As Southern Baptists, we believe that the canon of Scripture is complete. We believe that God’s revelation of Himself to man has been completed in His Word, both His written Word (the Bible) and His Living Word (Jesus Christ). Therefore, anyone announcing their reception of new and additional divine revelation should be avoided like the plague. They are obviously a cultist who falls under the condemnation of Revelation 22:18.

As we’ve observed these past three days, the number three denotes totality in Scripture. It speaks of the totality of our God, of our Savior and of our salvation. It also speaks of the totality of the Gospel and of the Scripture itself.

Our Lord’s threefold “it is written” in Matthew 4:1-11, shows the complete victory that the skillful wielding of the “Sword of the Spirit” can secure for us over the devil (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). Also, our Savior’s threefold division of Scripture into the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, speaks to us of the totality of God’s written revelation of Himself to man, especially in light of the fact that Christ points to Himself—the final and full revelation of God to man—as the subject of all Scripture (Luke 24:44). 

In light of Scripture’s totality, we should be very careful to always follow the admonition of the Apostle John (Revelation 22:18-19). We should never “add to” or “take away” from anything the Bible says.

Prerequisite to the preaching of the Gospel to all of the world was an initial three years of fruitlessness among the Jews (Luke 13:7). It was not until after the Jews rejected their Messiah that the message of salvation was taken to the Gentiles. And even then, it took a threefold vision to the Apostle Peter to break the racial barrier and transform Christianity from a small sect of Judaism into the worldwide faith that it is today (Acts 10:16).

Just like our Sovereign God, His Son, and our salvation; the Scripture, which is God’s written revelation of Himself to man, and the Gospel, which is God’s Good News to a lost and dying world, are complete and lacking nothing. All we need, God has totally supplied. It’s now just a simple question of whether or not we will believe it.