions About the Canon (Part 4)

Grace Thoughts

GraceLife Thoughts – Questions about the Canon (Part 4)

We are now looking at how the early Church used the apocryphal books written between 200 BC and 70 AD. In the last part of our study, we looked at Church leaders during the first 350 years. They are often divided into three groups – Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene – based on the Council of Nicaea which met in Nicaea, Bithynia in 325 AD. Roman Emperor Constantine 1 convened the Council 12 years after Rome instituted religious tolerance throughout the Empire, ending the severe Roman persecution of Christians.

The earliest “creed” of the Church is thought by many to be what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5:

“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.”

As you can see, it was a simple creed addressing the doctrines of Christology and Soteriology. Later creeds of the Church addressed those and other doctrines. In our last study, we shared about the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The purpose of the Nicene Council was to bring consensus about doctrine and practice to the Church. The Council of more than 300 bishops agreed upon a statement now known as the Nicene Creed:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ , the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost.” Original Nicene Creed, AD 325

What we don’t find in this particular creed – though extremely important because of vital issues facing the Church at that time – is an answer to our question about which, if any, apocryphal books are Scripture. We will need to look to the history of the early Church to see what they believed about the inspired Word of God.