What About Continuing Revelation? (Articles of Faith Series)

If you choose to become inactive or to leave the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where will you go? What will you do?

You're entering outer brightness. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, just in case you didn't get it in those few verses, right? Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Did I warn myself again?

No. He made me alive together with Christ. Listen, I can no more manufacture the second birth than I manufactured the first one. How can you look upon this inner with such love? Grace overflows my cup. All of my soul and my heart have been revived.

In you I'm satisfied. All right, fireflies. Welcome to this episode of the Outer Brightness Podcast. This week we're talking about the topic of topics when it comes to Mormonism, continuing revelation. The ninth LDS article of faith states, The concept that the heavens are open and God has more to say than what is in the Bible is foundational to Mormonism. Christians who believe in a closed canon or that God is not revealing new truths today are considered to be limiting God by Latter-day Saints.

Let's talk about this. So Matthew, when you were LDS, how important was this concept of an open canon or continuing revelation? Oh, it was vital. It was absolutely vital to my faith. It was the reason why we are the true church and everyone else is not. If you took away continuing revelation, we're just another religion that's trying to interpret a set of books that have been given to us and trying to interpret it the best way we can. But, you know, as I saw it, you look around at all the different Christian churches and they're all trying to interpret the Bible.

None of them can come to a perfect consensus. So it seems like you need some kind of authority to step in and say exactly what God wants us to know. So, yeah, it was incredibly vital to me. Yeah. Yeah. Michael, what do you think? Yeah, I feel exactly the same way.

The same word jumped to my head. Vital. It was one of my vital organs as a Latter-day Saint to believe in continuing revelation. If it came to a closed canon, whenever I thought about that, it was actually a threat to my faith because a closed canon would undermine the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Prove Great Price. If there's no revelation, then the scripture that we had was obsolete and useless in our modern lives.

And then an open canon was proof that God still loved us and was still willing to communicate the mysteries of the universe to us. All right. Yeah. It was definitely a big part of my beliefs as a Latter-day Saint. As you both noted, it's vital.

Without it, the whole purpose of any supposed restoration falls apart. So, yeah. What did you think of Christians who did not believe in continuing revelation, Michael? Well, I thought that they worshipped the Bible, first of all, that they put so much emphasis on the Bible that they were rejecting God, in a sense. I thought they were silly to accept the Bible, but to reject the source from whence it came to be, and that they were stuck in a two-dimensional worldview. Ultimately, I felt sorry for them because with them just using their logic, I thought that they would never have the faith to pray about the Book of Mormon and discover that it was true.

So they were going to be stuck that way forever. Okay. Yeah. So for you then, the concept of continuing revelation wasn't just limited to the prophets and apostles of the LDS faith, but you kind of viewed it as a personal right or privilege as well?

Yeah. I would definitely say that I viewed it as something that every single Latter-day Saint could receive this revelation. They couldn't receive it for the entire church, but they could receive it for their families and for themselves. And so it was just as vital for me to receive it for myself as it was for the apostles and the prophet to receive it for the church. Okay.

Yeah. Matthew, you agree with that? I mean, when we look at LDS doctrine, it's so focused on receiving revelation at various levels for their stewardship, whatever their stewardship is and their calling. And so when I, as a Latter-day Saint, looked at Christians and I thought that Christians who had pastors or who had bishops or popes, I thought, well, what is the point of having these leaders if they're not receiving the will of God? When you read throughout scripture, whether it's the Bible or the Book of Mormon, you see God working through prophets. That's what missionaries teach. They go through the beginning to the end and show that God's always spoken through prophets. He's always had a representative on the earth to speak his will. So if you don't have that today, then you obviously aren't following the Bible. That's how I understood it. Yeah.

All right. So I guess now let's cross over to talking about what we believe now as Christians. Do you believe in continuing revelation now as a Christian, Michael?

I would say more no than yes to this question. So no, in the sense that there's no new doctrine being revealed to us that is not already in the Bible. But I would say, especially if I was talking to a Latter-day Saint, that I believe in a living revelation that the revelation that we have right now is not some dead, obsolete scripture that doesn't apply to us today. But it is living scripture that applies to us just as much right now as it did when it was written.

And so it is just as vital now, even if it hasn't been added. Right. Matthew? Yeah, I think I would agree with Michael. There was an article that our friend Fred posted the other day where he says that the canon is not closed in quotes. And that was actually an interesting article that I would recommend reading. But he wasn't saying, you know, hey, there's going to be a new Bible 2.0 coming out. It was more just saying God has revealed what he's revealed and it's sufficient for us. And God is still working through that revelation in us and for the church today.

And so it's not like we're reading a history book of things that have happened in the past and well, that was nice. God did some things in the past. You know, that's, you know, God is still working today.

Maybe not in the same ways as he's always done in the past, but he is still working today. He's still a God of miracles, which is one of the criticisms I had as a Latter-day Saint. There's passages in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants where it talks about God is God of miracles.

He's the same yesterday, today and forever. And so if God performed a miracle in the past, he should perform a miracle today. And I use that as a Latter-day Saint to show, hey, if you don't have a prophet that's speaking new revelations today, then, you know, then you don't have the same God of miracles. But we do see God still performing miracles today and one of which is regenerating an unbeliever or rebellious hater of God into a born-again child of God that loves God and seeks to follow God.

