Not only is the sending of the Holy Spirit a “last days” event; the giving of the inspired Word is likewise an intricate part of the God’s design for the “last days.” By God’s design, the Holy Spirit would not guide (odhghsei, hodagasei) the Church into all truth unilaterally, John 16:13, but would direct the Church through the written Word. No substantive distinction should be made between the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the word inspired by the Spirit, and the glorification of the Son by the Spirit, “And he shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you,” John 16:14.

Both the Word and Spirit comprise the “already” epoch of the “last days” and as such are precursors to the final consummation of the “last days” which are “not yet.” Because the “last days” cannot be bifurcated or splintered into separate epochs of time based on the sole, final and fullest revelation of the Father in the Son, the Word and Spirit already serve to glorify the Son in these monolithic last days and will continue to so until eschatological consummation in the yet coming eternal state.

Following the “already…not yet” paradigm, inspired Scripture “already” represents a glimmer of the glory of the eternal state throughout history in the Church. There is no future “glorification” of the Word of God, in that the Scriptures evidence the marks of divinity, and are the words of God. After Christ ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit was imparted to the Church at Pentecost, but the Spirit was not left to regenerate and sanctify the Church alone. The Holy Spirit was the active agent and initiator of the Apostolic message in the dictating of the holy scripture, 2 Peter 1:20-21. Both the Word, the image of the Spirit, and the Spirit, the Teacher of the Word in concert would continue the redemptive work began by Jesus Christ in the Church. What Christ did alone as the Living Word teaching and preaching the spoken word, the Spirit and written Word would accomplish in his absence. The inauguration of Christ’s Kingdom authority continues today through the Word and Spirit working in the lives of the redeemed. The future trajectory of the Word and Spirit is to magnify the Son, bringing redemptive history to eschatological consummation, Isa. 59:21.

Since the late 19^th c. the modern Church’s evaluation of Scripture has been that of an ancient document disconnected from its given eschatological purpose. Scripture has been perceived and treated not as an “last days” image of the Holy Spirit but as a document restrained by the entropy of passing time. According to current thinking, not only can the Scripture not be eschatologically oriented, but it is also not capable of escaping the ravages of the first century. Scholars speak of the initial text rather than the original text resigning themselves to the impossibility of reconstructing the autograph. The comparison between an eschatologically oriented text and the notion of an initial text illustrates how defunct modern scholarship has become. Its century-long feckless endeavors have resulted in the need to move the goal posts to achieve some semblance of credibility. But how credible is a disciple that by its own acknowledgment is incapable of accomplishing anything other than a fluid, scholarly anomaly. The futility of modern textual labors resides in the academy’s unwillingness to see the Scripture for what it truly is – God’s Word – and, until that paradigmatic transition occurs, all that can be expected is a misappropriation of erudite minds in the phenomenal search for the unattainable.

Scripture as the “already” precursor to the eternal state stands as the historic expression of Christ’s consummative authority as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Scripture cannot be made capable of entering the last days of the eternal state by means of some external impetus simply because it was given to be the “last days” image of the Spirit. Scripture was, from the moment of its immediate inspiration, ontologically one with the nature of the eternal state and remain so to the consummation of redemptive history because it is the word of the sovereign, eternal, King, Jesus Christ. To tamper with Scripture is therefore to attempt the usurpation of Christ’s final authority in the eternal state where he reigns supreme. Every attempt by man to add, subtract, or modify the word of God is to corrupt, and therefore disqualify the text of Scripture as an exemplar of the eternal state by asserting some notion of anthropological autonomy over the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This usurpation, then, is not a mere scholarly venture but is a trespass against the King, carrying with it the everlasting penalties described within its pages. And while the attempt to replace Christ’s Kingship with surrogates has always been in vogue among prideful men, the word of God has from its inspiration remained the immutable, pure word of the King, historically reflecting and pointing to the eternal state where Christ will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The keeping of this immutable, pure Word, while seen through various historic venues, can only be secured by the inscrutable oversight of God.

