If you have ever spoken to a Mormon, you may have raised the issue of the ‘do not add’ to God’s Word text. Revelation 22 says:
‘I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plaques described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.’ Rev.22:18,19
Any Mormon worth their salt will point out that Moses issues a similar warning in Deuteronomy:
‘You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.’ Deut.4:2, c.f. 12;32
Must this mean, then, that everything coming after Moses must be rejected? The argument is made that Old Testament prophets ‘added to’ Moses, who said ‘do not add.’ That it is through prophets that God adds to his Word. Thus God speaks through such prophets today. Is this how we are to look at this?
These ‘do not add’ warnings are not about adding writings but about adding novelty. The Bible is in two parts, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant is Moses, the New Covenant is Christ. Deuteronomy was a series of sermons urging Israel to faithful obedience to Moses, to the Law of the Old Covenant in the prospect of entering the land. Just so, Revelation recounts the history of salvation and urges the churches to remain faithful to the gospel of the New Covenant in Christ in the face of increasing persecution and false teaching.
Revelation is, itself, not ‘adding to God’s Word’ any more than Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the 12 minor prophets were adding to Moses. They are a recapitulation, a restating for God’s people of what God is doing through Moses and in Christ. ‘Do not add’ to the established covenants.
In the Old Testament, whichever character you look at among the prophets, whatever word they bring, they looked back to Moses and forward to Christ. There were prophets after Moses, but they did not add to, or take away from Moses.
This idea is summed up clearly by Paul in his letter to the saints in Galatia:
‘Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.’ Galatians 3:19-26
This is familiar territory to any serious Bible student. We can’t be saved by the Law, the Law is there as a guardian until Christ. I have had cause to look recently at the role of the prophetic in light of so many today claiming to be prophets.
God’s people are a covenant people, and the purpose of of the covenant is that we should be in direct covenant relationship with God. What needs to happen for that covenant relationship to be established is that God himself comes. As long as we have an angelic or prophetic mediator bringing us God’s Word, that unity cannot be realised. We are a people in guardianship until Christ, imprisoned by law until faith comes, ‘that we might be justified by faith.’
In Christ, God has come, the end of prophetic revelation is arrived at. Consider the significance of the Transfiguration. In that holy place Moses and Elijah appear with the glorified Christ. Peter, James, and John witnessed the Law and the prophets recognising their function coming to an end and the voice of God the Father confirming the role and identity of Jesus, ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him.’
God has come!
The writer to the Hebrews affirms this:
‘Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world.’ Hebrews 1:1,2
The one who was there in the beginning with the Father, who walked in covenant relationship with Adam, has now come into the world to re-establish that relationship with all of Adam’s offspring who come by faith. What does that covenant relationship look like? In his High Priestly Prayer Jesus says of those who believe:
‘They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ John 17:16-26
Leadership today is pastoral, discipling in the re-established covenant relationship we have with God through Christ, who is, ‘the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.’
Just as with Moses and the prophets, so with Jesus and the apostles. The New Testament is about God’s people and their faithfulness or otherwise to the message of the New Covenant in Christ, revealed in the gospels. The apostles now point us back to the gospel and forward to his return.
John Stott, in his book Jesus the Controversialist, writes:
‘The Old Testament is a book of hope, of unfulfilled expectation. From beginning to end it looks forward to Christ. Its many promises through Abraham, Moses, and the prophets are fulfilled in Christ. Its law, with its unbending demands, was our guardian until Christ came, keeping us confined and under restraint, even in bondage, until Christ should set us free. Its sacrificial system, teaching that without the shedding of blood there could be no forgiveness, looked forward to the unique blood-shedding of the Lamb of God. Its kings, for all their imperfections, anticipated the Messiah’s perfect reign of righteousness and peace. And its prophecies are all focussed on him. Thus Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head, the offspring of Abraham through whom all the families of the earth wold be blessed, the star that would come out of Jacob and the sceptre that would rise out of Israel. Jesus Christ is also the priest of the order of Melchizedek, the king of David’s line, the servant of the Lord God who would suffer and die for the sins of the people, the Son of God who would inherit the nations, the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, to whom would be given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him forever. Directly or indirectly Jesus Christ is the great theme of the Old Testament. This is how he was able to explain to his disciples ‘what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.’
Any system, prophetic school, apostolic quorum, priestly class, governing body, gnostic elite, secret caste, revelation-delivering claim that comes along demanding our attention is a step backwards and stands between the faithful and what John Stott has just described; God dwelling in his people in covenant relationship by the indwelling Spirit, led by Spirit-filled leaders teaching from the illuminated Word of Scripture. Press on!