That's the miracle that we see every time someone comes to faith in Christ. So God is still working today and he's still using his word to do that, but he isn't giving us new passages of the Bible or new passages of Scripture. So in other words, the canon isn't officially closed in the sense of we have a passage in the Bible that says no more books after this, we're done. We'll kind of talk about that, I think, later in the discussion. But in the sense of God having completed it, finished it, and given it to the church, it is complete.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And Michael, I liked what you said about the word of God being living. It reminds me of Hebrews 4.12, which says, For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So I love that passage because it does show that the word of God is living, right?

It's not a passive thing. God is still active through his word to the church, as the passage says, to the piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit. That gets to Matthew's point that it is still a miracle when God works salvation in a sinner's heart.

And so, yeah, love what you both had to say there. What's really cool about that scripture, too, is it says that it's as sharp as a two-edged sword. Basically, the word of God does not rust.

It stays completely new all the time. And that's what's amazing about scripture. Oh, I like that.

I like that. So, we know that the claim of the LDS Church is that the world needs the continuing revelation of their prophets and apostles, right? I remember when the proclamation to the world came out.

I mean, if you think about it, that's a pretty bold statement, right? We're going to make a proclamation from Salt Lake City to the world. So what do you think? Does the world need continuing revelation now? Matthew, why don't you take this one first? So, this is often a question the Latter-day Saints will ask us as Christians. They'll say, well, why can't God speak today? Why can't he give more?

Why aren't you expecting more? And I think the question should be rephrased to ask them, why are we not cherishing every single word that God has already given? When we look at the Bible, there's 66 books. There's over 700,000 words.

Over 40 inspired authors. We have so much. We have an embarrassment of riches. We have such a wealth of knowledge that God has given us. And as a Latter-day Saint, we learned, you know, one year in Sunday school, we learned the New Testament. One year, we learned the Old Testament.

But when you're going 9, 10, 15 chapters at a time, there's no way you can understand everything that's being said. There is so much depth and riches in the Old and New Testaments. And instead of asking, well, why shouldn't we get more? We should be asking ourselves, have I appreciated or thanked God for what he's already given me? And if we can look at all those 700,000 words and say, yeah, that's what God said in the past, but I want something more. It's not good enough. Then I think that's an issue that we have in our hearts.

We need to repent and realize that God has given us such a treasury of knowledge and wisdom, and we need to really study that. So, no, I don't think we need more words added onto that. Good.

Yeah. Michael, what do you think? Yeah, I really want to echo what Matthew said as well. A lot of times Latter-day Saints want to emphasize their quantity of scripture, but they reject the quality of scripture by so doing. You ask them, have you read the Bible in its entirety?

And most of the time they will say no. And if they have, they haven't done it recently. And so what is the use of having new scripture if you're not utilizing the Bible in the first place? The only reason that we would need new revelation is if the old revelation that we had was corrupted, which of course the LDS say that it was. So the only reason we would need revelation is for one damage control or two filling in gaps that were left with the original revelation. And so basically what that leaves us with is that the Bible must have been corrupted, incorrect, or incomplete. In other words, God would have given us misinformation in the original revelation.

I don't believe that that is possible. And even if it was, that is not a God that I have any interest in worshiping. So no, I don't think there needs to be any new revelation.

Yeah. Yeah, both of you made good points there. When you think about the article of faith, the ninth article of faith that we read at the beginning of this episode, the claim is made that Latter-day Saints believe that He being God will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And recently, their prophet Russell M. Nelson has said that the restoration is ongoing. When you were a Latter-day Saint, how did you view this idea that God would reveal yet many great and important things about the kingdom of God? Did that seem to you like the restoration wasn't complete? What were you expecting from that phrase?

Well, I mean, I'll jump in there. I was looking forward to the new revelations that were going to come. I didn't ever think that the restoration wasn't complete. I think I would have freaked out if I heard the prophet say those words. So I thought that they were going to be important revelations, but I wasn't expecting new saving ordinances or anything like that.

I just thought they would be kind of interesting tidbits. Is it the Book of Mormon that talks about other tribes of Israel that wrote scripture and that those would come forth someday? So I was kind of expecting some new scripture to show up.

That would be a third and fourth witness to the Bible. I'm not really saying anything new, but just being more witnesses to validate my faith. But of course, that new scripture never showed up, which was kind of disappointing. So you expected interesting tidbits, but not great and important things? I guess not. I guess I was not as optimistic as I could have been.

Matthew, what about you? I personally also thought that the restoration was done with. It's just that we needed a representative of God on the earth to direct our affairs, to warn us of potential new pitfalls or new sins that the church could fall into. It was kind of more of a directorial kind of management kind of position where God would speak to the prophet and he would show us where we need to go. And then leading up to the return of Christ, that role would become much more important to instruct the saints as to where to gather, how every church throughout the world was supposed to operate, whether they were all supposed to go to Adam-ondi-Amin or whatever.

That's kind of how I saw it. I wasn't expecting new books of scripture, although I would have liked new books of scripture. And I think a lot of Latter-day Saints were also kind of wondering when the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon would be revealed. Because I think it's in Ether where it talks about how there would come a time when those things would be revealed to the church unless it is unrighteous or unworthy to receive those words or something like that. And I know that there was a talk I think in the 70s or 80s from one of the general authorities where they talked about this and he was anticipating the sealed portion to come, but it still hasn't come yet.