Samuel Trickett (1632-1712) , Sermons Doctrinal and Practical (1656), edited by John Edward Blakeney (London: Printed by G. Norman, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, 1863), 1.

“Now the Scriptures do instruct us what to do, and what to believe. That they teach us perfectly, unto salvation, will appear.

God being the author of these book, they must needs be perfect, as he himself is, who being for his wisdom able, and for his love of the Church willing to set down such a rule as may guide them to eternal life, hath not failed therein. 2 Tim. 3:15, ‘And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.'”

1. God is the Author of Scripture

When Trickett writes he is not speaking of the autographs but the Hebrews, Greek and English texts he is about to expound. This assessment is reinforced when he quotes 2 Tim. 3:15 and Timothy’s knowledge of the Holy Scripture since his youth. Timothy only had copies of copies of the Hebrew text, and yet the Holy Spirit, calls these copies Holy Scripture. For God to be the Author the Holy Spirit was not just the instrumental Agent superintending the writing of God’s Word by the penmen, but he was also the creative agent giving the penmen the words to write. Both the creative element and the oversight of the writing of Scripture by the Holy Spirit assured that the written text was infallible and pure, the written word of God. Furthermore, Trickett states what every believer held in his epoch of time – that God is the Author of Scripture, and because God gave the written text the text reflects the perfection of its Author. Could God do any less?

2. Because God is the Author the Scriptures are perfect, as he is.

Because God is the Author the “Every word,” Prov. 30:5 in a distributive sense, and “All Scripture, 2 Tim. 3:16, in a collective canonical sense is perfect, or without corruption. And this perfection is not a perfection spoken of as if applied to the text by some external authority, designating the text to be such. Rather, the Scripture is perfect because God is its Author. If the Church is to say, “The Scripture is God’s Word,” then the Church must not engage in the rigamarole of quibbling over the issues of providential preservation and infallibility. And yet then Church and Academy have created ecclesiastical and institutional industries trying to say “The Scripture is God’s Word,” but it is far from perfect, building an ideological idol of scholarship based on the theological schizophrenia inculcated in its worshippers.

3. The Scriptures are a rule (canon) of unfailing authority.

Trickett calls the Scripture “a rule (canon) as may guide them to eternal life, hath not failed therein. Herein, lies one of the unsolved curiosities of contemporary Evangelical and Reformed Christianity. Through some intellectual contortions, the Church argues that the supernatural work of regeneration and the impartation of eternal life continues to press on unbated through amalgamated texts of Scripture and “hath not failed therein,” but indeed everything else about the Scripture has failed miserably. Expansion of the notion of inerrancy demonstrates the point sufficiently. Inerrancy is a blank slate to be colored on my scholars. Some we might say, “stay between the lines”; for others, it looks more like scribbling. So, the transcendent power of God to generate saving faith belongs to the text, but the mundane aspects of Scripture are beyond repair? This quandary has over time became party orthodoxy for the critical text camp and the Church generally speaking is an avid subscriber. Which begs the question, has not the Church degenerated into an existential milieu where experience is the final arbitrator of what is and is not God’s Word. Or maybe even a little Barthianism. One might say, “I ascribe authority to the Bible because I have a sense of peace with God after praying the sinners’ prayer. Therefore, all modern versions can become Scripture to me.” And not the old-fashioned way, “because the Bible is the infallible word of God, I can trust its promises to save my soul.” Scripture is intrinsically the unfailing rule apart from any soteriological contingencies. Salvation simply demonstrates Scriptures’ authority, is a proof of Scripture’s authority but is not the existential arbitrator of Scriptural authority.

Maybe the modern Church is having some kind of existential spiritual encounter, and in the midst of this encounter, they realize that all modern versions of the bible are holy Scripture.

“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Rev. 22:19

This post begins from the perspective of leaving the application of Revelation 22:19 up to the Author of the curse. What exactly must transpire to receive its damning application falls to the Judge of all the earth. Genesis 18:25, “That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Rather than being weigh laid with the application we shall simply say that the curse is valid and applicable to those God deems to have corrupted the inviolability of His Word.

