AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED #18
CHAPTER XII
Blow After Blow in Favor of Rome
(Revised Texts and Margins)
IT is now necessary to present the Revised Version in a new
phase. To do this, we will offer some passages of Scripture the
Revisers have changed to those Catholic readings which favor the
doctrines of Rome. On this Dr.Edgar says:
"It is certainly a remarkable circumstance that so many of the
Catholic readings in the New Testament, which in Reformation and
early post-Reformation times were denounced by Protestants as
corruptions of the pure text of God's Word, should now, in the
last quarter of the nineteenth century, be adopted by the
Revisers of our tiMe-honored English Bibles."
Tobias Mullen, Catholic Bishop of Erie, Pa., calls attention
to a number of passages, whose readings in the Catholic and in
the Revised Version are identical in thought. He comments on one
of these as follow:
"It will be perceived here, that the variation between the
Catholic Version and the Revision is immaterial, indeed no more
than what might be found between any two versions of different
but substantially identical copies of the same document."
I. Human Knowledge Exalted Above the Divine Word by the Revision
1.
John 1:3,4
KING JAMES: "Without Him was not anything made that was made. In
Him was life."
REVISED: "Without Him was not anything made. That which hath been
made was life in Him." (Margin)
Let it be remembered that the marginal readings were
considered of great importance by the Revisers. Many of them
would be in the body of the text but for lack of a two-thirds
majority vote.
The principal defect of Romanism was the assumption of
wisdom communicated to it apart from, and superior to the written
Word. This is essentially the Gnostic theory, that false
knowledge which was spoken of by the apostle Paul in I Tim. 6:20.
To this Gnostic theory, must be laid the blame for the great
apostasy in the early Christian Church. This same Gnostic theory
which Newman had, according to S.Parkes Cadman, led him into the
arms of Rome. To show that the offensive marginal reading of the
Revised on John 1:3 is the product of Gnosticism, I will quote
from Dean Burgon:
"In the third verse of the first chapter of St.John's Gospel, we
are left to take our choice between,'with-out Him was not
anything made that hath been made. In Him was life; and the
life,' etc., and the following absurd alternative,---'without Him
was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in Him;
and the life,' etc. But we are not informed that this latter
monstrous figment is known to have been the importation of the
Gnostic heretics in the second century, and to be as destitute of
authority as it is of sense. Why is prominence given only to the
lie?"
It is the Catholic doctrine that the lay members of the
church are devoid of a certain capacity for understanding divine
things, which capacity is bestowed upon their cardinals, bishops,
and priesthood, transmitted to them by the laying on of hands.
They claim the people cannot secure this knowledge by direct
personal contact with the Bible. This theory of a knowledge
hidden from the many and open only to the few is that ancient
Gnosticism which developed into the Catholic Church. It separated
official Catholicism from the great body of members, and this is
the reason for the power of the priests over the people. In other
words, as in the case of Cardinal Newman, they substituted
superstition for faith; because faith does not come by ordinances
of men, but by hearing the Word of God. (Rom.10:17.) True
Protestantism has faith in the Bible as supreme.
II. Protestantism Condemned by the Change Affecting the
Sacraments
1.
1 Cor.11:29
KING JAMES: "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth
and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's
body."
REVISED: "For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh
judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body."
Why were the two expressions "unworthily" and "Lord's" left
out? By the presence of the word "unworthily" the one partaking
of the bread would be guilty of condemnation upon some other
count than not discerning the body. And if the word "Lord's"
remained, Protestants could still claim that they discerned their
absent Lord in a spiritual sense. The omission of "unworthily"
and "Lord's" therefore condemns Protestants who do not believe
that the bread has been turned into the body of Christ.
III. The Change Restoring the Confessional
1.
James 5:16
KING JAMES: "Confess your faults one one to another."
REVISED: "Confess therefore your sins one to another."
In order to make the change from "faults" to "sins"
the Greek was changed. The Greek word meaning "faults" was
rejected and replaced by he Greek word meaning "sins." If man is
commanded by Scripture to confess his "sins" to man, what
objection is there to the auricular confession of the priests?
On this revised reading the Dublin Review (Catholic), July, 1881,
says:
"The Apostles have now power to 'forgive' sins, and not simply to
'remit' them. 'Confess therefore your sins' is the new reading of
James 5:16."
IV. The Exaltation of the Priesthood Made Easy
1.
Hebrews 10:21
KING JAMES: "And having an high Priest over the house of God."
