In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14).
When the Lord has an extremely important message that must be heard, He makes it very clear. At the same time, the enemy of man's soul, the father of lies does everything in his (limited) power to prevent the message from being published. And this message has been viciously opposed by the self-appointed "angel of light" who comes as a pseudo spirit of truth. But his truth is a lie. The spirit of antichrist is at work, feverishly deceiving as many as can be deceived. That is the reason this message from the Lord has been so very strongly impressed upon me to share. Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world. The message of the Kingdom cannot be stopped!
In the first part of this message, Modern-day Pharisees - Antichrist Beliefs, we examined "Sola Scriptura" in light of Scripture, where the printed words clearly show that "Scripture Alone" cannot save us, and can never please God. For without faith it is impossible to please him. (Hebrews 11:6). Faith is utter reliance upon Christ--especially for our spiritual wellbeing.
The same Scriptures that countless numbers of people choose to exalt above the Lord Himself, contain words that expose the error of their way. The printed records of the spoken words inspired by the Holy Spirit of God are translated versions of the "words of God." They are not the Word of God as is so commonly believed. The above opening passage from John tells us undeniably that Jesus Christ is the Word of God. A further reference that verifies His presence from the beginning is this one: Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. (Hebrews 11:3a).
This time we will examine the much-revered "authorized" King James Bible in light of the Kingdom of God. We will also look at the origin of the KJV, and how it is in no way the "inerrant word of God."
King James only?
There is a strong movement often referred to as "King James Only-ism." In the adherents to this belief, can be found pride in their "perfect" KJV Bible. Like those of the modern-day Sola Scriptura group, they see their Bible as the "Word of God" and sole authority when it comes to living the Christian life. Knowing what their bible says, and obeying it with every ounce of their beings, can never achieve the level of holiness they desire. The truth in this next verse is lost on them--all because they do not really know the true Word of God, who is Jesus. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. (1 John 2:14).
In many of the articles I have written there are numerous references to the "Word of God" because I too was of the belief that my bible was the Word of God. And yes, my bible happened to be a KJV. The Holy Spirit used the printed word to reveal truths to me that I would not have otherwise known. I could never have understood what was written if I had used only my human intellect, which has its roots in the knowledge of good and evil. In more recent times the Lord has been correcting me, teaching me to not refer to a mere volume of 66 books as the word of God, but that Jesus alone is the living Word. And that His reign, the Kingdom of God[1], is within those who are born anew by His Spirit. As the printed word tells us, The kingdom of God is within [Greek: 'inside'] you. (Luke 17:21b). Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23).
Is your bible an idol?
There are many sincere Christians who have been deceived into believing that the only real authoritative word of God is the "authorized" King James Bible. But the Lord is drawing numerous ones away from that belief, showing that He alone is the living Word and that anything exalted in His place is an idol. As the Old Testament scriptures show, idols are dead--there is no life in them. And the bible can never give life. Its message can be revealed solely by the Spirit of the One who died to give us Life in Him.
Jesus' words to His disciples still hold true today--the Holy Spirit still speaks to us.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you. . . .These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. (John 14:16-17, 25-26).Nothing He says to us will be contrary to what the Father has already spoken to Jesus; and He to those who lived during His time on earth, as recorded in the bible.
In his book, The Gospel Message[2], Steve Bray (1950-2003) speaks of the bible version issue.It is a shame how we find Christians today actually fighting about the different versions of the Bible. While certain translations have done a better job of revealing the meaning of certain passages, individuals should not idolize their version of the Scriptures as if it is the only way to eternal life. Some people even go so far as to say that every version of the Bible except a certain one will lead people astray. If this were actually true, people like the Wycliffe Bible translators should be condemned rather than praised for their work of making the Bible available to various groups of people in their native language.