Allestree makes an interesting observation on this passage. Some might argue that the curse applies only to the Book of Revelation, which of course, it must. John’s vision closes with these specific words. But Allestree sees the curse within a canonical context, thus heightening its severity. The Book of Revelation does not stand isolated from inspired Scripture but by inspiration becomes part of the collective, “All Scripture,” 2 Tim. 3:16 and “Every word” of Prov. 30:5. He writes,

“If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, says Saint John, Revel. 22:19, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Like, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this Book. What vengeance therefore awaits those, who have taken away not only from one Book, but at one of the Books themselves, even all the Scriptures, the whole word of God?”[1]

The “vengeance” of God’s curse, as Allestree puts it, is magnified 66-fold when Revelation is considered canonically. Certainly, the curse would be eternally damning if a single book of Scripture were corrupted, but by the corrupting of one, sixty-five other canonical texts the whole of inspired Scripture were corrupted, how much more severe the vengeance of God. Allestree, with his Reformation era colleagues, recognizes Scripture as the authentic word of God not to bifurcate or expand. And this authentic inspired word has divinely set linguistic boundaries that are so certain that the moving of these linguistic boundaries by expansion or contraction results in a soul’s eternal damnation. It would be severe enough if applicable only to a single book of Scripture, but as part of the whole, the corruption of the text carries an intensified, eternally damning penalty.

I suppose, if you do not believe that Scripture has linguistic boundaries, this post sounds like more pre-critical drivel. But then again, if pre-critical analytics of the passage are indeed correct, have the scholars whose business it is to manipulate Scripture entered a precarious realm of God’s eternal vengeance for the sake of a few bucks and professional recognition? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

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[1] Richard Allestree, The Lively Oracles Given to us or The Christian’s Birth-right and Duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture. By the Author of the Whole Duty of Man (At the Theater in Oxford, 1678), 178-79.

It was necessary for a written word to be given to the church that a canon of true religious faith might be constant and unmoved; that it might easily be preserved pure and entire against the weakness of memory, the depravity of men and the shortness of life; that it might be more certainly defended against the frauds and corruptions of Satan; that it might more conveniently not only be sent to the absent and widely separated, but also be transmitted to posterity. – Francis Turretin Vol. 1 pp. 19-21.

Since the late 1970’s when I was first introduced to the so-called King James Bible debate one maladjusted element seems entrenched among the traditional defenders of the Faith, and that is, they don’t like each other. Now it’s 2024 and really nothing has changed. For half a century defenders of the King James Bible and Textus Receptus have found every conceivable reason not to cooperate in the common defense of the faith once delivered unto the saints. Sometimes it’s strong personalities who want to keep charge of something that belongs to them when really everything they do has been borrowed from scholars of a bygone era. The Calvinists and independent Baptist’s fight on soteriological grounds. I had one “hair-on-fire” free-will pastor tell me there was no way I could be a King James Bible defender because I wasn’t of a particular independent Baptist tradition, while I’ve also been asked if I was a confessional, reformed Baptist. After saying no, I wasn’t, the brother never spoke to me again. Cheap shots abound in this debate as if we’re not all in the same fight. Some men have given much of their lives to defending the King James Bible the best way they know how, which is to say from their own broader theological foundations but can find no value in the defense offered by another brother from another perspective. I’m not writing this to find a remedy. I’ve concluded after 50 years of being in this fight, there is no remedy. The King James Bible and TR men will go to their graves shooting themselves in the foot for whatever reason they can divine. And the particularly sad thing about this entire fiasco is that these men, in concert together, would be the best resources to begin stemming the tide against the theological and ecclesiastical rot that permeates the modern church and academy.

