Take Two! Or Three or whatever.

I recently heard first and then read the transcript of someone saying this about the 2016 presidential election:

So, personally, I have to find a way to vote to support that which is closest to what is right. But that’s the only choice I’ve got. I can’t stand idly by and say everybody’s bad. I’ve got to say that’s worse, and I’ve got to act in that way, personally.

This person didn’t say whom he was voting for, but I am asking you to predict what he means.  I think he meant something.  Later I heard him say and then later read him say something more specific.

If we go down the train we’re going, and if it continues that way and we get Hillary Clinton as President, and everything that is part of that whole platform that is against God, against the Scripture, everything that is not just criminal but immoral escalates and escalates and escalates, in no way does that hinder Christ building His church.

Don’t google who said it, yet.   I think, greater than any other election, churches are seeing divisions right in their own churches over the differing desired outcomes, so that there is more tiptoeing than ever in order not to cause unnecessary disunity.  That first statement, I believe, reflects that.  Someone else wrote about that possibility, because it is actually being seen as a reality.

I encourage you to celebrate the unity in Christ that transcends political diversity, while remaining steadfast in opposing the deeds of darkness, and making no provision for the flesh. If Matthew and Simeon can share a table with Jesus, then you can share fellowship with someone who will vote for Trump. And when either Trump or Clinton wins, the church’s unity will still stand. If the gates of hell cannot prevail against her, neither can a Super PAC.

It’s obvious that churches, evangelical ones especially, feel tremors of disunity over this election.  The country is divided like it hasn’t been in a long, long time, and that even includes churches.  People want to be able to talk about their preferred candidate, but they’re afraid they’ll offend someone and some kind of fight will ensue.  Pastors don’t want to be dealing with these problems.  They want to be doing actual ministry.  On the other hand, can’t someone be free to express who he’ll vote for at his own church without being pummeled for it?

I think the issues that relate to this election are worth talking about.  They can help someone grow.  I think we have to be careful, but I don’t think we have to run away from the controversy.  It’s a time where people might have to talk about things they wouldn’t talk about otherwise.  Evangelism and discipleship don’t have to stop.  It’s an opportunity to learn principles of discernment.

OK, so those first two quotes came from John MacArthur after coming back to his church on August 21 in a question and answer time with Phil Johnson.  I believe he signals what he’s going to do “personally,” the word he uses, as if, however, he is giving others freedom to act otherwise.  Or maybe not.  If someone followed his basis given to vote, what would he do?

Before going back to read Thomas Ross’s post below, there is this offering from the Jerusalem Post. It is actually heartening in many ways.

When you read the title of this piece, you might think that I believe the Bible isn’t scientific.  I do believe it is. However, evidence shows that it isn’t.  When I say “evidence,” I mean “evidence,” in quotes.  If the world were looking for evidence that the Bible isn’t scientific, professing Christians will gladly give that to them, so we are where we are today.  How many Christians are doing this?  I don’t have a percentage or a number, but I believe it is “most,” well over 50% now.  The most well-known leaders have surrendered.  They don’t think the Bible is scientific either.  What am I talking about and how did it happen?

When we are talking about science, if we are really talking about science, then we are talking about certainty.  Someone steps off a cliff and he goes down, not up.  Gravity.  If he steps off the cliff, will he go down?  Yes.  We are certain about that.  I understand that not all that even calls itself science is scientific, but when we use the term, science, we’re talking about something we’re sure about.  It has been tested and holds true again and again.  Manufacturing plants all over the country, producing dangerous chemicals, know there are no exceptions. If you look at a fingerprint, you know that one person has that print.  You are certain of that.  That is science.

Scripture doesn’t hold scientific level certainty for people, and not only does it not have to have that kind of certainty anymore, but many Christian leaders think it is far better that it doesn’t.  They think an uncertain brand of Christianity is much better.  They’ve not just settled at uncertain, but they also promote it.

The world long ago put the Bible, religion, Christianity on the art side of the campus.  When I say they put it over there with art, away from engineering and math, I mean that the world sees it as a matter of personal taste.  You study it, but you don’t view it as certain.  Not at all.  If the world had its way, it would put religion, the Bible, Christianity in fiction, maybe very inventive and very creative fiction, but still fiction.

