“The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Thus speaks the LORD God of Israel, saying: ‘Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you.’”
(Jer 30:1-2, NKJV)
I suspect that one of the characteristics of God’s relationship with man is that He often chooses the defenseless and fallen individual to showcase an aspect of Himself. Job could so aptly phrase man’s complete indigence – “If He puts no trust in His servants, if He charges His angels with error, how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before a moth?” (Job 4:18-19). Yet he chooses the shiny moth dust to write His letter of love to humanity! Could we expect anything less from a God who presents Himself as our Lover?
In the tongues of men (1 Cor 13:1) God assigned the scribes “the oracles of God” (Rom 3:2). Peter mentions that they “received the living oracles to give to us” (Acts 7:38). God makes his promises through the prophets, who conceived the Holy Scriptures by His dictation (Rom 1:2), and thus 2 Pet 1:21 rightly states, “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Only God could deliver a text which despite being authored by a great number of different authors, in three different languages, under various different circumstances, still showcases itself as a divinely inspired Word of God.
In Fausset’s Bible Dictionary the author muses on the magnificence of the corporality of the text – “writers of almost every social rank, statesmen and peasants, kings, herdsmen, fishermen, priests, tax-gatherers, tentmakers; educated and uneducated, Jews and Gentiles; most of them unknown to each other, and writing at various periods during the space of about 1600 years: and yet, after all, it is only one book dealing with only one subject in its numberless aspects and relations, the subject of man’s redemption”.
Ps 68:11 (KJV) is indeed true – “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.”
There are various reasons why the apocryphal books cannot be accepted on the aforementioned grounds. The most important of these is that it contains certain dogma which does not comply with the rest of the canon, as is seen in the case of the existence of purgatory where money can buy people redemption (2 Mac 12:43-45), redemption through various works (Ecclesiasticus 3:30 and Tobit 12:8-9 & 17), guidelines for witchcraft, magic and spells (Tobit 6:5-8), and Maria being born without sin (Wisdom 8:19-20). These dogmatic teachings go against the grain of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and can thus not even be partially accommodated.
The reason apocryphal books enjoy so much attention is suggested by prof Bouke Spoelstra, the Reformed theologian, who states that the authority of the church has replaced the authority of the Scriptures. But it is more than that – with this new onslaught of apocryphal texts there is an attempt to nullify the gospel – Jesus born without sin, his miracles, his crucifixion and ascension. Without it the Bible has lost the heart of God – Jesus, son of God, son of man, the Lamb who had the totality of God transcribed into his skin.
- Sela: Investigate prof Spoelstra’s theory.
- Read: Num 11; Dan 2; Ezek 12
- Memorize: Dan 2:21-22
