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In light of modern controversies over the
matters of the inspiration and preservation of Scripture, and to prevent
misunderstanding of my own position on these questions, I have thought it
appropriate to write a confession of my faith on these essential Biblical
truths.
I confess that God, through a supernatural
operation of His Spirit, used holy men to miraculously produce the autographs
of the 66 canonical books of the Bible, controlling them in such a manner that
the very words, and all of the words, that they recorded were the very words of
God Himself (2 Peter 1:16-21).
This miraculous production of the autographs of the Bible was absolutely
unique. It never has been, and
never will be, replicated by any individual or group of individuals whatever
who copy, collate, compile, or translate Biblical manuscripts. Consequently, all views that affirm
that any copyist, compiler, or translator of the Bible was controlled in the
same miraculous manner as the original writers of Scripture must be
rejected. I therefore reject the
views of Peter Ruckman, Gail Riplinger, and all others who affirm that the King
James Version contains advanced revelation or is superior to the original
language texts of the Bible.[i]
I
confess that the verbally, plenarily inspired Scriptures are the product of
this miraculous process (2 Timothy 3:16).
While entirely rejecting the idea that inspiration or enscripturation as
a process ever has been or ever will be replicated, I confess that accurate
copies of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic autographa are God’s Word, having in them the breath of God
(Matthew 4:4) in the same manner that the original manuscripts were the Word of
God, inasmuch as the words of such copies are identical to the words of the
autographs. Furthermore, any copy,
to the extent that it has the same words and sentences as the autographs, is to
that extent the inspired Word of God.
I further confess, in accordance with classical Baptist and orthodox
Protestant Bibliology,[ii]
that, in the same sense that Scripture, when translated, is still Scripture,
and thus is still holy, living, powerful, sharper than any twoedged sword, and
able to save (Romans 1:2; Hebrews 4:12; James 1:21), it also still has both the
quality of having the breath of God in it and the resultant quality of being
profitable (2 Timothy 3:16, pasa graphe Theopneustos kai ophelimos).[iii]
Concerning the preservation of Scripture,[iv]
I confess:
1.) God
revealed the Scriptures so men could know His will both in the Old and New
Testaments and in the future (Deuteronomy 31:9-13, 24-29; 1 John 1:1-4, 2:1-17;
2 Timothy 3:14-17; 2 Peter 1:12-15).
The Bible is clear that no Scripture was intended for only the original
recipient (Romans 15:4, 16:25-26; 1 Corinthians 10:11). God intended for His Word to be
recognized and received by the churches as a whole (Colossians 4:16; Revelation
1:3-4). The inspired text of
Scripture is to be guarded (1 Timothy 6:20-21) as a “form (pattern) of sound
words” for the church (2 Timothy 1:13-14) and used to instruct all future
churches (2 Timothy 2:2).
2.) The Bible
promises that God will preserve every one of His words forever down to the very
jot and tittle,[v] the smallest
letter (Psalm 12:6-7, 33:11, 119:152, 160; Isaiah 30:8, 40:8; 1 Peter 1:23-25;
Matthew 5:18, 24:35).
3.) The Bible
assures us that God’s words are perfect and pure (Psalm 12:6-7; Proverbs
30:5-6).
4.) The Bible
promises that God would make His words generally available to every generation
of believers (Deuteronomy 29:29; 30:11-14; Isaiah 34:16, 59:21; Matthew 4:4;
5:18-19; 2 Peter 3:2; Jude 17).
5.) The Bible
promises there will be certainty as to the words of God (Deuteronomy 4:2;
12:32; Revelation 22:18-19; 2 Peter 1:19; Luke 1:4; Proverbs 1:23, 22:20-21;
Daniel 12:9-10; 1 John 2:20).
6.) The Bible
promises that God would lead His saints into all truth, and that the Word, all
of His words, are truth (John 16:13, 17:8, 17). Believers are not to set themselves above the Word but
receive it with the faith of a little child, rejecting secular and worldly
“wisdom” (Matthew 11:25-26; 1 Corinthians 3:18-20).