Unless you think Christopher Namelka actually revealed those. I don't know if you guys know about him, but he claims to be the reincarnation of Hyrum Smith and he's published the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon, but that's another story. Yeah, I've heard of him, but he's also admitted to being a fraud, that he did it to kind of pull one over on people.

Yeah, he has. So yeah, I resonate with a lot of what both of you have said so far. I remember being in my ward one time and the guy who was at the time, he taught gospel doctrine and I think he was the ward mission leader as well at the time. I remember sitting and hearing him go on and on and on about new scripture and then over several years he eventually kind of left the church and left his family and it was kind of a sad situation. Yeah, I mean, continuing revelation, what I would say to that is, what more do we need? Because if you look at the arc of biblical history, right, all of the Old Testament points forward to Christ and the New Testament is kind of an explication of what it means that Christ came among us and is now glorified when you get to the book of Revelation and what the future holds for those who are in Christ. So I would just ask, what more is needed in terms of continuing revelation that we don't already have? And then kind of thinking back on what the LDS church has to offer, I would argue that they're not offering anything necessary, in my opinion. Well, and in my opinion, everything that they offer is just detracting from Christ in the first place. Anything that they are offering is just going to be evidence that their church is true. So it's not pointing to Christ, it is pointing to the priesthood or one of their doctrines like the pre-existence, you know, maybe they could add more details on intelligence and how spirit children are formed or something like that. But it's not going to have anything to do with Christ because if it were Christ-centered, then it would just be undermining the church because you don't need the church if Christ is enough. And so if you're emphasizing Christ, then you are diminishing the need for the church. And one of the things I think of is when I was a member, I always looked at the prophets and the apostles and said, OK, well, they're on their watchtower. They've got a better vantage point to warn us of the dangers ahead. But the thing is, Christ does that.

You know, they've taken his seat and usurped his power. And we don't need a man for those things. If we have the spirit, then we've already got, you know, we've already got a shepherd in Christ watching over us. So that's my thoughts on that. Yeah, I don't know if we wanted to get into 2 Timothy chapter 3 at some point, but I'm sure that'll come up. But yeah, when I think, Paul, you were talking about how just that especially Hebrews chapter 1.

So we'll probably get into that more detail. But just looking at that, the whole scope of scripture was pointing to Christ. It's all about Christ. And so when Christ and God in his fullness was revealed in Christ, that was the fullness of his revelation. And so there's still scripture that came after his ministry, but it was all pointing backward to what he had done and describing the works that God did in the early church. So it's all focused around Christ. Like, you know, the meridian of time, that's when the fullness of God's revelation came. And I mean, that's what everything was leading up to was that moment of Christ coming to earth.

So when we have that, why do we need constantly new ideas, new thoughts? You know, it's like when you ever watch a movie and you get to the climax and you're like, oh, man, you know, it's like, you know, finally, you know, the story's wrapped up. All the conflict is done with. And then you have another hour and a half of movie to go through. And you're just like, but we already reached the climax. You know, why do I need to watch all this other stuff? You know, that's kind of what it feels like with the LDS revelation. It's like, oh, there's all this other stuff that's not really that interesting compared to what you've already read. You know, it's kind of like the Hobbit movies. Sorry, Hobbit film fans. But those those movies are terrible.

They're terrible. Well, we're going to have to we're going to have to hold off on that discussion. You're listening to Outer Brightness, a podcast for post Mormons who are drawn by God to walk with Jesus rather than turn away. Outer Brightness, Outer Brightness, Outer Brightness.

There's no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth here, except when Michael's hanger that is, hanger that is, hanger that is. We were all born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, more commonly referred to as the Mormon faith. All of us have left that religion and have been drawn to faith in Jesus Christ based on biblical teachings. The name of our podcast, Outer Brightness, reflects John 1 9, which calls Jesus the true light which gives light to everyone. We have found life beyond Mormonism to be brighter than we were told it would be. And the light we have is not our own. It comes to us from without.

Thus, Outer Brightness. Our purpose is to share our journeys of faith and what God has done in drawing us to his son. We have conversations about all aspects of that transition, the fears, challenges, joys and everything in between.

We're glad you found us and we hope you'll stick around. So what do you think? You know, Latter-day Saints will often criticize Christians that don't believe in continuing revelation, that they are limiting God. Is it possible to limit God?

Matthew, what do you think? Yeah, when you think about it that way, it does sound like Christians are trying to put God in a box. Like you're telling God that he can't do this, that he can't talk again today, that he can't give us new scripture. And again, I think it requires rephrasing the question, rephrasing how we think about it. It's not about limiting God.

Excuse me. It's about reading what God has said and understanding what he said. And if he's promised more revelation, then OK, we should expect it. But as we mentioned before, the revelation was all pointing towards Christ. And Hebrews 1, we'll get into more detail, really just focuses on how all the prophets were leading up to Christ.

You know, they were all looking forward to the day and pointing towards that day. And so and with the scripture of the New Testament, it just finishes the story that God wanted to tell. And so it's like we're waiting for the next book to come out. But God's already said, you know, it's a discussion I had with the missionary the other day. He said, well, John wrote that if you could fill the whole book, the whole earth with books about what Christ did, you could fill the entire earth. So wouldn't we want all those books?

