Canon is FOR the Church, Not FROM the Church

The idea of a New Testament canon was not something developed in the second century (or later) when the church was faced with pressing needs, but rather it was something that was handed down to and inherited by the early church from the beginning. It was the foundation for the church, not the consequence of the church. The idea of canon, therefore, does not belong formally to church history, but is more accurately understood as a central plank in redemptive history.

The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Andreas J. Kostenberger, Page 117