REVISED: "And having a great priest over the house of God."
This change may seem unimportant; nevertheless the wording
carries with it, its effect. To single out Jesus as our "high
Priest" in heaven, as the King James Version does, makes Him so
outstanding, that we instinctively regard Him, since His
ascension, as our only Priest, so far outdistancing other persons
as to rate them unnecessary. The expression "great priest" exalts
the order of the priesthood among whom Jesus happens to be the
greatest one. The word "great" is a comparative word and implies
a degree of the same order; the expression "high priest"
signifies an office. There can be many great priests, but only
one high priest. The reading of the King James puts Christ in a
class by Himself. Just what singular position would that of
Christ be as a "great priest" if He were not the high Priest?
Moreover Christ is distinctly designated ten times in this same
epistle as the high Priest. The change in the Revised leaves the
conclusion possible that this change provided a priest for the
Confessional, which, in turn, was restored by the change in James
5:16.
We know of one dominating Reviser - Dr.Hort--who exalted the
necessity of an earthly priesthood and who bitterly assailed
Protestantism for not having it.
Since the Greek word "mega" was translated "high," in John
19:31, by the Revisers, why did they not so translate it here?
V. Church Government--Separating the Priesthood
from the Laity
1.
Acts 15:23
KING JAMES: "And wrote letters by them after this manner, The
apostles and elders and brethren, send greeting unto the
brethren."
AMERICAN REVISED: "And they wrote thus by them, The apostles and
the elders, brethren, unto the brethren who are of the Gentiles."
In the King James, the word "brethren" is a noun making the
lay people a third class separate from the apostles and elders.
In the Revised it is a noun in apposition applying alike to
apostles and elders, two classes only.
This passage is used as a foundation on which to base an
argument for a clergy separated by God in their function from the
lay brethren. It makes a vast difference, in sending out this
authoritative letter, from the fiat council of the Christian
Church, whether it issued from the apostles and elders only, or
issued from the apostles, elders, and the brethren. Here again to
effect this change Revisers omitted two Greek words.
The Jesuitical translators of 1582 strongly denounced
Puritans for failing, in their translation, to make the
distinction between the priesthood and the laity. As we read
"This name then of 'priest' and 'priesthood' properly so called,
as St.Augustine saith, which is an order distinct from the laity
and vulgar people, ordained to offer Christ in an unbloody manner
in sacrifice to His heavenly Father for us, to preach and
minister the sacraments, and to be the pastors of the people,
they wholly suppress in their translations."
VI. Changes to Support the Teaching of the
Intermediate State
1.
Hebrews 9:27
KING JAMES: "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but
after this the judgment."
REVISED: "And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die,
and after this cometh judgment."
Canon Farrar claims that this change was deliberately made
to emphasize the doctrine of the intermediate state of men after
death, before being summoned to their final reward or punishment.
Canon Farrar ought to know, because he was a member of that
brilliant organization, the "Apostles Club," dominant in its
influence at Cambridge University, where Hort, Westcott, and
other Revisers discussed questions of doctrine and church reform.
Farrar said on this change:
"There is positive certainty that it does not mean 'the judgment'
in the sense in which that word is popularly understood. By
abandoning the article which King James translators here
incorrectly inserted, the Revisers help, as they have done in so
many other places, silently to remove deep-seated errors. At the
death of each of us there follows 'a judgment,' as the sacred
writer says: the judgment, the final judgment, may not be for
centuries to come. In the omission of that unauthorized little
article from the Authorized Version by the Revisers, lies no less
a doctrine than that of the existence of an Intermediate State."
In the above quotation, note the use of the word "silently."
VII. The Larger Hope-Another Chance After Death
1.
John 14:2
KING JAMES: "In my Father's house are many mansions."
REVISFD: "In my Father's house are many abiding places."
(Margin.)
In the following quotation from the "Expositor," the writer
points out that, by the marginal reading of the Revised, Dr.
Westcott and the Committee referred, not to a final future state,
but to intermediate stations in the future before the final one:
"Dr.Westcott in his Commentary on St.John's Gospel gives the
following explanation of the words, 'In my Father's house are
many mansions.' 'The rendering comes from the Vulgate mansiones,
which were 'resting places,' and especially the 'stations' on a
great road, where travelers found refreshment. This appears to Be
the true meaning of the Greek word here; so that the
contrasted notions of repose and progress are combined in this
vision of the future.'"