As a brief aside, I don’t think art itself is uncertain.  I don’t believe art is subjective, that is, just a matter of taste.  People separate art from science, saying something like, “It’s more an art than a science.” That’s not true either.  The world has said that, and Christians went along with that before the world moved everything in Christianity over with art.  At one time, Christians said beauty was objective too.  We have what we have today with aesthetics, art, music, because we capitulated there already, long ago.  The truth will never survive where beauty or goodness are already casualties.  A church doctrinal statement, kept intact for decades, is already forsaken with the abandonment of meaning and ordinate affections.  That has made a huge difference, has a gigantic influence, and will leave Christianity hopeless too, but I write this only as a digression.

Before I expound further, I want to explain briefly what happened, why this happened, in order better to understand the theme of this post.  In 19th century America, organizations turned liberal.  This has been termed, “modernism.”  Modernism says everything is a machine and all that can be trusted arrives through human reason.  Modernists denied miracles.  For credibility and inclusion, you could present and discuss only on modernist terms.  Non-modernists kept the terms for the sake of dialogue, engagement that they said could help the modernists, and to save Christianity from its own embarrassing self-destruction.  They went along with the transport of Christianity to the art side of the campus.  This ceded the reliability of scripture.

Everyone would grant the influence of the Bible on the history of the world, but progressives would see its decline as the marking of progress, an important step in the growth of humanity.  However, to them when someone talks about the Bible, he shouldn’t speak as though it were absolute truth. Absolute truth ends at science.  The Bible has not diminished to the equal of Moby Dick or The Grapes of Wrath, but now is very close.  It is literature.  Those books haven’t had the historical impact.  Moses is still carved into stone on the Supreme Court building.  Modernism though began treating the Bible like any other book, applying the same rules to scripture as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.  New-evangelicals acceded to those terms.

Most professing Christians don’t see the Bible now as absolute. It is easy to see that it has lost its authority in our culture.  They do not consider the Bible as certain as scientific law.  Breaking a moral law ordained in the Bible isn’t the same as violating a scientific one.  You can take the Bible a number of different ways, assign it various meanings, and the worst way you could go wrong is to separate over one of the teachings.  It’s just not worth it.  You can’t be sure about it.  You should just go ahead and accept the idea that very little of it is absolutely sure.

Like new-evangelicalism acquiesced to modernist rules of engagement, the Bible was shifted to the art department.  It’s natural now.  You don’t have to believe only one thing.  Variation is the fancy. Anyone who says “one acceptable meaning” is totally anachronistic, an artifact for a museum from a former age.  Nobody does that.  Everyone allows for latitude.  We’re now negotiating on the absolute minimum.  How low can you go?  You know you are going low when you are talking about the nature of God Himself, what is the minimum acceptability as to His identity.

Many reading know what I’m writing is true.  I expect some denial, especially on some of the cause.

One major contributor toward uncertainty about scripture relates to preservation of scripture.  The history of the doctrine of preservation is the account of certainty, belief on a scientific level that every word was preserved and available.  Modern scientists then pursued all of their varied endeavors: looking for ancient cities, unearthing ancient texts, and outdoing one another with the latest find.  It’s akin to even more modern psychological research and its requirement of the latest and the greatest discovery, only to be replaced by something different next year.  Religion or theology accepted this blueprint with the pursuit of manuscript evidence, producing one different edition after another, consenting to a popular notion that certainty was no longer reasonable.

Evangelical textual critics argue that the Bible has more textual attestation than any ancient book.  It’s true, contrary to those who lie about that, like the atheist Bart Ehrman.  You step off the cliff, you fall. Scientific certainty — the evangelical textual critics don’t proffer that.  The doctrine of preservation itself becomes malleable, the meaning of preservation texts adjusted to fit the new reality. Truth is preserved, albeit not the level of truth like gravity, rather something of a higher percentage of reliability.  Enjoy that.  It’s never going to be science, but you should just be happy.  It’s a better risk than the alternative, which you shouldn’t even try to imagine.