And I'm like, yeah, sure. But you have to look at the whole narrative. And like we've said, it's a whole narrative leading from creation to glory. And when you read the New Testament and the end of Revelation, it's basically God's stamp at the end saying the end. It talks about the new heavens, the new earth, all of creation being reconciled to God, you know, because we're in a fallen state and even the creation groans because of the fall. But all of that will be reconciled to God and all of God's people will be with him in glory. There's nothing really to add to that. It seems like God fit like the narrative is just finished at that point. So what can we add to it?

Yeah. Speaking of which, I don't have a whole lot to add to what you said, Matthew. You answered that really well. I think I wanted to kind of explore that thought that you brought up, though, about that verse at the very end of of John where it says, if all the books that could have been written had been written, the whole world would not be able to to fit them. And the question that's come to my mind is if there were that many books about Christ, would we be able to read them all? And the answer is no, we wouldn't. And even if we did, how much would we be getting out of it? Because we'd have to be reading it pretty quickly, I think. So I think we'd really be missing out on on the quality of those books if we were to to do that.

So as far as limiting God, I think in our in our minds, we can limit God. But in reality, no. And one of the things I've kind of learned just from writing my articles over the years is that, like, I'll finish an article and I'll think, oh, my gosh, I need to go back and add a detail that I missed last time. And then I'll try to find a place to put it. And there's nowhere to put it because there's also the flow of the article. And by adding that sentence, you will destroy the flow of the writing that you're doing. And so you have to leave it out. And because adding the detail would actually mess it up. And so I have to realize, you know, that when God put together the scriptures, it's like, yes, there probably are more details.

He could have told us that he decided not to. And I need to trust God that it was left out for a reason that it's good the way that it is. Because if I say that we need more revelation that this isn't good enough, that I'm basically saying God didn't know what he was doing when he put this together. What's interesting, too, is a lot of the early Christians wanted to know more about Jesus. You know, they they they thirsted for knowledge. And so that's when we see a lot of these apocryphal texts. You know, we always talk about the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, you know, Tobit and Esdras and all these other books. But there were a lot of apocryphal New Testament books, too. And what they tried to do is they would see a gap. You know, there's really nothing we know about Jesus from when he was, what, 12, 13 until his ministry at around 30. And so you see, like the the the infancy gospel of Thomas, you know, like the gospel according to Judas and all these other texts that came much later after Christ.

So they're not they're not authentic. They were trying to fill in those gaps because they they saw an audience. They saw a potential need they could fill and they're trying to fill in those those details. But but yeah, exactly like you were saying, I think there is a specific reason why God didn't didn't reveal everything that happened in Christ's life.

There's a reason for that. We have the books that we have because that's what we need for eternal life. And if we were to have all these extra side stories that could detract or distract from the core message of of the Bible. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. My thoughts on this, if I were to answer the question kind of directly, it would be a hard no. It's not possible to limit God. Let me explain what I mean by that. So if you think about someone who doesn't believe in God and rejects the Bible, is that person limiting God in terms of what God could do in their lives?

I would have to answer no. God could bring them to salvation. And in many cases for individuals such as that, God does bring them to salvation eventually. So no, I would say you can't you can't limit God with regards to accepting or not the additional books that the Latter-day Saints claim as scripture. It's not limiting God to reject that either because my position isn't that God couldn't speak. The question I think is, has he spoken in these days? Did he speak to Nephite prophets? Were plates transmitted from prophet to prophet to keep the record and then eventually deposited for the angel Moroni to reveal to Joseph Smith?

The question is, did that happen? It's not that I'm limiting God by saying I reject that because I don't think it's possible to limit God. And the reason I take that position is it's the words of Jesus. If you could limit God, if I could limit God by rejecting the Book of Mormon and limit God's ability to exalt me because I reject the Book of Mormon and other LDS scripture, then that would be a mighty weak God that we would be talking about. And the words of Jesus, no one can come to me except the Father draw him.

That's pretty stark. It's no one can come to me unless the Father draw him. So that to me says, no, you cannot limit God. God will get his way. So next question, when God spoke in the past, how did he do so? Did he always speak to a defined hierarchy among his people? Michael, why don't you tackle this one first?

All right, that'd be my pleasure. So we do see in the Old Testament God speaking to prophets quite a bit, which I know that the LDS will latch onto and say, see, that proves that we need a prophet today. But then you also see God speaking to other people and some of them are heathens. Genesis chapter 20 verses 1 through 3, for example, God speaks to Abimelech after he takes Abraham's wife Sarah and says, you are a dead man. And Abimelech says, well, he said that she was his sister.

I'm innocent. You know, he has a conversation with God and he's not a prophet. And then you also have Pharaoh. He's the one that receives these visions. Yes, Joshua interprets them, but they are given directly to Pharaoh, who is a heathen king. And then it gets really interesting because God also speaks to women prophetesses and they receive revelation for all of Israel and that really destroys the hierarchy of the LDS church. And it's actually kind of ironic to even for them to even say that God has to speak to a hierarchy when they criticize us of limiting God because we don't have more scripture, but they're the ones limiting God when they say he has to speak to a hierarchy and he can only give revelation to the father when it comes to the family.

You know, there's a whole set of rules that they have for how God will give revelation and that just doesn't seem to be the case when it comes to the Bible at all. Yeah, I love those points about the way God spoke to people who weren't prophets. I think that's a good point to make when you look at the Bible.

