Of the Holy Scripture, I:2

Under the name of holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these: [a list of the familiar 66 books is provided]. All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life.

When discussing the list of authoritative books that comprise the Scriptures, we speak of the "canon." This word means "rule" or "standard." Another term employed is "norm," derived from a Latin phrase that the church has long used to describe Scripture: Norma normans et sine normativa, meaning "the norm of norms and without norm," or the ultimate standard by which all other authorities are judged, itself without peer. This is a very high view of Scripture and provides the basis for another Latin phrase that became one of the slogans of the Reformation: Sola Scriptura, which does not mean that Scripture is the only authority and everything else is disregarded but that Scripture is the sole infallible authority to which all other legitimate secondary authorities must submit. The Scriptures are the Supreme Court of the church, for in them and by them the Holy Spirit instructs and guides the people of God.

Canonicity is that quality of the authoritative books themselves that mandates their inclusion in the list. The church did not create the canon of Scripture--men could not and did not take it upon themselves to decide what books belonged in the Bible and what did not. Instead, Christians in community recognized and acknowledged those qualities (apostolic authorship or endorsement; general reception within the church; a self-authenticating quality and harmony with other books about which there is no question) within the books. This is not to say that there has never been controversy, but that the history of the church demonstrates a remarkable early consensus about the content of the Scriptures. Most of the discussion about canon is concerned with the composition of the New Testament; for the Old Testament we have early historical consensus and, most importantly, the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ himself as to the divine nature of the Law and the Prophets (see Luke 24:25-27, 44-45).

At the very end of this paragraph the Confession briefly refers to the doctrine of inspiration, which will be taken up more completely in our discussion of paragraph 4.

Tomorrow: What about the Apocrypha?