In the video to follow, Pastor Christian Khanda (OPC) offers a clear and concise argument in favor of the TR. Leaning on Scripture (as all Christians should when it comes to their theological belief) Pastor Khanda shares both exegetical and theological reasons for holding to the TR. Even more, with the help of the interviewer both Khanda and the interviewer are able to weave into the conversation historical theology by appealing to the Westminster Divines and their use of contested passages of Scripture. Noting that these passages were used as proof texts for theological confession. This episode as a whole was a breath of fresh air. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think you will too.

To answer this question Richard Muller [PRRD, Holy Scripture, pp. 413-414] observes,

The case for Scripture as an infallible rule of faith and practice and the separate argument for a received text free from major (i.e., non-scribal) errors rests on an examination of the apographa [i.e., copies of copies] and does not seek the infinite regress of the lost autographs [i.e., originals] as a prop for textual infallibility.

1.) For the Protestant Reformed, the argument for the inspiration of Scripture rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

2.) For the Protestant Reformed, the argument for a received text also rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

3.) Again, for the Protestant Reformed, the argument for the infallibility of Scripture rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

4.) The Protestant Orthodox weren’t foolish enough or illogical enough to seek an infinite regress of the lost originals.

5.) The Protestant Orthodox did not use the autographs as a prop as Warfield did. Consider Muller’s footnote placed at the end of the quote above.

A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hoge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield…The point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logic trap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics – who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.” p. 414, fn 192.

Pre-Critical and Post-Critical Bibliology are not the same in form and content. Pre-Critical and Post-Critical textual criticism are not the same in method and conclusion. Pre-Critical and Post-Critical views of the autograph and apograph are not the same in explanatory force and scope.

The modern church has separated from its Protestant roots concerning Bibliology and those who claim otherwise naively cry, Peace peace; when there is no peace.

A recurring maneuver of evangelical apologists for the critical text is to insinuate that those who support a standard sacred text resist or reject reformation era text critical work. This of course is a feckless fallacy of the interlocular. The conspicuous difference between pre-critical and post-critical text critical work is that pre-critical text criticism worked within the scope of the apographa, the copies of the autographa then available. Post-critical text-criticism makes a historic leap backward over the apographa of the Reformation focusing upon the reconstruction of the “never-to-be-recovered” autographa. Muller calls this attempt to reconstruct the autographs, “a logical trap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critic – who can only prove their case for the genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.” [Richard A. Muller, “Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology,” Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 433, fn. 165.]

While the critical nature of pre- and post-critical scholarship shows similarities, the documents under consideration differed greatly. For the apographa, all the theological categories of God’s word were brought to bear upon its reception and analysis – Scripture was self-attesting, self-authenticating, and self-interpreting, autopistos. And, the Holy Spirit is the final arbitrator for the sacred scripture, not scholars, impelling the covenant keeper through the reading and preaching of vernacular scriptures.

Introducing his commentary on 2 Samuel under the heading “The Inscription of the Book,” “Samuel, it is held, was the author of the book until mention is made of his death,” Willet writes. He continues, however, stating, “there is greater question why the second book bears his name,” and lists the following reasons: “1. His actions are not its content; 2. He is not the penman; 3. It is written by some of the prophets. Perhaps Nathan who followed Samuel, or another prophet, from manuscripts collected by Hezekiah or manuscripts collected by Ezra.”

This concept of collecting and editing books of the Bible is also taken up by Matthew Henry (1662-1714) and Matthew Poole (1624-1679). Henry writes in the introduction to his commentary on Judges:

The history of these judges in their order we have in this book to the end of ch. xvi. And then in the last five chapters we have an account of some particular memorable events which happened, as the story of Ruth did (Ruth i.1) in the days when the judges ruled, but it is not certain in which judge’s days; but they are put together at the end of the book, that the thread of the general history might not be interrupted.[1]

Henry also calls the collator of Judges a “historian” which lends itself to the idea of systematizing a historical chain of events.[2] This editorial element of the sacred texts formation is clearly identified by Henry and poses no problem either for himself or for others of his era.[3]

Poole, introducing his commentary on Judges, writes, “The author of this book is not certainly known, whether it was Samuel, or Ezra, or some other prophet, nor is it material to know.” What matters not who was the king’s secretary, or with what pen it was written, it once be known it was the king who made the order or decree.”[4] More pointed is Poole’s introduction to the book of 1 Samuel. There he says, “It is not certainly known who was the penman of this Book, or whether it was written by one or more hands… It may well suffice that there were in these times divers prophets and holy men of God; as Samuel and Nathan, and Gad, and David himself, who might each of them write some part of this and the following book.”[5]

 No conflict is recognized by these men between the inspiration of the text and the text’s collection and editing. That the text may have been written by a variety of godly men and copied from other collected sources is also not in question. The idea of a historian, to use Henry’s word, depicts a man or men who sat down to review the historical documents and arranged them in an order that was best suited to communicate the sacred history. What each of these men is confident to say is that this aspect of the canon’s formation is not necessary to know. The salient element is that the words, from whomever they were penned either in an exemplar from which they were copied or in the original document itself, were the self-authenticating, autopistos, written words of God.

