There is only one way to God and that is through His Son Jesus Christ. By Grace Alone Through Faith Alone in Christ Alone. God took the initiative to disclose Himself (reveal) to mankind. Heb.1:1 The vehicles varied, sometimes it was through the created order, at other times through visions/dreams or speaking prophets.
However, the most complete and understandable self - disclosures were through the propositions of Scripture. The revealed and written word of God is unique in that it is the only revelation of God that is complete and that so clearly declares man's sinfulness and God's provision of the Savior.
The Bible has One Divine Author , written over 1,500 years ago through the pens of almost 40 human writers. "All Scripture is breathed out by God" (2Tim3:16) knowing this first of all , that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation . For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by The Holy Spirit 2
pet. 1:20-21 By this means the Word of God was protected from human error in its original record by the Holy Spirit Zech.7:12 "the Law and the Words that the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets"
How doe we know what supposed sacred writings were to be included in the Canon of Scripture and which were to be excluded?
Over the centuries Three widely recognized principles were used to validate those writings which came as a result of divine revelation and inspiration. First the writing had to have a recognized prophet or apostle as its author. Second, the writing could not disagree with or contradict previous Scripture. Third, the writing had to have general consensus by the church as an inspired book. Thus, when various councils met in church history to consider the canon, they did not vote for the canonicity of a book but rather recognized, after the fact, what God had already written.
With regard to the OT, by the time of Christ all of the OT had been written and accepted in the Jewish community. The last book , Malachi had been completed about 430 B.C. Not only does the OT canon of Christ's day conform to the OT which has since been used throughout the centuries but it does not contain the Uninspired and spurious Apocrypha, that group of 14 rogue writings which were written after Malachi and attached to the OT about 200-150B.C. in the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT called the Septuagint(LXX) , appearing to this very day in some versions of the Bible. However not one passage from the Apocrypha is cited by any NT writer, nor did Jesus affirm any of it as he recognized the OT canon of His era The same key tests of canonicity that applied to the OT also applied to the NT.
God anticipated man's and Satan's malice towards the Scripture with divine promises to preserve His Word . The very continued existence of Scripture is guaranteed in ISA.40:8, "the grass withers , the flower fades, but the Word of God will stand forever" This even means that no inspired Scripture has been lost in the past and still awaits rediscovery
As Christianity spread, it is certainly true people desired to have the Bible in their own language which required translations from the original Hebrew and Aramaic languages of the OT and the Greek of the NT. Not only did the work of translators provide an opportunity for error, but publication, which was done by hand copying until the printed press arrived c. A.D. 1450 also afforded continual possibilities of error. Through the centuries the practitioners of textual criticism, a precise science, have discovered , preserved, catalogued, evaluated, and published an amazing array of biblical manuscripts from both OT and NT. In fact, the number of existing biblical manuscripts dramatically outdistances the existing fragments of any other ancient literature. By comparing text with text, the textual critic can confidently determine what the original prophetic / apostolic , inspired writing contained
In other Words QS GOD!