Pretty good isn’t scientific.  The present picture of Christianity is more an art than a science. Modern Christian teachers are not giving the solid basis, a scientific kind of one, that would merit transferring Christianity from the art side of campus.  In many ways, Christianity has become risk assessment for its leaders.   They don’t want to lose it all, which they speculate they will by offering too much certainty.  They’ve got to provide an acceptable gray.

As I explain everything in this post, am I fine with what’s happening?  I’m not. However, I don’t think too many are going to join me. Often they’ve already surrendered, their slippery slope so steep, it has an emergency truck ramp. Even if they don’t believe like I do, they don’t think anyone can or should be as certain as I am.  I am too certain, way too certain, enough to be radioactive to them.  I violate their virtue of nuance.  A little less certain than I is also too certain.  Acceptable certainty is at an all time low.  If you are too certain, you must be scorched, burned, forsaken, excluded.

“Several possible options” works better.  That’s not how science functions, but it’s the modern (and postmodern) reality of Christianity.   People like their flexibility, so if Christian leaders start behaving like we know too much, they’ll lose their constituency.  Missionaries can’t cobble together enough support.  The coalitions will shrink.  Book sales will dry up. Twitter followers will wither.  Budgets will be slashed. Vacation homes might be lost.  Loans will not be repaid.  Bankruptcy will ensue.  (But the just shall live by faith.)

Scripture doesn’t speak like Christianity now speaks.  Scripture speaks in complete certainty.  The only unity of scripture is complete unity, because the Bible is plain, that even a child can know it. Again and again, we hear the term, “know.”  Paul wrote, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded” (2 Tim 1:12).  The hope we have is “sure and steadfast” (Heb 6:19).  We have this surety, this certainty, this persuasion, because our God does not lie.

We’re depending on the Bible for our plan of salvation.  If the Bible is not plain enough to agree on almost anything, how can we trust it?  Almost no one expects agreement anymore, except to disagree. You are free to disagree on the Bible, and there is where the new unity lies.  It isn’t on the certainty of scripture, but on the surety of its uncertainty.  Mind you, this isn’t how I see the Bible or function, but it is the majority of professing Christians today.

Nobody should see the Bible or Christianity as scientific if Christians themselves deny that.  Yet, we’re trusting this for our eternal destiny.  Our lives are turned upside down by these teachings. Still, they’re not quite as trustworthy as gravity, not like fingerprints, and you should just know it.  It’s all a matter of acceptable risk.  It isn’t, but that is what we’re really being left with here.

The world is very glad to present a binary choice, faith or science, either-or, the one contradicting the other.  Christians have accommodated, relenting to the “Kierkegaardian” “leap in the dark.”  It is no wonder that a world prefers its own Disneyland of the flesh.  Good instinct, natural law, common sense, and a virtuous mind all reject a leap in the dark.  Biblical Christianity requires sacrifice implausible to a wager, a calculated gamble.

The future isn’t bright for the world.  It’s very dark.  It’s not twilight-ish.  It’s dark.  Things are bright for us, however.  They are not a cloudy, powdery slate.  They are bright.  Like the sun.  The sun is real, like the truth of scripture.

A few nights ago, Hillary Clinton made what will be one of the more memorable statements in the 2016 United States presidential campaign:

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

She called half of those who support Donald Trump for president, “the basket of deplorables.”  Then she listed what was in the basket: “the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.”

What I want to do with this post is first to provide the progressive definition of each in Hillary Clinton’s list, what is surely how they want everyone to understand what those words mean.  Her list is in many ways a one stop progressive shop of shame from a democrat view of the world.  I think it’s worth having her list all in one place, and she has done that.

The first two in Hillary’s list are well-known “ist” words that are mangled in their usage or application.  The last three are the now time-honored “phobias” invented to smear right thinking people.  After I finish giving the definitions, I’ll provide what each in her list should really mean if actual, real-life definitions were being given to her political correctness. I’ll end the post by explaining how one gets into the basket of deplorables.

Progressive Definitions of the Basket of Deplorables

Racist — a white only person who says someone should not be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.

Sexist — a man only who treats and talks to women like they are different than men.