7.) God states
that the Bible will be settled to the extent that someone could not add or take
away from His words and effectually corrupt them (Revelation 22:18-19;
Deuteronomy 12:32).
8.) The Bible
shows that the true churches of Christ would receive and guard these words
(Matthew 28:19-20; John 17:8; Acts 8:14, 11:1, 17:11; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1
Corinthians 15:3; 1 Timothy 3:15).
9.) The Bible
presents as a pattern that that believers would receive these words from other
believers (Deuteronomy 17:18; 29:29; 1 Kings 2:3; Proverbs 25:1; Acts 7:38;
Hebrews 7:11; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; Philippians 4:9; Colossians 4:16).
10.) The Bible
shows that God’s promises may appear to contradict science and reason. In Genesis 2 we see that a newly
created world may look ancient.
However, the Scriptures remind us that “it is better to trust in the
LORD than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8). We believe in order that we may understand.
11.) Christ
taught the preservation of His very words, since they will be the standard in
the future judgment (John 12:48) and men will be accountable to obey all of
them. He also warned of the vanity
of ignoring His actual words (Matthew 7:26). Christ emphatically declared, “the scripture cannot be
broken” (John 10:35). In Matthew
22:29 Jesus rebuked men, saying, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures.” If the Scriptures were only accessible
in long-lost original autographs then why would the Lord chide people for being
ignorant of words that were not available? Believers are commanded to contend for the faith (Jude 3)
and this faith is based upon the words of God (Romans 10:17).
12.) In summary, “The just shall live by
faith” (Romans 1:17; Habakkuk 2:4) and “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2
Corinthians 5:7). Scripture, and
faith in the promises of God, must be the “glasses” through which we evaluate
historical data about the preservation of the Bible. Scripture teaches the verbal, plenary preservation of the
verbally, plenarily inspired autographa
(Psalm 12:6-7; Matthew 5:18; Matthew 24:35); that the preserved words would be perpetually
available to God’s people (Isaiah 59:21);
and that Israel was the
guardian of Scripture in the Mosaic dispensation (Romans 3:1-2), and the church
the guardian in the dispensation of grace (1 Timothy 3:15). The Holy Spirit would lead the saints
to accept the words the Father gave to the Son to give to His people (John
16:13; 17:8). Believers can know
with certainty where the canonical words of God are, because they are to live
by every one of them (Matthew 4:4; Revelation 22:18-19) and are going to be
judged by them at the last day (John 12:48).
I further confess that, receiving with the
faith of a little child (Matthew 18:3; Luke 18:16-17) God’s own testimony to
His own perfectly inspired, preserved, and self-authenticating Word, only the
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Received Texts of Scripture, those original language
texts from which the Authorized Version of the Bible was translated, fit the
Biblical model of preservation. I
confess that the modern critical Greek text of Scripture, represented in the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Society editions, being a modern creation that was not in
use by the people of God for well over a thousand years and differing in c. 7%
of its text from the Received Bible, can by no means be reconciled with God’s
promises about the preservation of His Word. I likewise confess that the printed Hodges-Farstad and
Robinson-Pierpont texts, while far superior to the critical Greek text and far
closer to the perfectly preserved Textus Receptus, do not fit the Scriptural pattern for the
preservation of Scripture when they differ from the Received Text, for true
churches have not been led by the Spirit of God to receive their texts as
perfect, the idea that the pure Word of God was not available for century after
century but only came into existence in print in 1992, and that God’s people
have not had the pure Word in their vernacular languages, as no major
translations in any language whatever have been made from the Hodges-Farstad
and Robinson-Pierpont texts, is impossible. Furthermore, I confess that the Hodges-Farstad and
Robinson-Pierpont texts are most improperly designated the “Majority Text,” for
neither of them is a collation of the 5,000+ Greek manuscripts currently in
existence, but they are rather collations of only a few hundred manuscripts,
and there are hundreds of verses where they do not follow the reading of the
majority of manuscripts.[vi] Rather, the Textus Receptus that underlies the Authorized Version of the Bible,
that holy Word that was in use by Baptist churches and believers in other
denominations[vii] both in
the time from the invention of the printing press until the present day, and
also the type of text in use by the line of true churches and believers, who
were first denominated Christians, and then Baptists or Anabaptists, in the
ancient and medieval periods, is the true Majority Text, and the only text that
the Spirit has led Bible-believing churches who accept the testimony of
Scripture to its own preservation to receive as canonical and perfectly
preserved.[viii] I therefore confess with true churches,
countless martyrs, and the humble and faithful people of God, that the Textus
Receptus, loved, copied, printed,
translated, read, memorized, meditated upon, and preached for century after
century, is indeed God’s very living and holy Word, delivered miraculously from
heaven, providentially[ix]
and perfectly preserved, and with holy joy and wonder received by me in faith
as His own living oracles in my hands.
