Westminster Confession of Faith 1.3
"The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration,
are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no
authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or
made use of, than other human writings."
Summary
Because God has so
clearly stamped His authority on the 66 books of the Old and New Testament, the
books of the Apocrypha are not in any way to be considered a part of the
authoritative canon of Scripture. One of the ways that the Roman pontiff and
the papal system abused the people of God was to enforce apocryphal books as
authoritative, thereby introducing the odious doctrines of purgatory, limbo,
indulgences, prayers to angels and saints, etc. To make these books in any way
binding on the consciences of Christian people is to reject the authority of
God and His divine right to order and determine the canon. This is not to say
that we ought to destroy them, or even ignore them, but we are to treat them as
we treat any other writings produced with the authority of men. The apocryphal books have as much authority in the Church of Jesus Christ as Augustine, or C.S Lewis.
They may be helpful, but they must never be set up to appear any way close to
authoritative.
+ Blessings in Christ +
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