Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20041121.htm

ANSWERING OTHERS WITH REASONS FOR OUR FAITH Part III: Defending The Bible's Inspiration And Authority B. Defending Scripture's Inspiration In Light Of The Translations Issue (Matthew 5:18-19)
Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

(1) In his book, The King James Only Controversy, p. 91-126, James White writes about three authors who have impacted Christians to adopt the view that God's true Bible is found ONLY in the King James Version: he alludes to Dr. Edward F. Hills and his book, The King James Version Defended, to Gail Riplinger and her work, New Age Bible Versions and to Dr. Peter Ruckman of the Pensacola Bible Institute who has authored several books. [Mr. White exposes errant reasoning and/or scholarship in the works of each of these authors.]

(2) Well, this "King James Version Only" view is making strong headway into Christian circles in our area, and that with some very unedifying results!

I recently met with a "KJV Only" believer who had wanted to talk with me about the issue, and I opened my KJV Bible to Job 36:33 to show him the following statement: "The noise thereof sheweth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the vapor." My intent was to expose the imperfections of the KJV in order to get him to adopt a proper view of the translations issue. When I asked him if this verse made logical sense, he briefly read it and said, "It doesn't have to make sense for me to believe that it is God's inspired Word!"

I was astounded at this reply, for if one admits a verse does not make sense in the text he hold's to be God's inspired Word, he admits that God has not revealed His message to him through that verse! If that be so, his Bible ceases to be God's infallible, inerrant revelation, and that undermines the foundation for his whole Christian faith!

(3) On the other hand, in all fairness those of the "King James Only" persuasion, I find that Christians who do not have access to or do not understand "lower" or textual criticism involving the manuscripts behind the translations often feel they can not be sure they even have God's Word. So, to remove this uncertainty, they are tempted to heed some author's work on the "King James Only" stance!

So, to edify all involved, we must address the issue of Bible translations in light of what SCRIPTURE ITSELF unquestionably teaches (as follows) . . .

(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "In view of the translations debate, WHAT is God's Word?!"

First, I must say that I use the King James Version in the pulpit!
However, I do NOT hold the "King James ONLY" STANCE, for that would LEAVE me UNDERMINING the CHRISTIAN FAITH!

Since the KJV uses the English word, "condemnation" in the book of Romans exclusively to refer to eternal damnation, Romans 8:1 KJV* asserts one avoids eternal damnation by a LIFE not lived by his sin nature, but by the Holy Spirit, Gal. 5:16, 25; cf. Strong's Exhaustive Conc. of the Bible , p. 214; Marchant A. King, "Should Conservatives Abandon Textual Criticism," Bib. Sac. 130 (Jan.-Mar., 1973):39-40.
Yet, in John 5:24 KJV, Jesus said one avoids such "condemnation" by faith in Him, and Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV added salvation is by FAITH ALONE, NOT by any WORK like LIVING a good LIFE!
I thus do not hold to the "KJV Only" stance as I do not want to make the Bible contradict itself on the Gospel and so undermine the faith!

Also, the KJV translators DENIED their text was God inspired:

Referring to the imperfect Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament of Jesus' and the Apostles' day, the KJV translators wrote in their Preface to the KJV these words: "The translation of the Seventy dissenteth from the Original in many places . . . yet which of the Apostles did condemn it? . . . Nay, they used it . . . " (Robert A. Joyner, King James Only?, p. 123).
These KJV translators then found justification to pen their translation from this example of the Apostles' use of the imperfect Septuagint, admitting thereby that their own KJV text was not God inspired, and we cite their words to that effect as follows: "Neither did we think much to consult the Translators or Commentators . . . neither did we disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered . . ." (Ibid., Joyner, p.)