So thanks for that, Michael. Matthew, what do you think about this question? Excuse me, I would agree that God did speak through many different people in many different ways. When we look at ancient Israel as a people, God did choose to primarily speak through chosen vessels. So he did primarily choose to speak through prophet. We see that when Moses, when he was called up to the mountain, he went there alone and God revealed to him the law and he etched on the stone with his own finger. So when God revealed the Ten Commandments on the stone, on the tablets, he etched with his own finger.

All the people of Israel were at the bottom of the mountain. So they were waiting patiently, anxiously for God's revelation. And later, he called 70 elders, right?

Or 72 elders, I forget which number it is. And Moses selected these men for God to give a special blessing upon them to help him because he was a judge where he was trying to judge all these cases and it was just too difficult for him. So he was advised by his father-in-law to choose these men amongst all of Israel. So then they were given a special blessing to help him with these judgments. So we do see people with special gifts of prophecy throughout time from among the people.

But we see that changing once we get to the New Testament. And I was just going to read a little bit from Acts chapter 2. Joel, he prophesied in the future when it wouldn't just be typically, although there are exceptions, typically several prophets that were chosen by God to represent and speak to the people.

There'd be a day when all of God's people would be prophets. So in Acts chapter 2, speaking of the day of Pentecost when the spirit was poured out and God revealed, people spoke through tongues and they were speaking, they were prophesying in different languages. It says this, Peter, taking a stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them, Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words.

For these men are not drunk, the ones that were speaking in tongues, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel. And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth my spirit on all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Men of Israel, listen to these words. So basically Peter is saying that this prophecy was speaking of that day when God would pour out his spirit and he would prophesy to all of them. So the gift of prophecy in the New Testament church was common amongst many of the church members. It wasn't just the elders and deacons that had this ability or even the apostles.

There were people even amongst them that were prophesying. So kind of a long explanation. Sorry about that. No, no, no, it's good.

Let me build on it. So the LDS view has this concept that when Moses went up onto the mountain initially, he received the higher law that the LDS believe in, right? So everything that Latter-day Saints kind of view as part of the gospel, exaltation, plural marriage, that all would have been part of what Moses initially received from God to give to Israel. And when he came down off of the mountain and saw them worshiping the golden calf, he busted the tablets from the initial higher law. This is the LDS view, of course, that God had given and went back up on the mountain.

And then God gave the lower law, the Ten Commandments. So if you think about that, what that means and LDS, at least back when I was still LDS, a little more than 10 years ago, you would still have lessons about this, say in priesthood quorum. And there would be talk about how Israel was in apostasy from Moses until Jesus. And Jesus brings back the Melchizedek Priesthood kind of on the LDS view. Well, if you think about that, there are a lot of prophets in the Old Testament between Moses and Jesus. So what were those prophets? If you think about the LDS hierarchy, prophets, apostles, first presidency, none of that would have been present in the Old Testament period. And in fact, what you do see in the Old Testament period is prophets called from outside of the, what's the word I'm looking for, of kind of the priesthood in Israel and come and speak to the kings and call them to repentance and speak to the priests and call them to repentance. And so it's not as clear cut as the Latter-day Saint narrative tries to make it. And so when God spoke in the past, he spoke as he chose to. And so, again, I would say you can't limit God. He's going to do what he will do to bring about his purposes, as he says he will do in the Bible.

All right. So here's the real question, right? If God wanted to speak today, could he? Does he?

And what does it look like? Matthew, why don't you take this one first? I'm reminded of Justin Peters. He says, if you want to hear God's voice or if you want to read what God has spoken, open your Bibles and read. If you want to hear God's voice, read your Bibles out loud. I love that.

Yeah, I love that too. So, yeah, I don't, you know, there's different views amongst Christians as to whether people can have the gift of prophecy today. But I think that when we look at scripture, it's, as we've mentioned before, it's sufficient for what we need. There's a really deep passage that we mentioned previously, 2 Timothy 3, 16, 17.

And so I'll just kind of briefly go over it. But a lot of times I'll quote that to Latter-day Saints and they'll say, well, that doesn't mean that God will never reveal anything ever again, or we can't have new scripture, or this is only talking about the Old Testament. But I think it's when he writes, when he's talking about scripture, Paul is not limiting it just to the Old Testament. I think he's speaking broadly of all of the inspired scripture.

And we, you know, we could go into passages where the writers of the New Testament knew they were writing scripture. Peter talks about how, or yeah, Peter talks about how the writings of Paul were being twisted, you know, to their own destruction, and that these writings are difficult to understand, that these are being twisted as they twist the other scriptures. So he's comparing Paul's writings to scripture.

But in 2 Timothy 3, Paul writes, sorry, I had the Greek up, so I'll get the parallel back up. So depending on which translation you use, all scripture is God-breathed and beneficial for teaching. Sorry, all scripture is inspired by God or God-breathed and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable or complete.

Artios is the Greek for that, which means kind of like to be complete, equipped for every good work. So when we really just tear this apart and look at what scripture is, by nature, it's God-breathed. It's inspired by God, theopneustos. It comes from God.

It's as if God breathed and the words fell onto the pages. And it's beneficial for which, for what purposes? First, teaching. Second, for rebuke. So calling someone out for their sin and calling them to repentance. Same for correction, to correct somebody on a path that may not be sinful, but may just be in the wrong direction. Fourth, for training in righteousness.