I
likewise confess that I reject all textual criticism that denies or ignores
God’s own promises about His providential work in preserving His Word, and that
approaches the holy Scriptures in an atheistic and naturalistic way as if God’s
Word were to be evaluated as if it were any common, uninspired and unpreserved
book, instead joyfully receiving, with love, holy reverence, awe, and fear
(Psalm 119:97; 119:120; Isaiah 66:2), that very Received Text that has been in
use by true churches and the people of God from the time that God gave the
autographs until this day. I
confess with such true churches and saints that the Scriptures I can with
reverent delight hold in my hands, “being immediately inspired by God, and by
his singular care and Providence kept pure in all Ages, are therefore
authentical,” and likewise join such churches to confess that, while there is
plentiful external evidence for the inspiration and preservation of Scripture,
nonetheless 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.”[x]
In
relation to the English translation of the Authorized Version, I confess that I
receive it with veneration, believing that the God who providentially works in
all of history would certainly providentially work in relation to the
translation of His Word that would be in use by Baptist churches for over 400
years in the language that God ordained would become the first truly world-wide
language since the tower of Babel.
I confess that I do not believe that modern Baptist churches should use
any other English translation than the Authorized Version, nor do I see any
necessity for revising the KJV at any time during my lifetime.[xi] However, I also confess that the
promises of preservation are specifically made for Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek
words, not English words (Matthew 5:18), and that there are no specific
promises that state that Scripture would be translated without error. Since no verses of the Bible promise a
perfect English translation, I respect the views of brethren who, while
receiving the promises of God concerning the preservation of His perfect
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words, believe that there are places where the
English of the King James Version would be better rendered otherwise.[xii]
Furthermore, I recognize that there can be more than one accurate way to
translate a verse from the original language into the vernacular.[xiii] Nevertheless, because the people of God
who do not know the original languages should have (a justified) confidence
that when they hold the King James Bible in their hands, they have God’s very
Word in their own language, and because I respect the high confidence that the
Head of the church has led His congregations to place in the English of the
Authorized Version, and because I have found in my own language study that,
time and again, there are excellent reasons for the translation choices in the
Authorized Version, and because I am not aware of any single place where I can,
with a certain confidence and definitiveness, affirm that the English of the
King James Version cannot possibly be justified as a translation but is
indubitably in error,[xiv]
I refrain from criticizing the English of the King James Bible, and when it is
appropriate in preaching and teaching to mention a different way the text can
be translated, I choose to say, “this word (or verse, etc.) could also be
translated as” rather than “this word (or verse, etc.) would be better
translated as.” This is the faith
that I confess in relation to the translation of the Bible into my mother
tongue.
All
of the above is the faith in the inspiration and preservation of Scripture I
believe and confess with my whole mind and heart. Unless convinced otherwise by the Scriptures, I will
continue to believe and confess this faith, by the enabling grace of God, until
Christ’s return or my death.
[i]
See the
articles “What About Ruckman?” and “The Problem with New Age Bible Versions by Gail Riplinger” by David Cloud, accessible, like
the other resources mentioned in this confession, at http://faithsaves.net/Bibliology.
[ii]
The
affirmation of absolute verbal and plenary inspiration for the original
language text, and a secondary, derivative inspiration for accurate
translations, is the classic position confessed by Baptists and Protestants in
the Reformation and post-Reformation era, in continuity with earlier periods of
church history. For Baptist
sources, see the reference in endnote #3.