Homophobic — a person who believes the Bible is the Word of God, which says that homosexuality is sin and/or that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

Xenophobic — an American white male only who (1) opposes illegal immigration, (2) desires the execution of immigration laws, (3) wants a wall built on the southern border of the United States to aid in stopping illegal immigration, and/or (4) believes certain cultures are superior to others.

Islamophobic — a person who is suspicious of a person with a literal, strict interpretation of the Koran or who thinks that Islam causes terrorism or that Islamic terrorism comes from Muslims.

What Should Be the Definitions of the Basket of Deplorables

Racist — anyone who judges someone only by the color of his skin.

Sexist — anyone who believes and practices the inferiority in nature of an opposite gender.

Homophobic — anyone who will practice any form of vigilante activity against a homosexual.

Xenophobic — anyone who thinks he is superior to other people just because of his own nationality or region of a nation.

Islamophobic — anyone who will not tolerate a Muslim person who is with complete certainty willing to shun and renounce all Muslim violence and in so doing not take the Koran literally.

How One Gets Into Hillary Clinton’s Basket of Deplorables

Some people are actually racist.  There are male chauvinists.  There are those who wish to circumvent the law to do bodily harm to homosexuals.  There are some who would destroy an entire other nation of people if it would provide a better lifestyle for themselves.  There are some who actually do want to use physical coercion to change others’ religion.

I’m quite sure that most of the people Hillary calls racist are white men who would vote for Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams or Larry Elder, all black men, if any one of them were running for president.  If Booker T. Washington or George Washington Carver were still alive, they would gladly see one of them as president.  If Ben Carson had won the republican nomination, they would vote for him.  They’re still racist because they don’t support racial preference — ironic, but Hillary, the supposed non-racist, believes in racial preference, giving preference to someone merely based upon the color of his skin.

Many of those whom Hillary calls sexist are men who believe that God designed women equal in nature, but different in role.  They still believe in male headship, that the man is the head of the home. They also don’t think women should be able to have it both ways, that is, a woman should be considered to be equal with men, but given a special set of unique rules for how men must treat them in contrast to how they they treat other men.  Bill Clinton is judged by different standards.  He has not been deplorable, even though he practiced actual sexist behavior.

Hillary calls homophobic those who take a grammatical-historical interpretation of the Bible.  They can’t accept homosexuality, because the Bible doesn’t accept it.  They will serve homosexuals in their restaurant, but they don’t want to make their wedding cake or photograph their “wedding.”  They are homophobic because they won’t acknowledge same-sex marriage against natural law and biblical convictions.  Hillary deplores Bible believers and encourages others to deplore them.

You are xenophobic to Hillary Clinton if you don’t support sanctuary cities or if you don’t support a pardon for illegal immigrants, providing them amnesty especially if they sneaked into the country in violation of United States federal law, passed by elected representatives.  If you think the United States should still be a melting pot, because of its superior culture, Hillary considers you xenophobic and a deplorable human being.

Hillary Clinton will call you Islamophobic if you call to profile those from Muslim countries as worthy of special attention by border officials.  If you reject Muslim refugees from terrorist countries, you are Islamophobic.  If you expect American Muslims to reject sharia law, you are Islamophobic to Hillary Clinton.

For Hillary Clinton, if you say the truth about race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and Islam, you are deplorable.  The only way to stay out of her basket is to lie about each one of her categories.

I have watched a little coverage at realclearpolitics about Hillary’s gaffe or what some pundits are calling something she thinks will help her win the election.  They defend Hillary’s statement by saying that it is true.  Romney’s 47% statement was true.  Hillary’s defenders support her with two common beliefs among Republican voters.  They see as racist someone who still questions the natural born birth of President Obama, and a percentage still do.  There has always been something fishy and odd about how President Obama’s administration and the media has covered up certain of his records. It took a long time to produce his birth certificate.  It’s not that his dad is African.  That doesn’t change whether he was born here or not. It’s a matter if he is a natural born citizen, one of the qualifications listed in the United States Constitution for the president of the United States.

