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Hello, this is Pastor Patrick Hines, and I want to press on here in my study of

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the Westminster Confession, just going over basic Christianity, and I'm hoping

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eventually this will be a series. I'll try to keep these around 10 minutes each.

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A lot been going on. The last couple weeks I was off for a week, and then I

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had to go to Florida to see my daughter sing in the Reformation Chorale, and

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then I also had to help my folks out and stuff, so I've been really busy. I

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apologize, haven't gotten any videos out the last couple of weeks, but I'm going to

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really try to do that more frequently, and I wanted to thank people for the

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encouraging emails they sent, telling me they miss the videos, so I do

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appreciate that. Okay, so today, the Westminster Confession, Chapter 1.3, the

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books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part

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of the canon of Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God,

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nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings. So the

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books of the Apocrypha, they are normally spoken of, listed as seven additional

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books that are included in the Roman Catholic Church's canon of the Old

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Testament, and Protestants don't accept these, and the primary reason, if you

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want to understand that, what is the reason that we do not believe these

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books are not part of Scripture? Well, the reason is they are not inspired.

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They're not inspired Scripture, and one thing that is important to note is that

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the Apocryphal books themselves, you know, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, and Judith, Tobit,

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the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Bell and the Dragon, which is an

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additional chapter in the book of Daniel, Baruch, an appendix to the book of

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Jeremiah, and I might be leaving one or two of them off, but these books deny that

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they're inspired. They themselves say that there has been a cessation of

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prophecy in Israel, that God is not speaking to his people through prophets

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any longer, and the Jewish people never believed that the Apocrypha were part of

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Scripture. They knew that Malachi was the final Old Testament prophet that God

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had sent them, and that as a matter of fact, God was no longer speaking to his

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people through prophets, and so the Apocrypha, in the early church, there were

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early Christians who did think that the Apocrypha was part of the Old Testament,

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and the primary reason for that was it was usually included in copies of the

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Greek Old Testament that they had, the Septuagint version. It's often abbreviated

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with LXX, capital LXX, because that's the Roman numeral for 70, because 70

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scholars supposedly translated the Old Testament Hebrew into Greek, and the

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Greek Septuagint, or Septuagint, whatever you want to call it, the LXX, that is

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really the Bible of the early church, because they spoke Greek, and so

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they read from that Greek translation, and many of their copies, and this is

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obviously long before movable type and things like that, so if you made a book,

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you would often include other books in it, as many things as you could for that

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that copy of the book, and so they would put other things in it. A lot of copies

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of the Septuagint have the Apocrypha in them, and so you do get quotations from

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church fathers and people in the early centuries who seemed to think that the

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Apocrypha was part of Scripture. However, it is a documented fact, Athanasius did

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not believe that the Apocrypha was part of the Old Testament canon. Origen did

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not believe the Apocrypha was part of the canon. Jerome did not, and Origen of

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Alexandria, whose dates are roughly 185 or so to about 255 AD, he is one of the

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very few who knows Hebrew in the early church, and Jerome is another one who

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knows Hebrew. He studied Hebrew with rabbis in Jerusalem, and he's the one who

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translated the Bible into Latin, and the thing is, historically, the more that a

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Christian bishop or a Bible teacher, the more that they knew about the Jews and

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about the Jewish backgrounds, the less likely they were to think that the

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Apocrypha was part of Scripture. The fact of the matter is, though, the Jews did not

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believe that the Apocrypha was part of the Word of God, and these are books that

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were written during the intertestamental period, the approximately

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400 years between the death of the Prophet Malachi and the coming of John

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the Baptist. That 400 year period, that's when the Apocrypha books are written. Now,

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the Apocrypha is never cited in these scriptures. It's never cited. And people

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will say, well, there's other books of the Old Testament that aren't cited

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either in the Old Testament, like Esther is never quoted with, thus saith the Lord

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in the New Testament. Which, that is true, and it's also irrelevant, because Esther,

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like 2 Chronicles, like the Song of Solomon, is part of the Law, the Prophets,

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and the Writings, the threefold division that Jesus himself used. Jesus used that

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division in Luke chapter 24. He refers to the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

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And it's important to know that the books of the Apocrypha are not part of

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that division. Esther and Song of Solomon and other Old Testament books that

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aren't cited as Scripture in the New Testament were part of that threefold

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division that's acknowledged by Jesus, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

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One of the things I've often pointed out to folks who do think the Apocrypha is

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actually part of the Old Testament canon is the prologue to the Apocryphal book

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of Ecclesiasticus cites the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Question, how

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can Ecclesiasticus be part of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings when it