Richard Muller explains the historic Protestant position:
[Alongside] the insistence of the Reformed that the
very words of the original are inspired, the theological force of their
argument falls in the substance or res rather than on the individual words: translations can be authoritative quoad
res because the authority is not so
much in the words as in the entirety of the teaching as distributed throughout
the canon. . . . [T]he issue of “things” (res) and “words” (verba) . . . is crucial to the Protestant doctrine of
Scripture and is, as many of the other elements of the Protestant doctrine, an
element taken over from the medieval tradition and rooted in Augustine’s
hermeneutics. . . . [T]he words of the text are signs pointing to the doctrinal
“things.” This distinction between signa and res significata, the
sign and the thing signified, carries over into the language typical of
scholastic Protestantism, of the words of the text and the substance of the
text, of the authority of translations not strictly quoad verba but quoad res, according to the substance or meaning indicated by the original. . . .
[O]nly the [original language] sources are inspired (theopneustoi) both according to their substance (quoad res) and according to their words (quoad verba)[.] This must be the case, since holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, 2 Pet. 1:21, who dictated to them not
only the substance (res) but also
the very words (verba). For the
same reason, the Hebrew and the Greek are the norms and rules by which the
various versions are examined and evaluated. . . . [There is] a distinction
between authenticity and authorship quoad verba, which belongs only to the Hebrew and Greek originals,
and authenticity and authority quoad res, which inheres in valid translations. . . . Thus translations can be
used, but with the reservation that only the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New
Testament are the authentic norms of doctrine and the rule by which doctrinal
controversy is to be decided[.] Versions that are congruent with the sources
are indeed authentic according to substance (quoad res); for the Word of God [may be] translated into other
languages: the Word of God is not to be limited, since whether it is thought or
spoken or written, it remains the Word of God. Nonetheless they are not
authentic according to the idiom or word, inasmuch as the words have been
explained in French or Dutch. In relation to all translations, therefore, the
Hebrew and Greek texts stand as antiquissimus, originalis, and archetypos. Thus, translations are the Word of God insofar as they permit the Word
of God to address the reader or hearer: for Scripture is most certainly the
Word of God in the things it teaches and to the extent that in and by means of
it power of God touches the conscience. Even so, in translations as well as in
the original the testimony of the Holy Spirit demonstrates the graciousness of
God toward us. All translations have divine authority insofar as they correctly
render the original: the tongue and dialect is but an accident, and as it were
an argument of divine truth, which remains one and the same in all idioms. (pgs.
269, 326-327, 403, 416, 427-428, Post-Reformation
Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy; volume 2,
Holy Scripture: The cognitive
foundation of theology (2nd ed.),
Richard Muller. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003; quotations and original sources not
reproduced)
[iii]
See “Are
Accurate Copies and Translations of Scripture Inspired? A Study of 2 Timothy
3:16,” at http://sites.google.com/site/thross7.
[iv]
A book
length exposition of the Biblical doctrine of preservation is Thou Shalt
Keep Them: A Biblical Theology of
the Perfect Preservation of Scripture,
ed. Kent Brandenburg, El Sobrante, CA:
Pillar and Ground Publishing, 2003. The book is a fine presentation of the doctrine by a separatist
Baptist. It can be purchased at
http://sites.google.com/site/thross7.
The website also contains an exposition of a number of passages related
to the preservation of Scripture.
Compare the list of presuppositions on the preservation of Scripture
found on pgs. 73-74, “Preservation of the Bible: Providential or Miraculous? A Response to Jon Rehurek of the Master’s Seminary,” Paul
Ferguson. The Burning Bush 15:2 (July 2009) 67-100.
[v]
See “The
Debate over the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points” and “Evidences for the
Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points,” by Thomas Ross, and “The Antiquity of
the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowels, and Accents” by John Gill at
http://sites.google.com/site/thross7 for the implications of this confession to
the question of the inspiration and authority of the Hebrew vowel points.