I don’t think there has been a more divisive topic among King James Bible/TR supporters and advocates than the King James Bible and TR. The disparagement goes like this: “If you don’t say it my way or do it my way then your way is haphazard and is in need of refinement or perhaps should be scrapped all together.” None of us go about the defense in precisely the same way, but we all love the same standard sacred text of holy Scripture. I know this is falling upon deaf, even petrified ears among my beloved brothers. It’s as if anyone that can’t cross every “t” the same way and dot every “i” with the same flair should stop embarrassing those “erudite” and “better suited” defenders of God’s Word. May God have mercy on all our souls for hampering the cause of Christ in the defense and care of His Holy Word with such feckless assessment of fellow defenders of the Faith. Some act as if they stand alone as the bulwark against a tide of corrupt scholarship and don’t need anyone else’s support when in fact they are only a speed bump for the run away tractor trailer of the academy which has little knowledge they even exist as a movement.

Here at StandardSacredText we have made it one of our founding principles to be supporters of everyone who stands for the King James Bible and TR. Like all students of the word, we have out own theological groundings by which we practice the Faith, that would, differ from others in several regards I imagine, but when it comes to the King James Bible/TR issue, we all need to lock arms together, support one another, encourage one another, and present a united front against the rampant error that modern textual criticism has foisted upon the Church. We can either be Luther who basically said, “my way or the highway,” or, we can emulate Calvin the uniter, and the community of Calvin’s Geneva – a safe haven for the persecuted and place of theological growth that changed Europe, England and ultimately America.

“We are commissioned to preach the Word whether men hear it or whether they will forebear, whether they will endure it or whether they will not. If men will not endure or hear we are not to seek for something else which they will endure but simply to preach the Word.” Great Cloud of Witnesses, 124

E. W. Bullinger (1837-1913)

Every Christian saint anticipates an eternal home in heaven. The Scripture describes heaven as a real, tactile place, where the saints with glorified bodies like the resurrected Christ will live forever. Every born-again believer lives with this eschatological orientation and ambition until the time of their death. Christians, or regenerated new creatures, are, by virtue of their new nature, inherently future-oriented.

Something must happen to the person for this eschatological trajectory to become normative. The source of this future yearning orientation is the Word and the Spirit who teaches the word to the believer and regenerates the soul. Prior to salvation, the natural man’s time orientation begins with birth and ends with their death, a century long at best. Regeneration by the Spirit and through the word produces this change in a person’s eschatological vision for themselves moving from a short perspective of life to the reality of everlasting life. The Scripture tells us about the future and the Spirit confirms its truth and authority as God’s word to us. This interaction is normative for the believer but the implications of the dynamic between saint, word, and the Holy Spirit in reference to the future are profound.

This book argues that the personal certainty the believer possesses regarding the future is grounded on a certain and settled future because the divine, eternal scheme for all time has been “forever settled in heaven,” Psalm 119:89. The future has been predetermined and recorded and secured in heaven, and by inspiration has been revealed to mankind in the 66-book canon of Holy Scripture. Certainty of the eternal state, or Eschaton, of which heaven is a component, is the issue before us. The Church only knows of its existence because God has informed us of it in his Word.

Pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, pre-millennial, amillennial, and any interpretation in between, all of these scenarios will be meaningless in the Eschaton. The Bible version debate will be meaningless in the Eschaton. Every theological query will be meaningless in the Eschaton. The curse will be removed, and all things will be made new. Sinners will be judged and the righteous in Christ will be rewarded. How the Scripture is to be understood will be answered and the saints will be forever glorified with the Lord.

The perfect pure inspired autograph will no longer be in question in the Eschaton. And because inspiration is a once and for all process for the autograph to exist in the Eschaton, God’s perfect, pure inspired word must be providentially preserved throughout history to exist in the holy and glorious eternal state. While the accident of writing has proven to have its flaws and shortcomings, the substantia doctrinea is perfectly preserved and will be to the very end of time.

The premise of this volume is as follows: inspired scripture’s divine authority as God’s word is necessarily canonical because of demands placed on Scripture by the Eschaton. Scripture’s authority is not only grounded in its inception as divinely inspired but in the Eschaton’s mandate that its very existence is dependent upon that inspired text. No terminus would exist if not for an inspired Scripture to make it so, and the certain and perfect nature of the Eschaton requires a text capable of producing something certain and perfect. Not certain or perfect according to relative standards but certainty and perfection demanded by the Eternal State. Working backward from the end of time, the Eschaton’s nature and existence demands an inspired and preserved text of Scripture. The future cannot be the perfect, sinless, Christ-centered, glorious future of God’s design apart from preserved divinely inspired Scripture.

