Today, if someone wanted to take a class on the history of Christianity from a public university or a private college, one might think that the class curriculum would endeavor to accurately represent early Christianity by giving early Christian writers a voice through New Testament readings. Unfortunately, a late 19^th and early 20^th century interpretive framework is all too often foisted upon Christianity, reinterpreting the Bible from a naturalistic perspective or in today’s language, a progressive interpretation.

A naturalistic perspective begins with a humanistic emphasis focused on interpreting the New Testament as a product of man’s thoughts about God. In other words, progressives use a naturalistic presupposition to argue that the Bible is man’s interpretation of God, while Christianity asserts from the Bible’s self-claim that Scripture is God’s interpretation of man. For naturalism, the Bible as God’s Word is off limits, even if that is the very message the Bible is asserting.

The progressive view of Christianity teaches that Christianity survived because it was the fittest; that is, the books of the New Testament are a product of the elite, later, more powerful Christendom, which suppressed the voice of the Christian minority represented throughout the 2^nd century of Christianity. Ignoring the voices of the New Testament apostles, progressives begin with the presupposition that this later Christendom formulated and canonized the Bible to suppress the voices of the minority, like the authors of the gospel of Thomas or the gospel of Judas.

By presupposing naturalism and asserting a late date, progressives are able to include the voices of those that early Christianity had excluded as heretics, like the gnostic writings. Today’s progressives flip the tables so that the writings that were condemned by orthodox Christianity as heretical are now portrayed as the true voice of Christianity and orthodox Christianity is condemned as elite suppressors of the voice of the Christian minority.

The so-called Christian diversity (the heretics according to orthodox Christianity) are being used by the progressives to suppress the earlier, united voice of orthodox Christianity (for the argument goes that the New Testament writers’ voices are off limits for it is the product of the suppressors). Dizzying logic, I know.

During the early to mid 1900s when this progressive or liberal Christianity began to seep into the seminaries and churches of America from the institutions of Europe, J. Gresham Machen and Geerhardus Vos began to write to warn the Church of this new liberal Christianity that was being promoted. For Vos and Machen, wolves had crept into the community to represent Christianity dressed as sheep with a Christ-less Christianity.

So, we introduce Michael Kruger and his book Question of Canon. While Machen and Vos wrote for the 20^th century Christian reader, Kruger writes for the reader of the 21^st century. In his books, he interacts with the progressive arguments recycled by present authors such as Bart Ehrman.

Kruger argues for what he calls an intrinsic model. Rather than a model that purports the idea that something is imposed on Christianity from outside later influences (a strictly external model), Kruger observes that the New Testament and the Early Church writings demonstrate an intrinsic model, that is, the Christian books of the New Testament developed organically from within early Christianity itself.

Kruger highlights a number of presuppositions the progressive interpreter assumes to be true. The progressive must assert of primary importance that Scripture is not recognized as canon until later Christendom. A late date is important to their argument so that they can allow for the diversity required to include heretical writings in the Christian family. Once writings that early orthodox Christianity rejected as non-Scriptural and heretical are included as a part of the family of Christendom, the progressive argument employs the principle of diversification against the unified message of orthodox Christianity, particularly, the Gnostic teachings that reject the New Testament teaching on the deity and humanity of Christ, the nature of sin, the Creator and creature distinction, justification through faith alone in Christ alone, the resurrection, and so on.

Furthermore, progressives need a late date to assert that Scripture was passed down orally, not written, to allow for an evolutionary or progressive development of the books of the Bible. Finally, the progressive argument must deny that the authors of the New Testament wrote with an understanding of the authority they bore in the name of Christ. In other words, the progressive argument stands on the presupposition that the New Testament writers did not conceive of their writings as authoritative.

Kruger draws from the New Testament writings (the Holy Scriptures) and the non-Scriptural writings of the early church to demonstrate that early orthodox Christianity distinguished itself from the outliers, the heretics who claimed to be Christian. He cites numerous apostolic claims to make the assertion that the New Testament authors wrote about their own Christ-endowed authority.

Kruger quotes the early orthodox church fathers (as opposed to heretical cults) who recognized the New Testament writers’ self-claimed authority. He observes from the apostles’ writings that Scripture was passed on in a written form from church to church to be read and preached. Finally, he documents the history of the early Christian church as having received Scripture as God’s Word because of its self-claimed apostolic authority.

Thus, Christ’s authority through the apostles was inherent to the writings themselves rather than foisted on them by later Christendom. In other words, when the apostles wrote Scripture, it is God’s Word, for Scripture is by its very character, God’s Word. Thus, God’s Word calls into being the saved community, the Church. It is not the church that calls into being God’s Word.

For more written and audio resources by Michael Kruger please visit his website at https://www.michaeljkruger.com.