Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bnr-public!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Scripture ends? Message-ID: Date: 1 Jul 89 07:08:23 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 63 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article djo@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes: > ... I'm willing to >accept a Biblical citation that this is the case -- that is, something that >states unequivocally "This is My Word, there will be no further transmissions, >all else is lesser stuff." But I don't know of such a passage in the Bible, and >(lacking such) I'm more than willing to consider (some of) the writings of, say, >Thomas Aquinas or C.S. Lewis as sort of a "third testament." ... The Bible does, in fact, contain a very ominous statement that we are never to rely on any words other than those which have been already written in it. Revelation 22:18 tells us "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:". We are also warned not to neglect any Scriptures when attempting to seek out truth. Revelation 22:19 tells us "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and {from} the things which are written in this book.". There are many people who try to avoid the realization that the Bible as is is the one and only source of divine truth by arguing that these verses are simply some sort of copyright notification specifically regarding the book of Revelation itself. I would caution those who wish to do so that they should give their position very serious thought, given the severity of the warnings and stated penalty. Since our omnipotent God does not need the protection of fragile and difficult to impose earthly laws, we should rather insure that we really know why He chose to make those two verses part of His Word. There are other Scriptures which support the fact that the "book" does indeed refer to the entire Bible, and none that contradict it. It is not true that we cannot really be sure if we are saved or not. We know that the Bible can only be truly understood by those whose spiritual eyes and ears God has opened. We also know that God does not lie, and from this we can deduce that the Bible can in no way contain any contradictions. If we wish to check out a given scenario to determine if it is based on truth, all we need do is check it out with each and every verse in the entire Bible. If there is no verse that contradicts our scenario then we know we have found truth. If, using this principle, we find ourselves coming to more and more truth, we can be sure that God has opened our spiritual eyes and ears, and we can, therefore, be sure that we have been saved. Another good test for ones own salvation is whether he finds himself avoiding certain Scriptures because his conscience is pricked just a little too deeply. An unsaved person wishes to hide from his sins, whereas a saved person wishes to discover his sins so that he knows what he still needs to repent of. An unsaved person, although he will never admit it and may not even be consciously aware of it, is subconsciously aware that he faces some sort of nasty punishment for his life style and does everything he can to avoid having to deal with it. A saved person, on the other hand, knows that he has absolutely nothing to fear and everything to gain, as he approaches God with a broken heart and a contrite spirit with respect to his own conduct. I have avoided Scripture references in this article to keep its length down. If anyone believes that I have said something that the Bible does not say, let me know. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3