Previous written works have argued for the providential preservation of scripture chronologically from Scripture’s inception by inspiration up to the present and into the Eschaton. This volume will argue that the Eschaton makes demands on inspired Scripture that mandate Scripture’s immutability and purity; that inspired Scripture, stands alone, and unlike any other document, that substantia doctrina is not subject to the entropy that characterizes the totality of this sin cursed world. In other words, this book argues for a standard sacred text not from the beginning to the end but from the end back to the beginning.

This argument is therefore a theological apologetic, or Christian commitments through which all empirical evidence is evaluated. All major doctrines of the Bible can be considered eschatologically – Soteriology, Christology, Pneumatology, Eschatology, Hamartiology, Ecclesiology, Theology, Angelology, Anthropology – each possessing an eschatological component. Bibliology likewise has an eschatological component and can be considered looking back from the future to the present and this aspect of Bibliology is the theme of this book. Scripture can be spoken of as being predestined in Psalm 119:89 and unchanging and eternal in Rev. 22:19, or unchanging and eternal in Rev. 22:10 to predestined because Scripture like every other doctrine has a certain endpoint in the exaltation of the Son. All theological formulations can be considered either from the future to the past of from the past to the future – from election to glorification or from glorification to election because the eternal plan of God is absolute and certain, it cannot be any other way, with an unchanging end point in the exaltation of the Son.

The volume begins with the end of revealed time, working back to determine what characteristics of holy Scripture make it suitable to exist in the Eschaton. What demands does the terminus make upon history to produce the certain, predetermined end point ordained by God for His inspired Word? The end of revealed time, or the Eschaton, or eternal state, transcends terrestrial history bringing the consummation of the Father’s redemptive plan in the exaltation and reign of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. As such the eternal state is characterized by words such as purity, holiness, glory, and truth and the absence of any remnant of the curse. The question at hand, then, is what demands does the eschaton, or end point of God’s eternal plan, perpetually place on the flow of history to guarantee with absolute certainty that the nature of the autograph is preserved to be suitable to be part of the perfect glorification and magnification of His Son in Rev. 22:21.

This statement necessarily begs the question, what about the unquantifiable providential preservation of Scripture throughout history? Was not Scripture obviously subject to multiple historic pressures and influences throughout time? From the Eschaton, historic development, pressures, and influences are no longer relevant. The Scriptures as eternally intended perfectly and purely occupy the End Point of redemptive history. The inspired word of the Eschaton will be identical to the word “forever settled in heaven.” Arguing after the fact that something didn’t occur after the word and event confirms the event is feckless. Every argument for the impact of entropy upon God’s written word, from the Eschaton will be irrational in that there is nothing historical to prevent the purity of the Scripture in the Eschaton from being such.

To argue that his approach is a “being” vs. “knowing” apologetic would be to misunderstand the issue. Indeed, Scripture is ontologically God’s Word whether it is epistemologically understood in history to be such. But the so-called science of textual criticism has isolated every argument for the preservation of Scripture to a monodirectional, historical perspective as conspicuously correct because it has disregarded the eschatological significance of the inspired text. Believing bible scholars have limited their scholarly polemic and apologetic to a monodirectional context for Scripture beginning at inspiration and ending with providential preservation. Substantially, the reason for this is that believing scholars have isolated their presentations to empirical arguments essentially to that of their interlocutors. Only if the apologetic is theologically based can this single trajectory be shown to be deficient, opening the door for an argument for the preservation and purity of Scripture from the future. In other words, once the Corvette is at the end of the assembly line, and the finishing touches are made, and it is doing 186 mph on the track, the details of how it was manufactured are visibly answered in the finished product. In a provincial way, this is an argument made for the superiority of the King James Bible. Questions of origin, etc., are debated incessantly, but the fact it has been the standard sacred text of the believing Church for over 400 years speaks for itself. This argument, you will note, is wholly discredited by the post critical camp because the argument is one from the future to the past, from the present back to the 16^th century. The present future validates the past. And so, the Eschaton validates all the past for holy Scripture. Whatever the perceived problems with the linear unfolding of history, they will all prove inconsequential to the perfect preservation of God’s Word to the end of time.

