The King James Bible’s Authentic Source Texts (III)
Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo
(6) Doxological Axiom
Every biblical scholar must study the Holy Scriptures with the glory of God foremost in his heart and mind. This is in keeping with how God Himself regards His Word. Such a doxological spirit was found in David when he said, “I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Ps 138:2). It was also the attitude of John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30). This doxological spirit was also seen in our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, for when He was on earth He sought only to glorify His Father in all His words and deeds (John 17:4). As such, it behoves the biblical scholar to promote truth and orthodoxy in his interpretation of Scripture. Any interpretation that leads to a glorification and exaltation and the very highest view of God and His Truth must be accepted, and any that results in a lower or lesser view of God and His Truth rejected. “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” (Rom 3:4).
By virtue of this axiom, the textual critical approach to the Scriptures must necessarily be rejected for it denies the biblical doctrine of the verbal and plenary preservation of the Scriptures, and rejects the theological or theocentric approach in identifying and ascertaining the inspired and authentic texts. The modern textual critics say that the theological approach is non-scientific and unintelligent and therefore invalid. They denounce as obscurantists and even heretics those who employ the logic of faith to the whole matter of determining the autographic text of Scripture by way of receiving the very apographs of Scripture that God has supernaturally preserved down through the ages which leads to a certain and tangible fixed text and not an arbitrary and intangible fluid or evolving text. It is thus no surprise that evangelical scholars who have abandoned the theological approach and embraced the rationalistic approach of textual criticism have also abandoned the inerrancy of Scripture and advocate an inerrancy that is confined only to a Scripture that they aver no longer exists (ie, the autographs). Hence to them the Bible today is not totally infallible and inerrant—the Bible was only infallible and inerrant in the past, but it is no longer as infallible and inerrant today. Such a view takes away the glory of God and reduces the Bible to a mere human book stripped of all its divine and absolute authority as the Word of God. The textual critic and his rules become the authority and it is he who has the know-how and is the know-all on what the Church is to believe or not believe about God’s words. Who is glorified in the whole textual critical exercise? Not God but man.
Has the Church at large become more godly and Christ-honouring with the introduction of textual criticism since the 19th century? No, in fact it has become more deadly. In fact, many churches after a century of textual criticism have already died, and become synagogues of Satan. The only way the Church is going to be revived is to reform the Church and teach her to think and act doxologically—the glory of God must always be first and foremost in the thinking and conduct of the Christian and of the Church—“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt 6:33). Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another.”
Dr E F Hills was absolutely correct to say, “We must make God and Jesus Christ His Son the starting point of all our thinking.” But there is great resistance even rebellion today in many a Bible college and seminary which instead of teaching students to begin with God and His Word, they teach their students to begin with the thoughts and methods of men, many of whom are unbelievers. In the field of textual criticism, I was told by my college and seminary professors, “Go to Metzger, go to Aland; Westcott and Hort are good and godly.” But I discovered that these men were unbelievers and apostates. According to Hills, the unqualified recommendation of unregenerate scholars and their scholarship is destructive. Hills offered the only approach which is God-honouring and soul-saving. He wrote, “If we are Christians, then we must begin our thinking not with the assertions of unbelieving scholars, and their naturalistic human logic, but with Christ and the logic of faith.”
(7) Historical Axiom
The God of the Bible is not a God who is absent. He is very much present and at work in history, controlling and directing all the events of the world and in the Church to fulfil His predetermined and perfect plan of salvation. His plan of salvation is fully revealed in His Written Word—the Holy Scriptures. In them, we find many prophecies and promises, and we see them being fulfilled and kept by God to the last detail. The only way whereby God’s people may know His mind and will is through His Book of prophecies and promises, and these prophecies and promises inscribed in Scripture must necessarily be preserved intact and without amendments or corruptions or else we would be left very unsure and confused about the intent and contents of God’s prophecies and promises, whether they are actually the original prophecies and promises or whether they have been altered or changed along the way. Unless God did exactly what He promised to do, that is to preserve His words infallibly so that every word, syllable and letter would be precisely what He had originally given, we would be thrown into all kinds of confusion and uncertainty with regard to what God has bequeathed to His people in the two Testaments of Holy Scripture.
