Redemptive History and the Markan Scriptures

In my last post, I discussed why Mark's Gospel ends at 16:8 from the perspective of its human authorship. Now I want to turn to the same question from the perspective of its divine authorship. This is the question of the canon, or "Why did God give us the Scriptures he gave us?"

The work which has most profoundly shaped my thinking on the Biblical canon is Herman N. Ribberbos' Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1963; 2nd rev. ed., 1988). What I consider his most important contribution to the study of the canon is the observation that the New Testament Scriptures were the apostolic doctrinal foundation on which the Church was to be built (ex. 1 Corinthians 3). Practically speaking, this means we have 1 and 2 Corinthians because those Pauline letters contained apostolic doctrine necessary to the building and maintenance of the Church, and we don't have Paul's other letters to Corinth because they were not necessary to that end.

In other words, when considering the canon of Scripture, we can rest in God's providence. He ensured we have the prophetic and apostolic doctrine we need: we just don't need whatever else the apostles and prophets wrote, no matter how interesting those works might have been.

So let us assume R.T. France (along with some others) is right when he suggests the original, longer ending to Mark's Gospel has been lost to us, just as have been Paul's other Corinthian letters. From the divine perspective of the God who not only superintended the writing, but also the preservation, collection, and canonization of the Scriptures, nothing has truly been lost. The Church has, in the version of Mark's Gospel which she has preserved, the Gospel she needs.

Whatever Mark's own intentions may have been, God himself intended this Gospel to end at 16:8 for the good of the Church.