Whether a written revelation was necessary.

Even granting a special-verbal revelation, why were there so many centuries before the Lord had Moses commit to writing the account of the beginning of the world, of human history, the Flood and Tower of Babel, and especially of the covenant people after Abraham? One answer is that the ancients possessed an oral tradition for which we have no categories. Another answer is said (by many scholars) to be embedded in the text of Genesis and even the beginning of Exodus1—that is, a hint, by the use of the Hebrew ’elleh toledot,2—roughly meaning, “these are the generations of”—as the markings or “breaks,” signifying prior written records.3 It would be no strike against Mosaic authorship if this were the case; though the Christian apologist should show caution in hanging too much upon this one way or the other. Let us consider three main objections that have been brought against the necessity of Scripture from within the church4:

Objection 1. If there have ever been true churches that existed without the written word, then the written word is superfluous. There have been such churches. Therefore the written word is superfluous.

Reply Obj. 1. The first premise is a non-sequitur and it begs the whole question. Since the orthodox already claim that God chose to add the written Word while the church already existed—both in the case of the pre-Mosaic church and in the case of the apostolic church awaiting the completion of the New Testament canon—the burden of proof is squarely on the critic of scriptural necessity to prove his proposition.  

Objection 2. If there have ever been illiterate true believers, then the written word was unnecessary for their salvation. There have been many illiterate true believers. Therefore the written word has been unnecessary for them.

Reply Obj. 2. This objection has a hidden premise—one that reduces the entire necessity of Scripture to every Christian possessing it equally. But this is simply not the orthodox doctrine. That the illiterate can be saved, no one denies. That the illiterate benefit precisely by the faith of the literate, thus cultivated by the Scriptures, the critic seems not to have considered. 

Objection 3. The Scriptures themselves teach that the Holy Spirit Himself teaches us (Isa. 54:13; Jer. 31:34; 1 Jn. 2:27). The Spirit cannot be in need of anything in creation to teach. Therefore the word is unnecessary to be taught by God.

Reply Obj. 3. Much like the first two premises, we have question-begging and hidden premises. Whether the Spirit has chosen to ordinarily speak through the Word in all ages (He was its Author, after all) seems not to bother the objector. Beyond that, this objection is always as hypocritical as it is self-defeating. If the objector was consistent with the alleged logical conflict between the Spirit’s teaching and man’s teaching with the word, then such a man would, as Augustine pointed out against the same sorts in his day,4 be silent and leave everyone else alone with the Spirit. Yet here the objector is, breathing out his nonsense.

Aside from such direct objections, there are often misunderstandings, such as that, if the ancients were so proficient in the oral tradition, then surely this would make the Scriptures unnecessary. However, it is one thing to memorize for the purposes of the individual or the community under one’s care; it is another thing to clarify or to demonstrate when that shared meaning has been confused or the tradition disputed. For this, a record becomes an arbiter. 

We can speak of a “when” and a “what” in terms of the physical production of the Bible. There was a time when modern people started to hear that writing did not exist during the age that Moses was said to have composed those first five books of the Bible. However, it was later discovered that “writing was widespread”6 in both Mesopotamia and Egypt by the third millennium B.C. which predates even the time of the Patriarchs.  

There was a long development of the physical material used to write on. The most ancient writings were on stone, clay, potsherds, wood and wax. These each had obvious disadvantages. Stone could last the longest, but it required stone-cutting which was laborious. The Code of Hammurabi is a famous example of this outside of the Bible, though we might also think of the tablets of the law (Ex. 31:18). There are even details about a more special preservation:

“And on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster. And you shall write on them all the words of this law” (Deut. 27:2-3).

Others could be used more by the masses, but could not be expected to last: clay was accessible and needed only to be hardened by the sun, but it was not durable. Things become more developed with papyrus. We know about what it is from the Bible itself—“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?” (Job 8:11) This was a plant or reed that was in abundance in the larger rivers like the Nile, and it could be separated into thin strips to make the first paper. 2 John 12 uses the Greek word χάρτου, which the ESV renders “paper,” but it was essentially papyrus.

Closer to the time of Christ, another substance began to be used from the skins of animals. These were called parchment when they were treated in a particular way. As these were more durable than papyrus, they became the standard means of transmitting the Scriptures by the early Middle Ages. But they were used by Christians as early as the Apostles themselves. Paul says to Timothy, “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments” (1 Tim. 4:13). 

We then come full circle to reasons that this special revelation had to be both verbal and written. Let us return to that first section in the Confession, which continues:

“therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.”

It will be impossible to get into every turn of phrase here. But perhaps the most obvious reason given here is the better preservation and propagation of the truth. “Getting it in writing,” so to speak, is the basic way that human beings can locate meaning that is designed to function as a permanent reference point. Secondly, there is that more sure establishment, which begins in a greater clarity afforded by the form of speech. Calvin’s metaphor of the spectacles to the old man’s eyes comes to mind here.7 Think of how Luke began his Gospel: 

“it seemed good to me … to write an orderly account for you … that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (Lk. 1:3, 4). 

Shedd adds that the doctrines of general revelation “as taught in Scripture differ from the same doctrine as taught in Plato, for example, (a) by a stronger evidence and greater certainty … [and] (b) by freedom from erroneous elements.”8

A written revelation wars against the corruption of the flesh. Positively, the word of God is the life of the church: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn. 6:63). Turretin points out that the Scriptures are necessary “not only to the well-being … of the church, but also to its very existence.”9 Against the malice of Satan and of the world. Think of where Paul says that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Cor. 4:4). It is not hard to imagine what this means, yet that early seventeenth century Synopsis helps us once again:

“However, when length of life was shortened and the state of wickedness was increasing daily, and Satan by means of his misleading oracles and apparitions with which he imitated God and his appearance was deluding the human race throughout the world.”10

To commit the same wholly unto writing. How does the written form make truth more “established”? For one thing, there are many false prophets and many fraudulent writings. They answer the question “Has God really said?” (Gen. 3:1) in all of its deceitful forms. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rom. 15:4).

The ultimate reason is for belief in God’s only means of salvation. This stands to reason. If Christ is the only way to the Father (Jn. 14:6), and salvation can be found in no other name (Acts 4:12), if one cannot believe without having heard the message (Rom. 10:14), then the inscripturated gospel is absolutely necessary to the preached and heard and believed gospel. So elsewhere the same reason is given:

“That your trust may be in the Lord, I have made them known to you today, even to you” (Prov. 22:19).

John’s Gospel ends by mentioning how far the works of Jesus exceeded what he had actually included in his record: “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31). More could be said about the necessity of Scripture in terms of its function for those who do believe; but such uses are best treated under the headings of Scripture’s clarity and sufficiency.

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1. This argument is made of the opening words of Exodus, ואלה שמות, which may be rendered, “And these are the names” – see Charles Dyer & Eugene Merrill, Old Testament Survey (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), 39

2. cf. Tremper Longman, How to Read Genesis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 46-47.

3. James Jordan speculates that Joseph is actually the best candidate to have compiled, or even written, such Pre-Mosaic records while in the courts of Egypt – see Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999), 35-36.

4. cf. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Preface, 8.

5. These are taken from Brakel (CRS, I:25-26), which he formulates as the objections of Rome, but it seems to me that they can be more fruitfully considered as objections that can take several forms from diverse quarters.

6. Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible (New York: MJF Books, 2003), 12.

7. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), I.6.1.

8. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 88, 89.

9. Turretin, Institutes, I.2.2.

10. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, I.2.4.