"For thirty years now," said Dr.Samuel Cox, in 1886, "I have
been preaching what is called 'the larger hope,' through good and
ill report."
The "larger hope" meant a probation after this life, such a
time of purifying, by fire or otherwise, after death as would
insure another opportunity of salvation to all men. Dr.Cox, like
others, rejoices that the changes in the Revised Version sustain
this doctrine. "Had the new Version then been in our hands, I
should not have felt any special gravity in the assertion." he
said! Doctors Westcott and Hort, both Revisers, believed this
"larger hope."
We have seen how Dr.G.Vance Smith, another Reviser, proved
that the change of "hell fire" in the Authorized to "the hell of
fire" in the Revised opened the way to introduce several hells.
With this, Catholic theology agrees, as it teaches four different
places of punishment after death, either intermediate places for
purification, or the final place. Dr.Samuel Cox rejoices that the
changes in the Revised Version make it possible to find these
different stations. He says:
"The states of being, shadowed forth by the words, Gehenna,
Paradise, Hades, cannot, therefore, be final or everlasting; they
are only intermediate conditions, states of discipline in which
the souls of men await, and may be prepared for, their final
award."
2.
Luke 1:72
KING JAMES: "To perform the mercy promised to our fathers."
REVISED: "To show mercy to our fathers."
To perform the mercy promised to our fathers long ago,
Christ came, is the meaning of the King James. The Revised means
that Christ came to show to our dead fathers the mercy they need
now. As Bishop Mullen says:
"For the text was one which, if rendered literally, no one could
read without being convinced, or at least suspecting, that the
'fathers' already dead needed 'mercy'; and that 'the Lord God of
Israel' was prepared 'to perform' it to them. But where were
those fathers? Not in heaven, where mercy is swallowed up in joy.
And assuredly not in the hell of the damned, where mercy could
not reach them. They must therefore have been in a place between
both, or neither the one nor the other. What? In Limbo or
Purgatory? Why, certainly. In one or the other."
The bishop further claims that the Revisers, in making this
change, vindicated the Jesuit New Testament of 1582, and
convicted the King James of a perversion. Dr.Westcott also finds
the "larger hope" in the change made in Luke 1:72 by the
revision. We will now quote from a well-known church historian
who briefly describes the different intermediate states according
to papal doctrine:
"This power of the Church through the Pope extends -
'indirectly,' says Aquinas - to Purgatory. This was one of the
five abodes in the invisible world. These are: 1. Hell, a place
of eternal suffering, the abode of those who die in mortal sin,
without absolution. The Schoolmen unite in affirming torment by
eternal fire. 2. The limbus of infants dying unbaptized--limbus
signifying literally a border, as, for instance, the bank of a
river. In this abode the inmates are cut off from the vision of
God, but, it was generally held, are not subject to positive
inflictions of pain. 3. The limbus patrum--the abode of the Old
Testament Saints, now, since the advent of Christ, turned into a
place of rest. 4. Purgatory, for souls not under condemnation for
mortal sin, yet doomed to temporal, terminable punishments. These
served the double purpose of an atonement and of a means of
purification. 5. Heaven, the abode of the souls which at death
need no purification and of souls cleansed in the fires of
Purgatory."
3.
I
Peter 4:6
KING JAMES: "For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to
them that are dead."
REVISED: "For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the
dead."
The King James Version presents the truth of this passage to
be that the gospel was preached (past tense) to them that are
dead now (present tense); multitudes now dead had the gospel
preached to them while they were living. There is no hint that
there is any preaching going on now to them that are now dead.
The reverse is the teaching of the passage as changed by the
Revised Version. This is another contribution by the new Version,
which, with other passages of the same import, reveals a
systematic presentation of the doctrine of Purgatory.
Still another passage, this time from the Old Testament, reveals
the tendency which the Revisers had in this direction.
4.
Job 26:5
KING JAMES: "Dead things are formed from under the waters, and
the inhabitants thereof."
REVISED: "They ("the shades" margin) that are deceased tremble
beneath the waters and the inhabitants thereof."
It is very evident here that the Revisers did not have a
Protestant mentality. On this passage we will quote from a member
of the Old Testament Revision Committee (American):
"In Chapter 26 the senseless rendering of verse 5, 'Dead things
are formed from under the waters,' etc., is replaced by a vivid
reference to God's control over departed spirits."
5.
II Peter 2:9
KING JAMES: "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of
temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment
to be punished."