In history, God proved that He has always been mindful to preserve and keep His words pure and uncorrupted. There are at least two biblical precedents of God’s preservation of His words. The first is the rewriting of the Ten Commandments after Moses broke the first tables in righteous anger (Deut 5:1-29; 9:10-21; 10:1-5). The second is the restoration of Jeremiah’s scroll which Jehoiakim destroyed (Jer 36).
It ought to be emphasised that God’s providential preservation of His Scripture is not ordinary but extraordinary, not a hands-off but a hands-on preservation of His words. The deistic heresy that God inspired His Word but did nothing to preserve it must be rejected. My teacher, Dr Timothy Tow, rightly said,
If Deism teaches a Creator who goes to
sleep after creating the world is absurd, to
hold to the doctrine of inspiration without
preservation is equally illogical …
inspiration and preservation are linked one
to another. Without preservation, all the
inspiration, God-breathing into the
Scriptures, would be lost. But we have a
Bible so pure and powerful in every word
and it is so because God has preserved it
down through the ages.
In light of God’s providence, that nothing happens by chance, and that history is under His sovereign control, I believe that in the fulness of time—in the most opportune time of the Reformation when the true church separated from the false, when the study of the original languages was emphasised, and the printing press invented (which meant that no longer would there be any need to handcopy the Scriptures thereby ensuring a uniform text)—God restored from out of a pure stream of preserved Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, the purest Hebrew and Greek Text of all—the Text that underlies our King James Bible—that accurately reflects the original Scriptures.
Conclusion
The seven biblical axioms (viz, epangelical, linguistic, temporal, ecclesiastical, evangelistic, doxological, and historical) above have helped and guided me to know for sure which is, what is, and where is the inspired Bible that God has preserved. It has freed me from the shackles of uncertainty and unbelief. It gives me full confidence in God’s totally inspired and forever preserved infallible and inerrant words which are my sole, supreme and final authority of faith and practice. Jesus promised, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32). Paul said, “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.” (2 Cor 13:8). Truth never fails, it always prevails! To God be the glory great things He has done!
FEBC’s 16th Holy Land Pilgrimage
Since the 1980s, the Holy Land pilgrimage has been one of the highlights of the FEBC curriculum. Students earn two credits when they submit a research project after the trip.
The late Rev Dr Timothy Tow led the first 12 pilgrimages, and was supposed to lead the 13th in 2008. However, due to age and health, he called on me to lead that trip on his behalf. By God’s grace, this is my 4th time leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I must say that Jemima has been a great help to me in taking care of all the travel arrangements. This allows me to focus on the spiritual aspects of the pilgrimage.
We pray for pilgrimage mercies and are thankful to the Lord for keeping us safe and sound each time. We praise Him also for all the spiritual lessons learned and experienced during such journeys of faith.
This 16th pilgrimage is the shortest one of all, 9 days from September 2-11. This is to benefit those who are not able to take too many days off from work. By scheduling our itinerary to cover two weekends, pilgrims need only take 5 days’ leave. We will not miss any of the important biblical sites in Jerusalem and Galilee.
Flying Turkish Airlines we are given a free day of sightseeing in Istanbul. Istanbul is ancient Constantinople, important in Church history. After Istanbul, we fly straight into Tel Aviv ready for the Lord’s Day worship in Bethlehem at the Baraka Bible-Presbyterian Church.
Please remember us in prayer. We are 40 pilgrims from 11 churches—Bangalore International Christian Fellowship (India), Bethel BPC (Melbourne), Calvary Pandan BPC, Church of Singapore, Immanuel Baptist Church (Surabaya), Kampong Kapor Methodist Church, Life BPC, New Life BPC, True Life BPC, Yio Chu Kang Chapel, and Woodlands Evangelical Free Church. JK