The other “evidence” given that half of Trump’s supporters are deplorable is the percentage of Republicans who still believe Obama is Muslim.  Obama’s father is Muslim and Obama was educated in a Muslim school in Indonesia.  His regular defense of Islam, while also trashing the history of the United States, results in people suspecting him of being at least sympathetic to Islam.

I’ve never understood how questioning a birth certificate is racist.  It’s a constitutional issue that is easily cleared up.  When people questioned the legitimacy of Ted Cruz’s birthplace, no one said that was racist.  People have some basis for suspecting President Obama at least favors Islam to all other religions.  I think he’s secular enough to reject the Muslim appellation.  The Christianity that his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, preached is bad enough.  If someone says, he’s not Muslim, but he chose Jeremiah Wright as his pastor, that shouldn’t help his popularity.

Many of whom Hillary Clinton calls deplorable really are pretty normal people.

The term “nation” or “nations” occurs 481 times in the King James Version of the Bible.  The Hebrew term most translated “nation” is go’-ee (pronunciation), which is found 554 times in the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Old Testament.  The Greek term most translated “nation” is ethnos, which is found 164 times in the Greek textus receptus of the New Testament.  Those are a lot of usages, which present a lot of teaching about the concept of nation, to examine what God wills in the matter of nations.

We know God supported the idea or concept of nation, that He wanted at least a nation, because we read that in Genesis 12:2 with His promise to Abraham:  “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.”  If nation was wrong, God would not have made Abraham and his descendants a great nation.

God will not just bless the nation Israel in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, but God will bless nations.  Later in Genesis 22:18 God promises again, “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”  God wants to bless other nations beside Israel. He sent Jonah to Nineveh because He could bless Assyria even in the midst of the problems in that nation.  God sent His nation, Israel, into the nation Egypt as a means of protection.  Not only did God save Israel in Egypt, but he saved Egypt because of Israel through the leadership of Joseph.

Even before Abraham and the nation Israel, which God began, nations existed.  Genesis 10:5 reads, “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”  Same chapter, verse 20 states, “These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.”

Later, the Apostle Paul in teaching in Athens at Mars Hill, said to the people there about God’s will in Acts 17:26:  “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.”  God determined the bounds of the habitation of the nations.  God intended for there to be boundaries for nations.

Scripture actually makes up of borders and boundaries of people.  The Hebrew word gebul, which means border or boundary, is found 241 times in the Hebrew Masoretic of the Old Testament.  You see it used the first time in Genesis 10:19, which reads: “And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.”  The whole idea of not removing the ancient landmark is about protecting the boundaries of property, so that someone can’t rob someone else’s property by moving the boundary markers.

Today you see and hear about “doctors without borders” and “teachers without borders” and “lawyers without borders” and more.  I googled “without borders” and got 15,700,000 results.  Many today seem to like the idea of “without borders.”  They also like the thought every man doing that which is right in his own eyes.  It reminds me of Al Gore, busy violating campaign regulations on government property with his “no controlling legal authority” excuse.  Without borders, there is no controlling legal authority and an excuse for doing almost anything.

Boundaries and borders are biblical.  God wants boundaries and borders.  God separated people at the tower of Babel, because He knew they needed it.  I understand that people from all nations can be brought back together into the church, both Jew and Gentile, the Lord Jesus breaking down the middle wall of partition, but that is the church where the wall is broken down.  People from all nations will be in His kingdom.  Yet, Jesus is the door that brings sheep into a sheepfold, which implies walls of protection for His sheep.

The English word “wall” is found 179 times in the King James Version, but you also read “fence” or “fenced” (39 times).  Revelation 21 says that the New Jerusalem will have “a wall great and high” (21:12).  As much as Jesus breaks down certain walls, God actually builds a wall too.  The book of Nehemiah is a great story that centers much on the “rebuilding of the walls” of Jerusalem.  The idea of the watchman relates to someone watching to see if anyone is approaching the walls of the city.

The tabernacle or the temple was not a completely open concept.  You had to pass through various barriers to get to the final destination.  The further you got, the more exclusive and the greater the separation.  In the Old Testament, one person and only one time a year could enter into the holy of holies, completely surrounded by barriers that in certain ways was uninviting.