REVISED: "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of
temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the
day of judgment"
By the change of this passage, the Revisers have gone beyond
even the Douay Version, which agrees here with the King James.
This change puts the wicked at once, After death, under
continuing punishment, even before they have had a fair trial at
the judgment seat. Speakof I Peter 4:6, a reviewer of an article
(1882) by Professor Evans, of Lane Seminary, says:
"In the department of eschatology, the work of the revision has
been severely criticized. Its terms of gehenna, paradise, and
hades, it is claimed, are not sharply defined and lead to
confusion; ... and probation after death to be favored by its
rendering of I Peter 4:6, and from a passage in the book of the
Revelation."
VIII. The Different Regions of the Conscious Dead, as Roman
Catholics Teach, Supported by the Revised
1.
Rev.13:8
KING JAMES: "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him,
whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world."
AMERICAN REVISED: "And all that dwell on the earth shall worship
him, every one whose name hath not been written from the
foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that hath
been slain."
Even in 1583, thirty years before the King James Version was
published, this text with all its possibilities was the subject
of heavy controversy between the Jesuits and the Puritans. The
Protestants, even then, rejected the way it is now written in the
American Revised Version.
IX. A Substitute Number for the Beast: "616" or "666"
1.
Rev.13:18
KING JAMES: "And his number is six hundred threescore and six."
REVISED: "And his number is six hundred and sixteen" (margin).
Throughout the ages, the certainty of this number, "666,"
and the certainty of applying it to the Papacy, has been a source
of strength and comfort to Protestant martyrs. Behold the
uncertainty and confusion brought into the interpretation of this
prophecy by offering in the margin the substitute number "616."
Did not the Revisers by this change strike a blow in favor of
Rome?
"But why is not the whole truth told? viz., why are we not
informed that only one corrupt uncial (C):---only one cursive
copy(11):---only one Father (Tichonius) and not one ancient
Version - advocates this reading? which, on the contrary,
Irenaeus (A.D.170) knew, but rejected; remarking that 666, which
is 'found in all the best and oldest copies and is attested by
men who saw John face to face,' is unquestionably the true
reading. Why is not the ordinary reader further informed that the
same number:(666) is expressly vouched for by Origen, by
Hippolytus, by Eusebius:- as well as by Victorinus and Primasius,
not to mention Andreas and Arethas? To come to the moderns, as a
matter of fact the established reading is accepted by Lachmann,
Tischendorf, Tregelles, even by Westcott and Hort. Why therefore
- for what possible reason - at the end of 1700 years and
upwards, is this which is so clearly nothing else but an ancient
slip of the pen, to be forced upon the attention of 90 millions
of English speaking people?
Will Bishop Ellicott and his friends venture to tell us that it
has been done because 'it would not be safe to accept' 666, 'to
the absolute exclusion of 616?.
We have given 'alternative readings in the margin,' (say they,)
'wherever they seem to be of sufficient importance or interest to
deserve notice.' Will they venture to claim either 'interest' or
'importance' for this? or pretend that it is an 'alternative
reading' at all? Has it been rescued from oblivion and paraded
before universal Christendom in order to perplex, mystify, and
discourage 'those that have understanding,' and would fain 'count
the number of the Beast,' if they were able? Or was the intention
only to insinuate one more wretched doubt - one more miserable
suspicion - into minds which have been taught (and rightly) to
place absolute reliance in the textual accuracy of all the
gravest utterances of the SPIRIT: minds which are utterly
incapable of dealing with the subtleties of Textual Criticism;
and, from a onesided statement like the present, will carry away
none but entirely mistaken inferences, and the most unreasonable
distrust? .... Or, lastly, was it only because, in their opinion,
the margin of every Englishman's N.T. is the fittest place for
reviving the memory of obsolete blunders, and ventilating
forgotten perversions of the Truth? ... We really pause for an
answer." (Burgon, Revision Revised, pp.135-137).
X. The Entire Meaning Touching Old Testament Prophecies Changed
1.
Matt. 2:15
KING JAMES: "Out of Egypt have I called my son."
REVISED: "Out of Egypt did I call my son."
The comment of Dean Farrar on this change proves how
systematically the Old Testament prophecies were robbed of their
typical meaning by the "modern rules" used to translate that
Greek tense known as the aorist. He says:
"'Out of Egypt did I call my son.' What could the Revisers do but
alter the incorrect rendering of the Authorized Version? The
Authorized Version confuses the entire meaning of the passage,
and hides the invariable method of St.Matthew in his references
to Old Testament prophecies. Hosea's reference, Hosea 11:1, is to
the calling forth of the Israelites from Egypt...
