Where is the authority of Scripture today?
Posted: 26 May 2014, 22:43CANON
If we accept "Protestant received tradition" for the Canon, we have departed from the "Hebrew" and the "Greek".
VERSION TEXT
If we accept that Protestant versions are valid gathered forms of various original manuscripts and their readings, and there are plenty of Greek gathered and critical editions about, then we are admitting that the English text must be at least as valid as the texts formed in the original languages.
Are labours ongoing, and never arriving (when, how and where will the text be finally settled)? Or, have labours by God's providence achieved the final text?
In other words, do we or do we not have the very words of God?
TRANSLATION SENSE
If we accept that the Word of God has come abroad to the Gentiles today, then we have to accept that the Word of God is not locked in the original languages.
Is the exact meaning only able to be discerned in the original languages, what is it, how is it divined, and when will it be manifest for the full Gospel to have gone forth into all the world? Or, has by God's providence the full meaning of the Scripture been transferred, sense-for-sense, into one principle form, accessible to the world today?
In other words, do we or do we not have the very message of God?
The spirit of error says that it is not possible to have the very words and very message of God in English. The King James Bible only person says that it is certain. Those who reject the proper King James Bible only view are actually agreeing with what the spirit of error stands for — unless the non-King James Bible only person can show where the exact words and message of God is today for the world today... and tomorrow.
See Proverbs 30:5, 6 (the exact words) and 2 Tim. 4:17 (the exact message) and Isaiah 34:16 (in one book).
It is altogether incorrect to think that authority cannot be presented by the King James Bible.
1. Autographical and Canonical authority. Since the Word of God was not just true in the Autographs, and it is supposed to go forth to the whole world, and since the Autographs are lost, and we only have copies, the very same truth must be yet present today. God has worked through the setting up of proper traditions in the Church concerning truth.
2. Textual authority. If every word of God is pure, surely there must be one final text where this promise is actually manifest in the Earth. Since no present copy in the original languages is altogether the whole Bible perfectly, authority cannot rest on the original language presentations. However, there must be one Bible which is the correct text. This is because one Bible gathers together from all the copies and judges what is the exact text, and presents it altogether in one version.
3. Conceptual and translational authority. There is a lie which says that the exact meaning cannot go from the original languages into other languages. If that were true, the Word of God never went to the Gentiles, and never came to us. However, the full sense of the Scripture must be present today in English via translation. (There is only one correct English translation.)
4. Divine and Sovereign Authority. God is all-powerful, and able to get His Word to the whole world. There is no reason why He cannot use one Bible to reach the world in one language. (Therefore, the trend must be to get all Christians to use the King James Bible.)
5. Providential and manifest authority. God's works are perfect. God does things exactly right, and fulfils His promises. Therefore it is right and proper that the King James Bible, as the final form of the Word of God for the world which has English as its global language. God must actually manifest the exact and right Word for the world in one form because He promised it.
6. Scientific and reasonable authority. English is fixed globally. The English language has come into a broad place, where it is essentially fixed as the global language. Therefore, the King James Bible as it is is now and into the future conversant with a basically fixed language. English cannot now change beyond itself. Therefore, there will not be a time when the Bible as it is now finalised will not be conducive to an English-speaker. English is not evolving into another language, and now it cannot even alter beyond certain parameters. It must for ever remain constant enough for all the different cultures/dialects/individuals to be able to use it universally!
7. Final and spiritual authority. The King James Bible is final. Since the purification of editions of the King James Bible has finalised, there can never be another revision, alteration or change of even one punctuation mark from now on. Received tradition cannot be violated. There is never to be, as J. W. Burgon prophetically recognised in 1882, another authorised Version. The true Church historically accepted the King James Bible, and the true remnant today hold it. The purification and processes of refinement lead toward one final supersuccessionary thing.
The reason why the King James Bible is called the Authorized Version is because:
1. British monarchs did authorise English Bibles,
2. King James authorise the making of another ENglish Bible,
3. The Anglican hierarchy accepted the King James Bible,
4. Christians generally and throughout subsequent history have accepted the King James Bible, and
5. God’s has continued to bless and uphold the King James Bible, indicating that the authority behind it has ultimately derived from Him (which is where kings and Christians get their power from anyway).
A modernist is able to find common ground (that is, common error) between the TRO position and himself because both have accepted incorrect premises in their view of the King James Bible and of what the 1611 translators said in their Preface to the Reader.