So not just avoiding sin, but to be doing positive righteousness, doing positively what God commands us to do, not just to avoid what we should not do. And this is so that the man of God may be fully capable and equipped for every good work, for every good work. So when we think about that, is there any good work that we're not prepared for?

No. Is there anything that is missing or lacking? It says that we're complete or fully capable. And basically, scripture is inspired to complete us, to lead us down the path that God wants us to go. And if we really unwrap what the implications are for this passage, it's not just saying, well, scripture is useful for these purposes and it's nice and it's good.

It's saying that if we really follow and understand and prayerfully apply God's word to our lives, it will lead us to become exactly the types of people that God wants us to be. And there's nothing that's lacking from scripture. And if we follow it perfectly, then we would become perfectly what God wants us to be. But we still have that sin nature, so we can't achieve that perfectly in this life. But there really is nothing that's lacking in God's word.

I forgot why I brought that up, but oh, why we would need prophecy today. So when we understand that, when we understand what God is saying in 2 Timothy 3, we could say, well, God could give us new words for benefits other than knowing how to become one with Christ. You know, maybe our church needs to start a new program or we need to help out a certain person in the church. Well, I think God has given us principles in scripture, you know, to help the needy, to help the widows and the foreigners and to give as we should. And he's given us brains to know how to apply that. And we prayerfully ask the Spirit to help us understand and to follow and follow the path that God has given for us. But I don't think we need to wait on bated breath for God to tell us exactly what to do every step. There's a great book also called The Final Word.

And I forget the author's name, but he's from the Reformed tradition. And he says, if you think about it this way, let's say there's a scenario where there's a man in the street and he needs help. You know by principle that if you can help, then you probably should help if you can that person in the street.

And so we need to prayerfully follow the moral teachings and principles in scripture. But if let's say the second chance that you receive a direct word from God telling you, you need to help that man now and you disobey, then that's going directly against God's will and you're constrained. You have no choice in that circumstance. In the second case, you have to help that person. Whereas in the first case, you are not constrained, but you are encouraged, you're morally encouraged to help. But it wouldn't necessarily be sin to not help. And there's not a specific way that you're supposed to help.

There could be many ways that you could help him. There's kind of a freedom in the moral principles taught in scripture that we're supposed to follow. So that we're not morally constrained to follow a specific path, if that makes sense. To apply that to my mission, I felt like all the time I was constantly receiving God's thoughts. And God's like, oh, I should have talked to that person. I feel like God was telling me to talk to that person.

I should have knocked on that door, but I didn't. So, you know, I was constantly disobeying God and going against what he was telling me to do. But when we understand that the principles are taught in scripture and we're to prayerfully follow him as best as possible, we're not constantly going against what God has spoken. We're just striving to follow God's will prayerfully with the Spirit as best we can. You know, we're not robots. God gives us some measure of freedom and liberty to follow his will to an extent. But if we're expecting for God to tell us exactly what to do, then there's no freedom there.

We have to follow exactly as we've been told. So sorry, that's quite a lot. I'm going on a rant. I love it.

It was good. I like what you said about there's kind of a moral freedom in the commands that are given to us. Michael, let me play off of that and throw you kind of a curveball of a question, all right?

OK. All right. So Latter-day Saints will often try to bolster the need for continuing revelation in particular from their prophets by saying that, you know, the world is different now than Bible times. We have different concerns, different challenges. How would you answer that, that challenge that says we need continuing revelation because there's new stuff that we have to deal with? I guess the first thing that I would say is, did God or was God not aware of the challenges that we would be facing in the future when he talked about the last days and revelation? Because it seems to me like he did know exactly what was going to be happening up until the very end when the second coming is going to occur. And the scriptures do cover that. And ultimately, what moral dilemma do we have right now that isn't answered in the scriptures? You know, we have new problems.

Sure. It's a new, pretty packaging. But when you open up that packaging, it's the same moral dilemmas that and the same sins that we've struggled with as humans since the dawn of time. It's really nothing new. So I don't think that that's a good reason to say that you need new revelation. And and then finally, what I would probably say to is, you know, where does it address these problems that we have now in the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants? Because by their standard, those books are now obsolete. So do we just throw those away then if what you're saying is true? So it is a double edged sword that they're playing.

Yeah, for sure. And one of the challenges they face is that, you know, with regards to their prophets and apostles, some of the guidance that they have given over the years has proven to be harmful to their people, painful to African-Americans, for example. So, you know, it's not like they've been very effective at providing guidance that is tailor made for our day. They've been kind of behind the curve on that. And just to add to that, too, you've got the covid-19 pandemic. And so there you've seen pictures of President Nelson wearing a mask and getting the vaccines. But what have they told their people that is any different from what the government has been telling everybody? And so there's they're not doing anything special or above and beyond what the what even the government is doing.

They've been preparing for all those months with those vitamins, Michael. I mean, I'd be more impressed to see them evoke the priesthood and take care of the problem. I mean, that's what the biblical prophets would have done. Moses separated the Red Sea.

Elijah caused it to stop raining. You know, there's all these miracles that they've done. And I'm still waiting to see something like that from these men that they claim are prophets today. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So let's move on to some of the some of the scriptures that that come into play from the Bible when you have this kind of conversation about continuing revelation with Latter-day Saints. So it used to be very common to see Christians and Mormons argue over whether or not Deuteronomy four to twelve thirty two and Revelation twenty to eighteen indicate that the Bible is the complete word of God.