It is by a restoration of the tenses actually used that we may
expect, in this and HUNDREDS OF OTHER TEXTS, to rekindle a light
of understanding which has long faded away." (Capital letters
mine).
When Hosea, who prophesied 700 years after Moses, said, "Out
of Egypt have I called my son," was he talking history or
prophecy? Did he refer back to the Israelites leaving Egypt, or
forward to the flight of the infant Jesus into and out of Egypt?
The King James translators considered it a prophecy and wrote
"have called;" the Revisers wrote "did call" to express history.
The King James translated it by the perfect, "have called," which
shows the action to have effects still continuing. The Revisers
said that this was wrong, claiming that the aorist should always
be translated by the past tense and not by the perfect. This new
rule, Farrar claims, changed hundreds of texts affecting both Old
Testament prophecies and "the great crises of Christian life."
As to the unfairness of this rule, we could quote from many
witnesses. We will let only one testify. Sir Edmund Beckett,
LL.D., says:
"No one rule of that kind has produced so many alterations in the
Revised Version as that an aorist always - means an action past
and gone, while a perfect tense implies action continuing up to
the present time ... But if we find that forcing the English
translation to conform to those rules produces confusion, or such
English as no master of it writes, and no common person uses;
that it is neither colloquial or solemn, nor impressive, nor more
perspicuous than the old phrases, and often less so such facts
will override all general rules in the minds of men of common
sense, not bewildered by too much learning or the pedantry of
displaying it."
How,serious have been the effects upon doctrine by this
"self-imposed rule," as the Forum says, in the Revised Version,
we will now proceed to show.
XI. Entire Meaning of Great Crises in Christian Life Changed
1.
1 Cor.15:3,4
KING JAMES: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I
also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the
third day."
REVISED: "... that He was buried; and that He hath been
raised on the third day."
In this text, "He rose," has been changed to, "He hath been
raised," for a definite purpose: We lay a charge against the
triumvirate who swept the Revision Committee along with them, of
deliberately making changes in order to introduce a new set of
doctrines which would be neither Presbyterianism (Protestantism)
or Episcopalianism, but which would favor Romanism. Before
the proof is given that this text, I Cor.15:3,4, is one of them,
a letter of Bishop Westcott to Dr.Hort will reveal the full
scheme. Thus he writes concerning "we three":
"Just now I think we might find many ready to welcome the true
mean between the inexorable logic of the Westminster and the
skeptical dogmatism of orthodoxy. At any rate, I am sure that
there is a true mean, and that no one has asserted its claims on
the allegiance of faithful men. Now, I think that Lightfoot, you,
and I are in the main agreed, and I further think that with our
convictions, we are at such a time bound to express them. The
subjects which had occurred to me are - 1. The development of the
doctrine of Messiah, including the discussion of the selection of
one people out of many. 2. Miracles and history. 3. The
development of Christian doctrine out of the apostolic teaching.
In other words, I should like to have the Incarnation as a center
and on either side the preparation for it, and the apprehension
of it in history."
The term "Westminster" referred to the Westminster
Confession, the Presbyterian articles of faith, while by the term
"orthodoxy" Bishop Westcott could refer only to his own faith,
Episcopalianism. What third set of doctrines different from these
two, did they have in mind, in using the word "mean"? When the
Oxford Movement, with its revolutionary results, was the
background to this situation, when the admiration of this
triumvirate for Newman is considered, as well as the expressed
convictions of Westcott and Hort for sacramental salvation and
Mariolatry, it can be seen that the new set of doctrines they
planned to advocate could be nothing else than Ritualism and
Romanism. Evidently, the Revisers incorporated their theology
into the Scriptures. This is not the function of revisers or
translators.
Many Protestants are not aware of the serious difference
between the papal doctrine of Atonement and theirs; nor of the
true meaning of the Mass. Catholics teach that only the humanity
of Christ died on the cross, not His divine nature. Therefore, in
their eyes, His death was not, in a primary sense, a vicarious
atonement to satisfy the wrath of God against sin and pay the
claims of a broken law. Because of this, His death is to them
only a momentary event; while His coming in the flesh, or the
doctrine of the Incarnation, is supreme. Its effects are
continual and daily, a source of saving grace, as they believe.
The turning of the bread into the body of Christ, by the priest
in the ceremony of the Mass, represents His birth in the flesh,
or the Incarnation, repeated in every Mass.