[vi] For example, in Ephesians 5:21
the Textus Receptus follows
about 70% of MSS with the reading en phobo Theou, while both the CT/UBS and both editions of the
printed “Majority” text, Hodges/Farstad and Robinson/Pierpont, contain en
phobo Christou, following c. 30% of Greek
MSS; in Romans 13:9 the Textus Receptus, with 67% of Greek manuscripts, reads ou
psudomarturesis, while the Hodges/Farstad
and Robinson/Pierpont “Majority” texts follow 33% of manuscripts in omitting
the words and removing the ninth commandment from between the eighth and the
tenth; in Romans 6:1, the Textus Receptus reads epimenoumen with the majority of Greek manuscripts while
the Robinson and Hodges “Majority” texts follow 19% of manuscripts to
read epimenomen. Sometimes
the Hodges/Farstad and Robinson/Pierpont texts contradict each other; for
example, in Romans 12:2, the Textus Receptus, as well as the Hodges/Farstad text, supported by
65% of Greek manuscripts, contain the imperatives suschematidzesthe and metamorphouesthe, while the Robinson/Pierpont “majority” text follows
35% of Greek manuscripts to print the infinitives suschematidzesthai and metamorphousthai.
In the book of Revelation,
Pickering notes that very early on, probably within the second century, three
main independent lines of transmission developed, and then a variety of
variations within those streams. Thus there are some 150 variant sets
where no reading receives even 50% attestation, and another 250 sets where the
strongest numerical attestation falls below 60%. In these 400 places to
speak of a “majority” text is not convincing (cf.
http://walkinhiscommandments.com). However, the Textus Receptus tends to follow the largest of these three
divisions in Revelation, but that grouping does not always represent the actual
majority of MSS. Hoskier declared, concerning the TR text of Revelation:
“I may state that if Erasmus had striven to found a text on the largest number
of existing MSS [manuscripts] in the world of one type, he could not have
succeeded better” (cited on pg. 16, J. A. Moorman, When the KJV
Departs from the “Majority” Text, 2nd ed.
Collingswood, NJ: Bible For Today, 1988).
Of course, there are certainly
instances where, because of the evidence of ancient versions or a variety of
other reasons, in the providence of God the Textus Receptus follows a smaller number of Greek manuscripts
than the majority (e. g., 1 John 5:7). Indeed, there are instances where
the Textus Receptus, the
Hodges-Farstad, Robinson-Pierpont, and modern critical texts all follow a reading
that has less than 50% support (e. g. 2 Timothy 3:7, where all printed texts,
whetherTR, CT, or H/F & R/P,
read Moousei with c.
30% of Greek MSS, while Mouse has
c. 60% of Greek MSS, but has never been put in print in any edition.
[vii]
Historians
recognize that the Received Text was identified with the autographs by both
Baptists and even the general body of Protestantism. The Textus Receptus “was . . . the Bible of the Middle Ages and much more, since it was
independent of interpretation by Popes, councils, canon lawyers or university
doctors. In one sense both Zwingli
and the radicals [such as the Baptists] were uncritical about the Bible in that
they made no attempt to go behind the received Hebrew and Greek texts to
original manuscripts, and were not concerned that alternative readings were
possible — quite the contrary, there was but one text . . . Zwingli and the
Anabaptists . . . both accepted the received text, and both agreed that
tradition, the hierarchy and any human authorities, however ancient or eminent,
must give way to the Word. . . . [the Baptists defended what this unbelieving
historian calls] narrow and uncompromising bibliolatry” (Pg. 172-173, Zwingli,
G. R. Potter. London: Cambridge University Press,
1976). One of the editors of the modern critical text stated: “It is undisputed that Luther used the
Greek Textus Receptus for his translation of the German New Testament in 1522
and all its later editions (although the term itself was not yet in use at the
time). . . . [So did] all the translators of the New Testament in the 16th
century (e.g., the Zürich version). All the translations of the 17th century,
including the King James version of 1611, the “Authorized Version,” were also
based on this text. Thus the New Testament of the church in the period of the
Reformation was based on the Textus Receptus. It is equally undisputed that in the 16th or 17th century
(and for that matter well into the 18th century) anyone with a Greek New
Testament would have had a copy of the Textus Receptus. . . . Finally it is
undisputed that from the 16th to the 18th century orthodoxy’s doctrine of
verbal inspiration assumed this Textus Receptus.” Indeed, the Textus
Receptus “was regarded as ‘the text
of the church’ . . . from the 4th . . . century” (pg. 143, ibid.). It is
therefore not surprising that throughout Baptist and Protestant Christiandom in
the Reformation and Post-Reformation era the “Textus Receptus . . . was
regarded as preserving even to the last detail the inspired and infallible word
of God himself” (pg. 11, The Text of the New Testament, Kurt & Barbara Aland, trans. Erroll Rhodes.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989).