---

[1] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, n.d.), p. 120.

[2] Henry, Commentary, p. 120.

[3] Cf. Muller, “Holy Scripture,” pp. 135-137.

[4] Poole, Commentary, p. 456.

[5] Poole, Commentary, p. 513.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with three students from Virginia Tech. These students attend my Church. They are reformed in theology and presuppositional in their evangelism. Somehow they came across the debate I had with Dr. White and having listened to the debate they had a series of questions.

So one Sunday afternoon the four of us sat down and worked through their questions. By the end of our conversation, the three of them were staunch defenders of the TR and the KJV, bought Westminster Reference Bibles, and apologized to their Muslim friends for conceding that the Bible had scribal errors. As I reflect on that conversation and the fruit of it I came to some observations which I wanted to share here.

1.) The Bible Compels: I believe it is imperative when speaking with other Christians regarding belief in a standard sacred text that the Bible speaks and compels us to believe something. In this case, I reminded these students that the Bible teaches us that God made man and woman, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that one day Jesus will return. And because the Bible teaches these things, and given that the Bible is the word of God, the Bible therefore compels the Christian to believe something about what it is to be man and woman, who Jesus was/is, and what the future looks like. In like manner, the Bible says things about itself and so the Bible compels us to believe things about the Bible.

2.) Your Bible: After it is agreed that the Bible compels us to believe something about the Bible, it is important to prioritize the fact that when the Bible says something about the Bible, it is talking about your Bible and my Bible. It must be clear to your interlocutor that when the Bible says that God’s word is inspired, preserved, pure, trustworthy, etc. that the Bible in your hand is saying those things about the Bible in your hand.

3.) What the Bible Says: After #1 and #2 do not turn to theology first or manuscript evidence. Take them to the living, inspired, and compelling words of God and exegete those passages for them. Answer their questions not with erudite theology first, but with sound exegesis of what his/her Bible says about his/her Bible. Allow the Spirit of God to speak through His words to His people to sanctify his/her belief and in so doing receive the truth of those words by faith.

4.) Theological Statements: When the Bible says something about your Bible that “saying” is a theological statement. The Bible is the ground and foundation of theological belief and knowledge because my Bible says my Bible is the revelation of Jesus (Revelation 1) and Jesus (the Ground and Foundation of being [John 1]) is Truth (John 14:6) and so His word is truth (John 17:17). As a result, claims about what is God’s word (Long Ending in Mark, John 3:16, and John 1) as well as claims about what is not God’s word (Long Ending of Mark, Woman Caught in Adultery, 1 John 5:7) are all theological claims and as such must have their epistemological anchor first in what the Bible says about itself. Indeed, what your Bible says about your Bible. Thus to say the Long Ending of Mark is Scripture or to say the Long Ending of Mark is NOT Scripture is to make a theological statement and as such the speaker must have an exegetical grounding derived from Scripture to make that claim. We argue that God promised to preserve His words (Psalm 12:6-7; Isaiah 59:21) and that the same Spirit that gave God’s words by inspiration (II Timothy 3:16) now indwells the believer who accepts those words by faith (Romans 10:17). Our opponents on the other hand offer manuscript evidence and probabilities regarding their theological claims in this regard. Our opponents currently prevail not because of their exegesis but because they have the bully pulpit.

This has been our argument here at Standard Sacred Text, that belief in the Bible is a work of the Spirit to sanctify the believer by means of the Spirit of God speaking through the word of God to the people of God who accept those words by faith. Only from this vantage point can theology, philosophy, and evidence find their proper place as servants to the primary and kingly role of the King speaking to His people through His words by His Spirit.

And while we are at it…

Scripture > the College of Cardinals
Scripture > the College of Scholars
Scripture > the Conclusions of Textual Criticism

Christ is King and His inspired infallible word in our hands is His law.

Over this past weekend I had the opportunity to be on The King’s Men podcast and discuss the anatomy of Christian belief, what the Bible says about itself, and why I read the Bible I read. In this second episode we discuss how a translation can be properly understood as inspired.