So fundamental to all their beliefs is this different view
of the Atonement and of the Mass, as held by Roman Catholics,
that it profoundly affects all other doctrines and changes the
foundation of the Christian system. When the triumvirate
approached their task of revision, with their scheme to advocate
their new system of doctrines, Dean Farrar says that "hundreds of
texts were so changed that the Revisers restored conceptions
'profound and remarkable' in the 'verbs expressive of the great
crises of Christian life.'"
The great crises of Christian life are set forth by
Protestants in words and practices different from Catholics. In
the great crisis, when the Protestant is under conviction of sin,
he reveals it by deep sorrow and contrition; the Catholic by
going to Mass. In the crisis of that moment when the soul is
moved by repentance, the Protestant speaks forth his heart to
God, alone or in the assembly of fellow-believers; the Catholic
goes to confess to a priest and so exalts the confessional to the
doctrine of the Sacrament of Confession. In that crisis, when
forgiveness of sins is experienced, the Protestant is conscious
of God's pardon by faith in His Word; the Catholic hears the
priest say, "I absolve thee," which indicates the power of the
supernatural priesthood. In those deep wrestlings of the spirit,
the crises which come from the demands of Christian obedience,
the Protestant leans on the infallibility of the Bible to tell
him what he should, or should not do; the Catholic, through the
priest, gets his light from the infallibility of the Pope, the
crown of the supernatural priesthood.
The Revisers may not have had, in detail, these phases in
their minds as we have enumerated them. But they had, in purpose,
the principle which would lead to them. Westcott said, in the
quotation above, when planning for a new set of doctrines on
which the triumvirate was agreed, "I should like to have the
Incarnation as a center." And on the text under consideration - I
Cor.15:3,4 - Dean Farrar, interpreting it in the new meaning the
Revisers intended it to have, said:
"When St.Paul says that 'Christ was buried and hath been raised,'
he emphasizes, by a touch, that the death and burial of Christ
were, so to speak, but for a moment, while His Resurrection means
nothing less than infinite, permanent, and continuous life."
It is apparent by this translation they mean to minimize the
death of Christ and to magnify His resurrection, which to them is
substantially a repeated Incarnation. This tends to the Roman
idea of Transubstantiation in the Mass. They belittle the death
of Christ when they rule out the death of His divine nature. That
leads to the conclusion that there was no divine law to be
satisfied. Dr.Farrar ought to know what was intended, for he was
one of the coterie in which Westcott and Hort moved.
This translation is purely arbitrary. Why did they not say,
"hath been dead," and "hath been buried," as well as "hath been
raised"? "The aorist, the aorist," we are told. Previously, we
have sufficiently answered this unwarranted plea.
Take another text upon which Bishop Westcott has spoken
expressly to inform us what is the superior reading of the
Revised:
2.
Matt.27:46
KING JAMES: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me."
REVISED: "My God, my God, why didst thou forsake me." (Margin.)
According to their self-imposed rules, the Revisers
considered that the meaning of this text, in the Authorized, was
that the effects of Christ's death were supreme and were
continuous. This thought they believed of Christ's resurrection
which opened the way for repeated Incarnations, as previously
shown. Therefore, in the Revised (margin), they changed the tense
to the past in order to make the death of Christ a temporary
event, as of a moment. Bishop Westcott, on this text, shows in
the following words that he believed Christ's passion was the
death of a human, not of a divine being:
"If, then, we may represent suffering as the necessary
consequence of sin, so that the sinner is in bondage, given over
to the Prince of Evil, till his debt is paid, may we not
represent to ourselves our Lord as taking humanity upon Him, and
as man paying this debt - not as the debt of the individual, but
as the debt of the nature which He assumed? The words in St.
Matthew 27:46 seem to indicate some such view."
He wrote to Benson, "In a few minutes I go with Lightfoot to
Westminster (Revision Committee Session). More will come of these
meetings, I think, than simply a revised version."
As to the "more" which might come of these revision
meetings, two incidents of Westcott's life within the five years
previous to revision are significant, his visit to the Shrine of
the Virgin Mary at LaSalette, France, (1865), and his suspicious
Tract of 1867.
LaSalette was one of the more famous shrines of France where
the Catholics claim that the spirit of the Virgin Mary wrought
miracles. Westcott reports that, while there, a miracle of
healing took place. "The eager energy of the father," he writes,
"the modest thankfulness of the daughter, the quick glances of
the spectators from one to the other, the calm satisfaction of
the priest, the comments of look and nod, combined to form a
scene which appeared hardly to belong to the nineteenth century.