Most specifically, both do not view the King James Bible as having representative authority. They both judge the correctness of the King James Bible on other sources, usually, what they think the original text reads as, and what they think those original words should mean. In other words, it is denying the received tradition as Providentially given for an endless quest for truth that can never be attained.
This may easily be judged so, because no such person can produce a final text and translation because their very methodology and principles which supposedly are to lead to "the best" always fall short, since they have as a basis the law of the spirit of error (i.e. that perfection is impossible). This is essentially saying to God that He is too weak, and that He cannot (or even is forbidden to) have one Bible for the world. In other words, they can accept perfect truth in the past (inspiration), they can accept it in the future (the Millennium), they can accept it in Heaven, they can accept it in the Spirit (in the heart of a believer), but they cannot accept it in natural form extant and observable right now on the Earth today.
The proper view, I think, is to believe the Scripture itself, which many times implies, promises and indicates that there should be, and is manifest for believers, a pure and perfect Bible.
If the objection is brought up concerning the past, that is, the same words existed in scattered form in the past before 1611, and believers existed before 1611, the answer is simple: God’s outworking in this manner has been progressive to a final point, He said that the Word is purified seven times, which is a process. He promised that the Scripture would be there throughout Church history and to the Gentiles, it is true, but the promise of a pure, final and exact form has only been understood as a doctrine after 1611. (How many true doctrines were restored to the Church after the Reformation!)
The King James Bible is of the same line as any good version that anyone could have ever used, or other contemporary good versions that have been used, but in the end, one has remained, one has stood above all, one has been chosen by God, because its very nature is supersuccessionary to all. This does not invalidate anything else, rather it confirms the others, for it is the one final form that replaces them (even a contemporary TR-based Spanish translation).
How can we, in a time of excelling communication and transportation technologies, be yet in a spiritual dark age? I can only conclude that we are living in a time of great deception and where lies are refuge.
"For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it." (Isaiah 28:20).
The spirit of error has now been going on for years how that the King James Bible is full of mistakes, incomprehensible, out of date, etc. Yet the spirit of error way is always too small, too short, because it says that there cannot be a perfect Bible, which is why it always needs to produce more modern versions or consult more sources. It says that there is no authority except its own certainty that there is error.
_________________
If we accept "Protestant received tradition" for the Canon, we have departed from the "Hebrew" and the "Greek".
VERSION TEXT
If we accept that Protestant versions are valid gathered forms of various original manuscripts and their readings, and there are plenty of Greek gathered and critical editions about, then we are admitting that the English text must be at least as valid as the texts formed in the original languages.
Are labours ongoing, and never arriving (when, how and where will the text be finally settled)? Or, have labours by God's providence achieved the final text?
In other words, do we or do we not have the very words of God?
TRANSLATION SENSE
If we accept that the Word of God has come abroad to the Gentiles today, then we have to accept that the Word of God is not locked in the original languages.
Is the exact meaning only able to be discerned in the original languages, what is it, how is it divined, and when will it be manifest for the full Gospel to have gone forth into all the world? Or, has by God's providence the full meaning of the Scripture been transferred, sense-for-sense, into one principle form, accessible to the world today?
In other words, do we or do we not have the very message of God?
The spirit of error says that it is not possible to have the very words and very message of God in English. The King James Bible only person says that it is certain. Those who reject the proper King James Bible only view are actually agreeing with what the spirit of error stands for — unless the non-King James Bible only person can show where the exact words and message of God is today for the world today... and tomorrow.
See Proverbs 30:5, 6 (the exact words) and 2 Tim. 4:17 (the exact message) and Isaiah 34:16 (in one book).
It is altogether incorrect to think that authority cannot be presented by the King James Bible.
1. Autographical and Canonical authority. Since the Word of God was not just true in the Autographs, and it is supposed to go forth to the whole world, and since the Autographs are lost, and we only have copies, the very same truth must be yet present today. God has worked through the setting up of proper traditions in the Church concerning truth.
2. Textual authority. If every word of God is pure, surely there must be one final text where this promise is actually manifest in the Earth. Since no present copy in the original languages is altogether the whole Bible perfectly, authority cannot rest on the original language presentations. However, there must be one Bible which is the correct text. This is because one Bible gathers together from all the copies and judges what is the exact text, and presents it altogether in one version.