Blessings.

Over this past weekend I had the opportunity to be on The King’s Men podcast and discuss the anatomy of Christian belief, what the Bible says about itself, and why I read the Bible I read. This is the first episode. Lord willing I will post the second episode tomorrow.

Blessings.

Since the Enlightenment, theologically oriented Academia’s trajectory has been to degrade the Christian sacred text through radical humanization. After demonizing the Reformation definition of inspiration described as dictation, (a word used by our Reformation era forefathers that has the explanatory scope to include holy men of God and the Holy Spirit as the creative, active agent of the Scripture), the definitions of inspiration ranged from varying degrees of inerrancy to the outright rejection of the infallibility of the Autographs.

For instance, under the heading “The Union of the Divine and Human Elements in Inspiration,” Strong’s Systematic Theology, 219, Strong gives a corrupt human element equal standing with the divine element and from this premise bifurcates the authority of the inspired word of God and the Author of the inspired word writing, “While inspiration constitutes an authority more trustworthy that are individual reason of the creeds of the church, the only ultimate authority is Christ himself,” and places Scripture on a continuum of authority with human authors. Strong, by means of a single, lofty theological pontification separates the word of Christ from the message of Christ, as if Christ did not breathe out every word of immediately inspired Scripture. This is because Strong represents all those who hold that “The Scriptures are the production equally of God and of man, and are never to be regarded as merely human or merely divine,” 212. As a conglomerate of unequal authority, for Strong and those this shared notion of inspiration, the Scripture never has been essentially God’s word.

Strong’s continuum of authority, based on the human element, is completely consistent with that of Westcott and Hort who wrote “Little is gained by speculating as to the precise point at which such corruptions came in. They may have been due to the original writer, or to his amanuensis if he wrote from dictation, or they may be due to one of the earliest transcribers.” Westcott and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek, 1881, 208.

Once a chain of inerrancy is established, Strong and Westcott and Hort present the same case for inspiration – the inspiration the Scripture claims for itself never existed. When writing an inspired text is shared with the human writer, the entire text becomes suspect because of the writer’s own limitations. If, however, the Holy Spirit if the creative, active agent, then inspiration is entirely God’s word written by holy men with intrinsic limitations. Immediate inspiration by its very nature was designed for fallen, but holy men, chosen of God to write God’s infallible word despite their intrinsic limitations. What they wrote, was wholly and completely God’s word, in spite of who they were, because the word was divinely inspired.

Once the transition was made from immediate inspiration that uniquely produced the infallible, canonical whole, and unequivocable written word of God to varying degrees of so-called inerrancy, fluid, and questionable religious text, this novel book, traditionally called the “Holy Bible” was no longer considered hemmed in by the upper and lower exegetical limits of orthodox theology. Abram Kuyper knew too well what would happen to the sacred text when submitted to the “rational subject.” In 1898, he wrote,

“It is unfortunate, however that in the olden time so little attention was paid to the formal principium [Holy Scripture]. For now it seemed altogether as though the still darkened understanding was to investigate Scripture as its object, in an entirely similar way to that in which this same understanding threw itself on plant and animal as its object. At first this compelled the understanding to adapt and accommodate itself to the authority of the Holy Scripture, which then maintained a high position. But, in the long run, roles were to be exchanged, and the neglect of the formal principium was to bring about a revision of the Scripture in the sense of our darkened understanding, as has now actually taken place. For if faith was considered under Soteriology, and connection with faith the ‘illumination,’ what help was this, as long as theology itself was abandoned to the rational subject, in which rational subject, from the hour of his creation, no proper and separate principium of knowing God has been allowed to assert itself?” Abram Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954, 1898), 347-348.

Kuyper in this short pericope has captured the larger transgenerational deterioration of Christian Academia’s comprehension of the once standard sacred text and this theological and indeed intellectual decay quintessentially resides in rejecting the formal principium or Scripture itself. Scripture’s own self-authenticating, self-attesting and self-interpreting authority is submitted to the rational subject, that is the scholar, which as Kuyper writes “from the hour of his creation, no proper principium of knowing God has been allowed to assert itself.” It was interesting that James White had little or no idea of a theological/philosophical defense of Scripture brought by Dr. Van Kleeck, Jr., being steeped in the school of thought that rejects the formal principium as its own self-attesting, self-authenticating, self-interpreting defense.