An age of faith was restored before our sight in its ancient
guise ... In this lay the real significance and power of the
place."
So thorough was the impression of a "restored age of faith,"
made by this Catholic shrine miracle, on him, that he wrote a
paper and sent it in for publication. Dr.Lightfoot besought him
to withdraw it. He feared, "that the publication of the paper
might expose the author to a charge of Mariolatry and even
prejudice his chance of election to a Divinity Professorship at
Cambridge."
Again, in 1867, Westcott wrote a tract entitled, "The
Resurrection as a Fact and a Revelation." It was already in type,
his son tells us, when he was obliged to withdraw it because of
the charge against it of "heresy."
Thus the Revisers revealed how they were influenced by
exhibitions of what they considered the channel of divine power -
shrines and sacraments. This came from their incorrect view of
the Atonement. For if Christ paid not the debt for our sins by
the death of His divine being on Calvary, then, from their
viewpoint, satisfaction for our sins must logically be made to
God by some other means. Catholics find it in the sacrifice of
the Mass and also by their own works of penance, while the
Ritualists and leading Revisers look to the sacraments, which is
in reality the same thing. This leads to the power of the priest
and the practices of Ritualism. These views of doctrines so
different from those held by Protestants in 1611 would
fundamentally affect, not only the foundation truth of the
Atonement, that Christ's death paid the debt for our sins, but
all other doctrines, and pave the way for a different mentality,
a different gospel, wherever the ascendancy of the King James
Bible was broken down. The evidences produced in connection with
the American Revisers will show this more fully.
XII. The Jesuitical Doctrines of the Sacraments Favored by the
Revised
1.
1 Cor.11:24
KING JAMES: "And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said,
Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you."
REVISED: "And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said,
This is my body, which is for you: This do in remembrance of me."
Why were the two expressions, "take, eat" and "broken"
omitted from the Revised? Before answering this question, let us
consider further some fundamental viewpoints of the Revisers.
The word "sacrament" is not found in the Bible. The Lord's
Supper and Baptism are never called "sacraments." The observance
of these memorials of Christ's death, burial and resurrection
indicate the Christian's faith, but the Scriptures nowhere teach
that they bring salvation or the forgiveness of sin. The mystic
power of the priest by means of the so-called "sacraments" is a
human invention. Therefore, sacramental salvation is no
salvation. We do not wish to offend, or wound, but to us it looks
like an empty delusion.
It is a most significant fact that of the system of
doctrines with which the Cambridge trio of Revisers---Westcott,
Hort and Lightfoot--set out to permeate Christendom, the central
one was what they call the "Person of Christ." This doctrine
teaches, first, that the only true way to do God's will is by
"good works," in dependence upon "the Person of Christ;" second,
it involves a clearer grasp of the fact that as the "God
Incarnate," Christ is thus "mighty to save;" third, that the
believer's incorporation into Christ is by means of the
Sacraments; fourth, that the principal Sacraments are three in
number, - Baptism, the Lord's Supper (the Mass), and the
Confessional. Rev.Kempson, a Church of England clergyman, while
admitting that others look upon the Movement of the Jesuits as
counter to the Reformation, himself, holds a different view. He
says:
"I say the Reformation, because I can see no sound reason for
calling the events of that period which occurred within the Roman
Communion a 'Counter-Reformation.' It was a movement which
involved a great revival of personal piety and devotion to God
and desire to do His will, and an equally clear realization of
the fact that that desire could only be realized in good works in
dependence on the Person of Christ. Thus far we have a remarkable
parallel to our own Evangelical Revival. But in this case there
was a clearer grasp of the fact that it is as the God Incarnate
of the Creed that Christ is mighty to save, and that He
communicates Himself to those who desire to live through Him by
means of the Sacraments. That is, that the individual is grafted
into Christ in the New Birth of Baptism, that he feeds on Christ,
'Who is verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in
the Lord's Supper,' and that His healing grace is applied to the
sinner and the results of sin by the receiving of the 'Benefit of
Absolution.'"
In Catholic theology, "Absolution" means the forgiveness
which follows confession to a priest. Another quotation by the
same author, presents the strong part Westcott had in this work:
"Maurice and Kingsley, and Bishop Westcott, in his insistence on
the social significance of the Incarnation, have done their
work."
