AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED #22
by
Benjamin Wilkinson PhD
CHAPTER XVI
Conclusion
BARREN rock, mountain solitude, and lonely wilderness have
all contributed their brave sons to defend the Word of God, and,
if need be, to die that it might be kept unadulterated. He who
hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty,
would not permit man to be robbed of that simplicity of the
divine Word which made the untampered Scriptures a peculiar
treasure.
The moral law within the heart is compelling. One great
philosopher felt this when he said, "There are two things in the
universe which awe me: the glory of the heavens above and the
majesty of the moral law within me." God did not leave mankind to
struggle in ignorance with the awful impressiveness of the law
within, without revealing Himself in His Word as the moral
Governor of the universe. The supreme lessons of the Bible only
can reach the deeper feelings of the heart. The Bible is the
absolute standard of right and wrong. In the Word dwells
spiritual life the most perfect. Jesus said, "It is the Spirit
that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I
speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63.
The Psalmist wrote: "Thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy
name." The created worlds magnify the exalted name of the
Eternal. But God has magnified His Word above all these. It is an
unhappy hour when humanity lightly esteems the Bible; for there
God reveals Himself more than through the material universe. A
man is no better than his word; if one fails to command
confidence, so does the other. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but God's Word shall never pass away.
In the Bible is revealed the standard by which we shall be
tried when the judgment day comes. From the garden of Eden until
now, one standard and one only has been revealed. Inspiration
declares that this revelation has been under the special
protection of all power in heaven and in earth. "The words of the
Lord are pure words," says the Psalmist, "as silver tried in a
furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, 0
Lord, thou shalt preserve every one of them, (margin) from this
generation forever." Psalms 12:6,7. Lonely mounds in distant
lands mark the graves where fell those who forsook home and
civilization that the Word of God might live.
We believe in Jesus Christ as the divine Teacher, because
unlike Mohammed and others, He did not come unheralded. There
were fifteen hundred years of prophecy pointing forward to His
coming among men. A perfect transmission of these predictions was
necessary if they were to be fulfilled in every specification.
There is nothing which so stirs men to the holiest living as the
story of Jesus Christ. Yet only within the lids of the Bible is
that story found. At the cost of great sufferings, God yielded up
His son. The history of the ages which prepared for this holy
event, and the story of our Redeemer's life are all found within
the same volume. These priceless records have been the object of
God's infinite solicitude.
The divine Saviour and the holy apostles spoke beforehand of
events which would occur even to the end of time. Of what value
would such a prophetic revelation be, if it were not to guide
those who would pass through the predicted scenes, and if it were
not to warn the wicked and encourage the good? This value,
however, would be destroyed if the words foretelling the events,
the meaning of the events, and the prediction of rewards and
punishments were so tampered with that the force of the divine
utterance was destroyed. Moreover the very fact that the Word
could make such a prediction not only stamps the Word as divine
but condemns as wicked, yes, points out as being the predicted
apostasy, that system which would either tamper with the Word, or
make the Word secondary. The writing of the Word of God by
Inspiration is no greater miracle than the miracle of its
preservation.
The pathetic question of Pilate, "What is Truth," is not
more pathetic than the error of those who say that only by
balancing one version against another, or by examining the
various manuscript readings, those of apostates as well as those
of the faithful, can we arrive at approximate truth.
Left to ourselves we stumble through the darkness guided
only by the little lamp of reason. But when we accept the Bible,
a great light shines upon our path. History and prophecy unite to
confirm our faith. Daniel, and John, the apostle, point out the
four great empires which succeeded one another, Babylon,
Medo-Persia, Greece, and pagan Rome. After these arose a cruel,
anti-Christian power, the Papacy, from whose terrible
persecutions the church fled into the wilderness. As Daniel and
John predicted, the Papacy trod underfoot the Truth, the Word of
God. From false manuscripts she issued a volume which she chose
to call a Bible, but added tradition and elevated it to a greater
inspiration than the Scriptures themselves.
Eating the bread of poverty and dressed in the garments of
penury, the church in the wilderness followed on to serve the
Lord. She possessed the untampered manuscripts of holy revelation
which discountenanced the claims of the Papacy. Among this little
flock, stood out prominently the Waldenses. Generation after
generation of skilled copyists handed down, unadulterated, the
pure Word. Repeatedly their glorious truth spread far among the
nations. In terror, the Papacy thundered at the monarchs of
Europe to stamp out this heresy by the sword of steel. In vain
the popish battalions drenched the plains of Europe with martyr
blood. The Word lived, unconquered.
Let Gilly tell us how the Waldenses survived the fury of the
Papacy:
"They occupy a mountain district ... and yet from this secluded
spot, have they disseminated doctrines, whose influence is felt
over the most refined and civilized part of Europe. They ...
speak the same language, have the same patriarchal habits, and
simple virtues, and retain the same religion, which was known to
exist there more than a thousand years ago. They profess to
constitute the remains of the pure and primitive Christian
church, and those who would question their claims cannot show
either by history or tradition that they ever subscribed to the
popish rituals, or bowed before any of the idols of the Roman
Church ... They have seldom been free from persecution, or
vexatious and intolerant oppression, and yet nothing could ever
induce them to conform, even outwardly, with the religion of the
state ... In short, there is no other way of explaining the
political, moral, and religious phenomenon, which the Vaudois
have continued to display for so many centuries, than by
ascribing it to the manifest interposition of Providence, which
has chosen in them 'the weak things of this world to confound the
things that are mighty.'"
