The omission of 1 John 5:7 from modern Bibles seems, for many Christians, to be an inconsequential versional modification. That is, the omission of the most distinct and unambiguous expression of the deity of Christ and the Triune God from the sacred texts of the Church is regarded as no great matter. Rather than viewing their Bibles as something more than historical artifacts, much of Evangelicalism, in a twisted form of rationalization, seems to reason: “The scholars and publishers took it out. They know more about the issue than I do. They are working in my best interest. Therefore, its omission must be a good thing.”
Built into the modern Evangelical mindset is the assumption that the Bible is no different from any other book. The claim made by Hort in the late nineteenth century has, over the past 140 years, become religiously normative.
Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (Aleph) are two Greek uncial manuscripts generally presumed to have been written in the fourth century. Prior to the late nineteenth century, these two manuscripts had no bearing on the Greek Received Text or the King James Version. Consider, then, how historically insignificant these manuscripts have been. Both omit 1 John 5:7.
The fourth century was the historical epoch in which these manuscripts, if they were to make an eschatological impact upon the doctrine of the Church, would have been positioned to do so. Nevertheless, in the epoch of the most significant impact Aleph and B could make upon the Church both miserably failed. But some might object, saying that these texts were unknown to the 4th c. Church. This objection itself makes the case for rejecting Aleph and B. The only way these two manuscripts could have been lost in the transmission of the apographa, or copies of the original, is that they were not copies of the autographa, the immediately inspired Originals but mere artifacts not under the protection of verbal preservation, and therefore disconnected with the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit to the Church. They were not received as the Church’s standard sacred text and therefore cannot simply be elevated above the texts that were transmitted, received, and used by the Church.
The first salvo against the Church was the claim that inspiration applies only to the original autographs. How many evangelical and fundamental churches incorporated this assertion into their confessions? Once this proposition was accepted by the Church, a fundamental transition occurred: the verbally preserved apographa, or copies of the immediately inspired Originals, were reduced to the status of mere ancient artifacts.
Aleph and B are now treated as such ancient artifacts, while simultaneously being granted authority greater than the received texts of the Church. Yet ancient artifacts that do not bear the marks of divinity, that are not autopistos, and that are not self-authenticating stand outside the promise of preservation confessed by the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647: that the Word of God would be “kept pure in all ages” and therefore “authentical.”
Why, then, should fourth-century artifacts that did not establish themselves as the received standard of the ancient Church be regarded by modern textual critics as superior witnesses? The answer appears crystal clear to anyone willing to consider the theological consequences of the modern approach. Late nineteenth-century critics displaced the doctrine of inspiration and adopted a method of textual reconstruction grounded in historical-critical assumptions. In place of the received apographa of the Church, they sought an ancient textual foundation upon which to reconstruct the biblical text.
Thus, leapfrogging over the history of the Church and its reception of copies of the Originals, modern critics resurrected the feckless artifacts called Aleph and B and elevated them as primary witnesses against the Church’s received texts. These ancient artifacts omit 1 John 5:7, along with a number of other passages historically received in the Church.
So what is the Evangelical Church actually doing when it adopts a new version that omits 1 John 5:7? The pastor, and then the unsuspecting congregation, has placed the Church on a trajectory that leads away from a transcendent, self-authenticating Scripture and toward a secularized, transcendentless religious tradition. I say “trajectory” deliberately, because the destruction of the Bible-believing Church in America is occurring incrementally.
Remove the names of our Lord. Remove 1 John 5:7. Remove 1 Timothy 3:16, “God manifest in the flesh.” Remove Acts 8:37, with its confession, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Remove the resurrection account in Mark 16:9–20. Remove the declaration of Christ’s authority to forgive sins in John 7:53–8:11. With such omissions, the groundwork is laid for rejecting the deity of Jesus Christ.
Once these omissions are accepted on the authority of ancient artifacts rather than the sacred apographa received and preserved by the Church, the trajectory toward the secularization of the Church is established.
Meanwhile, Evangelical propagandists argue for “readability” and against archaic words, while historical language that once carried precise theological meaning is recast as though it were merely obsolete vocabulary. Beneath the guise of Evangelical linguistic improvement, however, a much more insidious process is taking place.
Novel Bibles make a defense of the deity of Christ increasingly difficult, if not impossible, when they systematically omit or alter passages that have historically served the Church’s confession of Christ’s deity. Thus, while the Evangelical Church continues to confess Christ with its lips, it simultaneously endorses Bibles that, according to the transcendentless grounding of modern textual criticism, reject the very passages through which the historic Church has confessed the deity of Christ and the Triune God.
Standard Sacred Text.com 