The significant remarks above, that "Christ is mighty to
save," only "as the God incarnate of the creed," - which is made
available to us in the Lord's Supper or in the Mass, the
reincarnation, and that "He communicates Himself to those who
desire to live through Him by means of the Sacraments," were the
central doctrines of the Counter-Reformation, or the world-wide
movement of the Jesuits. The Revisers changed the words of the
King James Version to embody the very same sentiments. On this,
Milligan, in his book on the Revised Version, says:
"The doctrine of the Sacraments may next engage our attention,
and here again the variations in the renderings of familiar
texts, though they may not appear at first of great importance,
involve far-reaching truths ... The Bread - that is, the Body of
Christ - recalls more particularly His Incarnation, apart from
His sufferings."
Now we see why the word "broken" was left out of the Revised
text under consideration, as it is also in the Douay. A footnote
of Milligan, in connection with the above quotation, emphasizes
the disappearance of "broken."
How we are supposed to come in touch with the "Person of
Christ," and receive His power and blessing, is shown by the
following quotation from a ritualistic clergyman:
"Now there are, of course, many Catholic practices that
necessarily result from a belief in the Real Presence of our dear
Lord upon the Altar ... Bowing and genuflecting. Bowing to the
Altar at all times ... because the Altar is the throne of God
Incarnate, where daily now, thank God, in many a Church in the
land He deigns to rest ... And genuflecting, not to the Altar,
but to the Gift that is upon it; to the God-man, Christ Jesus,
when He is there."
This is the doctrine of the "Person of Christ," as taught by
the Ritualists and Revisers. The priest in every Mass creates
from bread the very body, the "Person of Christ," and then
worships, and causes others to worship, the work of his own
hands. We would not wish to offend or speak unfeelingly when we
express our opinion that this is as truly idolatry as was ancient
paganism, or as is the heathenism of today. This localizing of
the literal body and "Person of Christ," by making Him present -
in every particle of the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, or
the Mass, is exactly the opposite, and contrary to the statement
of the Saviour when about to bid fare well to His disciples, "It
is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send
him unto you." John 16:7.
When Christ ascended, He withdrew His personal presence from
the disciples, and the era of the ministration of the Holy Spirit
began. His words indicate that it was necessary for His person to
go away, that His Spirit might come to His disciples. He who,
like doubting Thomas, depends only on the local, personal,
literal, presence of Christ, walks by sight and not by faith and
deprives himself of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. "God is a
Spirit: they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth." John 4:24.
No Scripture commands us to worship in the Lord's supper the
"Person of Christ." The Romanists, the Ritualists, and the
Revisers invented this unspiritual dogma. Christ is with us
always, not in "person," but by His Spirit. We receive Him by
receiving His Word, for "they are Spirit, and they are life."
John 6:63).
Nineteen hundred years ago, Christ journeyed on this earth
from Bethlehem to Calvary in "person." When He departed from this
world and ascended up on high, He left the glorious promise that
He would come the "second time" in "person." His Second Coming is
yet future. But if He comes personally in every Mass, or the
Lord's Supper, He has already come not only the "second" time but
the millionth time. The Revisers' doctrine of the Incarnation
(the Mass), therefore, makes unnecessary and destroys the truth
that He shall come "the second time without sin unto salvation."
Hebrews 9:28. How feeble is the coming of the "Person of Christ"
in the Mass, or Lord's Supper, compared with His Second Coming in
His own glory and the glory of His Father with all the holy
angels! The fact that He came once in person and that His
"second" personal coming is still future, proves untrue, the
doctrine of the "Person of Christ" in the Mass.
This doctrine is a weak substitute for, and counterfeit of,
the glorious Second Coming of Christ.
Here a little, and there a little, the Westcott-Hort
generalship moved forward, changing the divine Word to bear the
impress of their doctrines, until they had changed the Greek in
5,337 places, and the English of the King James in 36,000 places.
These 5,337 mutilations of the Greek and 36,000 metamorphoses of
the English, in working out their scheme, stamp many of the
readings of the Revised Version with the marks of Systematic
Depravation.
........................
NOTE:
Remember Wilkinson gives all the "references" (those 1,2 3 etc.
numbers in the text corresponding to the numbers at the foot of
the page) throughout his book. I for time and speed in producing
his book have left them out, but I assure the reader they are all
there.
For in-depth understanding of Roman Catholic theology I refer the
reader to CHICK PUBLICATION. Google it in and you'll find their
Website.
Keith Hunt
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