The Redeemer said: "Thy word is truth." Rome, the Papacy,
did as the prophet Daniel wrote, she "cast down the truth to the
ground." While Rome was cruelly persecuting the church in the
wilderness, was she also the divinely appointed guardian of the
true Word of God? God placed the answer to this question in
prophecy. And now the Revised Version, built almost entirely on
the Vatican Manuscript, kept in the Pope's library, and upon the
Sinaiticus, found in a Catholic monastery, (types of manuscripts
upon which the Vulgate was built), comes forward and proposes to
set aside the text of our Authorized Bible.
The Authorized Version was translated in 1611, just before
the Puritans departed from England, so that they carried it with
them across stormy seas to lay the foundation of one of the
greatest governments the world has ever known. The Authorized
Version of God's Holy Word had much to do with the laying of the
foundation of our great country.
When the Bible was translated in 1611, God foresaw the wide
extended use of the English language; and, therefore, in our
Authorized Bible, gave the best translation that has ever been
made, not only in the English language, but as many scholars say,
ever made in any language.
The original Scriptures were written by direct inspiration
of God. This can hardly be said of any translation. Nevertheless,
when apostasy had cast its dark shadow over the Western lands of
opportunity, God raised up the men of 1611. They were true
Protestants. Many of their friends and associates had already
fallen before the sword of despotism while witnessing for the
Holy Word. And in a marvelous way God worked to give us through
them an English version from the genuine manuscripts. It grew and
soon exercised a mighty influence upon the whole world. But this
was an offense to the old systems of the past. Then arose the
pantheistic theology of Germany, the ritualistic Oxford Movement
of England, and the Romanizing Mercersburg theology of America.
Through the leaders, or associates of the leaders, in these
movements, revised versions were brought forth which raised again
to influence manuscripts and versions long discarded by the more
simple, more democratic bodies of Christianity, because of the
bewildering confusion which their uncertain message produced.
Again the people of God are called upon to face this subtile
and insidious program. It is difficult for them to expose the
systematic depravation without being misunderstood, and without
being charged with attacking the genuine, while seeking to expose
the erroneous mixed with the genuine. They recognize that these
modern versions can be used as books of reference even if they
cannot be put on a level with the Received Text.
Paul said, in Acts 17:28, "As certain also of your own poets
have said, For we are also his offspring." Paul quoted good
sayings from the pagan poets, but did not use these Greek writers
as authority. It is as unthinkable to forbid excellent quotations
from pagan land heathen scholars as it would be to place their
writings on a level with the pure Word of God. Likewise, parts of
modern versions edited by scholars may be used with care in
considering Bible verses from another angle. This fact, however,
is taken advantage of, to claim divine inspiration for all the
rest, and sow confusion among the churches of believers.
Through the Reformation, the Received Text was again given
to the Church. In the ages of twilight and gloom, the corrupt
church did not think enough of the corrupt Bible to give it
circulation. Since the Reformation, the Received Text, both in
Hebrew and in Greek, has spread abroad throughout the world.
Wherever it is accurately translated, regardless of whatever the
language may be, it is as truly the Word of God, as our own
Authorized Bible. Nevertheless, in a remarkable way, God has
honored the King James Version. It is the Bible of the
160,000,000, English speaking people, whose tongue is spoken by
more of the human race than any other. German and Russian are
each the language of 100,000,000; while French is spoken by
70,000,000. The King James Version has been translated into many
other languages. One writer claims 886. It is the Book of the
human race. It is the author of vastly more missionary
enterprises than any other version. It is God's missionary Book.
We shall need the Lord Jesus in the hour of death, we shall
need Him in the morning of the resurrection. We should recognize
our need of Him now. We partake of Him, not through some
ceremony, wherein a mysterious life takes hold of us. When we
receive by faith the written Word of God, the good pleasure of
the Lord is upon us, and we partake of Him. Through this Word we
receive the power of God, the same Word by which He upholds all
things, by which He swings the mighty worlds and suns through the
deeps of the stellar universe. This Word is able to save us and
to keep us forever. This Word shall conduct us to our Father's
throne on high. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the
Word of our God shall stand forever."
"The starry firmament on high, And all the glories of the
sky,
Yet shine not to thy praise, O Lord, So brightly as thy
written Word.
The hopes that holy Word supplies, Its truths divine and
precepts wise,
In each a heavenly beam I see,
And every beam conducts to Thee.
Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail,
The moon her borrowed glory veil,
And deepest reverence hush on high
The joyful chorus of the sky.
But fixed for everlasting years,
Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres,
Thy Word shall shine in cloudless day,
When heaven and earth have passed away."
...........................
THE END
Note:
If you have not done so, read the "Introduction" to Jay P.Green
Sr. Interlinear Greek/English New Testament, on this Website. And
I recommend you buy Green's 4 vol. set Interlinear Hebrew/English
and Interlinear Greek/English Bible, obtainable from "Christian
Book Distribution" at a reasonable price: www.Christianbook.com
Keith Hunt
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