Now normative, Academia’s rejection of the formal principium no longer allows any rhetorical or apologetic space to say that that Scripture is what it claims to be, possessing transcendent attributes unique only to the word of God, because the Scripture, for the academy,  is not essentially God-breathed. This rejection leads to evangelical critical apologists to say there are no verses in the Bible that teach providential preservation, because there is nothing unique about the Scripture that would demand such divine oversight. For them, it is merely a phenomenal book, subject to the “ravages of time” like any other book. After all, even the autograph was intrinsically flawed, as reflection of its shared human authorship.

To recognize the Holy Spirit as the creative, active agent of Scripture argues for verbal, every word, not concept, and plenary, every word possesses the full extent of inspiration – verbal, plenary inspiration. Every word of Scripture because it is the word of God is plenarily and verbally inspired because God is the creative, active agent of inspiration and therefore the primary Author, the penmen, secondary. Furthermore, as the word of God, what God breathed-out cannot be separated from the one who breathed the words. The inspired word of God cannot be separated from the God who gave the word by inspiration.

For instance, Hebrews 13:7-9 speaks to Scripture’s eschatological significance grounded on the immutability and eternality of is sole subject, the Lord Jesus Christ. The three-verse pericope flows from honoring those “who have spoken unto you the word of God” and emulating their example “considering the end of their conversation,” their lives cut short by martyrdom. With their deaths either natural or premature, a void was created in the Church to be filled by others. Verse 9 warns against following false teaching – “Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines, and verse 8, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever” is the bridge between the absence of teachers of the word and the warning against following theological error. Jesus Christ is the immutable bridge to sound doctrine between the past and forever.

Verse 8 assumes that the immutable, eternal Son of God is irrevocably linked to the apostolic message and the immutable and eternal inspired word of God. It is correctly inferred that the doctrine of the unchanging, eternal Christ possesses the same characteristics as its Subject.

Keil and Delitzsch comment,

Men living in the flesh are universally impotent, perishing, limited; God, on the contrary (ch. xxxi. 3), is omnipotent, eternal, all-determining; and like Himself, so is His word, which, regarded as a vehicle and utterance of His willing and thinking, is not something separate from Himself, and therefore is the same as He.  Keil, Delitzsch, Isaiah, 144.

Philip Hughes, in his commentary on Hebrews, on this passage writes,

“if Christ is unchanging, so also is the truth concerning him, with the consequence there can be no place of differing and discordant doctrines (see next verse). In him we have the completion as well as the source of our faith (v. 2 above). The constancy of Jesus Christ, already announced in the opening section of this epistle (1:11f), implied throughout, and now affirmed here, is inseparable from the constancy of his word.” Hughes, Hebrews, 571.

That is, if the apostolic message is changed, or the written word changed, the message would not reveal the immutable and eternal son of God. The preacher would not be saying only those things that God has already said. The eternal, immutable subject of Scripture, Jesus Christ, demands an eternal, immutable Scripture to eternally and immutably reveal the eternal and immutable subject, Jesus Christ. A temporal, changing message is not preaching Christ. A message that is terminal is not preaching Christ. A message that is changing is not preaching Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:3,4, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

Ga1. 1:6,7, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”

The the inspired written word of Christ is inseparable from the Christ of the word. 

Job 19:24, “Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!”

Psalm 12:7, Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Psalm 33:11, “The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.”

Psalm 105:8, “He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.”

Psalm 117:2, “For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endureth for ever. Praise ye the LORD.”

Psalm 119:89, “Forever, O Lord, they word is settled in heaven.”

Psalm 119:111, “Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart.”

Psalm 119:152, “Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.”

Psalm 119:160, “Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.”

Ecc. 3:14, “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.”

Isa. 30:8, “Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:”

Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”

Isaiah 54:10, “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.”

Isaiah 59:21, “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.”

Matthew 5:18, “For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, til all be fulfilled.”

Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

Luke 16:17, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”

1 Peter 1:23-25, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”

Jesus Christ, who is the subject of all Christian teaching is the same, therefore, the command to remain steadfast in the faith can be obeyed, Hebrews 13:9, “be not carried away by divers teachings.” Jesus Christ is for ever the same. Since Jesus Christ is the same, in his person, and in his teaching and preaching, he charges the Church not to be carried about with divers and strange doctrines. Jesus Christ’s immutability and eternality assures the Church of their eternal future because the inspired word is also immutable and eternal. Jesus Christ is immutable in his care and love to the Church, and throughout all times and ages, he never leaves nor forsakes them. So also, Christ’s teaching is eternal and immutable. Ephesians 4:20,21, “But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.”

The pure, full, and entire religion of Christ is unchangeable, being simply, indivisibly, and constantly the same throughout all measures of time, because of the Subject of the inspired word of God is the eternal and unchanging Christ.