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acknowledges that's a threefold canonical division of Old Testament

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books that already exists? Okay, it doesn't make any sense. Now, the Apocryphal

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books are alluded to here and there in the Old Testament, but they are never

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quoted as Scripture. They are never quoted with the the Greek verb

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gegrepti, which means it is written. It stands written, quote. That's how the New

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Testament writers typically, not always, but typically quote from the Old

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Testament, it is written, it is written, gegrepti. Now, the Jewish people did not

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believe that the Apocrypha was part of the Old Testament canon. Why is that

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significant? Well, it's significant because in Romans chapter 3, Paul asks

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the question, okay, well, if being circumcised didn't guarantee you eternal

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life and if being a Jew didn't guarantee that you were going to go to heaven, well

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what good is it then? What is the profit of circumcision? And Romans 3 verse 2

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says, much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of

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God, meaning the Jewish people had Scripture. They had the only source of

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the voice of God in the world. The only source of God speaking in the world was

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theirs, the oracles of God. God did not give Scripture to the Egyptians or the

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Moabites or Ammonites or Philistines. He gave Scripture, the oracles of God, the

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sayings of God were given only to the Jewish people. That was their chief and

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highest blessing. And I want to tell you, as a Christian, that is also your chief

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and highest blessing. The fact that you've got one of these, a Bible in your

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own language, in your possession, that is without what is revealed in Scripture, we

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are lost. Now, the Apocryphal books are not of divine inspiration, therefore

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they're not part of the canon of Scripture. They also have very serious

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errors in them. Now, people have tried to say, well, people try to say there's

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errors in the Bible. There are not. There's no passage in Scripture that

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even approximates how bad some of these are. The book of Tobit, the book of Tobit

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condones the use of magic in Tobit 6 verses 5 through 7.

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The book of Tobit also teaches that forgiveness of sins is by human

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effort. Tobit 4 verse 11, for alms deliver from all sin. So giving money can

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deliver you from sin and from death and will not suffer the soul to go into

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darkness. Tobit 12 verse 9, for alms deliver us from death and the same is

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that which purges away sin. So, if you want it, and maketh to find mercy in

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everlasting life. So to have eternal life, you need to give money to people. Okay,

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that's, that is such a flagrant error. Okay, money is an offering for the sins

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of the dead in 2nd Maccabees 1243. In making a gathering, he sent 12,000

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drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of

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the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection. There are

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also serious historical errors in the the apocryphal books. My favorite one is

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this one, Judith, the book of Judith chapter 1 verse 5 says, now in the 12th

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year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyrians who reigned in Nineveh,

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the great city, fought against Arphaxad and overcame him. Okay, hold on.

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Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon who reigned from Babylon. They've got him

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over the wrong empire. Nebuchadnezzar was not king of the Assyrians and he

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didn't reign from Nineveh. Nineveh is the capital of Assyria. So, wrong empire for

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Nebuchadnezzar. And there's others. My favorite apocryphal passage is the final

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three verses of 2nd Maccabees. Listen, quote, since my Canor's doings ended in

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this way with the city remaining in possession of the Hebrews from that time

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on, I will bring my story to an end here too. If it is well written and to the

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point, that is what I intended. If it is poorly done and mediocre, that is the

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best I could do. Just as it is unpleasant to drink wine by itself or just water

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whereas wine mixed with water makes a delightful and pleasant pleasing

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drink, so a skillfully composed story delights the ears of those who read the

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work. Let this then be the end. So, if he didn't do a good job recording the

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history here, well, it's the best he could do. It doesn't have the the mark of

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thus sayeth the Lord to it. Okay, now there's a lot more that we can we can

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point out here. The fact that Matt, well we won't get into all the stuff

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I want to keep this relatively short here, but the primary reason the primary

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reason that Rome said these books of Scripture is because there's a passage

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in 2nd Maccabees that sort of sounds like purgatory, but it would really

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reflect a misunderstanding of purgatory because the fighters that were found had

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idols on their persons and idolatry would be a mortal sin, so it wouldn't do

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any good to pray for them anyway. But they were losing that debate on

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purgatory because when you look in the canonical scriptures, when you look at

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the Word of God, there's heaven and there's hell. There's no purgatory

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anywhere in Scripture. Nowhere. So the apocryphal books were not received by

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the people of God, they were not used by the people of God as Scripture, they were

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not acknowledged or used by Jesus as Scripture. And so that brings us to the

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end of point number three, and we'll try to get point number four tomorrow. I'm

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going to let everyone know I'm going to try to do a live program tomorrow,

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Wednesday, at 3. So Lord willing, we'll see you then. Thanks for watching or for

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listening.