Covenantal Culmination: Why the New Covenant Documents Signify the Cessation of Normative Post-Apostolic Revelation

Abstract

This thesis argues that post-apostolic revelation should not be a normative expectation for New Covenant believers on the basis of the intersection between covenant, canon, and the function of prophecy.

Chapter 1 addresses relevant material to this conversation, revealing the unique need for Baptistic scholarship on this subject. Chapter 2 explains the centrality of covenant for man’s eschatological relationship with God in conjunction with its inseparable link to special revelation. After delineating this biblical-theological connection, chapter 3 shows how the biblical canon is the culmination of God’s special, covenantal revelation to his people throughout the duration of redemptive history. Chapter 4 shifts focus to the New Covenant and the canonical documents associated with the New Covenant, elucidating God’s ordained means of speaking to his people through the first century apostles and prophets. Chapter 5 offers concluding remarks in view of the relevant apologetical, evangelistic, and polemical implications for the broader church.