Friday, December 15, 2023

Johann Gerhard (Lutheran [1625]) on Revelation 22:18-19

  

 . . . Scotus correctly claims that John said this not about the Book of Revelation alone, but about Scripture in its entirety. With these words, therefore, he forbids not only the corruption of the Book of Revelation (and because of their homogeneous nature with it, the rest of the books of the Bible as well) but also the addition of new Scriptures and of new dogmas made by men other than holy men of God, writing and speaking at the immediate impulse of the Holy Spirit. Whoever proposes dogmas as apostolic that do not appear in the apostolic books, that one corrupts apostolic teaching is no less than he who attributes to the apostles false and spurious books or who corrupts the apostolic Scriptures. (Johann Gerhard, On the Nature of Theology and on Scripture [trans. Richard J. Dinda; Saint Louis, Miss.: Concordia Publishing House, 2009], 334)