By Corbin T. Volluz
The Bible teaches that it is the complete and final revelation of God to mankind.
In his attempt to present more an affirmative paper instead of a negative, as he should have done, Mr. Volluz’s demise rests in his own pen. We remind him that it is the duty of the negative to answer the affirmative’s contentions. First, I would encourage each reader to go back through my first affirmative, look at the arguments presented, the many passages used (as even Mr. Volluz confesses) and then look again at how many passages Mr. Volluz used and how he used them. We are destined, it appears, to have as Mr. Volluz’s “authority” for his convictions and his writings, so called latter-day prophets such as Orson Pratt and Mr. Volluz’s own personal revelation. But, who is Orson Pratt that I should hear his voice and what makes the personal revelation of Corbin Volluz any more credible than that of Oral Roberts or Jimmy Swaggert? No thanks, I reject them all and stand on the exalted standard “once and for all delivered” (Jude 3).
Mr. Volluz loves the term non-sequitur. He says that my arguments concerning the Bible being complete and final aren’t valid because, although the early Christians had a full gospel, which Mr. Volluz confesses, “that doesn’t mean it was the final word of God to man, because if that were true, God would be contradicting his principle of speaking through living prophets as he always has.” Mr. Volluz has made this his “sugar-stick” in his first negative. You the reader saw where he said more than once that God has spoken through living prophets from “the garden of Eden to the present.”
But now, hold everything. Stop the presses! Let’s see who is offering non-sequitur arguments! We challenge Mr. Volluz to produce from the Bible where God ever spoke to those in the garden through prophets! Furthermore, we challenge Mr. Volluz to show where God spoke to men like Abraham through prophets! It is true, God used prophets at different times through the Old Testament era and no one is denying that, but Mr. Volluz’s argument is, that God has “always used living prophets.” Wholly incorrect! Simply because he used them at different times, doesn’t mean he has always used them. Mr. Volluz’s major foundation has cracks in it! God has not always spoken through prophets and therefore it is non-sequitur to say he does today. Let the Hebrew writer tell us if God speaks through living phophets today: “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past (emphasis mine, RWL) unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1-2). The Bible says “time past” and “through his Son.” Corbin Volluz says that today he speaks through living men who are prophets. It’s Volluz vs. Hebrews. But how does Jesus speak to men today? Paul says the “gospel is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16) and Peter declares, “This is the truth . . . which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Pet. 1:25).
Those first two “intermediate steps” that Mr. Volluz referred to, I did establish. I did it with Scripture that he “observed the passover” on. As he did not accept them, will he accept these? The Bible is the complete and final revelation of God to man today and was written:
“That men might believe in Christ and have life” (Jn. 20:30-31); that men might know the things which Jesus did and taught (Acts 1:1); that men might be assured of the certainty of that which they were orally taught (Lk. 1:3-4); that men might know the commandments of the Lord (1 Cor. 14:37); that men might understand the mystery of Christ which was revealed to the apostles and prophets (Eph. 3:3-5); that men might know what the apostle has seen and heard and might have fellowship with God, Christ and the Apostles and that joy might be full and complete (1 Jn. 1:34); that men might not sin (1 Jn. 2:1); that men might remember the teaching of the apostles after their death (2 Pet. 1:12-21); that the revelation of the mystery (the gospel) might be manifested unto all nations unto the obedience of faith (Rom. 16:25-26).
Yet, in spite of all these truths, Mr. Volluz still thinks we need living prophets. Does he not see that though the prophets and apostles of the Bible are dead, yet “they still speak” (Heb. 11:4). In that regard they are very much alive, for “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:32). How weak a God our Mormon friends must think God is, that he could not give a standard “one time for all time,” keep it pure and use it to lead men to salvation. That’s not the God that Bob La Coste serves!
It’s ironic indeed that one like Mr. Volluz who believes in continuing revelation should accuse me of adding words to Jude 3. All that I did was define from the original language the word “once.” I told you in my first affirmative that this Scripture would stand when this debate was over and Mr.Volluz surely proved that it does stand by not answering what I had to say about it. What did he say about the word hapax (“one time for all time”) and how it is used in other passages such as Hebrews 9:27-28? Nothing. I’m not surprised. This verse is devastating to the modern who believes in continuing revelations and they know it. However, it was somewhat amusing to read what he had to say about the verse in general. To Mr. Volluz, since Jude used the past tense word “delivered” and since the gospel was already given, then Jude 3 cannot be used to show there is no more revelation in the future. Maybe we better look again! Jude writes of the “common salvation.” Though the gospel had been orally preached in its fulness, inspired men (as Jude) were still writing it down. Jude was not writing anything that had not been preached orally. He, as Peter, was simply “stirring up their remembrance” (2 Pet. 1:13). He was certainly not writing anything different, unlike the so-called modern revelations. Jude was saying that the common salvation is here, it has been delivered, and it will not have to be delivered again . . . and again . . . and again. The word had been confirmed (Mk. 16:20) and prophecy has ceased just as Paul predicted it would when the perfect revelation was come (1Cor. 13:8-10).
Mr. Volluz totally missed my point from Matthew 24:35 and 1 Peter 1:22-25. It was not the purpose of these passages to show incorruptibility. The word of God by its very nature is incorruptible. It lives and it abides forever. The cry of the modernist is that the reason we need continuing revelation and the reason the Bible can not be trusted to be the final and complete revelation, is because some of the truth of God has been lost, or to listen to Mr. Volluz, it was not all written down. Mormons believe both. The Bible totally rejects this. Again, Jesus promised all truth to his disciples (Jn. 16:13) and Peter affirmed that he preached that same incorruptible truth (1 Pet. 1:22-25). Yes, the gospel is “all I have,” because I trust God to have given me, “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). We would that Mr. Volluz would have such confidence toward God. Confidence in God’s word doesn’t mean one worships a book. I’m sure along those lines that many Mormons have been accused of worshiping the book Mormon, but I’m sure they would deny it. Mr. Volluz: Was the gospel Peter and the others preached sufficient enough to make them Christians in the first century and lead them to eternal life? If so, why will not the same gospel do the same today? If it will not, why won’t it?
Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 23, pp. 716-717
December 6, 1990