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Full Gospel believer
- Mar 27, 2011
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Oscar, this is probably my first post in maybe four months but as I check in on the occasion I found this thread, along with a number of your comments, to be of interest.My point is that if the canon of the New Testament replaces the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, which is taught widely by teachers like John MacArthur and others, then reading the New Testament would perform the same function as the supernatural gifts of the Spirit. So, to get a person healed, all one has to do is to read the bits about healing from the New Testament and howzthat! The person is healed on the spot! If prophecies caused unbelievers coming into the Early Church to fall on their faces confessing that God is with them in reality, so reading the New Testament to unbelievers should perform the same function, seeing that New Testament has replaced the prophetic? I know that I am being a bit tongue in cheek, but there is a point there nevertheless.
During my hiatus from CF, I have been travelling through the various Christian College libraries in my State, which number about 14, where I was initially limiting my investigations into the theological thought over the years regarding the τὸ τέλειον (“the perfect”) of 1 Cor 13:8-12. As with many things in life, now that I have widened my reference base, where I was once both pleased and content with my 15 commentaries on First Corinthians, now that it has expanded to well over 200 commentaries, this investigation has now taken on a life of its own.
To return to the main point of my post, one of the interesting outcomes of this research is that the concept of that which is perfect in 1 Cor 13:8-12 as supposedly referring to the completion of the Canon of Scripture, or with the completion of the last Book of the Bible, is that this seems to be a concept that was not addressed by theologians prior to 1872 (Jamieson); this does not mean that they were not thinking along these lines but until this time no theologian (to my knowledge so far) has dared offered this as a solution to the passage and interestingly none have suggested this as even a remote possibility.
At this point of time I have 49 English commentaries on First Corinthians that were published from 1801-1900 and to discover that only a single theologian from the 19th Century has suggested the 'Canon' option (so far) in my view speaks volumes. (Insert): A number of these commentaries were translated from German sources and from a couple of French commentators, so the commentaries reflect a broad representation of not only British/Scottish and North American theologians/commentators but also those from within Germany.
The first theologian to adopt this line of thinking after 1872 appears to be McGarvey (1916) and the person who is often given the credit for popularising this notion was Warfield (1919).
It seems that the ‘Canon’ option only gained popularity around the 1950’s and 60’s and from initial readings, the first published theologian since 1919 to go along this line was DeHaan (1956). With the onset of the Charismatic Renewal, from around 1960 up until 1980, in panic, those who held dearly to the old hardcore-cessationist worldview tried to pull this “new idea” out of their deck of cards but for most people it simply fell short; so the 'Canon' option probably only had a serious run for maybe 20 years or less.
Edit: Added bold text
Edit: (Insert): A number of these commentaries were translated . . .
Edit: Typo
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