Thus, to SOLVE the translation debate, we view verses supported by UNANIMOUS MANUSCRIPT evidence to see GOD'S direction for us to take (We use the U. B. S. Greek N. T. , 1966 ed.; Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece, 25th ed. & Kilpatrick's Hay Kainay Diathaykay, 2nd ed. as critical texts to discern what God's inspired autograph manuscripts read for the following translated verses):

Jesus led us to rely on the autograph manuscripts above translations for accurately determining what constituted God's inspired Word:

In Matthew 5:18-19, all the Greek manuscripts certify that Jesus said not "one jot" KJV (en iota) nor "one tittle" KJV (mia keraia) would in any way pass from the law until all of it was fulfilled.
This statement reflected the words of the Hebrew Talmud in Jesus' day that claimed not one of the tiniest Hebrew letters of yodh nor one tittle that marks a Hebrew letter from another could pass from the law, Edersheim, Life & Times of Jesus the Mes., i, p. 537-538.
Well, "jot" in Matt. 5:18 comes from the Greek word, iota that fingers the Hebrew alphabet's littlest letter, yodh, and "tittle" there comes from the Greek word, keraia ("little horn", from keras = "horn") that pictures the "little horns" that bulge out from [or tiny lines that protrude in from] some Hebrew letters, distinguishing them from others, Thayer's Grk.-Eng. Lex. of N. T., p. 311, 344.
So, instead of treating the Septuagint, i.e., the Greek translation in His day of the O. T., to be God's inspired TEXT, Jesus upheld the autograph Hebrew manuscripts to be God's inspired TEXT!

We thus have God's guidelines for solving the translation debate:

As did Jesus and the Apostles, we can use translations only as we practice textual criticism to align with the true autograph text.
This is not a faith-shattering exercise: highly reputable Christian scholars [and my own studies] testify that not a single doctrinal question rests on any manuscript textual variation that can not be solved by viewing some other passage where all the manuscript copies agree, Gleason Archer, A Survey of the O. T., p. 25; Frederick G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 23 as cited in Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense, p. 46-47.
For those lacking the capacity to use textual criticism, we suggest using the KJV, NIV, NASB (& ESV) together under the Holy Spirit's 1 John 2:20, 27 discernment work to know God's Word!

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of discernment, Jn. 3:16; Rom. 8:9b; 1 Jn. 2:20, 27. (2) May we then do our homework to be SURE of the TRUTH of Scripture!

Lesson: (1) NO TRANSLATION is the God inspired TEXT; inspiration applies ONLY to the autograph manuscripts we no longer have. (2) Yet, we have many manuscript COPIES of them where no doctrine RESTS on any one textual variation, so we may USE even man's flawed translations PROVIDING we do our homework (above) to be sure of what GOD wrote.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

In our message, we learned the King James Version at Romans 8:1 claims one escapes eternal condemnation by proper LIVING in stark contrast to the Gospel presented in the rest of the New Testament. Well, we can solve this textual problem as follows:

(1) For those of us who do not know textual criticism, we do know from studying just the KJV, NIV, ESV and NASB English translations that a problem exists with the manuscripts behind the KJV: (a) Of these four versions, only the KJV has the part that reads: " . . . who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (b) Then, the NIV adds a footnote, stating: "Some later manuscripts Jesus, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." (c) The ESV also adds a footnote to claim: "Some manuscripts add who walk not according to the flesh (but according to the Spirit) ."

So, armed with the information of this sermon and this insight from the translations listed above, we know the last part of Romans 8:1 in the KJV is NOT to be used as a basis for our faith!

(2) A man who understood textual criticism, the late and reputable Marchant A. King, wrote an article in Bibliotheca Sacra we cited earlier in these notes on this Romans 8:1 matter. He there noted: "Every early manuscript known ends the statement with 'Christ Jesus' and the 'correctors'' notes on [codex D] Claromontanus (sixth century) give something of a history of the text at this point. The original hand, as just indicated, ended the verse with 'Christ Jesus.' Some time later a 'corrector' added in the margin 'who walk not after the flesh' and still later on another added 'but after the Spirit.'" (brackets ours)

Incidentally, Dr. King's words explain why a difference exists between the NIV and the ESV explanatory footnotes for Romans 8:1: the NIV footnote shows all of the readings that were added to the verse where the ESV footnote more precisely shows how a first scribe added "who walk not according to the flesh" while a later scribe, as indicated by the parentheses, added "but according to the Spirit"!

So, Romans 8:1 rightly ends with "Jesus" and thus does NOT contradict the rest of Scripture; the Bible ALWAYS teaches salvation is by faith ALONE, NOT by faith PLUS anything ELSE!

We can trust God's Word to be inerrant and authoritative!