3. Conceptual and translational authority. There is a lie which says that the exact meaning cannot go from the original languages into other languages. If that were true, the Word of God never went to the Gentiles, and never came to us. However, the full sense of the Scripture must be present today in English via translation. (There is only one correct English translation.)
4. Divine and Sovereign Authority. God is all-powerful, and able to get His Word to the whole world. There is no reason why He cannot use one Bible to reach the world in one language. (Therefore, the trend must be to get all Christians to use the King James Bible.)
5. Providential and manifest authority. God's works are perfect. God does things exactly right, and fulfils His promises. Therefore it is right and proper that the King James Bible, as the final form of the Word of God for the world which has English as its global language. God must actually manifest the exact and right Word for the world in one form because He promised it.
6. Scientific and reasonable authority. English is fixed globally. The English language has come into a broad place, where it is essentially fixed as the global language. Therefore, the King James Bible as it is is now and into the future conversant with a basically fixed language. English cannot now change beyond itself. Therefore, there will not be a time when the Bible as it is now finalised will not be conducive to an English-speaker. English is not evolving into another language, and now it cannot even alter beyond certain parameters. It must for ever remain constant enough for all the different cultures/dialects/individuals to be able to use it universally!
7. Final and spiritual authority. The King James Bible is final. Since the purification of editions of the King James Bible has finalised, there can never be another revision, alteration or change of even one punctuation mark from now on. Received tradition cannot be violated. There is never to be, as J. W. Burgon prophetically recognised in 1882, another authorised Version. The true Church historically accepted the King James Bible, and the true remnant today hold it. The purification and processes of refinement lead toward one final supersuccessionary thing.
The reason why the King James Bible is called the Authorized Version is because:
1. British monarchs did authorise English Bibles,
2. King James authorise the making of another ENglish Bible,
3. The Anglican hierarchy accepted the King James Bible,
4. Christians generally and throughout subsequent history have accepted the King James Bible, and
5. God’s has continued to bless and uphold the King James Bible, indicating that the authority behind it has ultimately derived from Him (which is where kings and Christians get their power from anyway).
A modernist is able to find common ground (that is, common error) between the TRO position and himself because both have accepted incorrect premises in their view of the King James Bible and of what the 1611 translators said in their Preface to the Reader.
Most specifically, both do not view the King James Bible as having representative authority. They both judge the correctness of the King James Bible on other sources, usually, what they think the original text reads as, and what they think those original words should mean. In other words, it is denying the received tradition as Providentially given for an endless quest for truth that can never be attained.
This may easily be judged so, because no such person can produce a final text and translation because their very methodology and principles which supposedly are to lead to "the best" always fall short, since they have as a basis the law of the spirit of error (i.e. that perfection is impossible). This is essentially saying to God that He is too weak, and that He cannot (or even is forbidden to) have one Bible for the world. In other words, they can accept perfect truth in the past (inspiration), they can accept it in the future (the Millennium), they can accept it in Heaven, they can accept it in the Spirit (in the heart of a believer), but they cannot accept it in natural form extant and observable right now on the Earth today.
The proper view, I think, is to believe the Scripture itself, which many times implies, promises and indicates that there should be, and is manifest for believers, a pure and perfect Bible.
If the objection is brought up concerning the past, that is, the same words existed in scattered form in the past before 1611, and believers existed before 1611, the answer is simple: God’s outworking in this manner has been progressive to a final point, He said that the Word is purified seven times, which is a process. He promised that the Scripture would be there throughout Church history and to the Gentiles, it is true, but the promise of a pure, final and exact form has only been understood as a doctrine after 1611. (How many true doctrines were restored to the Church after the Reformation!)
The King James Bible is of the same line as any good version that anyone could have ever used, or other contemporary good versions that have been used, but in the end, one has remained, one has stood above all, one has been chosen by God, because its very nature is supersuccessionary to all. This does not invalidate anything else, rather it confirms the others, for it is the one final form that replaces them (even a contemporary TR-based Spanish translation).
How can we, in a time of excelling communication and transportation technologies, be yet in a spiritual dark age? I can only conclude that we are living in a time of great deception and where lies are refuge.
"For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it." (Isaiah 28:20).
The spirit of error has now been going on for years how that the King James Bible is full of mistakes, incomprehensible, out of date, etc. Yet the spirit of error way is always too small, too short, because it says that there cannot be a perfect Bible, which is why it always needs to produce more modern versions or consult more sources. It says that there is no authority except its own certainty that there is error.
_________________