Gospel of Judas?
Date: April 7, 2006
So there seems to
be an uproar this lately about new documents which could be the "Gospel for
Judas". If it wasn't bad enough some Florida State University concluded
that Jesus walked on ice rather than water. So like Leon had said
in his post, Peter just missed the patch of ice?
Anyways, my
English Pastor back home wrote an email about it with added background that was
pretty helpful and insightful. Thanks Bayne!
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There's this
doctrine called "inspiration", something we talked about in my Sunday School
class on the Bible (yes, shameless promo!), and something we feel the Bible
teaches. Inspiration teaches that God has inspired or guided the writers of
Scripture by the Holy Spirit so that every word they wrote down is what He
wanted written, nothing more and nothing less. Thus, we can say from cover
to cover and from word to word, the Bible is God's Word given to us.
An extension of
inspiration is the doctrine of "infallibility" or "inerrancy". This means
that if the Scriptures are truly inspired and co-authored by God, then the
Bible is without error because God doesn't lie or make mistakes. The Bible,
therefore, is infallible and inerrant.
If you combine
these two doctrines of inspiration and infallibility then, the weight of
Scripture proclaims truthfully that Judas was a traitor who sold Jesus out
for thirty pieces of silver, in keeping with him being a thief who helped
himself to the money bag (Matthew 26:14-16; John 12:6). This stands in
sharp contrast to what this Gospel of Judas states, so unless you can
reconcile the two, either the Bible is wrong or the Gospel of Judas is
wrong. Guess what I'm going to pick?
But
shouldn't new documents and letters still be taken into consideration, you
say? Well, here's where another doctrine comes into play, that of
"canonicity". Canonicity refers to the issue of the canon (meaning
"standard" or "measure"), namely concerning the question of what letters and
books pass the standard and are rightly considered God's Word. The early
church dealt with these issues in the first four centuries A.D.
approximately. They weighed which writings were truly inspired by God or
not, and they eventually came down to the 27 books we have in the New
Testament today. We believe that the Lord sovereignly and providentially
guided them by the Holy Spirit to come down to the right decision. And we
implicitly assume that had God wanted more or less books to have
been included, then that's what would've happened. As it is, what happened
is what happened and now the Bible is a settled matter. The canon is
closed. No books get in and no books get out!
As a side note,
if a newly discovered writing by Paul or John or whoever did coincide with
Christian teaching, I'd be open to that being genuine. But still,
I wouldn't support it being included into our Scriptures. It seems that
there is something irreversible about God allowing the early Church to
settle the matter of canonicity once and for all, and we Christians
following in history just need to abide by God's providence.
So in summary,
taking into account the doctrines of inspiration, infallibility, and
canonicity, when spurious writings such as the Gospel of Judas try to make a
splash or when a professor says that Jesus might've walked on ice, we need
to stand comfortably in the shadow of the Scriptures given to us (much the
way Ann Darrow stood under King Kong's protection as she stared down a
dinosaur) and say, "I don't think so. The Bible given truthfully to us by
God Himself says otherwise."
Believing in the
doctrines of inspiration, infallibility, and canonicity doesn't happen
overnight, but if you get to that point of conviction, it's a good place to
be when error and heresy make their demonic appearance
Here are
some links on the doctrines I mentioned for further reading pleasure:
Inspiration:
Infallibility (Inerrancy)
Canonicity:
What is it?
How and
when?