The King James Bible’s Authentic Source Texts (II)
Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo
(3) Temporal Axiom
The authentic Scriptures are the Scriptures that show the marks of continuity, being always available and easily accessible to God’s people. Jesus promised three times, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” (Matt 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33). God has promised to preserve every one of His inspired Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words perfectly to the jot and tittle (Matt 5:18), so that His people in every generation and at all times would possess all of His words and all of His truths in the 66 books of Canonical Scripture which serve as the sole, supreme and final authority of all Christian beliefs and practices.
We believe the authentic manuscripts to be the manuscripts that have been faithfully copied and passed down from generation to generation, always read, used, and studied by the believers throughout the ages, and held up as the sole, supreme, and final authority of their faith and practice. Those Scriptures were the faithfully and continuously used Traditional Text and not the Westcott and Hort Text which appeared in 1881 and scissored away no less than 9970 words from the Traditional Text. If we say that the Westcott and Hort Text is the authentic and authoritative source text, then we are saying that God has failed in His work of preservation, for it would mean that the Church for 1800 years has been using the wrong text, and if so, her faith in the Word of God as found in the Traditional Text has been totally misplaced! This surely cannot be, for God is true to His Word and to His people, and by virtue of His promise, we can see that it is the continuously preserved Traditional Text that bears the marks of an unbroken lineage as promised by our Lord, “the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
We not only celebrate the 400 years of the King James Version, but more significantly the 4000 years God has preserved His words to the jot and tittle so that in every age, God’s people might have all of His words to believe and live by
(4) Ecclesiastical Axiom
The Church that God has called out and is faithful does not criticise or question His Word but receives it by faith. It is not the rationalistic but the faith approach or the theological approach that pleases God. Romans 1:17 says, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Faith pleases God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Faith takes God at His Word—“God says it, that settles it, we believe it.” This is not to say that faith is void of reason. Our faith is a very reasonable faith and it is only so because it is based on the Truth. What is Truth? God’s Word is Truth (John 17:17).
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and He indwells the saints. The Bible is the Word of Truth and can only be appreciated and understood if we have the Spirit of Truth. Having received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God, we are able to discern truth from error, right from wrong. We are able to tell whether it is our Saviour who speaks or Satan, and we will follow Christ and not the devil. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Consider how the New Testament saints received the Word: They received the Word of God (1) gladly and obediently (Acts 2:41), (2) studiously with a ready mind to know the truth (Acts 17:11), (3) unwaveringly despite great opposition and persecution (1 Thess 1:6), and (4) without doubting that it is 100% perfect without any mistake (1 Thess 2:13). The Spirit of God causes faithful saints to receive the Word with childlike humility, believing all that it says without any doubt or question.
This certainty that Christians have concerning the Holy Scriptures that God had inspired and preserved, infallible and inerrant is something stated most clearly in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1.5), “We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”
The Holy Scriptures that the Reformation Church held up as their sole, supreme and final authority were the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus on which the King James Bible and all the other Reformation Bibles were based. These are the authentic and authoritative texts the Church has received down through the ages as the very Word of God, infallible and inerrant.
(5) Evangelistic Axiom
The Great Commission which is Christ’s first commandment to His New Testament Church tells us to preach the gospel of salvation in Christ, baptise in the name of the triune God, and teach the whole counsel of God to “all nations” (Matt 28:18-20). To do this, the Holy Scriptures are essential and indispensable, for “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Rom 10:17). In fulfilment of the Great Commission, God and His chosen agent—namely His Church—would see to it that the Holy Scriptures would be faithfully copied and carefully translated, multiplied, and made available and accessible to the whole world. In keeping with Jesus’ prophetic words to His disciples just before His ascension, the gospel and the Scriptures have truly gone out, not only in Jerusalem, but also Judea and Samaria, even unto the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8). The Gospel can be read in over 2000 languages, and the Bible has been translated into the world’s major languages, and more can be done.
By virtue of the Great Commission, we can expect the authentic Scriptures to be those found in the majority of the manuscripts or what has become known as the majority text. (Now, when I speak of the majority text, I am not referring to the printed text of Hodges and Farstad, or the one by Robinson and Pierpont. I am referring to the handwritten copies, the majority manuscripts or the Byzantine manuscripts.) Surely, the majority of the manuscripts must be the favoured manuscripts since they are most used, widely used, continuously used and faithfully copied throughout the centuries. Unlike the Minority or Critical Text proponents, we Bible preservationists believe the inspired words are located in the majority of the manuscripts and precisely in the Traditional Text as represented by the Textus Receptus. Dean Burgon was absolutely correct to conclude, “With regret we record our conviction, that these accomplished scholars [ie, Westcott and Hort] have succeeded in producing a Text [ie, the Minority Text] vastly more remote from the inspired autographs of the Evangelists than any which has appeared since the invention of printing [ie, the Textus Receptus]”. (To be continued)
Pray for the Vietnamese Ministry in Brisbane
An update from Rev Hien Gia Nguyen,
received on 27 July 2011
Thank God so much for graciously hearing your kind prayers and ours for our ministry here. The following are some updates:
1. Thank God for Dn Mern Yee and his family’s visit and their encouragement, service and blessed fellowship in our midst.
2. Thank God for the baptism of Shannie (Thai student) and Hanh last Sunday with Dn Mern Yee’s assistance. Please kindly find attached the photos. Please kindly pray for the two Thai students, Shannie and Mawin as they will fly back to Bangkok this Saturday for good. May the Lord help them remember what they have learned from God’s Word, keep them faithful unto Him, and use them as His witnesses among their people.
3. Thank God for the arrival of two Singaporean students, who join our worship and Bible study faithfully: Andrew Zhang (from JSM) and Daniel Koh (from Tengah BPC).
4. Thank God for opening a door for us to reach out to the Vietnamese. How happy and thankful I am! The Christian mechanic brother, Thanh, who has helped us buy our church van and usually tunes it up, has just been elected as a secretary of a Vietnamese Christian Church (around 40-minute drive from our home). He and his pastor have invited me to preach at their church on August 7, and I have given them the topic, “God’s True Children and People” based on 1 Peter 2:1-10. Thanh just called me and asked me if I can help his church with the Bible Study on Friday night, and I have agreed to help and told Thanh that I would preach God’s Word alone without any fear of men or compromise. Thanh said that he invited me because he had known me and my stand. He will present his suggestion of the Bible Study under my guidance to the church session. Then, may God’s will be done. Please continue praying for us and our ministry to Brisbane BPC and to the Vietnamese. Please kindly pray for the Vietnamese and may God open their hearts to accept His Truth. Thank you very much.