Why does God set boundaries?  Why does He have a sheepfold?  Why did He start a nation? Protection.  Conservation.  It’s why you have walls on a house, to protect the people and property, to mark boundaries.  A conservative conserves.  What is the geopolitical container by which he keeps what he conserves?  A nation.  At one time, it was the contents that we were mostly talking about.  Now we have to talk about the containers.  People want to remove the landmarks, the boundaries, and nothing will be conserved that way.  Even if you have a culture to protect, and maybe we don’t, you can’t protect it without borders, boundaries, and probably walls and fences.

Some reading this will squabble about definitions:  “we want patriotism, not nationalism.”  What are you patriotic about if you don’t have a nation?  We can talk “Americanism.”  America is the United States of America, which is a nation.  There is an alternative to globalism besides “anti-globalism.”

With the talk about borders and boundaries comes the talk of trade.  How does it relate?  One means of invasion and erasure of boundaries and borders comes through trade.  Globalism and corporatism are not patriotic or American.   Patriotic trade considers trade that benefits America, all of America, and not just the trade of American corporations.  The mission of American corporation is to make a profit for its shareholders.  That is not necessarily and anymore not usually in the best interests of the United States.  What is called “free trade,” that to some rings as a conservative value, is transnational corporatism.

You look at the stock market right now and corporations are making amazing profits, and yet the labor force participation is low.   Trade agreements benefit fewer and fewer.  They seem to benefit the few that contribute the most to a presidential campaign.  What is the sense of regulations in and on the United States, if a company can go elsewhere for cheap labor and less regulation?  It seems that free trade is trade without borders.

Weak immigration enforcement also brings profit to shareholders while bypassing laws of the land. Cheap labor comes by way of illegal immigration and the bill is passed on to the American taxpayer. Other nations lose incentive to change.  Multiple billions of dollars are sent every year to Mexico in tax free remittances.

I understand the argument that free trade allows American companies to sell their products to the rest of world, creating more jobs in this country.  Walmart can sell items from China for less, leaving poor people with more disposable income to spend on the higher end merchandise made in the United States.  Americans, however, know that something, much, with this is out of whack.  How can someone be free if one competitor is wearing a ball and chain around his ankle?  Free trade very often is also just a form of utopianism.  Financial ties bring everyone together.

In this age, God wants nations. They provide another means of slowing the advancement of sin in the world.  A nation can be among those which God blesses.

(Part Of This Series)

When I preach, I preach an already settled text of scripture. I don’t determine what is scripture or wait for God to reveal to me what His Words are. That is already determined.  I preach what is already there.  I don’t wait for a voice in the head, telling me what to do.  I don’t look to see if there is a word among textual variants that fits better what I want the passage to say.  I don’t canonize a new word by myself on the spot.  I’m not in the business of telling people what scripture is.  I preach an already settled scripture.

One person can’t willy-nilly say what is God’s Word.  A pope can’t do that when he speaks ex cathedra.  A preacher cannot when he says God gave him a particular message.   A textual critic can’t do that when he pronounces what is the Word of God.  All three of these, however, have the same in common, that the Word of God is not settled.  They contribute to an understanding of the canonicity of scripture that is an ongoing, incomplete process.  The door should be closed on canonicity. Continued additions declare lack of completion despite how scripture reads about its own settled state.

Men are not qualified or authorized to say what God counts as His communication. Scripture draws a sharp distinction between “words which man’s wisdom teacheth” and those “which the Spirit teacheth” (1 Cor 2:13).  Human wisdom cannot judge the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:20-25).  The mind of natural man fails at receiving the words of God’s Spirit: “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God . . . . neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).  Only God can identify His own word, so God’s word must attest to itself and must witness to its own divine character and origin. “And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for . . . they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:38-39).

God canonized His inspired Words with the recognition of their inspiration by His people (Dt 31:24-26; Josh 24:25; 1 Sam 10:25; Dan 9:2; 1 Cor 14:37; Col 4:16; 1 Th 2:13, 5:27; 2 Th 3:14; 2 Pet 3:15-16; Rev 1:4).  The consolidation of every writing into an amalgamated whole took time due to the epochal constraint on communication and circulation.