So let me let me just read those real quick. Deuteronomy four to says you shall not add to the word which I am commanding you nor take away from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you. And then Deuteronomy twelve thirty two says, whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do.

You shall not add to or take away from it. And finally, Revelation twenty to eighteen states, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book. So is is this a good argument to use with Latter-day Saints? Why or why not?

Michael, what do you think? So when you say is this a good argument to use, are you saying to use Revelation twenty to eighteen saying that nothing should have been added to the scripture? I would say that it is not a good argument to use on a Latter-day Saint. In fact, I've had this used on me as a Latter-day Saint and I would immediately go to the verses and Deuteronomy and say, well, according to your logic, everything after Deuteronomy is damning. To those who wrote it because they weren't supposed to add to the prophecy. And so we can deduce that these passages are talking about that book of scripture itself and not everything that was written after it. So I wouldn't use that in that way with a Latter-day Saint.

Now, there is a way that you can use it, but I would go a different route. So if those revelations were not to be added to, then we can presume that they were given accurately and that they were preserved. And if that is the case, then that must also be true of other revelation as well.

And there's no need to add or take away from any of it. That's something that's kind of interesting. So I kind of looked this up today because I was like, I wonder what the Joseph Smith translation is in these passages. And there's actually Joseph Smith translations done in Deuteronomy and in the Book of Revelation. I don't know if you guys were aware of that, but I looked at Deuteronomy 10 to this is the Joseph Smith translation.

It says, I'll put the same words on the first tablets that you broke, except the words of the everlasting covenant of the holy priesthood. So they've put in this LDS doctrine into the Joseph Smith translation. And then when it comes to the Book of Revelation, I didn't read through all of them, but several chapters in Revelation were changed in the Joseph Smith translation. So you've got Revelation 1, 2, 5, 12 and 19. So there is a lot of changing of what that revelation said, which, according to what you just read in Revelation, means that Joseph Smith is in a lot of trouble. Matthew, what do you think? Yeah, I just happened to have my book, the Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible. So I was just checking those verses. Yeah. And I should have checked that before, but that's great that you brought that up, Michael.

Yeah, I agree that we really shouldn't use those. They're in the context of the words that were given to them. You know, I think Moses was giving the words, the law to Israel.

And so I was saying, don't add or take away from this law. And in Revelation, it's talking about the revelation given to John. So, yeah, I really don't think that's a good argument, like Michael said.

You think he's on to something with flipping it, with his argument to say, you know, that it proves that the revelation was given accurately and has been preserved? I missed that exactly. In the sense that, could you repeat it? I'm missing the connection here. I didn't do a good job of paraphrasing it.

Michael, can you jump in here? Yeah. So I think what I said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to repeat it as well as I did last time, but I think what I was trying to say was that if those passages that if God said, do not add or take away from this word, you know, that it was given perfectly. Otherwise there would have been permission to add or take away from it. But we weren't supposed to touch it.

And if that is the case with Revelation and Deuteronomy, then that is likely the case with all the other scripture as well, that it was given accurately and that we shouldn't be touching it. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, that's in particular, I think, specifically speaking to John. But yeah, I would I would say that that also applies to the rest of scripture. And there's there's a lot you could talk about with textual criticism, because that's a whole another issue that we could talk about. But but really, I don't think when it when it comes to what God has spoken, that's what we should be concerned about.

You know, and I think I think Latter-day Saints, they think about that a lot. You know, well, what about the Bible has been corrupted over time and they'll point to changes in the manuscripts have been copied over time. And I don't think it was, you know, instances where there were words that were added by copyists.

I don't think that was deliberate. Typically what happened was if there was a note in the margin, they wanted to be careful and make sure they didn't forget anything. So they would include the marginal note sometimes. So then that would be added into the next copy. But due to textual criticism, we can we can weed out a lot of those additions over time.

So we're really blessed by God to have all this manuscript tradition that we can use to to weed out, so to speak, the accidents that copyists made over time. So I think God has preserved his word and we can trust what God has given us. All right. Good.

All right. So what about Hebrews 1, 1 to 2 then? Does that passage indicate a closed canon?

And I'll read it. It says, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. So is is using Hebrews 1, 1 to 2 a good argument for a closed canon?

Matthew, what do you think? And I don't think it's necessarily saying here that, no, you're not going to get we're not going to receive any more revelation. I forget in the timeline where Hebrews shows up. I know it's not the last book written, but it's it's one of the later books written.

So we know that there were books written after Hebrew. So he's not saying, well, prophets are done with we're not going to receive any more revelation. It's more speaking about the role of the Old Testament prophet prophesying to the future of Christ. And so I think Jesus himself said that John was the last of these kind of prophets.

There were prophets in the New Testament, but they served kind of a different purpose where they were, they weren't foretelling of the Christ to come. It's more forthtelling God's will and God's word to. But yeah, this it's a little bit it's a bit of a nuanced passage because it's not explicitly stating there would be no more scripture. But it's kind of like we talked about before where all of the Bible is Christocentric. So it's all focusing and centered on Christ. So the narrative it's it's got this crescendo that's leading up to the birth of Christ and his ministry and and his atoning work. And then everything written after that is kind of setting up the church and giving directions as to how to lead the church and and commenting back on what has been given. The New Testament comments so much on Old Testament and refers to the Gospels as well. And so you can't really say that definitively that this is saying no more scripture be given. But it's it's kind of saying that Jesus is the final revelation of God.