[viii]
See “The
Canonicity of the Received Bible Established From Baptist Confessions” at http://faithsaves.net/Bibliology.
[ix]
I confess
that the preservation of Scripture is providential rather than miraculous. No
miracle of the sort performed by Christ and the Apostles took place when
scribes were copying Scripture, or when Scripture was being translated, or when
any edition of the Textus Receptus
was being compiled and printed.
Therefore, the Scrivener edition of the Textus Receptus, the edition that exactly underlies the English
Authorized Version, was not the product of a miracle or the product of an act
comparable to that through which the Scriptures were given to holy men of God
in the autographs (2 Peter 1:16-21).
Nonetheless, the providence of God was involved in all stages of the
transmission of the Bible, and there is nothing imperfect about God’s
providence. Since all of history
takes place in accordance with the decree of Him who worketh all things after
the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11), and God can bring about in
perfect detail the sort of astonishing acts of providence that are recorded in
the book of Esther without a specifically miraculous action, and the
providential preservation of the Bible did not cease with the invention of the
printing press, and there are no verses of Scripture that affirm that God is
unable or unwilling to lead His people to certainty about the text of the Bible
through having His pure words printed, and, while Christians before the age of
printing could know with certainty what the words of the canon were but a
perfect, mass-produced edition was not possible without miracle before the age
of the printing press in the centuries after the autographs and their earliest
apographs passed away, I therefore confess with the vast numbers of Baptist
churches who receive the testimony of the Spirit to the words He dictated and
preserved, and who believe the promises of Scripture concerning its own
preservation, that the canonical words of God have been through Divine
providence perfectly preserved in the common printed Received Text, the
Scrivener edition underlying the Authorized Version.
[x]
2nd
London Baptist Confession of Faith,
1689.
[xi]
In the
unlikely event that the Lord were not to return for some hundreds of years into
the future, and the English language changed in such a manner that the early
modern or Elizabethan English of the Authorized Version were to have the
comprehensibility of the Old English of Beowulf, it would certainly be right to update Biblical
language. However, I believe that
the Holy Spirit would lead Biblical Baptist churches to have general agreement
that such a revision of the English Bible is needed. Without such clear Divine leadership, any revision would be
inferior to the Authorized Version (as such versions as the NKJV most certainly
are), and detrimental to the cause of Christ.
[xii]
E. g.,
someone who affirmed that baptize
would be better rendered as immerse.
[xiii]
E. g.,
rendering peripateo as “walks”
instead of “walketh” in a text such as 1 Peter 5:8 would not make such a
translation inaccurate or erroneous.
[xiv] That is,
for example, baptize rather than immerse more clearly communicates the character of the
baptismal ceremony as a religious ordinance, immerse does not specifically indicate that the person who
receives baptism is not only to be plunged under the water but also to arise
out of it, and the verb to immerse was not commonly used in the English language in 1611
(and thus appears nowhere at all in the KJV; cf. the Oxford English
Dictionary). Furthermore, the argument sometimes
advanced that men like King James were seeking to cover up the fact that
baptism was properly performed by dipping is highly questionable in light of
the fact that King James, Queen Elizabeth, and other English monarchs actually
were dipped as infants, not sprinkled or poured upon, following the dominant
Anglican liturgical practice of their day.
