I. What is being confessed in this article?⤒🔗

This article describes the basis on which the faith of the church rests, namely the Holy Scriptures.

1. It is said to consist of two parts: the Old and the New Testament. These include the so-called canonical books. This means that nothing can be alleged against them.
2. The sixty-six books are then mentioned by name.

II. The books of the Bible are canonical.←⤒🔗

The church calls these books canonical. This word comes from canon = guideline = norm for faith. These canonical books are therefore the absolutely binding standard and rule for our faith and life. They have supreme authority and therefore it is not allowed to argue with these books.

We may and should even read any other book critically, but never the Bible. These books carry divine authority. And so these sixty-six books occupy a completely unique place in the literature consisting of millions of books. Therefore they, and they alone, are called canonical.

III. Together, these books constitute the Old and the New Testament.←⤒🔗

Already in the first sentence it is confessed that the Old Testament and the New Testament are entirely equivalent. The following applies to both: “These are canonical books against which nothing can be alleged.”

1. The apostles still had to warn against an incorrect preference for Old Testament laws and ceremonies, especially among Jewish Christians. Think of Paul's struggle against the Judaizers, especially in the letter to the Galatians.
    In later centuries, however, it is always the Old Testament that suffers, but then on account of Christians who are non-Jews and often anti-Jewish. Already in the second century, the wealthy ship-owner Marcion made a distinction between the God of the Old Testament and that of the New Testament. The former was the creator of the world. He was, in Marcion’s eyes, a lesser god of the Jews, who took delight in wars, and made even the sun stand still (Joshua 10:13),  in order to have as many people killed as possible. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was already proof that this God wished to harm people. The Father of Jesus Christ, according to Marcion, was however a very different God. Marcion called him “mild, peace-loving, good and excellent in everything.. This good God of the New Testament sent us Jesus, and we have to reject the God of the Old Testament. So what did Marcion do? He threw the Old Testament aside in its entirety, and of the New Testament he only accepted the Gospel of Luke, which he himself had ‘purified’ of Jewish stains, and ten ‘improved’ letters of Paul.
   This Marcion was very influential, and he formed many 'churches.'
2. These errors returned in full force at the time of the Reformation, among the Anabaptists. They derided the Old Testament, for, as they said, the Old Testament would be teaching us to take vengeance, whereas the New Testament tells us to love our enemies the Old Testament would teach us to swear but the New Testament insists that our ‘yes’ is sufficient. Everything in the Old Testament is earthly and unspiritual. Therefore it should be discarded as obsolete and make way for the higher spiritual wisdom. It is specifically against this error that our article confesses that Scripture consists of two parts.
   In the 19^th century this criticism was rampant. Many church books of that time contained only the New Testament and the rhymed version of the Psalms.
   In the 20^th century it was the so-called German Christians, sympathetic with Hitler, who in their hatred of the Jews even sought to repudiate “the Hebrew Scriptures” as a lewd Jewish book.
3. In the face of all these attacks we have the testimony of the church, which is based on Scripture. None other than Jesus himself fully accepted the Old Testament as the Word of God. He said that he had not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, in other words, the Old Testament, that is to abrogate it, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-18). See also Luke 24:27 and 44-45.
   These texts also immediately show the relationship between the two parts, the two Testaments: What the Old Testament promises is fulfilled in the New Testament. He who is promised is the Messiah. Therefore, today we need the Old Testament very much to understand the New Testament. And vice versa, we can only see the richness of the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament; more about this in Article 25.

IV. The number of books in the Bible is complete←⤒🔗

1.  Article 4 accurately lists all canonical books. This means that their number is fixed: There are this many: no more and no less. Now the fact is that there are more books inspired than we have in the Bible. Thus we learn of “The book of Jashar (or: the upright)” (Joshua 10:13) and of “The account of the Prophet Iddo” (2 Chronicles 13:22). And 1 Corinthians 5:9 shows that Paul had written an earlier letter to this church, which we do not know. Since Scripture itself names and refers to these books, we may assume that these were inspired books.
2. Supposing that such a book were found in the desert or in a cave in the Middle East, and it could be determined with certainty that it was the book of a prophet or a letter by an apostle, would such a book then still have to be included in our Bible? No–because then we pretend that in the Bible we actually have only a coincidentally preserved remnant of divine books, an incomplete collection, and a badly damaged one, because several copies were lost. However, we believe that God wanted to give us a complete Bible and that he made sure to include every book he wanted to keep for us. After all, the previous article spoke of “his special care for us and our salvation”!     

V. Are all books of the Bible attributed properly to the right author?←⤒🔗

This article lists David as the author of all the Psalms, but there are other poets and composers as well. Older versions of the Belgic Confession may also state that Ecclesiastes is from Solomon, which is not without controversy also among Reformed people. Some include the letter to the Hebrews as written by Paul, although that is widely denied today.

However, is the purpose of this article to hold us to the belief that these authors wrote these books? That is not the case. It is not about who wrote which book. The article simply points to the books as they were known by their titles.

Points to discuss←↰⤒🔗

1. Which book of the New Testament speaks at length about the relationship of the old and new ‘dispensation’?
2. Try to indicate how the book of Revelation contains many Old Testament motifs. See Revelation 1:12; Revelation 2:14, 20; Revelation 3:7; Revelation 4:8; Revelation 5:5; and other passages from Revelation.
3. The Bible consists, therefore, of many books. Is the objective of this to pass on a large series of truths? See John 20:30-31.
4. In which foreign languages (to us) did God give his Word? Is it true that only those who understand these languages are able to read the Bible, and that we have to ‘make do’ with a translation? Or are you allowed to say that God addresses us in our own language?
5. Can the Bible be translated into contemporary language, or would it be more respectful to use the ancient forms? For example, which translation do you prefer of Matthew 6:26: “Behold the fowls of the heaven” or “Look at the birds of the air”?