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Perfect Preservation
You required payment from me on a certain future date and I had no money except the exact change for the payment in a large jar. You needed full payment and I had it in the way of coinage. It was all in one large jar, and I said to you:
I truly say to you, until the specified future required date of payment, one dime or one penny shall in no wise pass from this large jar, till the fulfillment of the whole amount of payment.
Anyone hearing this statement could and should acknowledge a promise of preservation of every coin in the large jar until the completion of the payment. One could call this a promise of perfect preservation of the coins. Every coin and all of them will survive or continue within the jar. Of course, the fulfillment of the promise depends on the trustworthiness and veracity of my words. In Matthew 5:18, Jesus says:
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
That sounds like a guarantee to me, and a strong one. When you read the previous and following verses (17 and 19-20), they do not diminish from what Jesus guaranteed in verse 18.
The Veracity of Jesus
The promise of Jesus extends to heaven and earth passing away, which has still not occurred. That event will transpire, but it remains in the future. At this date in the year 2024, heaven and earth continue. With that the case, what would one expect related to the promise of Jesus in Matthew 5:18? Of course, the perfect preservation of every jot and tittle of the law. The context says the law here was (so is) all of scripture. The words “jot” and “tittle” indicate the preservation of all of scripture goes to the very letter.
In my hypothetical for illustration, I promised the perfect preservation of every coin in a large jar. I thought the illustration would enhance an understanding of what Jesus said. The major difference between the two statements, mine and Jesus’, is that what Jesus says is the truth, always. My guarantee even for one generation is not as sure as Jesus’ is. When He promises preservation, you can count on it. He always fulfills His promises.
Jesus is truth, so what He says is always true. He also can make guarantees or promises based upon His divine attributes. He has the power to fulfill what He promises. Because of His omniscience, He also knows already He will fulfill the promise. The quality of what Jesus says depends on His attributes. Since I don’t have those attributes, my promises or guarantees are of a lesser quality than that of Jesus.
Again, in my hypothetical, let’s say that I did lose a few of my coins, so I did not fulfill my promise of perfect preservation of every coin. If that happened, it does not change the meaning of what I promised. Those words continue to mean what they meant when I said them.
High View of Scripture
Perhaps you’ve heard the terminology, “a high view of scripture.” Someone has a high view of scripture when he sees scripture elevated above feelings, man’s thinking, philosophy, tradition, and all other authority. A high view fits within the Apostle Paul’s statement in Romans 3:4: “yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.” It follows that scripture is inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, perspicuous, and sufficient.
Someone with a high view of scripture will not and does not change its meaning based on circumstances. God said it, that settles it. That kind of thing. With a high view of scripture, when he reads Matthew 5:18, he takes it at face value. He explains the fulfillment based on what Jesus said and not on what he think may happen. He conforms what happened to what Jesus said and not vice versa. This also means not later changing the meaning to have it fit with how he interprets what happened.
Adapting Circumstances to What Jesus Said
John Lightfoot first wrote From the Talmud and Hebraica between 1658 and 1674. In that book, he writes about Matthew 5:18, and he already considered the repercussions of circumstances of which I speak, saying:
A second question might follow concerning Keri and Kethib: and a suspicion might also arise, that the test of the law was not preserved perfect to one jot and one tittle, when so many various readings do so frequently occur.
Do variant readings nullify what Jesus said? Instead of conforming what Jesus said to the circumstances, which is a low view of scripture, Lightfoot explained variant readings of the text to what Jesus said. John Lightfoot was not questioning or changing the meaning of Matthew 5:18. The teaching on perfect preservation was so indisputable to him, that it need no mention. That is how it reads. Bravo Lightfoot.
What we see occur today horrifically distorts what Jesus said to deprive it of its original meaning. In so doing, men eliminate a promise of preservation in lieu of textual variants. I’ve noticed they even distort much of the meaning of what Jesus said even in the entire sermon, it seems, just to eradicate a promise of perfect preservation of scripture in Matthew.
More to Come
I was discussing this verse with my twin brother who is taking Greek at Chuck Phelps’ church as an assistant pastor and insists that he now realizes that the KJV translators made plenty of mistakes in translating with “Easter” being the only one he cited. He said that it wasn’t a promise of preservation of the whole Bible but just the law. I asked him if his position was that God would preserve the law but not the rest of the Bible. He also said he now thinks that the majority text is a more consistent position than the received text. I asked him about 1 John 5:7 and he said he’s not sure it should be there.
Anyway, I agree with what you wrote here. Thank you.
I pray that your brother may see the truth.
Hi Bro Thompson,
I’m assuming you already think what I’m ready to write here. When Jesus said the law or the prophets in v. 17, that’s a reference to all of scripture, which was only the OT at the time. When He says, “the law” in v. 18 after what He said in v. 17, it’s shorthand for all of scripture. Preservation is found in the original languages, as seen in jots and tittles, what God wrote. I think the KJV translators could have translated Easter differently, but Easter doesn’t bother me. It’s explainable like a lot of other choices they made. It’s definitely not a dealbreaker on translation. I would probably translate certain words differently than they did, but they didn’t do anything wrong in my opinion. I say that the KJV is an accurate translation of a perfectly preserved text.
The majority text, I believe, is a faux position, because there is no true majority text. All of the manuscripts have not been collated, for one. It just counts manuscripts. No majority text person believes in perfect preservation, which is what scripture promises. The principles of scripture on preservation point to the TR. A majority text didn’t appear until the 1980s. How could that be a preserved text? The idea wasn’t even an idea until less than a hundred years.
My biggest reason for writing this little extra portion on Matthew 5:17-20 is to show how men will twist the meaning of that passage to conform to their unbelief about preservation of scripture.
Thanks.
I have found also that men not only twist the meaning of Matthew 5:17-18, but also twist the history of the interpretation of the passage to make it sound like no past interpreters ever thought this referred to Scripture. This view is false both biblically and historically.
I like your description of the majority text as a faux position. It will be a different creation according to when it might be done with what texts are available. The present Majority Text and Traditional Text (TR) are closer textually, and (to me) some of the text critics favoring a majority text seem more reasonable than most of the CT text critics. Nevertheless, the Majority Text and Critical Text are closer philosophically. They are both achieved by ongoing reconstruction. New discoveries can change their form and content. Because of their methods neither can have a finally settled text — and, of course, neither believe that the text has been preserved (else, they would not have keep trying to recreate it).
Kent wrote:
“A high view fits within the Apostle Paul’s statement in Romans 3:4: “yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.” It follows that scripture is inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, perspicuous, and sufficient.
Someone with a high view of scripture will not and does not change its meaning based on circumstances. God said it, that settles it.”
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I completely agree with the above, in that all scripture that is given by inspiration is inerrant, infallible, sufficient and final authority over mankind. That position is personified in the King James Bible which fits perfectly with all that you said.
By the way, Easter is an excellent translation of the pagan holiday celebrated by Herod and many who have been pragmatized into believing that it is some “Christian day” that is to be celebrated by the church!
Paul never hinted about pagan Easter nor pagan Christmas. If you believe the bible, then those days are not to be celebrated in the church, for they create many idolatries founded by the pagan organized religion of Roman Catholicism.
Tom