“Grace and Truth”: How the NT Describes the NT Canon
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Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, by Valentin de Boulogne or Nicolas Tournier (c. 16th century)
We can find NT passages that refer to a completed OT canon (Matthew 5:17–18; 23:34–35; Luke 24:44–45; Romans 3:2; 2 Timothy 3:14–16). But we look in vain for NT passages that identify a completed NT canon. This shouldn’t surprise us since during the writing of any NT book to which we might appeal, the NT canon as an organic whole had not yet been completed.
But this fact raises an important question: Where must we look for a witness to a completed NT canon?1 The Church of Rome has an answer to that question. According to Rome, what the Church declares is NT canon is NT canon. Indeed, they use this as one of their arguments for the co-dependency and co-authority of Scripture and tradition. The church’s authority is grounded in Scripture, but Scripture’s authority depends on the authority of the church. For this reason, Catholics argue, we must base our doctrine of a completed NT canon on church tradition.2
While the church’s testimony plays a part in identifying the NT canon, it should not be our primary witness. I believe the Bible itself provides the foundational witness to the NT canon.3 Although there are no explicit references in the Bible to a completed NT canon, there are several passages and teachings from which we may infer a NT canon.4 In this post, I’d like to focus on one of those texts: the Gospel of John 1:17.
Canon and Redemptive History
Redemptive history is marked by two great events. The first was God redeeming His people from Egypt by the hand of Moses (Exodus 12–15). That great event marked the inception of an Old Covenant canon. However, that first great redemptive event would pale in comparison to the second. Now God would redeem His people from their sins by the hand of one greater than Moses (cf. Deuteronomy 18:15ff.; Hebrews 3:1–7). Messiah would come and ratify a New Covenant with His own blood. After 400 years of silence, God was going to reveal himself once again to His people. This revelation would be the greatest revelation God ever made:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1, 14, ESV).
The incarnation marks the arrival of God’s supreme revelation.
OT Shadow vs NT Substance
John further develops this point in verse 17: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17, ESV). What we have in this verse are two mediators, two covenants, and, I would argue, TWO CANONS! The “law” is the OT canon completed. “Grace and truth” refer to a New Covenant canon, not yet completed but anticipated and presupposed.
Why does John contrast the OT as “law” with the NT as “grace and truth”? Is John suggesting that “grace and truth” are not principles of OT religion?5 We know that’s not the case because the God who gave the law to Moses revealed himself to Moses as “Yahweh, full of grace and truth” (Exodus 34:5-6). After Moses saw God’s glory, he descended from Mt. Sinai with his face radiating the same glory that had been revealed to him on the mount. Grace and truth beamed from Moses’ face! Thus, both OT and the NT reveal God’s saving grace.
Why, then, is John making a contrast? I believe John’s purpose in this passage is to highlight the superiority of the New Covenant and its mediator.
The Old Covenant contained grace and truth. However, that grace and truth was promissory in form. God’s people could not look directly at His glory, but they could only see it as it was reflected from Moses’ face. Even then there was a veil over his face, because God’s people were not ready for the full revelation of God’s glory.
But in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son, the Word. Now the veil will be taken away from the Law of Moses. Now God’s people are ready to see God’s glory in all its fullness. Instead of sending Moses down from the mountain to reflect his grace and truth, God the Son has come down from the mountain. Note the declaration of verse 18: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18).6
NT Canon: Eschatological Grace!
Jesus Christ Himself is the New Covenant Word from God.7 This is also the point of Hebrews 1:1-2. In verse one, the author of Hebrews alludes to the OT canon: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.” Then, in verse two, he identifies the NT canon: “but in these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son….” The first time God spoke, he spoke by way of promise. But a canon of promises anticipates and presupposes a canon of fulfillment. Thus, we may conclude, the OT canon anticipates and presupposes a NT canon. The NT writers conceive of the NT canon as grace in its truest and fullest sense. Put differently, the NT, as opposed to the OT, is a canon of eschatological grace.8
Notes
1 Ned Stonehouse is attuned to this difficulty when he writes, “The attestation of the canonicity of the New Testament, in the nature of the case, cannot be provided by Jesus in the manner that his words offer a ratification of the authority of the Old Testament. The writings themselves came into existence after the ascension of our Lord. And their collection and acknowledgement as canonical were not finally accomplished even at the close of the first Christian century. The attestation of the canonicity of the New Testament, in contradistinction from that of the Old Testament, might seem to have to depend exclusively upon an ecclesiastical affirmation. If this were true, it might appear that the New Testament is at a most serious disadvantage, lacking the high sanction that the Old Testament enjoys.” “The Authority of The New Testament,” The Infallible Word, 2nd ed. (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967), 104-05.
2 This continues to be the Catholic Church’s position as affirmed at Vatican II: “Through the same [ecclesiastical] tradition the full canon of the sacred books becomes known to the Church ….” Dei Verbum, 1:6. By making their primary appeal to the testimony of the early church fathers and church councils rather than to the testimony of Scripture, Protestants may inadvertently give support to the Catholic position. See F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity, 1988).
3 We may view the church’s testimony as the instrumental cause through which we come to believe the Bible is God’s word. However, the Bible’s self-attestation and self-authentication is the formal cause. Compare this to the Samaritans believing Jesus is the Messiah based on the woman’s testimony (instrumental cause) versus their belief that Jesus is the Messiah based on this own testimony (formal cause).
4 The Westminster Confession supports this indirect method of argumentation when it asserts, “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” (WCF 1.6) [emphasis mine].
5 C. I. Scofield seems to suggest this in his popular study Bible.
6 The Greek ἐξηγήσατο, translated “he has made … known,” is the word is from which we derive the English “to exegete.”
7 See Donald A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Eerdmans, 1991), 131-34.
8 In this case, I am interpreting the phrase “grace and truth” as a hendiadys in which “truth” functions adjectivally to modify “grace.” The idea would be something like “true grace,” not in sense of that which stands in contrast with false grace, but rather that which stands in contrast with preliminary or promissory grace (cf. John 6:32, 55; 18:37; Hebrews 9:23–24). In terms of redemptive history, “true” characterizes eschatological fulfillment. We may also apply such a reading to the phrase “spirit and truth” in John 4:24.
Bob Gonzales Bio
Dr. Robert Gonzales (BA, MA, PhD, Bob Jones Univ.) has served as a pastor of four Reformed Baptist congregations and has been the Academic Dean and a professor of Reformed Baptist Seminary (Sacramento, CA) since 2005. He is the author of Where Sin Abounds: the Spread of Sin and the Curse in Genesis with Special Focus on the Patriarchal Narratives (Wipf & Stock, 2010) and has contributed to the Reformed Baptist Theological Review, The Founders Journal, and Westminster Theological Journal. He blogs at It is Written.
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