new church life: march/april 2016
Psalms. Later still, the Gospels were written, and after them, the Book of
Revelation. Each of these additions to the Bible was written on its own scroll.
One of the issues faced by both Jews and Christians concerned which
scrolls belonged in their “canon” or collection of holy books. Even today, the
Catholic Bible contains books that the Protestant Bible does not. On what
basis do one or both churches have confidence that they did not add books
that don’t belong or take away books that do? Is it simply that they bound the
Book of Revelation as the last one in their collection?
A third point is that the Lord warned against adding to His revelation
long before the vast majority of the Bible was written. When there were only
the five scrolls comprising “The Law,” Moses wrote: “You shall not add to the
word which I command you, nor take anything from it, that you may keep the
commandments of Jehovah your God which I command you.” (Deuteronomy
4:2. See also 12:32) All the Prophets, the Psalms, and the whole of the New
Testament, including the Book of Revel ation’s warning against adding to the
book, came after Moses forbade the people to add to what he had commanded.
Following the above points, the fourth thing we should observe is that
there is no restriction against God adding to His revelation at any time. This
He has always done through people, as we have seen.
Fifth, the Lord said quite plainly that He had many more things to say
which would wait until “the Spirit of Truth” came. This implies additional
revelation which was to coincide with His Second Coming, for He said of the
coming of the Spirit of Truth: “I will come to you,” and “I will no longer speak
to you in parables, but I will tell you plainly about the Father.” (See John 14:1618; 16:5-25, emphasis added)
Sixth, what Swedenborg wrote, he does not claim as his own. Rather he
states again and again that he wrote what he did at the Lord’s command. For
example, in the preface to Apocalypse Revealed – which provides the spiritual
meaning of the very book in which the warning about adding to “this book”
appears – Swedenborg wrote:
Everyone can see that the Book of Revelation cannot possibly be explained except
by the Lord alone, for every single word in it contains arcana – arcana which
never would be known without a singular enlightenment and thus revelation.
Consequently it has pleased the Lord to open for me the sight of my spirit and teach
me. Do not suppose therefore that I have acquired anything there on my own, or
from any angel, but from the Lord alone.
The Lord also said through the angel to John, “Do not seal the words of the
prophecy of this book” (Revelation 22:10), which means that they are to be
presented to view. (Apocalypse Revealed, preface)
These six points show that it does not violate the prohibition against
adding to the Bible for the Lord to reveal the things that He promised by
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