When Jesus or the apostles appealed to “the Scriptures,” the Old Testament, not even their opponents disputed that.  Neither was “one jot or one tittle” (Mt 5:18) of “the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms” (Lk 24:44) challenged or repudiated by the Lord Jesus Christ.  He testified to the canon by declaring “the Scripture cannot be broken” (Jn 10:35), referring to the very letter of the Old Testament.  Concerning this, the Apostle Paul wrote: “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Rom 15:4).  Scripture itself defines its own written Words as “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3) from the law of Moses to the apostolic writings of the New Testament.  We may not add or subtract any of its Words (Dt 4:2; Rev 22:18-19).

Scripture by nature is supernatural.  It is God’s Word.  If it isn’t, this discussion doesn’t matter anyway.  When you read scripture, you find therein what characterizes supernatural revelation or speech.  It is prophetic and apostolic, authenticated by signs.  When God speaks directly out loud and in a public way, as recorded in scripture, it has a supernatural quality, sounding like thunder, even mistaken for thunder.  It surely isn’t a voice in the head, which doesn’t bring the attestation required to be considered God speaking.

With the truth of canonicity, which is a settled, completed, finished, and supernatural quality to the canon, one should not expect something new in the way of scripture by whatever means.  New things are extra-canonical fallacies.  They are not the sincere milk, the pure mother’s milk (1 Pet 2:2) and should not be considered a basis of faith.  They should be rejected by believers.

New or different words beyond what was written and settled as scripture are not helpful in any way, including apologetically.   Here I bring in the apologist James White, who regularly talks as if a necessity for apologetic work with the big boys, the arena in which he competes (not meant egotistically, of course), requires an ongoing naturalistic determination of the text.  Scripture teaches the opposite of what White says.  He treats those who differ with such disdain in his voice, language, and appearance, that it seems like he believes that should stand as authority for his unscriptural view.

Last Thursday on his Dividing Line program White mocked the concept of providential preservation of scripture (from about 25 to 41 minutes), characterizing it as men believing that God “reinspired” the Greek text or that God actually “took over” Erasmus, Beza, and Stephanus (comparing it to Joseph Smith’s inspired translation and Mormonism).  He called the textus receptus, quote, “an accident of history.”  He criticizes the text received by the churches as having “no consistent textual critical methodology.”  He scorned providential preservation.  He referenced a book by Jans Krans, who has himself written elsewhere, “I do not have a ‘theory’ of providential preservation of any text in human history.”  To White and Krans and those like them, against the biblical doctrine of preservation and canonicity, the text of scripture is an unsettled matter, so the Bible is still in flux.  Someone “hears” a particular word or statement as of God through an entirely naturalistic process.

During the first portion of White’s program last Thursday, he talked about the intervention of God in health matters, speaking of one example of terminal cancer in an apologetic colleague of his.  God intervenes in health matters to White, but White takes a deistic approach to God’s providence related to His own Word, choosing to characterize that as some type of crazy mysticism.  God intervenes in the affairs and especially in the fulfillment of His promises.  We are required to view history according to what God said He would do.  Doing so keeps the Word of God within its divine realm, where God intends it.

Apologetics according to scripture is a supernatural endeavor.  The problem of sinners isn’t a natural one but a supernatural one, not an intellectual one but a volitional one.  Men are in rebellion against God and if they do not believe Moses and the prophets, they won’t believe (Lk 16:31).  The Bible is true and it promises its own preservation.  The proof is the promise itself.  If someone will not believe that promise, then scripture will never be settled for a person.

On the other hand, there are those who believe and say that the English wording of the King James is the final authority over its underlying text.  In a decision on what God said, they rely on the meaning of an English word over the actual word inspired by God.  The only possibility is that God was still speaking and moved on the translators identical to what He did in the first century with the New Testament authors.

For the Bible to be the only infallible source of revelation from God, it must be settled and certain, therefore, forbidding any deletions or additions.  God’s word is God’s word.   The words of scripture are either God’s words or they are not.  No authority should rest alongside the Bible that is equal to the Scripture in the Christian life, including textual criticism.