Everyone who is still worshipping a certain version of the Bible is effectively revealing how he or she has not yet found Christ's Kingdom-life of perfect love. Christians who have truly entered into His supernatural life from heaven will understand how the life comes from Jesus and not from a mere belief in certain words. While it will be necessary to yield to the truth before we will have an opportunity to "find" the life of promise, we must depend on the Lord to reveal Himself within our eternal soul if we hope to become vessels of His eternal life in this world. (Emphasis added)
Ways to God
With any number of ways to interpret what the bible means, according to human understanding, we find that there can be as many ways to find God, or come to faith in Him. Jesus said,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. John 10:1-5
On the information highway known as the "Internet," can be found every kind of belief system--with each being right in his own eyes. Most tragic of all, are the ones who profess to be Christians and use the bible to promote their beliefs. How often are they presenting "ways to God" to the would-be sheep who are seeking a shepherd and may find themselves deceived into following one who is "climbing up some other way?"
Here is an example the Lord led me to the other day. The minister on the web site said that "All that is required of you to be established in the faith by God is the following:
Jesus calls them "thieves and robbers." Here is another one, although not quite as blatant, but still very much antichrist:
How God makes Himself known to us:Wrong! The Holy Spirit convicts.
We know Him by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most beautiful book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many letters leading us to perceive clearly the invisible qualities of God namely His eternal power and deity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are sufficient to convict men and leave them without excuse. Second, He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word as far as is necessary for us in this life, to His glory and our salvation.
We cannot glorify the Lord through self efforts--even those that follow the divine word meticulously. We would be like the Galatians whom Paul chastised, saying, "Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?" Steve Bray also said,
Once people in the church have seared over their conscious concerning the deeper things of God, it is possible to find a sense of fulfillment in a law-keeping form of righteousness. Like the Pharisees, these people end up choosing certain "standards" that are within the capacity of their human efforts. We will then find them insisting that holiness consists of conforming to the laws they have accepted. . . . People who depend on their own efforts to keep the law actually separate themselves from the life that comes from Christ. "You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." (Galatians 5:4)
Pure preserved bible?
Just as the Protestant Reformation, and its Sola Scriptura, began as a rebellion against Roman Catholicism, so did the present-day King James Only movement. They have produced countless books, and more recently videos which give elaborate descriptions as to the history and purity of the KJV. They say it is "God's preserved words." Psalm 12:6-7 are given as proof that God said He would preserve His words and see to it that the KJV bible would be the result. If we look closely at the twelfth Psalm we can see the full context of those two verses.
Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak. The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. Vs.6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Vs.7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve [Hebrew: 'to hedge about (as with thorns)'] them from this generation for ever. The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted. Psalm 12:1-8The verse in bold print tell us who the Lord would preserve for ever, and that His word is as sure as purified silver--they could depend on it. The Hebrew word for the translated preserve was used as keepeth in this verse: He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth [Hebrew: 'to hedge about (as with thorns)'] thee will not slumber. (Psalm 121:3)
From another Psalm they take part of a sentence from David's words of adoration, and use it as proof that "God exalts the word above His name." The King James translation of the phrase reads thus: "for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name." Now let us look at the full sentence. "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." (Psalm 138:2)
If we insert the word meanings from the Hebrew in place of magnified and above, we will see what David was truly saying. I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast enlarged thy word according to all thy name. David was exalting the Lord because of the words from His mouth that were just as sure as His name--I AM! And the Hebrew word for "name" means "honor, authority, character." There is no one with greater honor, authority or character than I AM! Here is the full Psalm of David:
I will praise thee with my whole heart: before the gods will I sing praise unto thee. 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. In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul. All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hear the words of thy mouth. Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great is the glory of the LORD. Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me. The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands. (Psalm 138:1-8).
KJV errors
The "Textus Receptus" (Received Text) version of the Greek New Testament is where the KJV-only folks place their trust, as being without error. There is no one edition of the TR, but a number of editions with some differences among them, dating as far back as Erasmus' TR of 1516.[3] Not only were there some differences in the TR, but the translators also made many errors[4] in their work of translating from the Greek text. Some examples are:1. In Matthew 23:24, the KJV reads:
Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Rather than "strain at a gnat" the correct reading is "strain out a gnat." There is no textual problem here--it is a translation problem; all manuscripts and all editions of the Textus Receptus have the Greek word for "strain out", which means to "strain" or "filter out."
