The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-B, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 4."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  ©1976. All Rights Reserved.

Question

Revelation 22:18-19: “For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and out of the holy city and from the things written in this book.” Does this refer to just the book of Revelation or the whole Bible?

Answer

(Now what that verse simply says is you can’t add anything to Revelation, right? If you do, it shall be added unto you the plagues. You can’t take away anything—if you take away anything, it shall be taken away from you the right to the tree of life, the holy city, and so forth.)

The question is, "Does this refer to just the book of Revelation or the whole Bible?" That’s an important question. Let me answer it this way: let’s say that it refers only to the book of Revelation. That would be the closest possible interpretation, right? This book—“I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book.” Let’s say he’s talking about Revelation. Now, listen to me, friends: if you can’t add anything to Revelation, you can’t add anything to the Bible either, right? Because it’s the end! I don’t know why people get so confused about that. They say, “Does this just mean you can’t add to Revelation?” Yes, it just means that, but if you can’t add to Revelation, you can’t add because that’s the end of the Bible! It seems fairly clear to me.

Then the person asked a second question, “Does this warning apply to David Wilkerson’s vision?” Have you seen the book or have you heard about the book called The Vision? Well, you don’t need to worry about it, but David Wilkerson had a vision, supposedly God-given. Does this apply to that? Well, I believe this is one of the great errors of the Charismatic movement, and I call it an error in the area of understanding biblical inspiration and revelation: they are still getting revelation from God when the Bible says you can’t have any more! I think it applies in a very real sense.

People are saying, “Well, these people are inspired. When you speak in tongues, that’s God speaking his revelation. When these guys have visions, that’s God speaking. Oh, we agree, they’re not as inspired as Paul and they’re not as inspired as David and they’re not as inspired as John and so forth and so on; there are different degrees of inspiration.” Baloney. There aren’t any degrees of inspiration. Either God said it or somebody else said it. God isn’t saying, “I’ll say three words, then you say three.” Or, “I’ll give you a general idea and you carry it yourself.” God either breathed it out or He didn’t. The words are either God’s words or they aren’t God’s words.

You say, “But a guy like Wilkerson… Man, sometimes it’s biblical.” Well, when it’s biblical, you know, it’s biblical. And when it doesn’t say what the Bible says, it isn’t God because you can’t add anything. There is no more inspiration and one of the great heresies today is that there are people getting more revelation from God! All the revelation in the New Testament is completed, the canon is closed, the biblical writers are already identified. There aren’t any more, there aren’t any more apostles—that settles the issue.

But, listen to me, people: every time somebody allows more revelation, all they do is confuse the issue. You want some illustrations? Joseph Smith. Mary Baker Eddie. Judge Rutherford. Annie Besant. Madame Blavatsky. On and on and on and on it goes! Ellen G. White. Whoever you are, whenever people start getting more revelation from God, you have the makings of a cult. It just doesn’t work that way. The same thing happened in the Roman Catholic church when they started saying tradition was equal to revelation: it just destroyed the truth.

No, there is no more revelation.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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