The Failure of the Historical/Critical Method

One of the many significant failures of the historical critical method is reversing the eschatological trajectory of holy Scripture. This single factor created a novel approach to God’s inspired word that had always been oriented toward the future. On a canonical level, or dealing with Scripture in a collective sense, from Scripture’s inception the cumulation of inspired writings to the formation of the OT and NT canons and then a 66 – book canon demonstrated Scripture’s eschatological emphasis. And with the formation of the canon the translation of Scripture into other languages opens new truths for every language group it impacted. On an exegetical level, or taken from a distributive sense, the teaching of Scripture is wholly oriented to the culmination of redemptive history in the Eschaton.

But with the historical critical method the inherent eschatological trajectory of holy Scripture was not only halted but reversed, an academic retardation of the very forward-looking nature of inspired Scripture. Rather than looking forward to what Scripture is and does in the world, the critic has the Church looking backward as if Scripture’s future is uncertain or at worse, never was. And while new versions are advertised as being novel and progressive, they are billed as being more reliable by looking backwards to the fallacy of “older and better manuscripts” always existing under the existential threat of some yet undiscovered writing.

For modern textual critics discussions of the future and therefore discussion of the Eschaton is irrelevant. Modern texts inherently describe only the epoch of their research, evidence, and writing because the interpretation of their evidentialist grounding is grossly incapable of asserting from the future the truth content of past assessments. Such time constrained documents describe the sectarian epoch of the editors, disabling the paradigmatic Eschaton from asserting itself over the author’s work, because the absolute, immutable character of the eschaton demands an inspired text to certainly reveal a certain terminus, all attributes foreign to the modern textual critical method.

Modern textual critically oriented bibles are not created to fulfill the same purpose as God’s written word. Modern versions are designed to exist only until the next revision and no further, but none are designed to answer the demands of God’s predestined terminus. Such revisions, though images of Scripture, cannot meet the demands of God’s terminus for a myriad of reasons.  Such revisions are fluid, evolving, and uncertain, all characteristics foreign to descriptions of the Eschaton. A volume limited by historic, empirical restraints is intrinsically incapable of meeting the demands of God’s terminus. Such documents are of another type that fall under a separate phenomenal paradigm. Some kind of immediate, historic efficacy may be possible, but they are incapable of meeting the comprehensive demands of the future eternal state.

By replacing inspiration with history as the governing factor of Scripture, modern textual critics replaced the testimony of God in His word with arbitrary, evolving critical “science” and are perpetually looking in the diametrically wrong direction of inspired scriptures trajectory. The liberal critic rejects the deity of Christ and the inspiration of Scripture while the evangelical textual critic separates the deity of Christ from inspired Scripture. They believe what the words of Scripture say about Christ, but they do not believe the message is inspired. Indeed, the modern textual critic obsolescence with the rise of artificial intelligence should put the scholars out of work. (See “The Lamp”). The critic does not know where he is going while convincing us he knows the way. His answer to not knowing his destination is simply to say no one knows the destination; that we are all lost on some desert road with no landmarks in sight. But the Church knows the horrendous error of this assessment. The Church, by the grace of God, knows where it is going and how to get there. The Church also knows that the only way to get to the Eschaton is by the work of the Word and Spirit by the grace of God. This book argues that arriving at an absolute telos requires an absolute method, something only possible by the providential preservation of God Himself throughout history.

Tonight we conclude our lectures through the argument for a standard sacred text. We will begin the night with a brief recap of the argument followed by a summary conclusion that King James Version ought to be the standard sacred text for the English speaking church.

Looking forward to seeing you all at 7:30 pm EST.