2. In Revelation 17:8 we find another instance of translator error. The KJV reads: "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is."
The final words in the verse, "and yet is," should actually read "and shall come"--"the beast that was, and is not, and shall come." No Greek manuscript reads "and yet is"; all have "and shall come." It appears that most other bible versions have the correctly translated the words.
3. Also in the book of Revelation, the Latin word for tree (ligno) was replaced with the word for book (libro). "When Erasmus back-translated from Latin, he introduced for the first time ever in Greek the reading 'book of life' in Revelation 22:19, and by the slavish reprinting of Erasmus' text by later editors, the reading 'book of life' found its way into the textus receptus and the King James Version, even though it is completely without support of any kind in any Greek manuscript."[5] Again, most other bible versions do not use the incorrect words and yet is.
Those who idolize their beloved "authorized" KJV would be shocked to learn that the word authorized came from a Seventh Day Adventist missionary who wrote a book, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated.[6] Like all writers today who promote the KJV-only doctrine, he viciously attacked the two men who used--not the Textus Receptus--but numerous other manuscripts to give us the New Testament in the Revised Version (the one I call "Gran's old bible"). The RV is one of the many I mentioned earlier that are (only) somewhat more correctly translated.
"Robert Dick Wilson, the great Princeton Seminary Old Testament scholar who died in 1930, was well practiced in exposing and refuting error in matters of Biblical studies. In one of his writings, he insisted on the importance of tracing every error back to its original source. His research had convinced him that almost invariably any commonly-held but false view could be traced back to a single writer, and that this error had become widespread, not because other writers had independently investigated the same evidence and arrived at the same conclusions, but merely because other writers were lazy and simply parroted the conclusions of the first writer. In short, the false conclusions were naively adopted and the evidence ignored." ~ Doug Kutilek[6] (Emphasis added)
So as not to further belabor the version issue, let me simply say this: There is no such thing as a perfect bible version--all have been tampered with by the hands of mortal man. The evidence put forth here, and in the references provided at the bottom of the page, is to give proof as to why our trust must not be in the printed word but in the living Word--Jesus Christ the Son of God.
The scriptures prove that Jesus is the Word of God and not the scriptures. Those that believe the scriptures are the word of God do not believe their own scriptures! Whether with Scripture alone or King James Only-ism, the very "Word" they exalt above the Lord Jesus Christ, is the same printed word that will testify against them. They will be found guilty of rejecting the Spirit of Truth whom Jesus sent to lead them into all truth. They are antichrist modern-day Pharisees who must be born anew by the Spirit if they are going to see the Kingdom of God. As Paul said, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." (Romans 8:9). And as Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is inside you."
In closing
The closed canon, which is so revered and defended by the Sola Scriptura adherents, does not contain all that could have been recorded. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. (John 21:25). Those things contained in scripture, regardless of the version, cannot be understood with the mind of the flesh. Without the Holy Spirit's teaching and enlightening the words, the words themselves are dead. For the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6) Let us keep in mind these words that Paul spoke, also to the Corinthians.
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:9-14).
Jesus said, "And you have not his word abiding in you: for whom he sent, him you believe not. You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me; and you will not come to me, that you may have life." (John 5:38-40).
What will the end be for those who have made an idol of the printed word, all the while rejecting the message it contains? Have they rejected Jesus, the living Word? Consider this very sobering passage: "For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." (Hebrews 6:4-6).
As John said to the new believers of his day, Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:21).
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. Revelation 19:16-18
References:
[1] The Kingdom of Heaven's at Hand by B. Keith Chadwell
[2] The Gospel Message by Steve Bray
[3] Erasmus and the Textus Receptus by Dr. William W. Combs
[4] Errors in the King James Version? by Dr. William W. Combs
[5] Erasmus, His Greek Text and His Theology by Doug Kutilek
[6] The Unlearned Men: The True Genealogy and Genesis of King-James-Version-Onlyism by Doug Kutilek
Additional reading:
The Great Ecclesiastical Conspiracy by George Davis and Michael Clark
Bible Versions and Apostasy - the Connection by Stella Paterson
Following Jesus - His Way by Stella Paterson
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