He's he's the final and and the zenith of what God was revealing to mankind. So everything that happens after that or, you know, that's revealed after that is more of an epilogue kind of if you're talking about in terms of a react structure type of thing. So, yeah, I don't know if you can make sense of anything I said there, but I hope something makes sense out of that. Absolutely. I can make sense of it. And then, you know, when you get to when you get to Revelation, it opens with, you know, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God the Father gave to him to give to his bondservants.

Right. So you have Jesus as the final revelation and then you have the revelation of Jesus Christ of the future and the last days given to to the church. So, yeah, I think I think there's a good argument to be made there that the point of Hebrews is not necessarily closed canon, but that, as you said, the revelation of Jesus Christ to the world in coming to save sinners is the zenith of God's revelation. It's what everything was leading towards and everything now looks back to. Michael, what do you think about this Hebrews 1-2 passage? You see it bantied about a lot. Yeah, I really like the way that Matthew put it, actually.

I think that was really good. I was thinking about it kind of in terms of being an author myself and how the Bible is a complete story in and of itself. You know, you've got the fall, which is the introduction, and then you've got the history and the prophecies about Christ, which is the rising action. Then you've got the ministry of Christ and his atonement, which is the climax, and then the epistles and the acts, which is the falling action, and then revelation, which is the conclusion. It is a complete story in and of itself. There is nothing to add to it whatsoever because it is a complete work. The second that you put something else in there, like the Book of Mormon, to try to say that this is a sequel, it's a really bad sequel, basically. I mean, you look at the Book of Mormon and how much of it is copied verbatim from the King James version of the Bible. They say that it's this new revelation, but then so much of it is just the exact same thing because there really isn't anything that you can add to what was said before. It's perfect. How do you compete with that?

You can't. Going back to your Star Wars example, if we will. I mean, you look at the new trilogy, the new Disney trilogy versus the original trilogy, it's basically taking the same markers, the same stories. They switch up things here and there, but a lot of the same beats. It's kind of the same thing like you were saying with the Book of Mormon.

It's like a lot of the same beats that all led up to Jesus visiting them, and then it's talking about promises given to the believers. It's like you could pin down all the notes that it took from the original trilogy and the same thing with the Book of Mormon. It's like a lot of times a lot of the saints will say, well, could you write the Book of Mormon?

And I'm like, well, I mean, you're blowing my mind here. I mean, Yoda destroyed the Jedi volumes. You know, like, man, Joseph Smith, the Bible's corrupt, Yoda destroying the volumes.

Oh, my goodness. Except Ray saved them before he could burn them. So that's like Joseph Smith snatching the uncorrupted Bible from the Whore of Babylon, you know, to preserve them for the rest.

I don't know where I'm going with this. Let me finish the analogy for you real quick with my ultimate, you know, inexperience with Star Wars. You know, I thought that that baby Grogu was Yoda and then I realized that he wasn't. And it's kind of like how I thought the Book of Mormon was inspired scripture. And it's not. It's nothing like that. It's a totally different animal, different creature entirely.

But Grogu is cute. Come on. All right. All right, Fireflies, that's a wrap for this topic. Feel free to share your thoughts in the Outer Brightness group on Facebook. Is there an aspect of this topic we missed? Something that you'd like us like to see us discuss in the future? Next week, we'll be publishing a debate between Paul and Brett Dennis.

The topic was, is the Book of Abraham ancient scripture? Until then, shine bright, Fireflies. We thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Outer Brightness podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Please visit the Outer Brightness podcast page on Facebook. Feel free to send us a message there with comments or questions by clicking send a message at the top of the page.

And we would appreciate it if you give the page a like. We also have an Outer Brightness group on Facebook where you can join and interact with us and others as we discuss the podcast, past episodes and suggestions for future episodes, etc. You can also send us an email at outerbrightness at gmail.com.

We hope to hear from you soon. You can subscribe to the Outer Brightness podcast on Apple Podcasts, Cast Box, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, PodBeam, Spotify and Stitcher. Also, you can check out our new YouTube channel. And if you like it, be sure to lay hands on that subscribe button and confirm it. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating and review wherever you listen and help spread the word. You can also connect with Michael the Ex-Mormon apologist at fromwater2wine.org, where he blogs and sometimes Paul and Matthew do as well. Music for the Outer Brightness podcast is graciously provided by the talented Brianna Flournoy and by Adams Road. Learn more about Adams Road by visiting their ministry page at adamsroadministry.com. Stay bright, Flyerflies. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed And have come to know that You are the Holy One of God The Word made French, the risen Son Heaven and earth will pass away But the Word of the Lord endures forever All of this world is in decay But the Word of our God through ages remains Lord, You promised that we, as Your church, would remain Upon this rock and the gates of hell Will not prevail against us Cause You have power to keep Your word unspoiled in purity Heaven and earth will pass away But the Word of the Lord endures forever All of this world is in decay But the Word of our God through ages remains As the rain falls down from heaven And waters the earth bringing it life So the Word that goes out from Your mouth Will not return empty but does what You desire Lord, we hear Your word and believe in You Heaven and earth will pass away But the Word of the Lord endures forever All of this world is in decay But the Word of our God through ages remains The Word of God remains